May 31ST Nancy: Well, today is a special day and it started out with a bang!!! I went to bed at about 10pm. At midnight one of the students knocked on our door to say that one of the girls wasn’t feeling well and needed me to come see her. Mike got up and went out before me. I was getting myself presentable and followed shortly after. The door to the living room area was closed…as I opened it, everyone screamed, “SURPRISE, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” I was so totally taken off guard! Remember, this is 12 midnight!!! There were our 12 students and 5 of the mission teens there holding up long balloons which spelled Nancy, a vase of flowers, and homemade angel food cupcakes, (not a box mix!) with one having a candle in it. How special and unexpected! So, they did all this right after I went to bed at 10pm! I didn’t hear a thing. Mike was in on it too…of course, but it was the student’s idea. They made a card and all wrote on it. Such special students, made me cry!! Last night it really started when we had a gathering of the second ½ of the mission family over for dessert night (last Friday night we had the first group). They found out it was my birthday so they sang to me. Now, not just your typical birthday song, oh no… they have a rendition of at least 5 different birthday songs they sing one right after the other. They do this for every birthday here on the mission station. We recorded it. It was great! Well, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night…my mind was in overload with their love and thoughtfulness, but Saturday was a full day. We left at about 8:30am for Mt Hagen to do some shopping. They got some fun stuff to share with their families! We had dessert first, since our last stop was at a store that had ice cream cones…then ate lunch on the road to the coffee plantation before making our way back home. This is owned by a retired Orthopedic surgeon from Oregon we has helped at Kudjip Hospital over the years. He and his wife have won the hearts of the locals near their plantation because of their interest in making the area better for health care (clinic already up and running), education (books, literature for education purposes), and water purification. They gave us a tour of their place and shared their story while we sat on their veranda overlooking the hillside and beauty of the land. We’ve heard this story 3 times now, but it is as fresh and exciting each time. They are very passionate about it. Home felt good after getting soaked by a wonderful rain as we walked back to the car to head home. Finishing leftovers and playing games ended the day for us. What a great birthday day. Thank you Lord for such wonderful people to spend it with! Thanks again parents for your sons and daughters who made it so special for me. June 1 Mike: I’ll provide a little more backstory to Nancy’s post from yesterday. One of the highlights of our trip each year is a visit to the Madan coffee plantation owned by Larry and Arlie Hull. As Nancy said, Larry is a retired orthopedic surgeon from Washington State who has done volunteer short term missions in many locations, including frequent trips to Kudjip. When he retired, they invested substantially in Madan in an effort to help a PNG friend. Eventually, through a convoluted sequence of events, they became its (somewhat reluctant) owners. With profound dedication and the Lord’s blessing, they have become one of the premiere producers of premium coffee in the world supplying companies like Starbucks, Carribou and Gloria Jean. Early last week it looked like we might miss our visit. Coffee thievery is always a problem but with prices at record levels it is a substantial problem. Madan guards got in a bush knife to bush knife confrontation with some thieves from a somewhat distant line (tribe). One of the bad guys nearly lost a leg. For some reason, even though they were the thieves, this line decided to take vengeance. So, not long after, a large raiding party (the line has a reputation as rascals) ambushed Madan coffee pickers and made off with 1500 pounds of coffee, raped 2 women and slashed a large number of trees. Madan men from all over the plantation converged and from the veranda of their house overlooking the plantation, Larry and Arlie witnessed a full scale battle. Amazingly, there were no deaths…mostly minor injuries. So, the coffee business in PNG is not for the faint of heart! That same morning I entered the hospital through the ER. There was a bad chop-chop to the Achilles tendon. The gentleman’s brother seemed to be in control and was anxious to pay fees and have the tendon repaired immediately. Jim explained that there would be an extra fee assessed for fighting but the brother quickly asserted that there was no fight…his brother was innocent and had been ambushed by unknown assailants. After completing the repair I walked home for lunch and noticed 2 police vans on the hospital drive. They were there to arrest my ‘innocent’ chop-chop victim for murder! Mysteriously, by the time I returned from lunch the brother had intervened with the police and the arrest was off (can you spell b-r-i-b-e…or at least that’s what we suspected). Making the best of a suspicious situation, Jim, who by now had learned of Larry’s plight, convinced the police to go to Larry’s aide. We discovered during our visit that they had, in fact, done so. In retrospect, we wondered if the chop-chop victim hadn’t been an early casualty of the attack on Madan. Today, Sunday, we left church with the 80ish year old chief of the village immediately adjacent to the mission station. We posted earlier about Katie’s meeting with Wii. This was Wii’s father, Papa Gola. He has been a great friend to the mission and was instrumental in granting land for the building of the hospital in the early 60’s. He walked us back to his place and then invited us in to his small sitting room. I sat on a small sofa with Papa Gola and had Katie between us. I asked Katie to explain her connection and as soon as she mentioned Dr. Powers, Papa Gola teared-up, put his arm around her and pulled her close. He followed this with a trip to the back room. We heard him rummaging around and in a few minutes he reappeared with several pictures of early hospital and missionaries. He even had an aerial view of the first ‘bush aide station’ with its Kuni grass roof. He apologized for not having more pictures explaining that years before a neighboring tribe had attacked the village and burned his house destroying most of his pictures in the process. We then showed him some of the pictures Katie’s family had sent. He genuinely enjoyed the exchange and we finished up with a group picture. The plan is to send him a copy along with copies of some of the old photos from the Powers clan. We had a wonderful closing time tonight…a time we call the Overflowing Heart. The kids shared what the Lord had taught them over the past weeks together and then we prayed for each one by one. We leave the station at 7 am tomorrow to begin the journey home. We’ll overnight in Brisbane and then fly on to Chicago on Tuesday. Since we’re flying east, we’ll actually ‘gain time’ and arrive in Chicago the same day…Tuesday. We trusting that the way home will be more direct than the journey out!
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 00:28:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015