Goroka, Papua New Guinea

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.