PNG Young Leaders and Starting Home

There’s just so much to write about on this adventure that it’s sometimes hard to pinpoint what would not only be informative but also of interest. Sometime I’d like to write about Beetle-nut, a local (and national) concoction that really destroys their teeth, or the island we were just on where it looked just like you might see in an ad for tropical islands and one of the guys told me in response to a question about their Saturday market, “We don’t get many tourists”!! But today I want to write about some of the amazing Island people that I’ve gotten to know here and who have captured my heart in many ways.

I want to concentrate on three that I’ve gotten to know a little better, Jamie, Jemimah and Billy. They all have local names, but use their English names when working outside their respective villages. They have come on board the PNG to serve the people of their own nation and they are as hard working and gentle and kind as anyone you would ever meet and I’m glad I call them friends.

Jamie is 22 years old and comes from the Western highlands and really misses his home where it’s lush jungle and cool at night! His parents are potato farmers and here in PNG that is a cash crop, so they are rather well to do! They gave Jamie a piece of land so he could start his own farm and perhaps someday he will, but for now his heart is in serving his God and his nation. I’ve worked with Jamie in both the galley and in optometry and he is a hard and consistent worker who displays a servant’s heart in everything. He would love to do a DTS someday and is looking forward to that! We have had many times of quiet conversation in the evenings on the ship. I have a hard time understanding Jamie (and many PNG people) because he speaks so softly! But I’m learning to listen with new ears, tuned to the PNG pigeon accent. Pigeon is a universal language spoken throughout PNG that uses a modified form of English and local words. At times I felt I could almost understand it, but then would just laugh because I was always lost. So Jamie, kindly spoke English with me. Here's a shot of Jamie and Jemimah when we were all part of the Galley crew. They are in the foreground. 

Jemimah is 23 and like Jamie, a PNG volunteer. She comes from one of the villages but her family now lives in the capital city (Port Moresby). It is her vision to become a chef and she has already completed courses in that direction. She came on board the ship at the same time Donna and I did and has worked in the kitchen the whole time. Galley work is hard work and yet Jemimah handles the long hours with such grace. She was a little shy when I first got to know her, but she gradually warmed up as we worked together in the galley. Like many young PNG singles, she has vision for her country and wants to help PNG grow and mature. She is serious about her career and fun-loving among her friends. She has allowed Donna and I to speak into her life and hear her story. Here's a picture of her (on the right). 

Billy is a member of the ship crew and also part of Townsville’s ywam staff. He is an Islander from Fiji and has lived for almost 2 years on the PNG. He is one of the main deck hands and although he has never taken formal classes to be a mate, he absorbs knowledge and has done extensive study, so much so that he knows quite as much as any of the mates on the crew. Billy is unfailingly friendly and hard working, he always has a smile and time to talk or pray. He will be departing the ship soon to head back to Townsville to get married! I spent a good deal of time with Billy on the zodiacs ferrying people back and forth to villages. He is another example of a young islander with vision for his nation and region!

We have come to the end of our time in Papua New Guinea and started our meandering journey back towards home. In another update I’ll give you a sense of our final week in the beautiful waters and islands of the Central Province and Milne Bay but for now I will say that we have departed the ship in the city of Alatou and flown to Port Moresby where we spent the night. We visited with some friends, finished some shopping and got a good night’s sleep! Today we fly to Townsville and will spend two nights there before heading back to Sydney for one night with some of our past students (thanks Emma and Hannah!) and hopefully will catch a flight to the US on Thursday!!

One last thought for this update about the city of Alatou. Outside of Port Moresby, Alatou is one of the larger cities in PNG. It has a bustling business district, markets, an airport and port. The one thing Alatou doesn’t have is access by road! There are no roads in or out of this city, everything has to be delivered by boat or plane! In fact, there are no roads in 80% of PNG!! The only way to get around is by flying, on a ship or trekking!! As an American, I have a hard time getting my head around this fact. I’ll let you ponder on that until…

Next Time. 

Sailing, Sickness and the Eye Clinic

Greetings from Amazon Bay, PNG. We had a 14-hour sail down the coast overnight to reach the bay this morning about 9am. Apparently there’s a big storm hundreds of miles away in the Coral Sea and the swells from that storm have moved, unabated across the ocean and gave our sail up to 6-foot swells to deal with. The result of that unfortunate event was that myself and many of my companions on this little ship at sea experienced that wondrous event known as seasickness. Wow, I can’t remember the last time I felt so sick!

I had taken motion sickness medicine earlier in the evening but about 1am it wore off and the “fun” began! I didn’t sleep the remainder of the night, kept my wife up with my untimely throwing up and in fact many of the people that live along my hallway have approached me today to see if I’m alive, since they heard it too!! L What a terrible feeling nausea is!! So, today, I am taking it slow and working on recovering and catching up.

The bay here is my idea of paradise, I can look out from the ship and see sandy spits of land and islands with white beaches, waves and coral reefs. This is a large bay with several inlets and many islands that have small villages on them. It is only accessible by boat, so it is still quite pristine. Tomorrow, when I am back in the villages, I will be able to see what it’s like there.

This week has been slamming so far, very busy in every village and populations ranging from 500 to 3,000! In the biggest villages we gave out over 9,000 immunizations for different things in one day!! Our optometry team has been working non-stop during the days. When we have the full team there are 10 of us, two licensed optometrists and the rest of us doing visual acuity tests and testing people for readers (reading glasses) as well as registering people and taking time with them. The people here live in strong sunlight and the UV intensity really wrecks havoc with their eyesight. Add to that there is one major hospital that serves the entire country and you have a receipt for poor eye health. We see about 200 people on a normal day this week (less in the smaller villages)! In the work of our professionals, they see about 20 people a day! 

Our work not only involves testing but teaching as well. There is an eye problem called Pterygium that is a growth that starts in the corner of the eye and if untreated will eventually cover the entire eye! I see lots of this among our patients and it is easily preventable if people wear sunglasses or hats and protect their eyes from the harsh sun, especially on the water (it's often called the "surfer's eye"). It is easy for you and me to run to the corner store and get some, but not for people who live in remote and isolated places. It breaks my heart to see this and so we teach as well as help.

My week in optometry has been eye opening for me (pun intended)! Tomorrow will be my last day in this clinic and after the weekend I will move into the dentistry clinic. This should also prove to be a lot of work, just like all the other clinics! This weekend we will have a time of rest and hopefully some swimming in the warm PNG waters. Next week will be our last here before beginning our travels back to the US. 

Mark

Here I am with some of the kids from one of the villages!! They are great fun to spend time with! 

First Day of Outreach #2

We had a lovely week in Port Moresby and today we took a short sail out of the port and around the outside of the bay, where several villages are. These are so much different from the ones we visited on the Bamu River. Kouderika (code-a-reeka) was the first village my optometry visited today. It was about a 15-minute boat ride from where the ship was anchored.

Our new volunteers are made up of some DTS students from Townsville, just starting their outreach, and other assorted volunteers from around the world, as before. There are about 25 of us left over from the last outreach that includes the professional sailing crew, ywam staff and a few general volunteers from the last outreach. We fit in there somewhere!!

Whereas the Bamu villages were very primitive, this village had city water piped in and a readily available spring. Many people had cars and electricity too, but it was still what I (as a Westerner) might call a “slum”. It’s Easter weekend, as you all know, so many of the teenagers in the village are away at “Easter Camp” so we had lots of adults and little kids around. I learned how to say good morning in their local language (Daba Namona) and when I got to shore, I started singing like I was Nat King Cole singing “Mona Lisa” but using the words for Good Morning, Daba Namona! It was a hit and about 30 kids “adopted” me for the day! It was fun getting to know them in between my work with optometry! My duties on the optometry team range from registering people to doing reading and distance tests to just talking and engaging people. Many people spoke English so being understood was not a problem!

Donna is leading a Community Engagement team in the same village today. She’s enjoying developing the team, leading them and encouraging and releasing the PNG members into greater leadership. They had a good day with the kids and playing with them.

The other really cool thing about this village is that they have a huge tree that looks like it should be in the movie Avatar!! It was just huge and we had our clinic under its shade. It shaded all of us plus another 40 people easily!! I’ll ad a picture to show you!

After we got back to the ship today we were allowed to take a swim off the back of the PNG! About 30 of us took advantage of the warm waters and chance to swim and splash around! It was a lot of fun!

Tomorrow is Easter for us, so Donna and I have agreed to lead a Sunrise Service for anyone who wants to attend on the ship. I’m not sure who, if anyone will come, but we will have a good time anyway. I’ll do some worship and Donna will do a devotional on the meaning of Easter. Remember, there are some people on board who are not Christians, so although we don’t do evangelism, we also don’t hide who we are. We are accepting and open for conversation and by the end of the time, many people are open to the idea of a personal God and relationship with him!!

The Lord is Risen!!! He is Risen, Indeed!! 

In Port Moresby between Outreaches

Greetings! 

Our ship the PNG, is now docked in the Port of Port Moresby for the week. We have been here a few days and had to say goodbye on Saturday to the 50 or so volunteers that were with us on the last outreach. We have spent this week preparing for the next outreach which will start tomorrow with the arrival of the new volunteers as well as about 15 members of the DTS class from Townsville!

On Friday we’ll have an orientation all day and on Saturday we’ll leave for our first stop. Oddly, because it’s Easter this weekend, we will do the first day of outreach and then probably have Sunday and Monday off, because it’s Easter. I’m not sure how that will work out, but it should be interesting!

This week Donna and I have been given time to work on other projects and for me to spend time just doing work prepping for the DTS at Eagle Rock that starts in just 47 days!! I’ve been trying to communicate with the students and think through the plans for the summer. I have been meditating on a Scripture from Deuteronomy 3:28 where God tells Moses to, “Commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see." I think it’s an important word, not only for the young people of PNG, but also for the upcoming DTS, a call not only to learn for yourself, but to reach out and duplicate what you are learning in another!!

Having a few days to just do what we want has been really nice here. We do get called into regular meetings with different leaders and the ministry leader Ken, but that hasn’t been as constant as I’d imagined, so I’ve had time to rest and write and such. Everyone else is working to prep for the next outreach, everything from training for the boat drivers (since we’ll be landing through surf this time and not on a river bank) to restocking the kitchen to cleaning all the cabins!!

Speaking of cabins, we moved from ours, because it is actually the leader Ken’s and really spacious and nice (it’s a true privilege to live in there at all!!) and we got moved to a room that’s not being used this time, because everyone arrives on Thursday and Ken won’t leave until Friday, when we’ll move back into his room!! So, while it’s a little cramped right now, I look forward to getting back upstairs and we are thankful for the current accommodations!

I’ve been getting to know some of the people on the ship crew (the professional sailors who aren’t part of ywam) and the ywam staff too. They are such quality people and I’m trying to build some relationships that might reach into the future. So far I haven’t met someone who sees me as an equal and therefore opens the way to deeper friendship, most people see me as a leader who treats them as an equal and that blows them away, particularly among the PNG staff, since their culture is based on a strong hierarchy with age being a determining factor. I suppose I appreciate the amount to respect afforded me, whether I deserve it or not!! But I’ll keep sowing into the relationships and see what happens! I do enjoy the interaction!

We have been meeting regularly this week with the leader of YWAM PNG. A guy Donna met 2 years ago when she was here with a gal pal on staff, Ruth, attending a conference. His name is Winterford. We have meals with him and just listen to his vision for his country. He’s a big guy even for a PNGer, a very commanding presence. His views are very practical and built on 20 years of leadership here. If we come back, it’s likely we’ll work with closely with him, so the time is well spent.

We only have about 3 weeks left here in PNG and we are planning to make the most of every day!! Pray for us, if you will, Donna has been promoted to help lead the Community Engagement team for this next outreach and she’s excited about raising up the PNG leaders we have working with that team. I will be in the villages next week, working with the Optometry team, helping people see better and taking my now PNG guitar to play in the slums and villages!

We are excited to get started again!

Here's a couple more pictures from our time on the Bamu River. A healthy baby and mom and two of our smaller boats stored on the ship. 

Sail Day Reflections

March 18, 2016

Sail Day!!! We’ve just raised anchor and started our 24-hour journey back to Port Moresby! Today there is very little work and lots of time for rest, reflection, sleep and games! On our way out we had a very smooth ride, I can only hope for another one, though it looks pretty choppy right now! I have taken some medicine to help with the possible sea-sickness and will use this time to reflect on this first of two outreaches we’ll be on and the time I’ve had.

Overall I was very impressed with the staff, crew and volunteers on this trip. Even though the Christian emphasis was low-key, there was a definite “ywam” feel to the atmosphere and time. The professional ship crew and the ywam staff have a wonderful working relationship and are very friendly and welcoming to all the volunteers. This outreach had a lot of older people (over 50) on it, but the next outreach will have many more younger people (under 25), so it will be interesting to see if there is a different feel to that trip.

We’ll get back to port on Saturday night and disembark the volunteers on Sunday, then have 5 days before the next set of volunteers arrive. I think it will be a time to clean the ship and restock everything from paper goods to food. I think we’ll try to explore the city as well and maybe do some shopping and try some new foods. On this outreach I brought a few comforts with me, one was my French Press with coffee from home, another was a good-sized chunk of cheese and a few cokes. It was just about right!

I wrote last time about the man who was stabbed and was airlifted to a hospital. He made it through surgery, but died the following day. It was a sad ending to a sad situation. I wanted to let you know. One of the primary health care staff came to talk with me about her feelings of anger that after the miracles surrounding this guy (that we were close when it happened, that a helicopter was coming to the ship anyway, that there was extra fuel, that the hospital’s doctor arrived back from a 2 month trip the same day as this guy arrived, that he survived the surgery) that he died anyway. I think it’s hard to know the “whys” sometimes, but we have to trust in the end.

I had a great time in all the departments I worked in during this outreach. I think the one I had the most fun with was the zodiac crews. It didn’t last long, I only worked an average of 2 hours a day with this group, but the opportunity to make friends among the guys and gals working as deck hands and professional sailing staff was significant. They are a very tight group who don’t accept new people lightly. They are very friendly and knowledgeable, but to open up and share deeper is not common. But I’ve found an avenue for asking deeper questions and having some good conversations.

Here's a look at my galley crew! 

I will miss some of the new friends I’ve made. Their stories are fascinating and the journeys they are on are filled with meaning and questions. As an American I am in the vast minority on this trip, being with so many other cultures reminds me that while there are some significant differences between us, we are all people with basic needs, desires and joys. I will be able to follow some on social media, so that will be fun.

Our next outreach will take us to a completely different part of the nation. I understand the waters will be clear and the area more prosperous than the Bamu region of the Middle Fly River. It should be an interesting change!!

Until next time,

Mark

Moving departments

March 15, 2016

Greetings friends! We are well into our second week of this outreach. Donna has remained in the Community Engagement and is still enjoying her work with the children in the villages that we visit. We have noted that in villages where there is a school, the kids are far more able to sit and listen, respond, concentrate and learn. In the villages we’ve visited so far this week, there has been no school available for the kids and they are much more unruly and inattentive. It’s such a stark difference!! But the team makes the most of the opportunities they have to teach about TB, hand washing, brushing teeth, etc. It seems very basic, but in this village culture it’s not a given.

I have moved (at my request, I wanted to experience other opportunities) to the ship. In the mornings I work with the zodiac drivers as a bowman and in the afternoons in the galley, preparing meals!! As a bowman I work with an experienced driver of an 8 or 20 passenger boat. We go from the ship to the villages in the morning and drop off the teams working there and pick up patients for dental clinic and bring them back to the ship. My job as bowman is to watch for logs and debris in the water and point it out to the driver when I see if it's going to hurt the zodiac. I also hop out and secure the boat when we reach a village (always jumping into mud!!) I do odd jobs for the driver and make sure he has what he needs and I do a lot of waiting around.

I have been struck by the realization that almost none of the villagers will wear shoes their entire lives! It seems like a small thing, but, I don’t know, it just struck me today. I go barefoot a lot, because of the mud (every village we visit is on a riverbank), if I were to wear my river shoes they would be sucked off quickly and lost! So I leave my shoes in boat and walk barefoot in the villages. I have had a few splinters and cuts to prove it!

We had an eventful weekend. There was some clan unrest and a man was slashed with a bush knife, they brought him to the PNG and the doctors and nurses worked on him to keep him alive overnight (we just didn’t have the resources to operate). In the morning a helicopter picked him up (he had to be moved by boat to another village where the copter landed and took him to the closest village with a hospital. You can read the account at: https://ywamships.org.au/helicopter-rescueman-transported-daru-serious-condition/

I also work in the galley now in the afternoons and these are some of the hardest working people on the ship. They start work at 8:30am (6am if they are making breakfast) and basically work with a one-hour break at lunch until dinner at 6pm!! The leaders are very organized, responsive, gracious and fun. I work with a crew of 3 PNG nationals and one other guy from the US. We cook, we clean constantly, we wash dishes, we prepare meals sometimes days in advance. My level of respect for the work they do has skyrocketed!! I’m glad I took the time to be in this department!

We are just a few more days on the Bamu River. We will sail back to the capital Port Moresby on Friday and have a final day together on Saturday. I’ve become more comfortable and in the flow of ship life. It’s a pleasure to serve with such dedicated people.

Mark

River Travel and Bore Tides

March 10-11, 2016

Dear Friends,

Today (3/10) was a rather unique day for my team here on the M/V PNG on the Bamu river. It highlights something I want to write about, river travel. We live on the ship, take our breakfast and dinner there, enjoy great accommodations, but the real work of being here right now is in the villages. To get to the villages we travel by smaller crafts that will either hold 8 people and some gear (Zodiacs) or a larger dual motor boat that they call the “Falcon” that can hold up to 20 people and gear. Everyone sits on the sides of the craft and holds on wherever they can!!

Today, my Engagement team plus one of the Primary Health Care (PHC) teams all left together on the Falcon to travel upstream from the anchored PNG about 30-minutes to a small village for the day. When we left the ship it was low tide. I will try to explain this, but it’s pretty crazy, so we are riding in a craft on a river that is at least a mile wide. There is a lot of debris in the river, everything from sticks and coconuts to entire trees, so the driver has to be on his guard all the time to move around these obstacles. Hitting a tree is, well, bad for the boat!! At low tide, there are a few channels you can be in, but most of the center of the river is a sandbar! If you have to cross the river to get to the other side (as we did), you have to brave crossing the sandbars, where the water can get as shallow as thigh deep (2ft?).

It’s one of the disadvantages of sailing in an uncharted river that we didn’t know where the channels across the river were. So, unfortunately we (17 of us) got stuck in the middle of the river!! I got out and the water was just over my thighs. About 5 of us manhandled the boat for a while, but we couldn’t find our way out. After about an hour we finally got back into a channel and found a way across. It took about one hour forty-five minutes to come to the mouth of the stream that would take us to the village. However, at low tide this stream was mostly mud and a good 6 feet above the water level. This meant if we wanted to get to the village, we’d have to get off about 200 yards (182meters) from the village on a steep mud bank and haul all our stuff there! We really didn’t want to do that and as were making a decision, we found ourselves in the middle of a very unusual  situation called a “bore tide.”

The bore tide only happens in a few parts of the world. To have a bore tide, you need a large body of water that leads into a funnel shaped river. The tide and gravity of the moon combine to pull the water UPSTREAM and create a wave that’s called a bore tide. Normally the wave is about 1 foot and comes in sets of about 10 waves. It also raises the water level 10 to 20 feet!! The Bamu River is one such place in the world where a bore tide happens. When we experienced it the other day, two exceptional celestial events also lined up. One was that the moon was on a rotation that brought it the closest to the earth and the other was a partial solar eclipse. With these two events, it became a “super bore tide” and as the tide moved up river into the narrow end of the funnel the waves piled up as high as 3 feet!! One of our boats went right through a 3-foot wave and everyone got soaked!!

The bore-tide is a little dangerous for us, because if we were trying to get off-loaded in the mud while the bore-tide was passing, it could easily sweep someone away. Our boat had to turn to face the waves until they passed, the first set was 12 waves and about 10 minutes later we had a second set of 8 waves. After the second set passed the river had risen high enough for us to drive our boat all the way up to the village!! Remember, this wave is working upstream!! It’s wild!

Once we made it to the village (Arkinape), though, it’s all about the people. They live very primitive lives with no running water (in fact, the cleanest water they will probably ever drink is catchment rainwater. Many drink from contaminated wells or the river, which is very muddy!). There are only outhouses or the bush for a bathroom, no electricity, almost everyone is barefoot and wear clothes that must be washed in that dirty river water, so it always looks dingy. 

The people are gentle, quiet and friendly. One of the nurses remarked how remarkably devoid they were of high blood pressure. They are very patience, generally, and take such good care of their little ones.

Next time I’ll talk a little more about village life. Today is Saturday (3/12) and thankfully a day off!!

Mark

PS- here’s a couple of pictures. The first is of the side stream to the Arkinape village, if you look closely, you can see a few guys on the bank and notice what looks like a mud bank, which is really the mouth of the stream. The second is of a classroom where we do children’s education, every class looks a little different, but this is a good representation. I worked with the two PNG volunteers (Sophia and Philip) all week with the kids.