South Pacific First

"My grandfather was a cannibal," said the brand-new Anglican bishop to a reporter last week. "I remember his giving me a tip--the palms of a man's hands make the best eating." The Right Rev. George Ambo, 37, had a miter placed on his head in St. John's Cathedral of Brisbane, Australia, and became the first South Pacific native to be made a bishop. Twelve bishops assisted Brisbane's Archbishop Reginald Halse at the consecration before a congregation of 2,000, including Bishop Ambo's tribally tattooed wife, Marcella, 31, and their 13-year-old son Oliver.

Bishop Ambo was born in a grass-thatched hut in a tiny (pop. 100) coastal village of northern Papua. When he was eight his father, a hunter in the Sombaba tribe, sent him and his brother off to the Anglican mission school in nearby Gona. There the two boys joined the church, learned to read and write, and lost their tribal fear of sorcerers and spirits. Later, while he was at St. Aiden's teacher-training college near Dogura, young George Ambo felt the first stirrings of a call to the priesthood, and at the same time attracted the attention of Anglican churchmen, who sent him off traveling through the villages with white missionaries as a teacher and evangelist.

Ambo was ordained a priest, together with his brother, in 1958. His first assignment was Boiani, fourth largest Anglican mission district in the diocese. To tend its 7,000 natives, scattered through the rugged southern reaches of the Owen Stanley mountain range, Ambo often swam storm-swollen rivers in his shorts, was lucky to cover 20 miles in two days of tramping.

Declared the Anglican Primate of Australia, Sydney's Archbishop Hugh Gough, at Bishop Ambo's consecration: "This is a great moment in the missionary history of the church."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.