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