Nick & Paula

A flight day with Mom

2008-08-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of spending a day out with Nick on a work day while we visited them this spring. “ Just a short day Mom….we will be home by noon or shortly after”.The original plan is to fly to Akwom, ( 60 minutes flight over rough terrain up into the mountains) drop off cargo; hop over to Nuku (30 Minutes to another mountain strip) to pick up 2 patients who need to go out to the hospital at Tadji; stop at Yili (in the mountains) to pick up a missionary who was teaching out bush; out to the coastal village of Tadji ( 15 Minutes) to drop off the patients from Nuku and pick up 2 patients returning back to their mountain village of Sibilenga, also drop off the missionary here, then back home to Wewak. As Nick does his preflight checks, he decides to add just a bit more fuel, because we had some extra space and it’s nice to have a little extra in case plans change through the day. The day starts as planned, leaving Wewak we head up on top of the clouds over the mountains. As we approach close to Akwom Nick drops down through a hole in the clouds into the Sepik plains to be able to see the airstrip. At this strip as all the others, the nationals gather quickly when they hear the plane come. They are all curious who this “white-mari” is with their pilot. Nick drops the cargo, there is a lay national church worker here, Mike, who wants to come back to Wewak today. Back in the air, Nick finds the weather at Nuku, our next planned stop is not good right now, so as Yili is on our way we may as well land there and wait for the missionary to walk into the strip, he is out bush about 3 hours walk, and we are about 1 hour ahead of schedule, however better to sit here on the ground and wait rather than circle at Nuku waiting for the weather to clear. The nationals at Yili all greet us with big smiles, they are willing to share the shade of their house-wind while we wait. Nick decides to walk the strip and check it all out while we wait, he has some instructions to the locals about where and how the strip needs some grooming. The missionary arrives, drenched in sweat from his 3 hour trek through the jungle, and back in the air we go. About 2 minutes into the air we fly over Anguganak, the village where the missionary has just walked in from. Nick is interested to see how the rework of the airstrip here is coming, MAF can soon land in here again to save the missionaries and bible school students, and patients from the hospital the three hour walk that this missionary just endured. Once we are back in the air, Nick gets a call from Wewak on the radio that he now has a deceased patient coming from Tadji, he is unable to clarify if this is a third person now coming from Tadji or if he is one of the 2 original passengers. The preferred plan would be to have no one else on the plane with a body charter, but that doesn’t appear to be possible today. We stop at Nuku to pick up the 2 patients heading out, then Nick makes the decision to stop at Sibilenga now and drop off the missionary to make more room, he also asks Mike if he will wait here till we return, but he declines, he wants to see the country. Sibilenga is a little mountain top strip,(2300 feet elevation) it is clear now but there are rain clouds all around, he prays the weather will hold till we return. Off we fly, out of the mountains onto the coast, to Tadji, the extreme heat here hits us like a wall as we land. We drop off the 2 patients and find that one of the original patients returning to Sibilenga died early this a.m. Nick removes seats and straps them into the cargo area to make room for the body, which is wrapped in black plastic, lying on a strip of linoleum. There is no coffin, as that is supplied by the village from which the national comes from and they don’t even know yet that he has died. The second passenger here is his family member who has been here as a caregiver at the hospital. There are another couple of family members who would like to come along to be at the village for the funeral, but they don’t have the money to fly so they will have to spend the next week walking or two days on a public motor vehicle to cover the same distance to their home that we fly in the next 15 minutes. We arrive back at Sibilenga to find the mountain top is socked in with clouds and rain. Nick throttles back and prepares to circle for a bit, a quick calculation tells him he has enough fuel on board to be able to circle for 20 – 25 minutes, before we must head out to have enough fuel to drop these people somewhere else and make it home. Nick alerts the family member that he may have to decide to go to Nuku, from which there is a road of sorts to get to Sibilenga, or go back to Tadji. He just gives Nick a sad headshake, he really just wants to go home. As we circle, slowly the top end of the strip clears, but landing from that direction is impossible, we must land uphill from the bottom. After about 20 minutes of circling the bottom of the strip comes into view too, Nick prepares quickly to land in this window of opportunity as there are other rain clouds that may soon obscure the strip again. The strip is slippery from all the rain that just fell, but we land safely. The villagers quietly accept their deceased and his caregiver, they quickly carry the body off to the edge of the strip and gather round. Few wave or acknowledge us as we quickly depart before the next clouds gather around this mountain top .Back into the air we head for the coast as there are lots of storm cells hovering over the mountains. The coast is clear and sunny all the way back home. Back at the Wewak base, Nick spends about half an hour doing up the mandatory paperwork before we drive back to their home, a couple of hours later than original plan. It has been an interesting day for me, a quick overview of just a few of the many strips Nick serves from the Wewak base, and a glimpse of how his day can be totally different than the original plan. A reminder to us as we return home to constantly hold these pilots and families in prayer as their day can change minute to minute.

A view of Wewak from the ground

2008-06-30T21:28:00.000-07:00

It just occurred to me that we have posted no pictures of our new home and compound since we moved to Wewak. We are truly enjoying life here. We miss the openess and freedom of Rumginae but living right next to the ocean and shops has it's perks too!
In our last posting we showed you an areal picture of where our compound is in relation to the airport, ocean and town. In this post we will take you in a little closer!

This is a look at the compound from the outside. In total we have 6 houses within.

Our house from the Front

Our house from the back

5 of 11 of Kayla and Malachi's friends that also live on the compound.

A walk at the beach close to our house with Lisi, our Neighbor from Switzerland whose husband Philip is also a pilot for MAF here in Wewak

Walk with our dog Sheba at a beach near the airport. We are also taking care of Lady (Sheba's mom) until January. They are great guard dogs!

The kids love to play in the sand
(Uncle Jim, is this hat better?)

Malachi is such a little fishie with absolutely no fear of the water. Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing!

Kayla has even learned how to snorkle and she goes out to the reef with us to look at the fish especially all the 'Nemo' fish.

What an amazing oportunity we have been given to come and serve here and also enjoy a different part of this beautiful world God has made. Some may say that our kids are missing out on a lot of things from home like snow and sledding (we can do it here with cardboard boxes on a steep,grassy hill!!!!!!..............yes, for real), but other than learning how to snorkle they know that God is always with them and are learning about a different culture, language, and are loving it!

Thank you for sharing this journey with us!

Nick, Paula, Kayla and Malachi

Another (Way Over Due) Update

2008-03-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that our last update was way back in October. The year ended with me getting a route and strip training authorization so I could check a new pilot into the Rumginae area. This was in preparation for our move to Wewak which happened the middle of February. This has given us a month in Wewak now and we are just beginning to feel settled in this new town and with the new program here.
I have spent the last three weeks being checked over all the routes in the area and into the 40 airstrips I will be responsible for in the area. It is always hard working trying to keep all new new airstrips straight in my head. Which one was that again?Here's a birds eye view of our new place. (Click on it to get a larger view)

The kids are growing as quick as ever and finding new friends quickly on the compound. We are thankful that there are some kids here very close to Kayla's age for her to play with.

Stay tuned for more....Now that we have internet access again we'll try to keep this more up to date.

October....

2007-10-05T03:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, three months since our last update, how time has flown by. We have not been out of the bush since our last update in July so it has been nice to get up here to Hagen to visit with friends and get caught up again.

Lots has been happening in the last few months too. It has been really wet for the last few months which means the river is to high to swim in. But that's Ok the whole yard becomes one big swimming pool for the kids.The kids are growing like weeds and are playing great together.

Malachi has this aviation thing all figured out. The best shade is always under the plane.

On the flying side I have had two fun experiences lately. This is Woiwoi Falls, one of the most distracting approaches in the country. While approaching to land you have this spectacular waterfall on your left side. It is pretty tough to keep your eye on the runway instead of sneaking a peek at the falls.

One of the most memorable experience this last month was opening a new airstrip. I flew to the nearest airstrip and was driven to the site of new airstrip to inspect it. After the inspection I called in the plane and pilot from the other strip where I had been dropped.

The celebration that followed will not soon be forgotten.

The road that I traveld on is under up to a meter of water for six months of the year so this community is completely cut off from the rest of the country during that time. Now that they have their own airstrip they will have an easier time attracting health care workers, and teachers to their comunity now that they have better transportation.

We were showered with gifts including these Casowary head dresses. They looked much better on them than on me :)

The Wedding

2007-07-19T01:56:00.000-07:00

Thing have been pretty busy since Paula and the kids left for Canada. They also took the camera with them when they left so I don't have any new pictures for you from PNG. Instead you get wedding pictures. I'm told that Kayla did a great job as the flower girl and a great time was had by all.

That's all for now. We'll give you another update in about 6-8 weeks when we are back in Hagen for maintenance with a decent internet connection again.

Where have you been all this time?

2007-06-12T05:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we feel like we've dissapeared off the edge of the earth somewhere. This week we are back in Mount Hagen so it is time to catch up on some much overdue blogging.Rumginae Station aka. Home Sweet Home

Most of the flying I do is in the Western Province. The north half of the province is dense jungle like this.

The southern half of the province is about 200 miles of swamp, all at 20' above sea level or less. Villages and airstrips are built on little bits of high ground that stick out.

This guy was carried for hours on this bush stretcher to get to my aircraft with his broken leg.

Medivacs are a big part of the flying we do. Because of our close association with the hospital on the base.

The kids are doing great, & have some great friends on the compound (Kayla on left)

Girls will be Girls wherever you are.

I guess boys will be boys too.

Paula is doing great as well, and has settled in to life here very well.

Shopping leaves a little to be desired on the station. This is one of a couple similar trade stores on the station.

But we are glad to be able to use the aircraft to get out every month or so for groceries.

Paula has really enjoyed chances to get out of the house and help out at the hospital lately.

She has assisted in a number of surgeries lately and is really loving that side of life here in Rumginae.

Happy Birthday Malachi

2007-06-12T02:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday June 9th was Malachi's first birthday. It's hard to believe that it has been a year already. Here are a few pictures from the big day.

Long overdue update

2007-04-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we made it safe and sound to Rumginae. Other than the heat it has been a very nice place to live, and we are adapting to the heat quicker than we could have ever expected.

View of the river from our balcony. The river stays nice and cool and is our only escape from the heat.
Parking area at Rumginae, (Sorry aviation enthusiasts this will be the only airplane picture in this posting)

The Rumginae MAF base.
Our House.
Paula is slowing finding where she can help out in the hospital. On this day she went on rounds with one of the doctors. She has also been invited to help out in the O.R. and looks forward to that.

Kayla is fitting in very well. The two kids on either end of this group are Elliana (4 1/2) and Noah (2) are from California and have become great friends with Kayla.

Easter was a special time for all of the kids on the compound. They had a big Easter egg hunt followed by a picnic and the Easter story. I don't think Malachi fully understood what was going on but he seemed to enjoy himself none the less.

This week’s events.

2007-02-20T03:36:00.000-08:00

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.

We're home

2007-02-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

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.

Christmas & The start of flying

2007-01-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has taken so long to get this posted. Here is what we have been up to the last month......

We really enjoyed Christmas this year even though it was quite diffrent than we have ever experinced before. This is Paula & The Kids Christmas Day.

The Kids really enjoyed their gifts that were sent along from Grandpas & Grandmas.Kayla was not too big a fan of the ocean at first, but by the end of our time there she was having a great time paddling aroud on her own without mom or dad's help.

One afternoon we took a little excursion to a little wild life reserve just up the road from Madang. In this cave was a sulfer water spring, the smell reminded me instantly of the cave & basin at Banff. In this water were little turtles and bigger eels that would come right up and eat out of your hand.
Then it was finally time to start flying.
My flight training will be based here in Goroka. It seemed strange to see an airport with parallel ruways here in PNG. You can land either runway 35 right or 35 left. Even though this airport is big enough to have parallel runways it is still a one way airstrip, you always land runway 35 and take off in the oposite direction runway 17 once you cross the road on short final you are committed to land. Because of the terrain on the far end of the runway you could not safely abort the landing if you didn't like the way it was going.

Here is the MAF base at Goroka. There is one twin otter based here and one TU206 MFM the plane that I am flying.

This is picture and the two below are taken at a place called Wananera about 20 minutes south of Goroka.
It is hard to tell from this picture, but this is a fairly steep airstrip (about 10% average). The parking area on the right is almost level.

We have been into Wananera a few times in the last week. We have been able to transport medical supplies into the clinic there, and take out a number of passengers including a guy with a pretty badly broken leg.

That's all for now. I'll try to do a better job of keeping you up to date in the future, as I spend more and more time flying.

Our New Pet

2006-12-18T00:47:00.000-08:00

Our excitement for this week started as it has before. "NICK GET IN HERE!!!!" Paula had pulled back the curtains in Malachi's room to see our new 'pet' staring at her through the window. Fortunately for both of them he was on the outside of the window, not the inside.Paula and Malachi, bravely watching from inside the screen. While I went out to get a closer look and a few pictures.I was impressed with the size of this one. He was bigger than my whole outstreached hand.

I don't think we are ready to adopt a pet yet. But if we do decide to, I think we will start with something a little more cuddly.

More from Mt Bosavi

2006-12-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are more of our pictures from Mt. Bosavi. This is a view of Mt. Bosavi from the circuit. If you have trouble reading the text on the picture you can, as with all our pictures, click on the picture to see it bigger.It sounds like this is a fairly typical welcome for an MAF aircraft. There are always lots of people that come out to watch the aircraft, and see what they brought. Kayla drew an instant crowd that lasted most of the week we were there.Kayla with more kids.Most days we went for a walk in the village. It was interesting to see how quickly a group formed. We usually started out with just the four of us and had 20 or more in tow by the time we were done a couple hours later.

This is one of the Sago houses in the village. They are called Sago houses because the roof is made from the leaves of sago trees woven together.
Our hosts were kind enough to show us inside their sago house. Paula & Debi are sitting on one of the four sleeping/sitting/eating areas. There is a fire pit right beside Paula and the identical layout on the opposite side of the room were I am taking the picture from.
Kayla & Meiyo sitting across the room from Paula. Notice the piglet in the bottom left corner of the picture. This is one of their only sources of income, they catch pigs in the wild when they are young, then keep them in their houses and feed them until they know their masters voice. Once they know the voice they are turned back into the wild to grow up. From the time they are turned loose they know their master voice and their name and will come whenever their master calls them.
I wish we could say that we stayed in a Sago house for the week, but we can't. We were allowed to stay in a very nice Missionary house at the end of the airstrip. You can see the outside of it in the first picture of the kids and the aircraft. This was the view from our diningroom window.
We cooked all of our meals on this wood stove and in this oven. It kind of reminded me of being at Great Grandmas house. This stove also has pipes running through it for our hot water. It worked really good.

Our Bucket shower was very nice to have as temperatures averaged somewhere in the mid thirties most afternoons.
These bananas were given to us as a gift when we got off the aircraft. They were hung like this in our entryway to ripen. We ate as many as we could that week and still had 22Kg of bananas to take home with us to Mt. Hagen when we left.
Our little "Bosavi Girl". Kayla and Paula were both given bilums (string bags) as gifts when we left. These are made by hand from tree bark. You will see them used to cary babies, firewood, food, and anything else you can imagine.
One last picture, too cute not to include. This baby's mom became good friends with Paula. She is a nurse at the clinic who did her nurses training at Rumginae (the base we will be stationed at in february) The baby Morina was one month older than Malachi.

That's all for now. We really enjoyed our time at Mt. Bosavi and I look forward to being back in and out of there in the near future with the aircraft.

The Trip to Mt. Bosavi

2006-12-01T14:32:00.000-08:00

Thank you for your prayers as we completed our bush orientation. We have spent the last week at a remote village called Mt. Bosavi. We had a great time learning the language, culture, making friends, and seeing the impact that missionaries and the aircraft have had on that community. Here are some pictures from the trip to Mt. Bosavi.

Waiting for the "final boarding call" at Mt. Hagen.
Due to weather problems we ended up going through Tari on our way to Mt. Bosavi. This is the home of the Huli Wigmen, (They are the brightly colored faces & big hair you have probably seen in national geographic)

Kayla with her new favorite aircraft. The "plane otter" she call's it, she can't quite get her tounge around "Twin Otter"

Here at Tari we hopped on to the GA8 Airvan (the one on the left) for our flight into Mt. Bosavi.
While Paula, Malachi & I enjoyed the smaller aircraft, Kayla wanted to be back on "her plane otter" as it was a lot quiter in the cabin that the airvan.
Short Final Approach at Mt. Bosavi, our home for the next week is to be the big house at the opposite end of the strip.

This brings us safely to Mt. Bosavi, but this post is getting to be way to big so we will have to leave you here....we will post more pictures later from our time at Mt. Bosavi.

Pikinini bilong Mipela (our kids)

2006-11-21T01:51:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the first night in two and a half weeks that we have not had to study for Tok Pisin class. Yes we are done. This gives us a chance to unwind a little bit, catch up on some emails, and pack for bush orientation. Later this week we will be flown out to Mt. Bosavi. What's out there you ask? Not much of anything.... which is why we are going there. Mt. Bosavi is the village where we will be doing our bush orientation. Here, no one is to speak english to us (if they know it) so we will have to put our newly aquired pigin skills to the test. We are looking forward to it. We will either have a chance to make some new friends and learn about the culture in a remote village, or it will be a very quiet week as no one will understand what we are trying to say to them. We appreciate your prayers as we go, we will be flown in (as it is very remote) and our only access to the "outside world" will be an HF radio.

While we have been studying the kids have been out having fun. Here are a few pictures of them from the last couple weeks....

"Bigpela" ('big' in tok pisin, quite fitting I think)

MAF's new mascott?
Malachi's new friend.

Kayla knows where all the good mud puddles are in the compound.
Kayla's new best friend. SUGAR CANE!
(She fondly refers to it as her 'spits', as that is what she has to do with each mouthfull)

Thank you again for all your prayers, we are all doing very well.

A Sunday Drive

2006-11-14T01:44:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we had an opertunity to get away from our studies and get out of town for a little bit. We drove up the hill that over looks Mt. Hagen to a place called Haus Poroman (House of Friends). It was great to see some more of the country side. Here are some pictures with captions below.Houses and gardens along side the road.

Having Coffee inside Haus Poroman. Note the hand weaved floor & walls.

One of the "rooms" you can rent if you wish to stay at haus poroman.
Some kids we meet along the side of the road on our way down.
Some steps cut into the hill side on the edge of the road. Almost looks like something from the Lord of the Rings.

Bug Hunters

2006-11-12T21:08:00.000-08:00

The hardest thing for me (Paula) to get used to has been cockroaches. I think we're finally wining the battle with just the right combination of chemicals and cleanliness. A few nights ago we killed about 10 of them. Yes, they are pretty gross. Here is a picture Nick took of two 'fearless' bug hunters in action. And the bug in this picture is not a cockroach it's just a little spider!! I leave the big roaches for Nick.

Our House

2006-11-10T21:47:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of the house we are staying in. It is about 2 blocks from the Mt. Hagen Airport as part of a little village called Kagamuga. It is about 15 minutes by car to get from here into the Mt. Hagen town site.

Here Safe & Sound

2006-11-04T02:47:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are. The trip went very well and we are settling in nicely. Here are a few pictures from the trip.Hong Kong International, our plane in the background
Singapore International. One last McDonalds stop before leaving civilization.... No we are not that badly addicted, it's just the only thing we recognized.

View on landing at Mt. Hagen. It was good to see the MAF hangar from the window of our aircraft.

Church Sunday morning was a special outdoor thanks giving service. Huge contrast to the Sunday before in Red Deer.

Kayla is already making friends with the other kids on the compound & even trying to speak pigin with them, it's great to see.

The Adventure Begins

2006-10-22T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well...Bags are packed, Drums have been shipped, Tickets & pasports in hand. We appreciate your prayers as we travel. We will depart Tuesday October 24th at 2pm and arrive at our new home in Mt. Hagen at about 4:45pm Thursday October 26th (Alberta time).

We'll be sure to update you again once our feet are firmly planted on the ground again......