Last summer, the Lord allowed me to go on my first long-term mission trip! Papua New Guinea. I got to spend 7 weeks there, visiting two missionary families serving God in the bush. I will let the pictures tell the story....
My passport... :)
Preparing for take-off...
So it took a total of about 33 hours to get to Port Moresby from Rochester NY. I don't sleep well in airplanes so, yeah...I was exhausted by the time I got there, besides the fact that there was a huge time difference AND the fact that I got sick towards the end of the flight across the ocean. After spending a night in the big city, there was one more flight to go! 1 hour inland to the bush! Here are a few shots from the air!
A winding river...
Mountains... Can't look anywhere in PNG without seeing some of these! : )
See that [small] patch of green in the middle of this picture? Yeah, that is the airstrip we had to land on!
On the ground now, this is the view from the top of the airstrip! Absolute beauty!
The Kodiak [P2-SID] that took me on that hour flight! I got to ride co-pilot!
The welcoming committee, as I called them!
A huge spider... YUK!
In some places, it was very dense; that's where my trusty machete became very useful! : )
A dragonfly that landed nearby while I was having my quiet time with the Lord one morning. Almost looks like he's smiling, doesn't it?
Almost looks tasty enough to drink!
Many waterfalls around the area...this is a pretty small one!
A clinic...
Another clinic started by missionaries in a village 3 days walk a 5-minute flight away!
These are some typical huts that the people live in. They are up above the ground to protect from flooding when it rains.
This is how the village stores are set up: you can't go in. You look inside; it's dark. You squint your eyes to make out what is on those far shelves. You make your order and everything is passed through the hole there. As you can see from this picture, we took advantage of when they had Coke in stock! However, it was not chilled when we bought it, so we brought it home, stuffed it in the already overflowing freezer and waited a while until our Coke was drinkable! : )
This was the only way to get across the river besides jumping from boulder to boulder! (Or, I guess you could wade across!)
While we were really thankful for a really beat-up washing machine (did I say that?!), we did have to hang our clothes out every day to dry. But they had to be dry before afternoon because that's when it started raining. {By the way, our summer is their rainy season.}
I made bread from scratch! No hand mixers or anything, just a flat wooden spoon to mix all the ingredients together. With no grocery store around (just a small village store), we had to make mostly everything from scratch. Ohh...it tasted sooo good! : )
Here are some typical PNG dishes...
The greens are picked from the garden and boiled down; the potato - looking things are kaukau (also grown in the garden); I think they taste better than American potatoes. Then some rice. And then there is very little meat (chicken or fish) on the plate. It is all very bland unless you add salt, by the way!
I celebrated my 20th birthday while there! 4 others had August birthdays, and altogether we turned 75 years old! Haha!
Us girls decided to hike up to the prospective radio tower!
It took us 2 hours and 9 minutes, including breaks. : ) Oh, and yes, I did it barefoot; that proved easier than slipping and sliding in my shoes. Ate lunch up there and then hiked down.
I had a lot of free time on my hands, so I decided to read! {I love reading!} These books are awesome - I highly recommend them! (Jungle Pilot [about Nate Saint] and The Savage My Kinsman [by Elisabeth Elliot]
It was election time, so we had police come to the village via airplane with the ballot boxes.....
Yup, I asked him if I could get a picture with his gun!
These are pictures of the people....
Most of them are candid shots so you can get a feel for what the culture is like.
Faith and I.
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Tabitha and I.
Posing in traditional PNG clothes! ; )
This baby is sooo adorable! I miss holding him....
He was such a good baby.
Well I had an awesome time in Papua New Guinea! I enjoyed sharing my pictures with you all! Sorry this was such a long post! ;) It's hard to put seven weeks into one page! So, I'll add some more later about our seven - hour hike we took into another village to hold a revival meeting! Now, that was an adventure in itself! Can't wait to share about that!
Until next time,
Angel
