Tuesday, February 20, 2007

This week’s events.

These pictures were taken at our second landing of the day at an airstrip called Owena. Here we brought in one guy and a bunch of supplies for the community. On our way out we had four students who were headed out to Goroka to go to school.

Here I snuck up the hill to snap a few quick pictures while Tim unloaded the aircraft.

Looking across the airstrip from one side to the other from the bottom of the parking area.

This one is taken from a little way down the airstrip looking back up at the aircraft and the hill that I climbed to take the first picture. This cut away hill and the one on the side of the airstrip show the amount of work it took to build the airstrip. And it was all done by hand.

The remainder of these pictures were taken at an airstrip called Merawaka. We made three trips into this airstrip this particular day, bringing in some community workers from Goroka.

The airstrip just coming into sight as we cross over a high ridge right beside the strip to join downwind.

Here we are on the downwind leg of the circuit (The airstrip is just to the left of the aircraft) You can see the narrow valley ahead where we have to make a 180° turn onto final.

We have now completed the turn to final and you can see the airstrip in the distance. Because of the illusions created by the surrounding terrain and the sloping airstrip, it is hard to believe that we are still about 500’ above the airstrip.

Here we are safe and sound in the parking looking back down the runway at the approach path. If you only looked at the trees, you could almost think we were back home in Alberta.

This picture shows about an eighth of the crowd that showed up to watch. On each of our three landings there were just as many people who came to the strip to see what was going on.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

We're home

After Two weeks of orientation with MAF Australia we are glad to be back in Hagen and back at home. The kids are doing great and are both growing like weeds. Malachi is sitting up on his own and wandering all over the house in his walker.
Kayla had a great time with the other kids in orientation and is proudly showing off her home made cardboard glasses.
This week the pilot in Madang was sick and the pilot in Lae is away so we got to go help out a bit in both of those programs.
While flying out of Madang we made a stop at this airstrip called Nankina.
As usual the people there were glad to see us as we brought in two new school teachers to help with the school year that is starting in the next few days.
The plan was to fly back out to Madang to get two more teachers and their supplies, but the weather closed in on us and we ended up being stuck over night. We spent the night in a little hut just behind the airplane. They took good care of us and gave us plenty of kaukau (sweet potato) for both supper and breakfast. We had a very encouraging evening chatting with our host, it was great to hear stories of the school and clinic there, and also national missionaries that they have sent out to the surrounding communities.
This map shows the approximate position of Nankina, where we spent the night.

That's about all for now. We appreciate your prayers over the next couple weeks as we move out to Rumginae on March 1. This will be our home for the next little while.