I thought I’d share some of the non politically charged issues in this post from my recent trip to Papua New Guinea. I was asked by the Secretary of the East Indonesian Union to “go and see.” So here’s some of what I saw.
Me goofing off next the the carved post that holds up the corner of the immigration building at the border crossing in PNG. Notice any similarity to the shape of its mouth and mine?
I liked the Border patrols houses at the border. They had Solar H2O heaters on the roof and large tanks to catch rain water from the roof. Plus big screen windows to keep things cool.
I was immediately impressed by the better road design and lack of potholes in PNG. But of course there are probably 600x’s as many vehicles in Indonesia.
The Adventist Churches in PNG are much more simple than in Indonesia. This one was typical of several we saw with open sides.
Nice Beaches with far less trash than our side of the border.
Food stands along the side of the road. Some of the sellers are from the Indonesian side and I was able to ask questions of them in Indonesian. These particular ones said they were legally in PNG.
The bay in Vanimo. One of our Adventist churches is high on the hill in the background.
Looking down from the hill that the church is on this is a shot of the “City” of Vanimo.
I’m not sure what this is but it is pretty.
The Open Air market in Vanimo. Most of the clothes, etc are bought by PNGers from Indonesia and then sold again at a higher price in PNG.
We were impressed with the simple but well built church here in East Vanimo
It felt funny to have the “Welcome the Sabbath” devotional and not use translation.
This is a very typical Toyota Land Cruiser 4x4. It faithfully held between 15 and 20 people up and down mountains and threw mud and rivers. Here we’re getting ready to load to head to church.
Praying for our members in P.N.G.
Malaysian Palm Oil plantations have wiped out 1,000’s of hectares worth of virgin Rain Forrest. They promise local people lots of things but in the end the politicians are the only one who get anything other than a very rough road according to the locals. “They kill all our hunting ground by completely extincting every living creature. They dry up our rivers by taking all the logs that were once holding the soil down and then irrigating from the rivers. It’s hotter now. It’s drier now and we have nothing but a road to show for it.”
Piles of Logs are waiting transport to the ocean where they will help build the modern world as we rape poor peoples lands without thought. Think again next time you use Palm Oil when cooking. Or order that rare wood piece of furniture. . . make sure you are helping people not hurting them.
A Divine Appointment was that the New District Pastor was headed from the border area toward us as we traveled. Someone recognized the district churches car and flagged it down and everyone met the new pastor as he’d only been present for in Vanimo for less than a week. He has a great bass voice I hear.
A Flat tire. But in 10 minutes were were back in order.
Yet another Divine Appointment as we headed down the road on Sunday back toward Indonesia coming the opposite way were my new Friends Gary and Toni Lewis. They are self-supporting missionaries seeking to start up a mission flight program in support of our Adventist work in the Sepik Mission in PNG. Pray as their Cessna 180 makes it’s journey by crate across the Pacific to Guam where Gary will assemble it and then fly it to PNG. Toni is a nurse.
Someone’s going surfing. The waves looked like nice rollers 5-8 feet high.
Pray for the believers in P.N.G. May their enthusiasm continue.
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