Five consecutive office days this week did see some
important items ticked off my to do list, which was satisfying. Some of those
had been waiting for my attention for far too long. However, there are still a
lot to deal with and as is always the case, I didn’t achieve as much as I
wanted to due to plenty of other things needing my attention.
There is good news on the work front: Doug Miles, whom I
work with very closely and who is my immediate line manager, is now in PNG full
time with his wife, Yvonne. Their special needs daughter has settled very well
into sheltered accommodation in Cairns enabling Yvonne to join Doug here and
put an end to his need to do tours, which was wearing both of them out.
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Perhaps even bigger news is that a new Programme Manager has
been appointed. Todd Aebischer and his wife Connie, should arrive in August.
They came for a short visit a few weeks back and both of us, along with
everybody who met them, were extremely impressed. We’d wondered how anybody
could jump on the MAFPNG express train and cope, let alone provide leadership,
but we all think that Todd is just the person who can do that.
He has an aviation background within the Nazarene Church,
with which we have close links. In fact I flew him out to Dusin a couple of
years back when he was taking some video (another of his skills) for the church.
I mentioned last week that Nicki and I had gone to Kudjip to join in the 50th
celebrations of the church’s health ministry and Todd was there.
On Thursday, just before he flew out to the Philippines
where he is currently based, he came into town and all the leadership went with
him for a cup of coffee and enjoyed a relaxed time of getting to know each
other.
I am deeply impressed and very excited at the prospect of
having him come to head up the team. He’d love to do a bit of flying again, and
we can always do with an extra first officer …
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Last week I mentioned Verne and Natalie Ward, friends from
years back, were also visiting for the celebrations. We flew them out to Dusin
on Tuesday, which is where they first felt they should be involved in full-time
mission. They lived in Dusin for 8 years, supported by MAF and are people whom
I admire greatly; really, really top notch folk. Verne is now Global Director of
Mission for the Nazarene Church worldwide, but they wanted to get back out to
the people they lived with all that time ago. Needless to say that when they
came back on Friday they were full of the time there. They said that as far as
the Kopon people of Dusin are concerned, they are “their” missionaries whom the
church in Dusin has sent out.
Verne related one story to me that had been highly
influential in their decision to work in Dusin, before any church was
established there. It may have been his first trip there, but certainly early
on, he’d been walking out from Dusin with a couple of local men. A young woman
had come on to the path in a frantic, distressed state. The men talked with her
and hurried her off the path as they continued.
Verne asked what it was all about. They told her that her
baby had died. The local witch doctors had met to determine who was responsible
for the baby’s death and had decided that it was the mother. “What will happen
to her?” Verne asked. The men replied that she would hang herself. He heard
later that the witch doctors sentence had been carried out. Nearly 40 years on
the pain of that encounter was still visible in Verne’s eyes.
Similar events still occur in PNG. Anton Lutz, Richard’s
peer at Ukarumpa could tell you multiple similar accounts from the area where
he works.
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The rest of the week’s news seems incredibly trivial next to
events like that.
Yesterday we enjoyed a slow drive out to the airport along
the back road we’re using at the moment because the highway is in such an
appalling state. Colin McIntosh (our next door neighbour for many years) is
here at the moment and he took us out but asked if we could take some photos
for him en route. Nicki and I were very happy to oblige. There’s a nice coffee
shop at the airport which we patronised before coming home, the same one that
the leadership team had gone to with Todd earlier in the week.
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Hagen town has had a major clean up. No longer are there
piles of stinking litter and rubbish covered by spittle from betelnut users.
What is perhaps more amazing is that the clean up all happened this morning.
I don’t know if it was entirely organised by the SDA church,
or whether they were just involved in our part of town, but either way, there’s
been a huge community effort and the place is dramatically nicer than it was
this time yesterday.
It proves it doesn’t have to be that big a deal to keep the
town clean and we hope that the new standard will be maintained.
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You may have heard that there’s a major cyclone off the east
coast of Australia. I’m keeping a close watch on that as I’m due to ferry a
Twin Otter to Cairns on Tuesday for an avionics upgrade. It looks like it will
hit the coast further south near Townsville, so I hope it will keep out of my
way.
I’ll fly back on Wednesday, hopefully with a new hard drive
for my computer. The current drive is the original one, so about 8 years old
now, and is showing signs of deteriorating health. I want to replace it before
it packs up completely. In the meantime I am being particularly careful about
keeping everything backed up.
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It’s only 2½ weeks until we go on leave. Time is rushing by
and both of us have a lot to do before we go. Nonetheless, we are looking
forward to a very welcome break.
See you soon!
