From the top of a Mountain runway to the South Pacific

May 22, 2012 -tues

I had to write to you today to tell you about one of the most amazing days of my life! It started with getting up 5:15 am this morning ( a feat in itself),  and going to the small airport in Ukarumpa with Dave and Jean  for our flight to Madang! It was chilly and misty with a pretty low-lying fog. The SIL pilot of our 6 seater plane said we could not take off until we could see the end of the runway … and then the hill beyond that we had to clear…so around 8:00 am we all prayed together and headed out.  We took off seamlessly and headed thru the thick white clouds up into the beautiful blue skies.  Pretty soon we saw amazing tree covered mountains, rivers and even a waterfall. We had to stop and pick up 2 people on the way. The pilot told us the village was on top of the mountain top and we had a really short grass runway and then it dropped off! Yikes….. when we circled around we saw grass huts sprinkling  the top  of the mountain which was plateau like. He landed perfectly and all the villagers were standing around waiting to get a look at us. They looked like something out of National Geographic, holding their handmade bows and arrows! I went over to them and asked them if I could take their pictures! They were so excited and then I showed them their pics. There must have been 40 or 50 people and me-the only white-skin!! I showed them pics of Adriane  and mike and Hunter that I had on my camera too! hee-hee! They all chew something call buai, which makes their teeth and gums all red! I had to get over that! Ewww. Most places that say no drinking, no smoking and no buai…so I think it gets them high! And I won’t even get started about the lack of deodorant!  I will save that for another time. Then we picked up a pregnant village woman and her little girl because she was in labor and took her into Madang.  It is amazing to see all these village people. This is why the bible translators are working so hard to get Gods word in their language. So they might be saved! There are many PNG natives that are believers! But many more that are not! The plane ride was breathtaking with the mountains and the beautiful blue and green waters along the coast. This was the SOUTH PACIFIC!  I cannot wait to be able to upload pictures for you!!! I took a zillion, But it will probably not be until Thurs nite or Friday. After we landed they took us to the missionary guest house ...which is on the water! My flat is 2 bedrooms with a big front porch on stilts. I am surrounded by palm trees and tropical trees. God is so great! I never would have imagined this day and that He would send me here!  Our air conditioned office overlooks the water…but outside it is also about 90 degrees and high humidity! Everyone goes snorkeling here and if I work fast I might be able to do that tomorrow. The SIL Regional Manager for the province lives here and his wife invited me to a kids club for locals tomorrow, so I would love to go. Our compound is fenced and gated and we are not allowed out at nite. So I am working tonite here in my lovely flat, sitting on the porch writing to you and  I will be  auditing here for 3 days by myself and then back to Ukarumpa! It is a tough job but someone’s got to do it!!!  Glad the Lord called me this time! I am so relaxed and enjoying the pace of life, even though we are working hard.  So I just wanted to thank you for praying!! God has blessed me beyond anything I could have imagined and I am so thankful! It makes being away from home for so long worth it! I do miss you all and can’t wait to share more. I hope all is well at home and would love to know what you all are up too!

Lots of Love, Anne

Ps ok things have changed a bit….now that the sun has gone down. The biggest bug I have ever seen just snuck up on my kitchen table to let me know he’s in town… and scared me to death.  I jumped around for a bit and tried to get him outside, but I am not sure if this is futile or not!I forgot for a moment there are huge bugs in the tropics! Ewwwwwwww! This could be a long nite!!!

Reflections on the past week

Hi everyone, well it is Sunday afternoon in the village of Ukarumpa where I am living. Even though the rainy season should be over, we’ve had a tropical downpours on and off for 2 days!  The pace of life here is so refreshing. It is so quiet here today all you can hear are the birds, crickets and frogs. There are no trucks, airplanes, air conditioners or generators running and everyone is resting, visiting with friends and reading this afternoon.  No one works on Sunday (woo-hoo). The grocery store is closed and all departments are closed, therefore there are no decisions to be made about working, school or yard work!

I attended 2 services this morning at church. The first one was in the native language of Tok Pisin with a wonderful contemporary worship. It was so moving to see the nationals who love the Lord, leading their worship and sharing during the service with heart-felt prayer requests. The second English service was much more traditional with different styles of worship changing weekly! It was also very humbling to hear from missionaries about their struggles with translation work, the stress of preparing for furlough, the financial stresses and missing family and friends from abroad. There are over 500 bible translators here and 500 support personnel. They are struggling because when someone goes on furlough or goes home, many times a translator is pulled from their work to fill in an admin  position. Please pray for more workers!

The first week of auditing work was spent meeting and interviewing people in Finance and the Clinic and learning all their procedures and drug and medical equipment inventory! The Clinic operates 2 sub-clinics; One for missionaries and one for Papua New Guineans. Praise the Lord for giving me incredible concentration, insight and understanding for this job, which many of you prayed for this week.

I spent 2 -3 different nights in the homes of some of the bible translators and support personnel, hearing how God called them to PNG and translation work and the funny stories and crazy incidents in the villages as well as their struggles. It was a lot of fun and very encouraging.

The team is getting along and working together great. This weekend we all went to a village close by to attend a muu-muu! This is a traditional feast put together on special occasions for friends and families. It is like a huge clambake in the ground filled with root vegetables, ground vegetables, chicken and random sausage and covered with leaves and a pile of dirt. We were able to visit in some of the villager’s homes- which were traditional round bamboo huts with thatched roofs and some more modern bamboo rectangular houses on stilts. The real drama was traveling on the road (a loose term I might add:))  that had been rain soaked with 12-18” ruts. Yes, the 2 SUV’s both got really stuck and the village people all came running to survey the situation and offer suggestions and finally help dig us out! All in all it was really fun, a little bit of a stretch eating the handmade food and I lived to tell you about it!

Next week, I will be flying to a coastal city of Madang for 3 days, starting another audit for the guest house. Please pray for my safety and health, since I will be there alone.

Thank you all for your messages and emails and for praying! It is so encouraging and I know that is why all is going soooo well  here. J))))

Arrived in Ukarumpa PNG!!!

Hi Everybody,

 I arrived in Ukarumpa PNG around noon on Monday. It was a wonderful flight on a single prop PT-6A Kodiak 100 plane .The mountains and highland country  we flew over was beautiful!  You could see the villages with the thatched roofs and smoky fires sprinkled throughout the highlands. The weather is about 78 degrees during the day and drops down to around 55 at nite! Ukarumpa is the largest mission center in the world with over 1000 people living on the center. It is amazing how many different professions are represented here. Only about 50% are actual bible translators with the remaining as support staff for the SIL (The Parent Organization for Wycliffe USA). There are 3 full time doctors, 4 nurses, medical technologists, 6-8 accounting personnel, teachers, Directors of Finance, Security, Special Projects, auto mechanics, pilots, store managers etc, well you get the idea! I was surprised how God can use every gift in missions and I love hearing everyone’s story about how they became a missionary in PNG.

 A 5^th member was added to our team at the last minute. Wendy Marple was coming to PNG to visit her 23 year old niece who just started as a bible translator for the long term. She just “happened” to already have booked a flight to PNG the exact day that we were coming and she “happened” to be a CPA and was just going to find something to do as a volunteer for the month. Voila! Another team member that God knew we needed and He supplied!  So we have Dave and June Freswick-Alaska, Stewart Goode-South Carolina, Wendy Marple-Minnesota and myself.

We started our work on Monday afternoon and met with our team and divided our responsibilities.  We are doing an internal control audit for SIL( Summer Institute of Linguistics). These reviews are done to gain an understanding of the internal controls used by each dept within the SIL organization and make suggestions improving their processes. We are given Audit review guides and questions and spend 3-4 days with each dept. I am assigned to audit the medical clinic and the print shop and the regional center in Mapang. 

Here is my schedule as far as I can tell:

Mon- 5/14- Ukarumpa- initial meeting, introductions and tour of Ukarumpa

Tues-5/15- Ukarumpa-Meeting with finance dept and initial meeting with the Head Doctor and Director of the Clinic

Wed-5/16- Fri- 5/18-Audit Interviews with the Dr and bookkeeper of the SIL Clinic and the Ukarumpa Health Center-clinic for PNG Nationals and writing up the review.

Sat-5/19- Going out to a local village for a “moo-moo” feast to meet some of the Papua New Guineans.

Sun-5/20-Church

Mon-5/21-Audit Interviews with the Print Shop Manager and bookkeeper

Tues-5/22- Fri-5/25-Fly to Madang – A city on the eastern coast of PNG- I will be going alone to audit the SIL Regional Center-Guest House

Sat-5/26- Sunday 5/27 Drive to Lae – a coastal town on the east coast of PNG to visit  another regional center of SIL

Mon 5/28-Thurs 5/31- Audit Interviews with the Print Shop Manager and bookkeeper

Fri 6/1- Fly back to Port Moresby – Meet with Audit team to discuss Audit Review findings

Sat 6/2-Stay in Port Moresby- Continue to discuss and write up Audit Review findings

Sun 6/3-Fly back to Cairns, Australia

Tue 6/5-Fly back to the States

Praises for my trip so far:

·         Praise the Lord that He has protected my physical health. I have not been tired, had neck or back pain, travelers sickness or even jet lag!!

·         Praise the Lord that He gave me such good missionary friends in Cairns to help prepare me for PNG

·         Praise the Lord for great team leaders, Dave and June, who are patient supervisors, and have done many of these audits throughout the world.

Prayer Requests:

·         Pray that there would continue to be good communication and unity among our team

·         Pray that we would be efficient gathers of information so that the personnel effected would be not frustrated, since they have a heavy workload too.

·         Pray that we would not get sick so that we would be able to get the audit completed in the amount of time we have.

·         Pray for clarity of mind and understanding the processes as we move from dept to dept.

·         Pray for good and consistent devotion time with the Lord

·         Pray that we would be a blessing to the missionaries that we meet and serve.

Thank you all so much for praying! As you can see from my praises, the Lord has truly answered so many requests. I love being here at PNG and already I feel like the time is going to go so quickly! I am not easily able to get on the internet or email or update my blog with pictures until I get back to Australia, so I will try to email when I am able ! Talk to you soon!

Blessings,  Anne 

please post if you are able! its exciting and encouraging to see who is reading the blog! thanks:))))

Snorkling at the reef again...with new friends.

This is the boat we took for our all day excursion. It usually takes about 45min -1 hr to get out to the reefs and we can spend 2-3 hrs snorkling! So again we have morning tea....buffet lunch....afternoon tea...snorkling is hard work!

Here we go...stinger suits, life vests etc....we are on a pontoon in the middle of nowhere!

Once again...God provided new friends for all of us...These girls were very sweet and fun to let me hang out with them on the reef. Allison and Stephanie are nurses ( from Wisconsin and Iowa) who met at a christian universary to study nursing together. They are traveling to various cities for 3-6 mo contracts. Woo-hoo they loved taking pictures....of themselves....no! i mean of the fish! Thanks for a fun day girls! God bless!

It  truly was like swimming in an aquarium today! God created sooo many beautiful fish and coral on the reef...Its so hard to describe. This guy was swimming in the middle of a school of Nemos!

It looks calm now...but the trip out to the reef was not for the faint of heart...or stomach! We all munched on ginger tablets and ice chips the way out!

 

End of the day! This is the view from the top of the street when I come out of Tree Tops! Isn't it gorgeous??

Rainforest, Koalas and Waterfalls!

Ok...so this is cheesy...But I have loved Koalas my whole life!!

Bev, Karen and I took the jungle walkways. Do you love our green stickers..TOURISTS !

We took a skyrail up to Kuranda in the rainforest~ and then a historic railway thru the mountains for a couple of hours. We were able to visit with the Koalas and Kangaroos, Wombats and Wallabys! They were in a zoo....but I thought it was all really cool anyway. The skyrail took us over the Barron River, which during the rainy season is overflowing!

Ok! another cheezy shot! But he was very cool also. Apparently, Kangaroos are everywhere here in Australia, like the deer at home. Therefore, they eat them, sell their skins and make all kinds of handmade goods like slippers, wallets, purses, hats from every part of their bodies. I mean... every part! I was told" waste not, want not" Hee, hee...more pics later~no worries!

Trip to the Beach

 Ok...so they trusted me with hiring a car...now left side...left side...drive on the left side of the road. This is going to be fun!

T

 Fish and chips for lunch! woo-hoo!

 My new friend from Tree tops is Beverly. She is a single woman who has been doing Bible Translation for the Onobasulu Tribe in PNG for 19 years. She is from Texas and is a hoot! We spent the day together as my co-pilot and loved getting to know her.

 This is Palm Grove Beach. Very Cool..very expensive. Today was Labour Day in Queensland.All the restaurants charged 10% more to cover the cost of labor on labor day. Go fiqure.

 Who doesn't love pasta and kangaroo..hee hee.

Trip into Downtown Cairns

 This is Australia's "Reading Market"..Rustys market and some really unusual fruit and veggies.I spent the day downtown, walking, hanging out, listening to music and
taking it all in!

  I am not sure what you do with this ? fruit ?or veggie ?or dessert?

 This is a wonderful lagoon infinity pool in the middle of downtown.Everyone just hangs out and swims and sun-bathes.

Ok...this was a most wonderful lunch...Fried fresh calamari, popcorn, sliced mango, pomegrante seeds and arugula salad! The calamari is wonderful here and with everything!