PNG Milne Bay Day 7: "Veronica!"

After our church people had gathered for their training session, we paired them up with our student

Demonstrating with a kind lady

mission team members for an afternoon of sharing the gospel in the community.

I had two church ladies with me.  After demonstrating sharing the gospel with the first lady we met, I let the other ladies' have a turn.  The three of us approached Veronica.  

Veronica was selling cigarettes along the road.  She was sitting with two small children and her young sister, Rose.    Veronica was the picture of despair...limp posture, sad eyes, still a young woman, but without hope.  She was very willing to talk with us.  Her eyes filled with tears as we shared to gospel and she invited Christ into her heart.  We prayed with her and for her.  (It seems she's having difficulty with her husband.)  Her sister, Rose, also invited Jesus into her life.

Veronica's circumstances broke my heart...I wish I could change them for her.  I wish I could be around longer to make sure she keeps understanding the eternal hope and love that's now hers.  I have to rest on the truth that the Holy Spirit can now work in her life and change and heal Veronica from the inside out...and keep praying for her.  We left her with a copy of the Jesus Film DVD...and hopefully my two church ladies will visit with her some more!

PS  I met Margery (one of my church ladies and sharing partner) later, and she was beaming and bubbling over.  It seems she went home and shared with her friends and family, and was filled with joy at what God was doing.  Amazing!

PNG Milne Bay Day 6: "The Troops Have Landed!"

Dan and I went attended church in order to give the announcement of the training our students provide during the week, while Greg went to meet the students and staff arriving at the airport.

We started singing at 9:30...and at 11:10, Greg and team joined us at church in time for more choir numbers and a sermon.  

Our training started that afternoon at 2:00.  At 2:00, two children and I were there, watching a man pack up sound equipment from the morning service.  The rest of our team filtered in, and by 2:30, about 6 church people came.  By 3:10, we decided to start with the 12 people that had shown up by then.  By the end of our time, 15 very excited people thanked us for coming and promised to show up the next day.

In the evening, when it was dark, we showed the Children's Jesus Film.  Our projector turned out to be faulty and the picture on the screen wasn't very clear, but the children didn't seem to mind.  Others on the team organized another projector to arrive on tomorrow's flight from Port Moresby, and will hopefully appear before tomorrow night screening of the full Jesus Fim.

(I'm tired now, but Dan says our trip isn't over yet.  TeeHee)

PNG Milne Bay Day 5: "Going Shopping!"

Our goal today was to go to the fresh fruit and veg. market and the grocery store to buy supplies for the first two days of the students' missions project.  (Everyone arrives tomorrow!)

This is a big deal:  buying food for a group in another culture and in unfamiliar stores with unfamiliar brands.  As a girl, it's assumed I know what I'm doing.  Ha. We phoned Eva last night and asked for advice.  I had to asked her to explain what she was talking about a couple of times.  (We had a good giggle, and she knows I'm rather desperate that she gets here soon.  TeeHee)  Apparently "cou cou" is sweet potato. (Pronounced:  cow cow)

Ok.  Upon entering the market, I discover that I really don't know how to recognize what someone in PNG calls a sweet potato.  It's pouring with rain.  Most of the fruit and veg are under a roof...along with everyone who's trying to not get soaked.  As I'm squished up alongside a kind looking woman, I explain my situation and ask where the cou cou is located.  Sure enough, she points just outside the roof to several different kinds of sweet potato, in different piles.  Eva didn't say which variety to get.  Greg gives us his opinion, I give Dan and Greg the umbrella, and send them out to "hunt and gather" while I stayed under the roof, holding the bananas, onions, carrots, pineapple, etc. 

Loaded down with parcels and one umbrella, the three of us walk along to the kitchen outside where the students will be staying.  After finding someone to receive our food, we set off for the grocery store.

Dan patiently waiting outside store

  After filling two shopping carts, the real challenge began...finding a taxi.  A rainy day is a good day to be a taxi driver.  Busy, busy, busy.  Greg, very wisely, bought an umbrella for himself, and faced the daunting task of finding a ride for us.  Dan and I waited (along with a swarm of people) under the roof overhang just outside the store with our purchases.  After a time, a taxi approached with Greg inside!  Hurray!  We made our delivery to the kitchen and continued in the taxi to a cafe for a well deserved lunch!

PNG Milne Bay Day 4: "Moving Day!"

Today we moved to our new home at the SIL base housing...with a great sense of relief.  (Cold water bucket baths such as we had at the expensive place, are not a favourite with me...and I didn't pack my beloved metal bucket in which to heat the water...but isn't the heart-shaped dipper-bucket cute?) 

The move was not without it's challenges, though.  

I don't know where the cultural value of time efficiency sits on your list of priorities, but it seems that mine is closer to the top than on the list of some folks here. I guess it depends if your goal is to live life as you find it, or to accomplish tasks.

 We packed our bags and set them on the porch.  Dan went to the main office to pay our bill.  He wanted to use a credit card.  Uh,oh.  It seems that the machine for swiping the credit card was in town.  So, Dan came and sat on the porch while someone went into town to get the machine.  Then, when they returned, Dan went again to pay, but none of his cards worked.  So he came back to our porch and waited for someone to go with him into town so he could withdraw money and pay in cash.  He went, returned and paid, and then we called for a taxi.  The guy said, "5 minutes."  All this time rain is pouring down.  Half and hour later, Dan tries the taxi guy again and he doesn't answer.  Finally, Greg came to us in another taxi and we all went to our new place.  Whew!

We bought an umbrella today!

Also, we now have twelve foam mattresses purchased and stored at the church, ready for the students.  We'll cart them over to the Nazarene Transit House on Sunday for use in the bunk beds. (The plywood base on the beds looked pretty hard.) 

PNG Milne Bay Day 3: "Whoops!"

This morning we flew to Milne Bay Province and to the town of Alotau.  Dan, Greg, and I are the advance team, arriving a few days before the students get here.  Our job is to solidify the arrangements for housing and food for our students, and speaking schedules for the churches...as well as confirming that people have been anticipating our arrival.

Dan learning not to believe what's online

Greg squished into taxi from Alotau airport

Church where we'll do our training

Dan went online and booked a place for us to stay while we are here...(so we can sleep earlier than the uni students each night.  TeeHee)  The place online was a  great price and said it was only 1 1/2 km from town.  We told Greg about it while waiting at the airport in Port Moresby.  He was doubtful about the truth of the location, so Dan phoned them up.  "Oh, no, sir, we are 52km (an 80 minute drive) from town."  Uh, oh.  Greg found a  lodge for us to spend tonight...and it costs  quite a bit...and no running water (until the evening, because of a landslide upstream.)  But the view is wonderful.  Today, we found missionary housing available for the rest of our stay.  (Good old SIL housing...reasonable price, clean, happy Christians running it...)  Thank you, God!  They only happened to have openings the exact days we would need housing.

Dinner at our 1-night lodge

 Bottom line:  We spent a lot of time walking in the on-and-off island rain.  (How about that, Miss Isla Rain Morris?)  As we slipped or sloshed inside our wet flip-flops I came to a firm conclusion.  You know that muddy, spotted stripe that can run up the back of your leg from your flip-flops?  Well, it looks much worse on a white leg than a brown leg!!!

PNG Milne Bay Day 2: A Day In-Between!

Today is the day after arriving from New Zealand, and the day before we head out to Milne Bay.  This day in Port Moresby is for discovering things:  which students are going on the mission trip, what has already been organized, what things still need to be done...

Dan with Elton

And more important... a day to collect hugs from Eva, Greg, and Elton.  It sure makes what we do feel worthwhile!

Here's a photo of Dan in work mode.  The bed is his office.  Pretty cushy life!  TeeHee!

(We also received our mission project shirts that were printed for all those coming along.  The students will receive theirs when they arrive in Milne Bay.)

I've been reading the book that will be given out to the students on the trip.  It's really good...and written by two guys from Pennsylvania!  I can recommend it:  "The Finishers," by Roger Hershey and Jason Weimer.

 

PNG Milne Bay Day 1: On the Way!

Well...off we go again on another adventure to Papua New Guinea!  This time we are helping to facilitate a mission trip the UPNG students are taking to a village in the Milne Bay Province.  Our objective is to build into our students and staff as they train a couple of local churches in evangelism and follow-up, and lead them in a village outreach.

Waiting for Dan to return with passport

We got off to a rocky start.  The unheard of happened.  Dan forgot to include my passport when he got his off the top shelf in the bedroom closet...so we arrived at the airport at 4:30 a.m. minus one passport.  (If I had been the one to forget, it might be considered "normal."  But, Dan has never forgotten before.) 

Time for a hurried sausage McMuffin

 THEN, after leaving me to guard the luggage and racing in a taxi to retrieve the passport, he returns and discovers he doesn't have his wallet.  (He'd used it when paying the taxi driver and thought maybe he left it in the taxi.)  Just then, a voice over the airport loudspeaker is saying, "Will Dan Mills...(muffle, muffle, muffle.)"  A nice lady behind the check-in desk called on her phone and found out the Dan's wallet was being held for him just down the hallway, out the door, across a small alley, in a small (locked) building.  After ringing the bell, a nice man answered and said a parking warden found the wallet outside on the pavement and turned it in.  (A miracle.  And, again, so unusal for Dan...but it wouldn't have been out of character for me.)

All-aboard!

All this makes me wonder what God has in store for the next couple of weeks.  Just getting here and being able to write this blog from the missionary guest home in Port Moresby seems a miracle and a spiritual battle won.  I feel very ordinary and not a very likely candidate for the task ahead...but luckily this is God's work and He is BIG, and it will be an adventure to see what's in store.

Arrived in Moresby, waiting for ride "home"

Note:  The children's Sunday School at our church in Auckland has loaned us Wooly (a sheep puppet) to share our mission trip.  So, look for him in photos!