Vic & Gwen's Journey

We have been here in PNG for over a week now and we still have a little over a week till we head for home. It has been a great experience for us and we have made many new friends among the people we are engaging with here.

We enjoyed part of a day in Port Moresby on the way up, and visited the national parliament building. It is a really fascinating structure and shows off the diversity of the PNG peoples and cultures.

We arrived in Goroka on this small Air Niugini aircraft. The flight from port Moresby was short and sweet, but rather noisy. We flew over lots of rugged terrain. In fact there are no roads linking Port Moresby with the rest of the country so one must either fly or go by sea to travel out of Port Moresby.

Goroka is the capital and main city in the eastern highlands. It sits at around 5,000 feet so the weather seems to be very mild and cool most of the time. Not too many people compared to many places we visit, but also much less developed.

We are having a great time staying at the Lapilo Guest House. This is a real missionary compound setting. Around 70 families live within the fenced off area, and have everything from their own gas station/petrol shed, to stores, church & school.

The view across the valley is modestly spectacular! The dry season is just coming to an end so we have had a few rains, but mostly it is clear and cool. We have had some pretty chilly nights but it really does feel good after the heat of a Nebraska summer.

We are spending most of our time facilitating workshops and coaching other facilitators. We have a team of three new facilitators here and they are doing very well as they get the opportunity to handle their first workshops.

We did make it into Goroka the other day to do some shopping. Gwen enjoyed it a lot, and I was along to make sure she behaved herself!

Gwen did some business at the local "purse shop"!

We are now in the process of preparing for our second workshop which will be held next week at a place close by called InterFace. We anticipate having folk from New Tribes Mission, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Missionary Aviation Fellowship and Pioneers International participating.

It had been a really long trip, but we had almost made it from Lincoln, Nebraska to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Our flight from Sydney landed in Cairns, and we made our way to the international terminal for the final leg of our journey. We were the only passengers in sight as we walked through the departure hall and made our way through immigrations. As we passed through security one of the men requested that I step across for the additional test that they sometimes do on passengers to "sniff" out explosives. I've had this done on me many times, and so I didn't think anything of it until the testing machine started blinking red! A second test and the same results.... as far as the official machine was concerned my back pack was contaminated with some kind of explosive agent.
 

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Thirty-five years is a long time. It’s the difference between being an 18 year old and a 53 year old.  It is the time span that has elapsed since I (Vic) graduated from High School. This past Saturday evening we had our 35^th year class reunion with about twenty others from Berean Academy’s class of 1975 along with many of their spouses. This was almost half the graduating class, and we enjoyed getting reacquainted with those who were there.

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“Experience is what you get when things don’t go the way you planned!” This statement is potentially one of the most powerful ones I have digested in a long time. It keeps coming back to me, but I will always remember the day that Gwen used it on me for the first time…

We were trying to figure out how to get from Singapore to Malacca, Malaysia by bus. We knew it was possible, we just didn’t know all the details. But we were game to figure it out and so we set off on a little adventure. The first bus took us across the causeway between Singapore and Malaysia. We went through Singapore immigrations, and then through Malaysian immigrations. That went well, but then we had to find the correct bus to get us to the regional bus terminal. We weren’t sure of several key points and in the end took the wrong bus to the wrong terminal. I was getting a bit frustrated, but Gwen pointed out that the whole reason we were taking this little adventure was so that we would know the correct way for future use. Then she pulled out the quote: “experience is what you get when things don’t go the way you planned…”

It’s a significant truth, and one that we now often use when we find ourselves in such appropriate circumstances. Have to say though; we still hate to find ourselves in those appropriate times!  Life is so much easier when we don’t need to gain additional experience

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Our Lady dog has developed an obstinate need to wander. We are trying hard to figure out how to deal with her and keep her out of trouble. We have almost twenty acres that she is free to roam at will, and it is a veritable puppy play ground with rabbits to chase (as well as skunks!); a pond to swim in; goats, chickens and ducks to annoy and lots of tall grass, just waiting to be explored.

But on the other side of the fence is an awesome, amazing, never ending world to be explored. "The road goes ever on and on..." as it were. Deer, turkey and cows to be chased. Creeks and trails to explore...

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I guess mornings are the very best time of the day out here in the country. We sleep just next to our south facing window, so we can enjoy the very early (at this time of year) break of day. The sky in the east slowly begins to lighten and the dawn creeps into our lives sometime between 5 and 6 am. Just after 6 the sun peeks up over the tree line and the day has begun!

In case we are too tired to open our eyes to see this beautiful sight, we still cannot miss the increasing volume of the singing of birds. As the sky lightens, the birds greet the new day with song and warble.  (Some birds, just cannot be said to sing, but they try! Thence the "warble!")

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