Read on to hear a bit about our trip trip to Mt. Wilhelm.
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| Here we get a brief rest from the wind and cold as we head towards the summit of Mt. Wilhelm. |
Hey Mom,
Things are going well. Ruth’s bruised leg is old news now-a-days. Meliah
and her team just finished their softball season with a tournament near Goroka.
Their team dominated and won all their games! She had a great time. Thankfully,
it was a dry but overcast day. So not too much sun to give people sunburns.
Annakah is doing really well in 7th grade. We thought she
might struggle more with all changes but she has a lot of great friends and her
grades are great! She still spends an hour or more every day at the horse
paddocks caring for horses. We still don’t own one ourselves but Annakah would
love that.
Kiernan has a friend over to play or is at a friend’s house pretty much
every day after school. She’s doing great in school. She reads chapter books all
the time and has a great imagination.
We just got some new neighbors in the old children’s hostel next to ours
and they have all girls too. Each of our girls have one the same age and in the
same class now just a few steps away from our house! Their a new family to PNG
so it’s been fun for our girls to show them the ropes of living in Ukarumpa and
PNG.
Ruth is at a ladies retreat this weekend of prayer and fellowship with
about a hundred other women on the centre. They are actually just meeting on
the centre here, but I booked Ruth a couple nights in the guest house here with
some of her friends so she could at least feel like she can get a break from the
routine of life for a bit. The guest house is only like a two minute walk from
our house, but I think she’ll enjoy it. I thought I could hear the cackling of
ladies laughing last night, so they must be having fun!
Ruth is attending a professional development conference in a couple
weeks as she continues to play an important role as a teacher’s assistant at
the primary school. She’ll also be heading to Cairns Australia in October to
support a friend who is going for medical stuff and to get some shopping done.
Mostly though, I think she’ll have a great time with her friend and build some
exciting memories.
For me, there is an endless stream of work each day at the office.
Currently I’m working with the aviation department on some much needed software
updates. Our aviation operations is a couple miles from centre outside the
fence. So I’ve got a Kawasaki 250 motorcycle to make the trip back and forth
each day. I’ve also taken it out on the bush roads with some other riders on
the weekends and boy, have we had some adventures out there!
I’m a community group facilitator with half of the 11th grade
boys. We meet each Wednesday evening and discuss the speaker’s topic from the previous
Sunday’s “Soul Purpose”. I actually had the opportunity to be the speaker a few
times at Soul Purpose and really enjoyed that.
A small group of us expat men from centre have been going into a nearby
village on Sunday night’s for the past 4 months now and facilitating a Bible
study in village homes. A friend of mine and I started it a few weeks before he
left for a 1 year furlough, so I’m kinda the guy in charge now. But we’ve had
as many as 6 men from centre go at once and we often have 15 or more PNGians
cram into a small hut as we read and discuss the Bible in Tok Pisin.
The current Driver’s Ed instructor for the Secondary School is leaving
for furlough in January, so I’ve agreed to be the new one! I never would have
guessed I would a driver’s ed instructor! I’m really looking forward to that.
Encounter is the big youth retreat of the year coming up in a few weeks
and I was invited to be a counselor there. I got to do this last year as well
and it was absolutely amazing! Totally looking forward to doing it again this
year.
Last month, Meliah and I took a group of 6 others to Mt. Wilhelm, the
tallest mountain in PNG at just under 15,000ft. There is an old a-frame type
building at “base-camp” and we made it there the first day. We needed to head
for the summit at around 2am to try and reach it before dawn for a chance to take
in the view before the clouds rolled in. Meliah and one other stayed back
though due to altitude sickness. Actually, as it turns out, Meliah was just
really tired from the previous day’s hike to base camp, and only the other guy
actually had altitude sickness. The rest of us made the hard climb to the
summit in time for the view, but unfortunately, there was a freezing cold windstorm
and thick clouds so we couldn’t see a thing. We got our pictures and high
tailed it off the mountain. I’ll have to do the write up on that and stuff some
other time. We even have a video log of the whole trip. Another group wants to
go in December so I’m planning to organize that one as well.
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| It was cloudy and cold at the summit. |
This is a video of our encounter with a landslide on the way to the mountain. We would have made it if we hadn't been fully loaded. But as it was, the local folks gave us a push up and over!
Ruth and I are planning a family trip to visit some translator friends
of ours in their village home in a couple weeks. They live out past Madang area
and you have to cross a dozen rivers or something to get there, so Ruth is a
bit nervous about the drive, but I’m chomping at the bit. According to our
friends, your feet get wet each time as water rushes into your vehicle during
the crossings. Some time ago, we bought a 1985 Pajero. It’s painted green so we
affectionately call it the Green Machine! It doesn’t have a snorkel like most
of the other vehicles, but I think we’ll be alright getting across the rivers.
They aren’t supposed to be so deep that they would drown the engine. Always an
adventure in PNG!
At Christmas time during the school break, we hope to get off the
mountains and go to the coastal town of Madang for a few days and enjoy the
tropical paradise. I’m hoping to sign up with some other people from Ukarumpa
to take a scuba diving crash course while we’re there and hoping Meliah would
like to do it as well. After a couple days of training, they take you out to
coral reefs and several WWII wrecks of planes and ships and other stuff that
was apparent dropped into the ocean after the war was over. But mostly, we’ll
hang out in Madang, get some shopping done and get a break from normality.
Wow! Guess I wrote a lot. But that should mostly catch you up on what’s
been happening around here. Love you all and thanks for all the encouragement. Hey,
I think I’ll paste this into a blog post to update all our friends. Thanks Mom!
God Bless,
-Chad
good to read your blog.If you need a person to send you snail mail, let me know.
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