[VIDEO] Campus Life in Papua, Indonesia

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it’s the time of year when college students begin feeling the stress of looming deadlines and final exams. Many slip into survival mode, put their heads down, and count the minutes until they can head home for Christmas.

Across the world in Indonesia, college students feel this stress, too. But in-between everything else, they also must make time to fish for their dinner, chop firewood to cook it with, and fetch drinking water from a well.

Students at the Roesler Memorial Bible School, a TEAM ministry in Papua, Indonesia, juggle far more in a semester than just books. Most come from rural tribal villages to study the Bible and bring that knowledge back to their communities as pastors, teachers and church leaders. They not only have to adjust to academia — a completely new experience for many of them — but also to the somewhat more urban environment of the campus, located just outside the city of Merauke. Their days begin before 5 A.M. and stretch well into the night.

Yaimo Perew brought his whole family to the school so he could study. He’s not only trying to reach his village for Christ, but his own family, as well.

Watch Yaimo’s story above.