week 1

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support thought I would get you up to date on the happenings of the week.

After a busy set of flights from Belfast, Heathrow, Bangkok, Sydney, Port Moseby and finally arriving in New Britain on Sunday evening around 4:45pm, i was greeted by the person who first met me off the plane the first time i landed in PNG Back in 2002 George Tinker.

Unfortunately my new apartment is not ready yet but the guys are working at getting it finished within the next month, it just at the final stage of fitting cupboard doors and fitting trim.

It’s been a busy week, getting straight back into language on Monday afternoon by going 'walkabout' to meet up with some old friends and say hello.

Tuesday was more of the same getting out and talking lots or 'storying' as they call it in tok pidgin, which is basically sitting down and talking about life, this is great for learning language as its being used all the time and new words come up all the time, so all the time your gathering new vocabulary. Even better your building friendships.

Wednesday was more of the same walking and talking, we ended up at Roberts house one of the guys who helps us in language study, he was having his fishing net mended, we got to watch sit and story some more.

Thursday was Oil Palm day, i have waited to do this for some time now and on the first week back the Lord gave me the opportunity to do it. it was very hard work, we used a sickle like blade on the end of a 10' aluminium pole to first cut off some of the lower Palm fronds (which were 10’ high or more) to reveal the bunches of fruit then we used the blade to pull the bunch forward as to cut the stem of the bunch. This then dropped to the ground to be lifted into a wheelbarrow and brought to a point where it could be lifted by the oil palm company.

I know this doesn’t sound too difficult but when you add heat and humidity it makes for a very tough day. But apart from the difficulty of the work it really helped us in our friendship with Robert who owned the block of palm.

Friday began with a visit from gabby to one of the guys on centre where again we talked, after this I visited with another Robert who lives just across the road from the centre, we went to his garden to look at his many types of crop like taro, sweet potato, tapioc, maize and greens (type of spinach). I finished the day by listening to some recordings of the language.

Finally Saturday I actually got a lie in, the after breakfast I went to have a look at my new CMA workshop, this is where I will be working when I finish language study. I went to try and work out where all the cupboards and shelving for the tools will be placed as this is a brand new work shop which I will be moving into.

Looking back it’s been a bit of a mad week, I thank God for the strength and energy to do all this and for the privilege of working to grow his church in some small way.

I hope that gives you a bit of a taster of my first week back, if you have any comments or questions please feel free to ask.

Thanks you all again for your kind support and prayers

Geoff