PNG Mission Project Day 16: Returning home - The eagle has landed!

My 16th & final day on this trip was last Wednesday (it's now Sunday).  It was an amazing 16 days - and it seems much longer than that when I think through all that happened.  I caught a cold toward the end of my time there, and it's hard to kick (this is why it's taken me 4 days to write this).

Eva took me to the airport & Elton met us there - it was a good relax time together.  I had 2 flights to Auckland and the layover was in Brisbane Australia.

When I got to Brisbane, everyone had to put all their stuff through the scanners to get to the transit lounge.  As I got to the front of the line, I remembered that I still had an almost full bottle of water (400 ml,  13 oz)... and they don't like water.  So I chugged the whole bottle in one go (I really wanted to keep the bottle). As soon as I finished, I looked up and saw that the security man had been watching me, and he than said to me, "nice one"!  At least I impressed someone :-)

Here are some of my highlights that I haven't written about before:

After spending Monday at UPNG, I called for a taxi and headed toward UPNG's front gate.  As I was walking, I turned and saw Stanley, who I had been meeting with, walking along side me to the taxi.

Here are a few of the texts that I received from those who were on the project with us as I was leaving PNG: "Hi Dan, it was really nice of you to drop by the uni for us to chat yesterday - I really enjoyed your company too.  and I'm also praying and trusting that the Lord will show me His plan & purpose for me (Jeremiah 29:11) Have a safe trip back to NZ!  Best regards to Kaylynn too!"  "We are also sad
that you are leaving, but we are excited to see you and Kaylynn come September!  Looking forward to it!"

One thing that I loved was the ocean.  I loved "Wave Bashing" where we pretend that we're stronger than the wave and try not to let it knock us over.  Several of the men would say to me, "let's go wave bashing!"  I also loved floating in the waves, on my back, with my feet toward the waves sticking out of the water - the waves (if they weren't crashing on me) would lift up my feet then my body as I floated up over the wave.  Several of the students tried it with me and we had many great talks together out on the water in the afternoon!  [I also loved that I didn't get fried by the sun like in NZ].

Here are some pictures... and a video of our welcome to Hisiu (notice that they have formed a circle around us as they led us into the church compound where we stayed - also, this is the same dance that they taught us on our last day and we danced it for a couple hours - it took us that long to get it right, and it was also lots of fun!):

Elton shares the Gospel with some men from Hisiu.

I am ready to leave PNG - it's been an amazing trip!

Not quite Oreos :-)

Elton pretends that he is ringing the church bell!

The church has a bell that they ring twice for each event - a warning bell and a start bell.  We had to have this bell rung to get people to come to the training.  Only designated people were allowed to ring this bell.

Some creature made many little sand balls when he dug his hole.