Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Whooping Good Time Building an Airstrip

If you read this blog I’ll promise you there will be faith building stories, financial partnership opportunities and much more.   You’ll hear my struggles and joys.   You’ll be a part of missions on the front line.

Under the Equator, nearly half the world away from my home country I write from the screen porch of our house on the campus of Adventist Aviation.    We arrived here a week and a day ago and we’re loving being here.   After fighting traffic every day in the crowded city of Bandung the relaxed pace of Papua seems more humane.   Because this is a time of year when most Pastors and members are on vacation and my stuff from America has not yet arrived I’ve been focused on straightening out a few plumbing problems on our new house,    Designing Cabinets for our home that’s being built, and Thinking out my new office and righting goals and plans for the coming year.

Perhaps some of you remember the video that's on the home page of www.sharehim.org of "Irian Jaya."  I live in the place that once was known as "Irian Jaya" but is now known as "Papua, Indonesia."   Below is a follow up of those people who "Whooped it up" as they built an airstrip by hand on the video above.   That was about 2004 and they need you help to complete what they thought they could do without tools.

I had the priveledge of meeting with the pastor who now Pastors the 8 churches including the one featured in this video on Sharehim.org    They are still struggleing to build the air strip that they so eagerly started nearly 8 years ago.     He says that digging with 5-10 shovels and one big crow bar and 2 wheel barrows.     What they need is about 60 shovels and enough food to keep about 75-80 people fed for 2 months and about 15 of the big wrecker bars that help them chisel through the rocks that need to be worked on.    They need about 12 Bible Workers in the area where 1 pastor is working.    They need about 12 one day type of churches from Maranatha.     If they had this and the pastor could spend his time training they could quickly claim a territory for Christ that is basically unreached now.    This is true frontier work.    The pastor and his wife live 5 hours hike away from the nearest air strip.   Every thing they own and every supply they get has to come in on the backs of hired helpers.   But as soon as the air strip is completed they can help get the work going so much faster.    In the low lands it takes a month or two to clear the jungle with a chainsaw for a new airstrip but there in the mountains it takes years of removing soil by hand.    The natives in that area are excited for a day or two at a time but then they quickly discover that they have to get back to providing for their families so they lose heart until the next outsider comes and spurs them on for a few days.   The cost to remove about 25 feet of soil from the top of the air strip and put the soil into the canyon on the side of the mountain is about 2 months labor for 75 people and some working tools or roughly $6,000.   If they were able to be paid the job would be done by March 1st (if the money were available).    Or they can go on like they are now with doing about 6 days of work on the strip per year for free and it might be done by the time Christ comes but with out an airstrip the continued spread of the gospel in that area is challenging at best.   The cost of 12 full time Bible workers is roughly $1,200 per person per year or $100 per month.   The cost for a one day church is roughly $1,500-$3,000 per church.    If anyone wants to help with this project you can send me an email at pastordarronboyd@gmail.com with the amount you’d like to contribute.    I’ll give you the specific instructions about how to get it to the specific project.