May 2, 2015
We’ve been here a week today – our halfway mark here at Kompiam (but still another 3 weeks left here in PNG). Some of our team – Robert, Judith and Earl – head out tomorrow. Lance and Missy will stay on here with us. It’s been a busy time here this past week for Bill and the guys but also for we who are preparing the meals. I have started this email numerous times but I wasn’t able to finish. We’ve been preparing 3 meals a day for 4 men and 3 women from scratch. I keep forgetting how much time and effort that takes, but once again I was quickly reminded of it the first day.
When there has been a small or medium block of time, I’ve gone to the local school to help out. There are 20 students more or less and they each work independently at their own rate. The helpers sometimes listen to the students read or read spelling and vocabulary tests and help them if they’re stumped on work they need to do. It seems to be a good system to work with many students at a variety of levels. There are some MKs and some children of PNG staff at the hospital. The curriculum is in English which poses some challenges to newer students who mostly speak their local language. We are hoping to be able to work more closely with some of those students next week. Please pray for inspiration for streamlining meal prep so that will be possible.
We arrived here last Sat night after a 5-hour trip from Mt. Hagan (having left Boone Tues at 9 am) and had a tour of the hospital on Sunday. It’s a bright, airy and clean place with ongoing construction. There is no electricity here so they have capitalized on the availability of solar power for lights, refrigerators, etc. at night they run a generator to give some power to the houses from 6-ish until 10-ish pm. We are in a comfortable 3 BR house on stilts (I don’t exactly know why). We have rain water from large tanks but it must be pumped (by electricity or a hand pump) to a tank on the roof of the house where it is stored in a small tank and gravity fed to the house through the faucets. The window of electricity in the evening is when we shower (X 6) and wash any laundry. This is on top of our evening meal and cleanup!
It’s remote but very beautiful here. We’ve heard that we are at about 6,000 ft here at Kompiam. We see lush mountains as we look outside our windows. Around the compound, it is very green with many tropical flowers and trees. Almost daily rains come in the afternoons and evenings. Our days can warm up into the 80’s but nights and mornings are so chilly we need a light sweater. (An almost ideal climate?) Oh, and we experienced our first earthquake our first night here. FORTUNATELY, we had been warned about frequent earthquakes the first night because it did shake the house for what seemed like a long time. We have felt others since then. Being up on stilts magnifies earth movements it seems so we feel even minor tremors.
Thank you again for your prayers- for the work Bill and Lance will be involved in next week and for Melissa and me as we try to balance serving at the school with making meals for the 4 of us. Pray, too, that we will have the mind of Christ, stay close to Him and seek to glorify Him in all we do.
Jackie