Along the northwestern coast of Sandaun Province, where the Bismarck Sea meets the narrow sandbars and sheltered waters of Sissano Lagoon, a small and resilient people have made their home for generations. Known as the Sinama Sissano — also called Sinano — they are one of several peoples whose lives were once shaped entirely by the lagoon, its fish-rich waters, and the surrounding coastal landscape. Their language, Essono, is an Austronesian tongue spoken along a stretch of the northwestern coast between Vanimo and Aitape, a linguistic heritage that connects them to the wider Pacific seafaring world rather than to the inland Papuan language families of the interior.
Oral tradition among the Sissano area peoples speaks of migration from Southeast Asia in the deep past, with ancestral clans traveling by sea under the leadership of powerful men before settling along this remote coastline. For centuries, life here was defined by the lagoon — its abundance, its waterways, and its rhythms. The painted canoes of Sissano Lagoon became one of the most recognizable cultural artifacts of all of Sandaun Province.
That world was shattered on the evening of July 17, 1998, when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake triggered three enormous tsunami waves that struck the coast with almost no warning. Families were gathered for their evening meals when the ground shook. The waves that followed — the second rising to ten or fifteen meters above sea level — razed the villages of Sissano, Warapu, Arop, and Malol nearly without trace. More than 1,600 people were killed, with some estimates reaching over 2,000. The Sinama Sissano were among the most severely affected, losing between twenty and forty percent of their population in a single evening. Their original village sites were permanently abandoned, and survivors were relocated to inland communities — hotter, more insect-ridden, and far from the lagoon that had sustained them. Today the community numbers only a few hundred people, making the Sinama Sissano one of the smallest distinct ethnic groups in all of Papua New Guinea.
Before the tsunami, life for the Sinama Sissano centered on the lagoon. It was their highway, their pantry, and the stage for much of their communal life. Fishing by canoe was the primary source of food and income, with the lagoon's rich population of fish, shellfish, prawns, and crabs meeting most of the community's protein needs. Gardens for sago, cassava, taro, and yams were kept inland, providing starchy staples, while coconut groves lined the coast.
Relocation inland after 1998 disrupted this way of life profoundly. Survivors were resettled at new village sites away from the shore, forcing communities accustomed to a coastal and lagoon-based economy to adapt to unfamiliar terrain and conditions. Recovery was slow and incomplete. Decades later, survivors have spoken publicly of the halting pace of government rehabilitation, the loss of infrastructure, and the ongoing difficulty of rebuilding what was swept away. Even so, the community has shown persistent resilience, drawing on clan ties, mutual aid, and faith to continue as a people.
The painted canoe remains a symbol of Sinama Sissano cultural identity. Traditional dance, communal storytelling, and the passing of oral history from elders to the young preserve a sense of who they are even in resettlement. Extended family and clan relationships continue to structure daily obligations, marriage arrangements, and community decision-making.
Every member of the Sinama Sissano community identifies as Christian. The gospel reached this stretch of the Sandaun coast through Catholic and Protestant mission work, and it has been the faith of the community across generations. Churches were among the buildings destroyed in the 1998 tsunami, yet the community's Christian identity survived and has continued to anchor community life in the difficult years of resettlement and rebuilding.
Because no New Testament exists yet in the Essono language — only selected Bible portions have been translated — the depth of biblical grounding among the Sinama Sissano is limited by what they can access in their mother tongue. The faith of the community is real, but without Scripture in the language of the heart, discipleship has constraints that no amount of church attendance can fully overcome. What tradition survives of the pre-Christian spiritual world — beliefs about spirits, the significance of certain sites, and traditional explanations of illness and disaster — may persist quietly alongside Christian practice, as is common in PNG communities that have experienced nominal Christianity without sustained Bible teaching in their own tongue.
The most urgent spiritual need of the Sinama Sissano is a complete New Testament in the Essono language. Bible portions have been available since 2011, but a full New Testament remains unfinished — a gap that leaves this small, trauma-scarred community without the full counsel of God in their own tongue. The physical needs from the 1998 tsunami's aftermath have never been fully addressed: adequate infrastructure, clean water, healthcare access, and economic opportunity in their inland relocation sites remain ongoing concerns. The community's very small size makes it vulnerable — with only a few hundred speakers, the Essono language itself is classified as endangered, and the loss of elders with each passing year means the narrowing of living memory, cultural knowledge, and oral tradition. The trauma of sudden catastrophic loss, carried across generations, also represents a deep need for healing that only the gospel can fully address.
Pray urgently for the completion of a New Testament translation in the Essono language, so that the Sinama Sissano would have access to the full Word of God in the tongue they know best.
Pray that the Lord would bring genuine healing to a community still shaped by the collective trauma of the 1998 tsunami — healing that reaches beyond physical rebuilding into the spiritual and emotional wounds that generations carry.
Pray for faithful pastors and teachers among the Sinama Sissano who will anchor their people in Scripture and disciple them into a mature, resilient faith worthy of the hardship this community has endured.
Pray that even from their small numbers, the Sinama Sissano would sense a calling to share the hope of Christ with other peoples in Asia.
Scripture Prayers for the Sissano, Sinama in Papua New Guinea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissano_language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissano_Lagoon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Papua_New_Guinea_earthquake
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/day-papua-new-guinea-tsunami-1998
https://www.pngattitude.com/2014/07/the-story-of-sissano-lagoon-and-how-it-came-to-be.html
https://papuanewguinea.travel/west-sepik-province/
https://www.looppng.com/png-news/sissano-tsunami-remembered-85782
https://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/2685
Dengler, Lori and Jane Preuss. "Mitigation Lessons from the July 17, 1998 Papua New Guinea Tsunami." Pure and Applied Geophysics 160 (2003): 2001–2031.
| Profile Source: Joshua Project |
