Goroka in Pictures

Welcome back to our blog! Our last posts, a year ago, detailed our new experiences in Rumginae as we began to build a life for ourselves there and as Tim began to fly as a line pilot for MAF. In February, we were suddenly pulled away from our new life because of a serious health situation. We’ve stepped back from our blog this year while we have navigated some paths we did not expect and encountered experiences we would not have chosen. Our "precious stones" this year have been a faithful God and His loving people who have carried us through.

Returning to PNG after months away, a number of transitions have led us to a different MAF base within PNG, and we are settling in to the town of Goroka in the Eastern highlands.  Tim continues to fly the GA8 Airvan from Goroka, where we live in community with three other pilot families.

Our home lit up for the holidays

Christmas and New Years celebrations take place around the BBQ

A few weeks ago, Tim and I were driving through town and I snapped a few pictures.  They're not super quality but they give a sense of town.

All of our fruit and vegetables are bought at the outdoor marker

The Goroka market is under renovations, so vendors have been moving from park to park.
Which begs the question:Where is the market today?

Colourful bilums (string bags) for sale line the fence of the government offices

Papindos is an Indonesian grocery where we buy many dry goods

Kim's Restaurant is Tim's favourite "kai bar" (lunch counter)

One of my favourite things about living in Goroka is that it is in a valley. It reminds me very much of growing up in the Kathmandu valley, where every horizon is blue mountains. Being able to lift my eyes to the hills at any time of day creates a sense of home and security that was ingrained in me from childhood. I can look up from the busy-ness, the dust, the crowds, over the razor-wire, and the mountains are always there.

MAF Airvans parked at Goroka Airport with the mountains in the distance

I’ve been reading in Colossians recently, where Paul encourages us to “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (3:2) The past few years have taken us through a number of experiences of grief or fear in which there seems to be no hope. There have been times when, looking at my experience, I can see nothing good; no fix, no happy ending. When I try to find hope, it is not visible in my experience. It is only when I look up – outside of earthly experience – that I can see hope and begin to piece together meaning. The book of Colossians calls it “the hope of Glory.” (1:27) Some things will not be fixed on this Earth; some things will not be made whole again here. Because of Christ, we can look beyond the brokenness of the world around us, into an eternity that is whole, secure, healed, and without fear.

The view from our kitchen window

Hebrews 6:19 says, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” 

Though mountains may move – particularly if you live on the Pacific Rim – and our circumstances and surroundings may change, our hope is secure in the unchangeable nature of God.

Rumginae: The Home Front

It has been a little over a month since we loaded up the Caravan (not a Dodge Caravan this time!) and hauled our family, our belongings, and a couple months worth of groceries to our new home in Rumginae.  

It is hard to know where to start with a blog post about life in Rumginae - there is just so much that is new and different.  The heat and humidity is a shock to the system and hard to adequately be described in words.

Rumginae is incredibly beautiful. And it can be incredibly difficult.

We flew out of the Highlands and into Western Province.  Western Province is low and flat and jungle for as far as the eye can see.  

A first glimpse of Rumginae airstrip

Rumginae is a hospital mission station and airstrip.  A couple of other small villages are close by.  The station is situated along a river and our house - up on stilts - looks out over the river on two sides.  In fact, I'm pretty sure you can see the river from every window in the house.  The view is breathtaking and, when you get a chance to take a dip in the river, it is refreshing.

Living on a patch of grass in the middle of the jungle is challenging.  The bugs are.... large.  The geckos are many and well-fed. The ants and termites are determined to share our turf, always finding new avenues into the house.

This bug spent the night eating a hole the size of itself in our brand new window screen

In the evening, our "interior" lights are outside pointing in.  This keeps the bugs on the outside of the screens (in theory!) and also provides for plenty of entertainment as we watch the geckos feast on them.

Leather shoes after a week on the shoe rack in Rumginae.
Mold grows quickly in the high humidity. 

In December, as I sat in comfortably temperate Mt Hagen reading my Bible on the couch I came across a promise in Isaiah that reads: "I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." (Is 46:4) "Hmm...," I thought, "That's a pretty verse.  It would be a good one to write in a card or something. I wonder who would be encouraged by this verse..." (Are you laughing at me yet??)

Each week one of the MAF ladies in Hagen buys our fruit and veg at the market and packs it all into a cooler.
From here at the MAF base in Mt Hagen, the coolers are sent to families living on outstations.

Our first week in Rumginae, I rummaged through my Bible to get back to that verse.  I began muttering it under my breath.  As the kids both complained loudly of heat rash... I will sustain you.  As the humidity overpowered and I said to Tim, "Are you sure we're going to survive here?!"... I will carry you.  When only a week in I broke a tooth... I will rescue you.  As I took two kids with me back to Mt Hagen to see a dentist (a full day with a MAF pilot - five flight legs)... I will carry you; I will sustain you.

Hannah watches luggage and passengers being weighed at a remote strip on the way back to Hagen

Returning to Rumginae the second time - with my tooth fixed - was less of a shock.  We've learned that there are times when it cools down (to 25C or so) after some rain, and that helps to carry us through the times that are oppressively hot.  Our house is spacious and bright thanks to the hard work of the MAF maintenance team who were here before us.  I'm learning to bake bread and make yogurt and ice cream from scratch.   I have started a kindergarten curriculum with Hannah, focusing on a different word family each week.  She's loving it - probably because it is an hour of mom's focused attention while Ethan is napping!

Ethan is at the stage where he's usually caught under a piece of furniture

Hannah enjoys helping to close up the plane at the end of the day

It's great to have the other pilot family back in Rumginae this week after a couple weeks without them.  We enjoy spending time together, and Hannah loves having her friends back.  We're very grateful for the support that we get from the MAF PNG team in Mt. Hagen; we may live remotely, but we are not in it alone.

I still need to get some things hung on the empty walls, but it is starting to feel like home.

Thank you for your prayers and support that enable us to be here.

The house next to ours is the transfer point between road transport and river boat. 
The dug out canoes can be impressively long. 

If you haven't already, be sure to read Tim's post on the flying he's been doing.

LOFT: Line Oriented Flight Training

By this stage in my MAF career, I have proven my aptitude in the Tech Eval, trained for and completed “base training” which is the actual ability to use the machine (in my case a GA8), and now I am doing this next phase: line training. This is where we consolidate all of the skills and learning into real daily flying - making decisions, using all the tools made available to me, assessing and controlling risks, dealing with people, passengers, airstrips, weather, terrain, ground crews, paperwork, duty time, stresses, pressures, family life, heat, humidity…everything that goes into the day’s work of a MAF pilot. 

From outside I thought the training and induction for MAF PNG seemed a little much, but now that I am here I am grateful for all the training and see its value. 

Flying here can be very hard work.

7am - preparing for the flight day

The last week...

My trainer right now is Rick Velvin, a long term veteran of MAF with an exceptional amount of experience here in PNG.  Rick and I have been working long hours.  He is officially retired from MAF, but has agreed to come here to do this training with me, leaving his wife to her work in New Zealand. Since he is only here for a limited amount of time we want to take advantage and get as much done as we can.

Usually we have two planes stationed in Rumginae, but the Caravan (and the Eatwell family)
have been away for a couple weeks

Some of what we accomplished this week was:

1. Flew our neighbour, a 20 year veteran missionary, to Kawito where she did a week of Bible teaching.

2. Flew 3 doctors in residency to villages for the outstation work component of their training.

3. Flew medications and dispensary stock to outstation health centres.

4. Took urgently needed vaccinations to a village dealing with a whooping cough outbreak.

Waking up to a rainy morning after an overnight in Kawito

5. Brought 5 students into Rumginae to start their first year of “Community Health Worker” training at the school here.

6. Flew several young people from their village to the main centre to continue their high school education.

7. Evaluated two airstrips that had been closed due to lack of maintenance.

8. Transported a woman to hospital who had been in labour with twins, one baby was born healthy, but the second was stuck. We flew the woman and a care taker, along with the healthy newborn about 40 minutes to the provincial capital.

9. Medevac’d another woman into Rumginae who had given birth to a son but had severe complications. She was laid down on the floor of the aircraft, with the husband holding the newborn baby for the flight.

From our kitchen window, Laura watches the patient carried into the hospital

I am now taking a day of rest. It is cool and rainy today, a welcome relief. Now that I have some time to think back at what I have learned this past week - and there was lots - the main lesson was this:

(I’m not making any grand revelations here, but truly important none the less)

There is so much work to do here, so many people in need of God’s provision. I cannot help everybody, but I can help many by God’s grace.

The view from here: Wei Mairi River, Rumginae

Bush Orientation: Seeing It With Our Own Eyes

On November 24th, we took our first MAF flight as a family. We flew to the remote highland village of Dusin for a week of “bush orientation”. The purpose of the week was to immerse us in the language we have been learning and to allow us to see life from the perspective of one of the communities that MAF serves. 

A week in the mountains

We left Mt Hagen in rain and cloud which unfortunately meant we couldn’t see much on our 25 minute flight. The Dusin airstrip is the type of airstrip that you see in MAF's exciting promotional materials! It felt a bit like we were flying into one of the videos that we showed so many times while fundraising. The 450m airstrip slopes up from a drop off at the bottom into a mountain at the top – it is one way in and one way out. (Tim didn’t tell me any of this until we were on the ground in Dusin!)

There is no road to Dusin, nor is there a road to walk out to. The only connection that this small community has with the outside world is a scheduled radio call and the airplane that it summons. It is quickly evident how an aircraft is a lifeline to this community. These days there is supposed to be a mobile phone tower serving the area, but the leading theory with the locals is that the rain fills the dish and you need a few dry days before you might get a signal. We met a couple of people who were heading for the three hour hike up the mountain to see if they could call a friend in town.

Watch the Twin Otter take off from Dusin 

The Twin Otter that brought us in also carried a half dozen locals, including high school students returning home for Christmas break, and basic goods for the trade store. For its trip back to Hagen the Otter carried another new missionary family as well as coffee grown in and around Dusin. Later, as I chatted with the mother of one of the students on our plane, it was really impressed upon me how vital the airplane is here. She told me that, after grade eight, students have to go away if they are to attend high school. Parents have to come up with school fees as well as a fee for the plane ride out – the only way to get to a high school. She told me that with an ID card students are given a reduced rate on the MAF plane. The only cash crop grown in Dusin is coffee and in order to get it to market, she tells me, it too must travel by plane. So the airplane flies out the coffee providing villagers with enough cash to send their children away for an education – also on a plane.

Elementary students (grades 1-3). The primary school (4-8) is
on the other side of the valley at least an hours walk away.

Flying into Dusin is like stepping into a missionary biography. There is a rich history here on the Nazarene mission station and the villagers are happy to tell us the stories of the foreign missionaries who came. These days there is no foreign missionary living in Dusin. We were met by the local pastor and settled into the Nazarene mission house, now used for short stays by missionaries and doctors. Next door is an SIL mission house that used to house the family of the missionary who translated the Bible into the Tok Ples (language of this village). The villagers speak highly of him ("He spoke every Tok in these mountains") as well as of the first Nazarene missionaries who hiked in from another airstrip in the district to plant churches in Dusin and the surrounding communities. These early missionaries also established the airstrip in Dusin.

Tossing a ball in the evening

We had the privilege of attending the Sunday worship service. The worship songs were mostly in Tok Pisin (the trade language we have been learning) and a little English. The pastor preached in Tok Pisin with another man translating each thought into the Tok Ples (village language). The village is proud to be a community of faith. They will tell you that everyone goes to church, that there is no smoking or buai (betel nut chewing), no fighting or stealing. You can “live free” they say proudly.

Men tell Tim stories of the first missionaries

Throughout the week there were frequently men who would come to “tok stori” (talk story) with Tim on the front porch. There were fewer women around as they left early in the morning to walk down into the valley (a couple thousand feet down, I think) to work in the gardens. Those who came taught us about the history of the mission station, their personal stories, how to plant sweet potato or tie up sugar cane, how to hunt with a bow for wild pig or birds, and so much more!

Demonstration of how to tie sugar cane

At the end of the week, the pastor’s family put on a mumu for us – cooking local garden produce in a banana-leaf-lined pit. What an amazing opportunity this week was to learn from the people of Dusin about the life and customs of PNG. Everything we’ve recorded here we learned through conversation in Tok Pisin (so if we are in error on any point please forgive us!).

Steamed taro, sweet potato, greens, corn, cucumber and some pork.

Our wantok Remi came to pick us up in a GA8 Airvan (this is the plane that Tim will be flying). We awoke to a full view of the mountains and had our bags packed and ready by 7am. By 8am we were sitting inside of a cloud. We heard the Airvan fly over en route to another village but the thick cloud continued until about 11:30am when Remi was able to find a hole to pop through. As we were loading up the plane, planning to sit at the top of the airstrip and wait for another hole, I turned around and behold the whole vista was visible again! I'm told, "That's Dusin".

Farewell Dusin

We were able to see the country from above as we flew back. I'm sure I didn't see a road at all until we popped over the ridge and into Mt Hagen. What a beautiful and challenging country.

Check out more photos from our stay in Dusin on our Facebook page: CLICK HERE

The Big Move

On Tuesday, October 3rd we left Alberta in the wake of a blizzard which made for an interesting drive to the airport.  On Friday, after four flights and fifty-some hours, we caught our first glimpses of the country of Papua New Guinea.

As we hit the ground in Port Moresby (capital city), Hannah exclaimed, "We're in Papua New Guinea!  I can't believe we're in Papua New Guinea!!"  We've been waiting for this moment for a long time, and it was exciting to see the MAF hanger come into view through the little window as we finally taxied into the Mt Hagen airport later that afternoon.  Upon our arrival in Mt Hagen, we were greeted by MAF staff who had a hot meal and a comfortable bed ready for us.

We are staying in the airport community of Kagamuga, outside of the town of Mt Hagen. The MAF compound on which we are living houses about five foreign staff families and six or seven national staff families. Our house and garden are lovely, with fresh garden flowers in every room when we arrived.

Our compound. Our house on the left.

Over the weekend, we rested to get over our jet lag and travel fatigue.  Interestingly, we also had to get used the the altitude in Mt Hagen at over 5000 ft.  For the first five or six days I felt quite light headed in the afternoons.

Our first week consisted of setting up life and getting used to our surroundings.  We set up phones, applied for driver's licenses, met with the various departments of MAF PNG, met the other families on our compound, toured the hanger and headquarters, and took our first trips into town for shopping (so far we've only been into town separately while the other stays home with the kids).  Additionally, Tim wrote aviation exams and got his aviation medical for PNG.

As a family, we have taken a few walks around Kagamuga.  On Saturday, we went to the little market here with the kids to stock up on fruits and vegetables.  The produce at the market is lovely and fresh as well as affordable.  We find the groceries in the stores comparable in price to what we pay in Canada; if imported from Australia, the prices are higher.  Household goods are quite a bit more expensive. Hannah also looked forward to buying a bilum (string bag) from the ladies who line up their stock along the airport wall.  Trust a little girl to adapt to a new culture by first buying a purse!

Market produce is a bit more work as it needs to be scrubbed and bleached.

The kids are settling pretty well into their new environment.  For Ethan this just means continuing his busy schedule of sleeping, eating, and smiling.  Hannah is enjoying living on a compound with so many other little girls.  Living right next door to another four year old girl is certainly an answer to prayer.  She spends most of her day either outside or playing in someone's house.  By the time we call her in for meals, she is tired and begins to miss her family back home.

View of the kids playing from the kitchen window

I have enjoyed getting to know the ladies who come once a week to help in the garden and house.  It has given me a chance to practice some of the language skills that we acquired during our training in Australia.  This afternoon, we begin our formal language and culture training course.

A Quick Update: Our First Assignment!

An update on our progress towards departure and news of our specific assignment in PNG.

In our last blog post, we introduced you to the newest member of our family.  Ethan is now two months old and continues to be happy and healthy.  We love having him as part of our lives, and Hannah is a doting big sister.  We've been blessed in making many memories with our extended family and introducing Ethan to a host of friends.  Red Deer is a great central location during the summer time; we've had many friends from up north stop in on their summer travels for a visit. 

Ethan at Two Months

We have been in a waiting period since Ethan's birth.  We went through the process of applying for his birth certificate and waiting for its arrival to send in with his passport application.  As soon as we had the passport in hand, our complete visa application was submitted in PNG and now we are waiting for approval of our entry visas.  We hope to receive approval soon at which point our passports will receive a stamp in Ottawa and be returned to us for travel.  Last week we completed the process of limiting our possessions to what fits into suitcases.  We're now living with Tim's parents while we wait for our departure date. 

We also received some exciting news last week!  After a year of saying that we are moving to PNG without knowing our exact destination, we have now been given our first assignment!  We will be stationed in the village of Rumginae in the far west of the country where Tim will be flying a GA8 Airvan (single engine plane).  The MAF base in Rumginae consists of two pilot families living across the runway from a small mission hospital, so many of the flights out of Rumginae are medical evacuations bringing patients into the hospital from very isolated areas.  The Rumginae hospital and MAFs medevac flights are highlighted in this video put together by MAF Australia:

Having a specific destination has brought a new measure of reality to the fact that we are moving to the other side of the world.  Both of us have been taking some deep breaths these past few days!  We've been preparing for departure for what seems like a very long time, especially with having a baby in the middle of it.  Sometimes it has felt a bit like living in no man's land - in between the home we left and the one we anticipate in PNG. 

We hope to be able to depart before the end of the month.  Stay tuned!  We'll let you know when we have a definite departure date.

Recently Tim had the opportunity to speak to the congregation of this
 very unique church built in the 1880s!

A New Member of the Family

Welcome Ethan!

June 21
6 lbs 11 oz

A few photos...

First days at home together.

We are grateful for the excellent care we received at Red Deer Hospital

Hannah is delighted to be a big sister and is adjusting well to her new role.

What a privilege to be able to share these first moments with our parents and family!

We have begun the process of applying for Ethan's official documents.  Please pray that these processes progress smoothly.  We will depart together for PNG when all of our entry visas have been approved.