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.

First Villages, Bamu River

March 6-8,

Greetings from deep into uncharted waters of the Bamu River! We left Port Moresby on a calm day and started our 24-hour sail. The water when we started was like glass and the winds were calm. We had been warned that when we reached open water it was likely to get rough and be prepared! Many of the crew took the sail day as a day to just sleep, they get so little of it during the work week!! Many of the volunteers also stayed in bed all day, but my desire was to be enjoying every moment on the water. Incredibly, we had the smoothest sail in anyone’s memory!!! I spent the day sitting on deck, watching the ocean and taking time to think deeply about the past year or so and writing in a journal! It was a great day!

Later, when the sunset came, another incredible blood red sky, I was topside on the ship and several dozen people came up and lay on the deck to watch stars on the clear night!! It was stunning and I got to see something I’ve always wanted. I’ve always loved the song “Southern Cross” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and that night, on a boat in the Southern Islands, I saw the Southern Cross!! I couldn’t stop smiling.

The following day we entered the Bamu River. It is an uncharted river system with dozens of little villages along it that almost never get medical attention. We will be stopping into a dozen villages over the next 2 weeks. We’re all pretty excited to get started!!

That evening (Sunday) they had an optional chapel service topside. I offered to lead some worship and was given the opportunity. Almost everyone on board came and I had the help of a keyboard and djenbie player too!!

3/7

Today was the first day of ministry in the village of Sogere (So’-gary). Breakfast is at 6:30am and we had to be ready by 8am to leave for the village. Our ship is anchored across the river from Sogere, about quarter of a mile away (It’s a big river) and there is a large sand bar right in the middle of the river! So when we left the ship we had to drive around it to reach the village!! In addition, it was raining hard this morning, and although it was rather annoying, it hasn’t rained here in a while (there’s been drought), so it was a blessing to the village.

We got on shore and were greeted by dozens of villagers (Sogere has between 500-700 people!). Our Community Engagement team (CE) immediately began to gather the available children in the village and decided to use the schoolhouse to have some time with them. There were about 80+ kids with us and we shared about hygiene, nutrition, vision as well as doing a Bible Skit and games. The kids are just beautiful and these were really able to follow directions and have fun too!! Other parts of the CE team worked with men on generators or helping them make better use of water catchment devices.

Other parts of our medical teams set up in other communal buildings and did optometry and primary health care, giving immunizations, checking for disease, cuts and other issues. They were the busiest ones all day! In the afternoon the CE team played more games and also took on getting worm medicine to the entire village! We gave all the kids a dose and the parents that were there and in the clinics. Then a team walked around to some of the dwellings, getting people who were at home and afterwards I walked around the rest of the dwellings and the outskirts looking for anyone still in need. It’s better if everyone takes the meds, so it doesn’t reoccur in the village.

We left for the ship in the mid-afternoon, it takes a lot of carrying to get all the resources we brought back to the ship using the zodiac boats we are using to transport us. But eventually we all made it back. Every team had a debrief session and then we were off for the evening, but I suspect we will all be in bed on the early side!

3/8

On the very first day at the first village, I got a couple of splinters in my foot from walking barefoot in the mud up the banks to the village. You might well ask why I was walking in calf deep mud, but at low tide when we arrived, we all had to walk about 25 yards in this mud to make it to the village, and if I’d worn my water shoes, they would have been sucked off. I had one of the ship doctors pull the splinters out, but I’ve needed to keep it clean and dry since, apparently, if you don’t it can get badly infected very quickly in this very humid environment!! It’s annoying, but necessary.

Today, we are going to another village about a 20-minute boat ride from the ship. Donna is on a different team and their boat ride is about an hour’s ride from the ship. The ship will stay anchored for several days where we are and we will take the Zodiacs to different villages each day. Unfortunately, we needed to take 4 trips to this village because of the number of medical and CE personnel that needed to go, so I am part of the last trip, so it’s a couple of extra hours of waiting!!

They do a good job on the ship of working to make it a bit of a family atmosphere. We have breakfast at 6:30am and a meeting every day at 8am. We try to leave the ship by 8:45am. We should be there around lunchtime. It’s a little frustrating, but there’s not much to do about it!

While the teams are in the village, the rest of the ship crew works on cooking, cleaning and organizational meetings. Whereas yesterday it rained, today is sunny and hot! Yesterday was almost cool by tropical standards, I think it must have been about 75 in the morning!! In the evening many people wore long pants, it’s so uncommon to be that cool at this time of year!! Personally, I love temps! I do not love the flies, mozzies (mosquitos), and other flying bugs that make it their special task to try and eat me alive!! Last night we had a swarm of flying ants come aboard. Apparently, they are drawn by light and the ship is bright at night! There were tens of thousands of them all over the ship and coming inside wherever there was an opening!! It was a little freaky, but we tried to make the best of it!!

I finally made it to the village at around 11:30a. It’s another village about the size of the one we were at yesterday, they make a rough estimate of how many people are in the village by figuring about 10 people per household!! This village was about 400 people, but many are away at any given time, either working in their gardens in the jungle or fishing or at a bigger “hub” village further up the river. I’d guess we had about 150 people around today.

I wanted to share about their dwellings. I guess we’ll see this same dwelling everywhere we go, there seems to be a standard size (I’ll add a picture). It looks very idyllic from a distance. It is on posts, set about 4 feet off the ground, as much to pick up a cross breeze as to prevent flooding. There is a ladder leading to a “porch” area, which is covered with a special roofing weave of palm leaves wrapped around a long bamboo slate, held together by hand stitching and these are layered to make it waterproof. Under the porch might be a fire, some low benches for sitting, a cooking area or storage.

The dwelling itself is about 16’x14’, made entirely of bamboo slates lashed together. The frame and floor are sturdy sticks about and inch in diameter and on top of the floor joists are more bamboo slates, these can be covered with woven mats or not. There is a door opening and a window on each side. Sometimes there was door and sometimes not. One unique feature about these homes is there is absolutely nothing inside them!! Not a table, shelf, chair or bed!! They are totally empty, not even storage! I’m not sure why, but I guess with up to 10 people sleeping in there, they can’t afford to lose the space!!

We will work with Community Engagement for the rest of this week and then move to a different department to get another angle on the ministry! We have been having a great time here with the volunteers and crew, it’s a great feel on the ship, though not everyone here is a Christian, the crew keeps a great balance to welcome everyone and help everyone feel at ease!

Blessings,

Mark

March 3-4, 2016

 We have arrived in Port Moresby, PNG and gotten settled into the ship. We left Townsville around 10am for a flight to Carines, a town about an hour’s flight up the coast. Before leaving, however, I decided that I would unhook myself from social media for these 6 weeks. If you thought that was an easy decision for me, you would be mistaken, social media (Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat) are a big way I stay in touch with literally hundreds of friends as well as past, present and future students. I have some extremely close friendships that depend on these outlets to help me stay in touch with their lives. To deliberately cut that off has been difficult, to say the least. But I also felt it would be worth the time to be able to reflect on life and dig into the adventure in front of me. Only this journal will serve in the next few weeks as a link to the other side of the world! However, we will have access to email daily, so if you would like to communicate with me that way, please feel free to write. You can use my address, mdmacgowan@gmail.com or if you want to write Donna, mdmacgowan@yahoo.com

 

When we left Townsville and caught a flight to Cairns (pronounced “Cans”) and then onward to Port Moresby. We had a several people in our group from the Townsville base, including a couple of staff guys and couple of medical volunteers and us, so it was comforting, knowing there were people with us who understood the system and the way to get through the airports; it just made things quicker. When we (and all our luggage, Praise God) arrived, I knew getting off the plane and onto the tarmac at the airport would be my first experience with the heat, it was 34C (93F) when we landed at 4pm. We were met by a van from the ship and whisked away to the docks.

 

The PNG is docked at the port and we were the last of 50 new people arriving for this 2.5 week outreach! There are 100 on board altogether, about half and half between ywam staff and maritime crew on the one hand and volunteers on the other. We will be in port here for another full day before we head out, moving West and a little North to a river system where we will be working in villages. The crew is wonderful, welcoming and outgoing. Once again, my extroverted nature is enjoying opportunity to meet new people and find a rhythm.

 

So, first impressions of PNG. It’s hot and humid and I love that. I like the sweat, I gotta be honest. I’m sitting outside on deck right now (3/3), all alone topside in 80F temps, completely comfortable at 10pm. It will reach towards 100 tomorrow and every day of our time here. We’ll have to wait and see if I still enjoy this in a week!!

3/4

It is lush and tropical here, and though we are docked, I am looking across the way at office high rises and apartments on the hillside opposite of the ship on the starboard side (see how I’m picking up the ship lingo already??). Our cabin is very nice, though tight, as you might expect on a ship. The ywam crew and staff are very friendly and outgoing and it makes us all feel right at home! We got our assignments today and Donna and I are both working on Community Engagement this week (on separate teams) and will work in the villages for the next week!! 

 

So, we’ll spend tonight here and then tomorrow morning at 9am we will sail out for our first destination, a mere 24 hour ride!! Pray for us, I’m not sure how sea sick we’ll get, but we’ve already heard some stories!! We’ll take our meds and hope for the best, but even the ship’s captain’s wife gets terrible seasick!!

 

Blessings,

Mark

PS- it's hard to attach anything, but I'll try to add 1 or 2 pictures from time to time! It's very hard to describe the things I'm seeing without going into great detail! Here's a picture is of sunset last night (I expect I will never tire of amazing sunsets here) 

  

Leaving for PNG Tomorrow!

In a few minutes Donna and I will go teach a staff class on the 3 lists of giftings in the Bible, from Eph. 4 and 1 Cor. 12. It should be a good, interactive learning time, but we do understand that the staff have worked all day and now, in essence have a night class to attend. So hopefully we will keep it ministry focused and not worry so much about all the great content we have!!

 In the evening we went to the home of Tabitha and Daniel Colwell and their 3 boys. I led Tabitha’s DTS some 17 years ago and she and her husband have been on staff here for several years. They are rare, in that they live off campus, and had us over for a nice meal and showed us around their home. Daniel’s sister, Naomi, also joined us. Her husband is Fijian and they’ve only been married a few weeks. Just a week ago, a cyclone totally destroyed her husband’s village and so he’s had to go home, since he’s the oldest son. So she joined us for dinner.

On our way back to the base after dinner, Tabitha took us to the top of Castle Hill, a local overlook that’s just magnificent! First, you can drive all the way to the top and many people walk or run the couple of miles it took to summit the hill and then from the top you can see the ocean on one side and the whole of Townsville spread out for you on the other. Simply spectacular view!

Today has been our last day here in Townsville for a while, tomorrow we’ll fly to PNG. But this morning we went to an 8am staff meeting and then Tabitha took us with her boys to a place called Riverway. This is a free venue for people to enjoy. There are several enormous pools for people to enjoy as well as places to have a cookout, grassy fields and all next to a river! There are many shade trees to keep the sun off and we spent a couple of very enjoyable hours in the pools!

When I leave tomorrow, my ability to stay connected by social media will mostly be cut off. So I will suspend my accounts and rely on this blog to keep you abreast of our adventures! In the first outreach (we are on outreach 2 and 3) the ship ministered to over 3,000 people in 16 days!! Optometry, dentistry, General medicine and Community Engagement were all part of the outreach! We don’t have any idea how we will be employed, but we are excited to find out!

If you’d like to pray for us, pray for safe flights, clarity for the future, energy to work in the extreme heat, health. Thank you very much in advance!

Settling in at the Townsville base

We arrived in Townsville on Tuesday (remember the US is a 17 hour difference, so generally we are a day ahead of those of you in the US). We were shown to a brand new apartment that had just been finished, we are the first guests to stay there and it’s just lovely!! We have a nice living room area and a fully stocked kitchen, as well as a small bedroom and nice bath! We are beyond blessed!!

We just dropped our luggage in the room and were immediately shown to a meeting room where the base leadership was in a meeting. We were added to the circle, introduced and met everyone around the room. Ken and Robyn (the base leaders) spent a bit of time explaining about who we were and how excited they were to have us and then we were released to go settle in.

We’ll spend about 10 days here altogether, learning about how this ministry runs and meeting the key leaders here. That evening we were invited to the Mulligan’s flat, which is located right on the property

 and spent a couple of relaxing hours just listening again to all the Lord is doing here. It’s a most fantastic thing, hard to comprehend, but it’s certainly the favor of the Lord in action. I’ve seen the favor of the Lord before in my own life and at ywam Denver, but not at this scale.

The following morning, first thing, we were invited back to Ken’s office to meet with him and some of his key leaders. Mostly Ken just talked about his hopes for the ship ministries and for the meetings he’d been having with high government officials about ministry in PNG. But he did give us a key insight to why it was so important that we were here. Ken is convinced that senior leaders of ministries need to come and invest personal time in the ministry to accomplish what he felt God was saying. He said he felt like our coming was the tip of the spear for other senior leaders to come. I hope so, I’m not sure if we’ll come back for a couple of years or not yet, but I hope that other leaders will come and join the work here!!

After the meeting with Ken, we spent the balance of the morning getting a introduction to the ministry by some of their leaders, who also helped set us up to teach in the DTS and to staff at different times that week, as well as to sit in on other classes. We were keen to be involved, and in fact, our high involvement and engaging the community led to pretty much no jet lag at all!! I would fall into bed each night around 9pm and sleep until around 5am!! It’s a miracle and I’ll take it.

Over the next couple of days we taught several sessions to the DTS. We also engaged in meals, community night and other activities. I have a gift for learning names and for some reason, I seemed to have a supernatural ability in these few days for remembering names and faces! I worked to learn as many staff names as I could and then the students. I don’t have every name down, but enough for us to feel more part of the community.

Everyone has asked the same question of us, “Why are you here?” We arrived with the red carpet rolled out and were given special privileges. It was a little overwhelming actually! But people kept asking, “why?” In some ways we can answer that, we know a little more from listening to Ken talk about it, but we ourselves can only respond, we’ve come based on a Word of the Lord and very little more! Our base was gracious to release us, but we are still watching, learning, waiting and hoping the Lord gives us more clarity!! In the mean time, we are having a blast!!

Mark

February 20-21, 2016

Go time!! In a few hours we’ll head for the airport for our first flight! I’m excited and nervous, I’ve also been fighting a cold so I feel subdued, but ready or not, it’s time! Although I’m sad to leave this community again, one that has been home-base for us for almost 25 years, even when we worked in Evergreen for another ministry in the early 1990’s, we had a special connection to ywam Denver. But it’s time to take another adventure and do what our hearts long to do.

I’m so glad we set up our first flight for late afternoon, there was so much to do to finish packing and cleaning the house and picking up a few more things, we just got out at our 1:30 leaving time! We are allowed 50lbs in a bag for domestic flights and 70lbs for international travel! When we checked in our bags were 48 and 49lbs!! So, now it’s the travel game for a while! We forgot to check in for our Southwest flight, and because on this airline seat selection is based on when you check in, we are virtually the last people on the plane!! This means we’ll both have middle seats and passengers will be praying we don’t sit with them!! It’s the only thing I don’t like about flying on SW!! I once went to sit in a middle seat and a lady, sitting on the aisle told me I couldn’t sit there!! I was so taken back, I kept moving, but I won’t let that happen again!

When we got to the airport, I was able to upgrade us for a reasonable price, so we got to sit together with a little more legroom. We got to LAX in good time and checked in for our flight. If you know me, I am someone who has a hard time concentrating when I am a standby for a flight, so since we had about 5 hours to wait before our flight I used 2 of our passes to United’s lounge, the Red Carpet Club. That got us into a nice place with free food, drink, comfortable chairs and free wifi. I settled in while Donna went out to meet a friend for a little while. The friend, Christy, had been in our youth group in the 1980’s, and is now in her 40’s and married!! Donna said she looked exactly the same as she did when she was teenager!

We went to our flight about an hour before it was to take off. These passes allow us to have a seat on a flight, if there are any left after all the paying customers have been seated. We were number 7 and 8 on a list of 15 and there were 12 seats left, so we were pretty sure we’d get on, but in a strange twist of fate, we were bumped (as was everyone else on the list) because apparently the plane had reached a weight limit!! So, we were stranded in LA for 24 hours.

It wasn’t all bad, because I’m still battling a cold, and another night’s rest in a bed was good for me! We found a hotel with a shuttle that ran at midnight and got a good night’s sleep and had a restful day. We thought about running around LA for the day, but decided against it. On tonight’s flight, there are 72 seats right now and 26 standbys, we are number 13 and 14, so I think we'll make it, there are even whole rows open in Economy Plus. The only sadness for us is that we had hoped to spend some time with Ken and Robyn Mulligan, the leaders of ywam in Townsville, before they left on another trip and now that might not be possible. But the adventure still waits and we have time to adjust to the time change for a few days before we start.

Ywam in Townsville has been very kind and accommodating in their communications with us and we are very excited to see what’s coming. We should be in Townsville for about 9 days before we fly to Port Moresby to join the ship (the PNG). Thank you to each one who has prayed for my health (I can feel it) and for our journey, we have been very blessed and relaxed as we patiently wait!! Next stop, Sydney!!

Starting a New Journey

Hello, I have kept an email journal for more than a decade, but for this adventure I have decided to open the gate a little wider, and while I will keep the Update Journal, I am going to add this for anyone who would like to stay informed about our trip. Good reading, friends! I wrote this first update a week ago, but it's such a good explanation of what is going on, I've repeated it here on a public forum. 

Today is the beginning of a new season for us. In 5 days we will be getting ready to hop on a flight to LA. From there we will attempt a flight to Sydney (though today there are but 24 seats left, we will need two seats by next Saturday. On the bright side all the remaining seats are in Economy Plus or better, so if we do make the flight, the chances of legroom for me are excellent). We have our passports, visas to Australia and Papua New Guinea, we made our first run at packing and I feel like a DTS student trying to figure out how to make everything I want to come fit.

I will attempt to bring some comforts from home to make the transition easier. Among the things I find comforting (you should think about what you would bring that would help you ease into a different culture!) that might not be considered necessary are (in order of importance):

-       French Press, personal mug and coffee I love. (includes some sweetener/powdered flavor)

-       A blanket to sleep under (the ship is equipped with air conditioning)

-       Some pictures of home and people I love.

-       Oatmeal for breakfast (most of the world eats Muesli and yogurt, not my favorites)

-       Powdered protein shake mix

-       And assorted other things that I could get there, but choose to take (mostly toiletries)

These are the things that will help me make a transition. Don’t get me wrong, the ship (confusingly named the PNG) is first class! At the same time, it IS a new culture, two new cultures, in fact, and will take some patience to get used to. In addition, when we went to Afghanistan 11 years ago, on our first adventure, I had a strong “culture shock” reaction and that was difficult, so I am attempting to prepare myself better, by being more aware. 

But the adventure feel is unmistakable, and I will be attempting once again to capture my sensory perceptions in this journal and allowing you to come along with us in a “virtual” experience around the world! Perhaps one of the hardest parts for me (and perhaps for the best) is the loss of connectivity to the world wide web!! Once we leave Townsville on March 3^rd, we will be in a place of vastly limited access to the outside world for about 6 weeks. Probably I will be able to hop online to upload these updates, but in all likelihood, that will be it. I am so used to surfing the web, streaming shows, skyping with friends around the world and mainly keeping in regular touch with people I love and like; that will be the hard part for me. But I know it will be good to be forced to live in the radical present, to experience the people and culture I will be serving and perhaps gain useful perspective!! Ready or not, it’s happening. So, to those friends that I text or write or skype daily, weekly or monthly, I’ll be back, pray for me! lol

The Thesis is turned in, the DTS graduated, the plans have been set, the money raised (we received a gift of over $5,000 recently towards the trip, praise God!) and the tickets we can buy, bought! We have a few loose ends to wrap up here, some communication to do, but mostly, I think we could walk out the door tomorrow and be on our way!! Last night I had the chance to spend an hour with a close friend and say goodbye (or see ya later, at least) and that’s the last and hardest part. Some friends will have left staff at ywam before we get back and though it is quite natural for people to move on from Denver, we have been here for 25 years. Who knows what the future holds, but I’m glad I know Who holds the future!