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