There’s a rumour going around the local community up here on the hill that a white woman was raped early one morning while out jogging. We know all the expats that live here and this is a fabrication. There is a church here called the GKI (Gereja-Church Kristen – Christian Indonesia). This church has in the past year or two experienced a split. The group initiating the split claims that the expats involved aren’t concerned enough about freeing Papua and other such outrageous claims. I don’t know all the details but the splinter group calls itself the Christian Church of Indonesia Papua. They are in fact more politically motivated than anything else and have resorted to using violence and the threat of violence. They have also demonstrated in front of the MAF base at the interior city of Wamena. They did so because MAF refuses to fly for this splinter group as they are teaching things that are Biblically false. Some of our neighbours who are involved in this church and do a lot of teaching and counseling in this church have also been threatened. Two of the wives jog every morning up here and so we think that this splinter group is trying to play with their minds. Our neighbours have had their home threatened as well. This couple is now going on furlough for the summer and are removing all valuables from the house and storing them elsewhere and have hired a young man to take care of things while they are gone. In fact, some Papuan pastors have had their houses destroyed by this group. There is a big beautiful church just down the hill from us that is not being used because the GKIP wants it and the original GKI wants it so it is closed up and no one is using it. Some people meet in a small building beside the church and others meet in the youth Centre across the road from us. This church situation is really sad because it is so obvious to us on the outside that Satan is working really hard. But to many of the Papuans who are easily swayed by promises, it isn’t always so obvious. There have been a few expat church leaders who’ve been hauled in for questioning by the police as this splinter group has told lies about them and are trying to get them kicked out of the country. So far that hasn’t happened. Please pray for the church here that the issues with this splinter group may be resolved and that no more violence will occur.

This is a completely unrelated photo of the amphibious aircraft that we had hoped would be able to go to Myanmar and help out with the relief efforts there. This photo was taken last weekend when the plane made its first ever water landing at this village. Pieter-Jan and Maaike deVries live in this village with the Korowai people. He's the one in the lower photo talking with the pilot of the plane, Tom Bolser. The deVries family has always used a helicopter to get back to their house in the village but it is nice for them to know that the float plane is an option especially for larger items that may need to be brought in. I think Pieter-Jan had a small boat brought in which he can use to get to other villages in the area. I'm sure you've noticed that everyone is wearing clothes on the photos. The Korowai feel that if they are going to the village they need to wear clothes but if they are out in the bush living in their tree houses, they often just wear traditional "clothing". For the men that means an artfully placed leaf...

Yesterday we went to the beach with the t’Hart family, who is visiting from PNG, the Togeretz’s, the Wieske’s, and part of the deHaan family. We also took along Sisi, an Indonesian friend who works as a mechanic for MAF. It was a beautiful day at the beach! The tide started to go out while we were there though and so snorkeling got a bit dangerous as you could scrape your stomach on coral or sea urchins. We did see a black and white checked sea snake, thankfully about 5 feet below us on the bottom… Also saw clown fish in an anemone. So neat!
Sorry, I didn’t take my camera again. Maybe I can get some pics from someone else…

I was talking again with Ritha the other day about how she came to get her oldest daughter who is adopted. Ritha’s husbands younger sister became pregnant by a guy who didn’t want to live up to his responsibilities so when the baby was born, she gave the child to Ritha and her husband. It is Ritha’s name on all the paperwork too. Now this woman and her husband (not the father of Awi) want to take Ritha’s two girls to live with them in Timika (city on the south coast, home of the Freeport Mine) so they can go to a good school there. Of course that is the last thing Ritha wants. She has no idea if this couple will teach her girls about God and His promises and all that. Ritha is a very strong Christian woman. All the family here supports Ritha but unfortunately, too often it is the money that talks. This woman works for the mine and makes lots of money and they say that Ritha can’t take good enough care of the girls as a widow. So next month that will be discussed.
Ritha and her sister were raised by people not their parents. Ritha left home at age nine to live with others. I think it was partly her own choice as she wanted to go to school and her parents didn’t pay much attention to her as they were to busy with their own problems. Ritha’s mom is her dad’s second wife…. Ritha’s younger sister, Violetta, was given to Ritha’s mom’s family as a bride price. When Ritha’s dad married her mom he didn’t have the money for the bride price so he gave one of their children later on. How sad is that? So these two girls had to work at a very young age. No one is going to let them stay with them without working for them. Ritha did not live with a Dani family, she lived with people from another tribe here in Sentani. So when she married her husband, he did not have to pay a bride price as that is a Dani tradition. But he paid Ritha’s parents some money anyways as he felt he should. He paid three million rupiah, which at that time, 10 years ago, was a lot of money. Violetta was raised by a Dani family. Their mother is Dani. So if Violetta should ever wish to marry, the family or tribe of the guy would have to pay a fairly hefty price to the Dani tribe in Wamena. The bride price can be 50 million rupiah or more!! I think it is usually not paid in money, but in pigs or something like that.

Bits and Bites...

*Today is Hugo’s 35th (yikes!) birthday. I’m ashamed to say that I have no early morning photos of us all with bed head and wearing pajamas, presenting Hugo with his gifts… We gave him a new leather wallet and a coffee maker. You can actually get some very nice coffee that is grown and processed locallu.
*Coincidentally, today we had a little party for the last day of preschool. We went to the Papua Trade Centre which is a 45 minute drive away (what we don’t do for fun around here…) and the kids got to play on this enormous bouncy castle and a separate bouncy slide. I have never ever seen a bouncy castle this big. Well, it wasn’t actually shaped like a castle but it had all kinds of things like little slides in it. Hard to explain and forgot my camera, hopefully someone else can give me photos… This bouncy business was conveniently located extremely close to the new pizza place. Upon our arrival at PTC we immediately inquired if they had ingredients to make pizza. (never ever assume that they do as all their stuff comes in by plane…) And they did! So, in honour of Hugo’s birthday and Marc completing a year of preschool (he’ll have to do another one as he doesn’t turn 5 until Dec 1 and the cutoff is Oct 15th) we had pizza for supper and it was delicioso!! What a treat! A rather pricey treat, but who cares!!
*Today was also a big day for our MAF program here. Today we celebrated 5 years, 21,000 hours, of accident-free flying!! We know that it is all from God’s hand. So we had a celebratory lunch at a local restaurant which was a big hit with the national workers especially, of course.
*MAF has been appealing to the government of Myanmar to let us bring in a couple planes but up until now all our requests have been denied. There is an MAF guy that is actually in the country right now working on this. We have an amphibious plane in Bangladesh that is in the process of going through a regular inspection and they are working as hard as they can to get it completed so that if the government changes its mind, they can be ready to go in. We also have an amphibious plane here that we have offered as well, but because of the length of time it is taking to get approval it is doubtful we will be able to bring it there as it too is nearly due for inspection.
*The locals around here, especially the kids, like to give nick names to the westerners that live around here. One couple is called Mr. and Mrs. Ronson. Ronson being the name of their dog… We are called Orang (people) Barat (West) Gereja (Church). They called all white people Orang Barat around here. In Bandung we were all called Orang (people) buleh (white). We are called the Western People of the Church because our house sits on the site where there was previously a chapel.

Bits and Bites...

Hugo arrived home safely yesterday morning bringing with him a box of Krispy Kreme donuts that he had bought in Jakarta. That is quite a treat! You can buy donuts here but they are not the same at all….
We had ordered a bed and side tables a couple weeks ago and they came yesterday. A couple things weren’t quite what I had expected but overall we are quite happy. But I feel like the princess from the fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” when I sleep on the bed. After sleeping on the floor for 8 months, I feel so high off the ground…
Now we have to retrain the kids so they don’t treat our bed like a trampoline anymore…

Photo 1 - The airvan that Hugo worked on. The colouring of the plane is different than the other one because this plane is owned by MAF Australia

Photo 2 - Hugo in his domain, the cockpit

Photo 3 - The plane Hugo worked on a couple months ago

Photo 4 - The coastline of Meulaboh where the MAF base is located in Aceh

Photo 5 - Here you see a lot of the houses that were built to replace those destroyed by the tsunami

Photo 6 - Our new bed...

Bits and Bites...

* Great news! Hugo was done the installation much quicker than anticipated due to a lot of wiring that he thought he would have to install, already in the plane! Yippee!! So if all goes well, flights on time and such, he should arrive home Tuesday morning.
* Hugo was also able to fix some problems that had come up on the aircraft that had worked on a couple months ago so that was great too.
* I have to say that this past week has gone very well. The kids have been great!
* The kids only have 2 more weeks of school! School will start again in August so hence the early finish to the year.
* We are thankfully having a bit of a heat wave these past couple days. I say thankfully because we had about a week of damp weather and then the mould kicks in... yeugck...

Bits and Bites...

I tried to post this yesterday already but alas the internet was not cooperating...

*Yesterday I bravely asked Ritha if she would ever consider marrying again. She said that she would rather not. And not because she really really loved her husband and couldn’t imagine being married to anyone else. No, she’d rather get married because about 85% (I’m very much guestimating) of the guys here are not faithful to their wives. Ritha doesn’t even know one single couple around here whose marriage hasn’t been touched by infidelity. Can you imagine??
Now that her husband is dead, his family wants her to marry another guy in their family that is also a widower with children. Ritha refused as she knows that combining two families is a very difficult thing, especially here. In addition, she doesn’t really know the guy. So because she refused to marry into the family again, in June they are going to discuss whether or not one of her children has to live with another family related to her husband. The thing is that her husband’s family basically bought her way back when they first got “married” so they kind of “own” Ritha. What a terrible situation! Ritha feels very sad about this and is rather sick and tired of her in-laws cultural traditions. (remember the 40 days of being stuck in the house and having to put up with the women and children sleeping at her house each night…) Please remember this little family in your prayers.
*Ice had a boyfriend a little while back. After some discussion with her I found out that he had forced her to do somethings she didn't want to. I feel so bad for the women here as this, again, is the norm. Women are only a object to be used by men as they desire. This "boyfriend" has gone to Wamena to study there and in the meantime Ice has changed her cell phone number so that he can't get a hold of her anymore. Ironically, her dad was angry about this boyfriend but not so much because he wasn't a good guy, but because he feels that he should choose her husband for her... Oh man....
*Hugo has made it safely to Medan where he is staying with our Kiwi friends from language school in Bandung. Tomorrow he will fly to Meulaboh where he will begin the installation on the aircraft. (He is already in Meulaboh and has started working...)
*This morning the kids gave me their gifts that they had made in school. Hugo gave me an alarm clock… hmmm… does that mean something?? Actually, I told him that that’s what I would like and there is a new kiosk in the mall that actually sells good ones. Of course it’s not a plug in digital one, they are non-existent here. In Bandung we were only ever able to find one digital plug-in the wall alarm clock. It comes complete with a thermometer and it plays a tune every time the power comes back on after it's been off… thankfully it stops doing that after 10pm…
*Wishing all you mom’s out there a Happy Mother’s Day! May God give you all you need to do your beautiful task!

Bits and Bites...

* Only two more sleeps and Hugo leaves for Aceh... sigh...
*I recently increased Aidan's dose of Ritalin and he had a really great day. Turns out I wasn't giving him nearly enough as body weight does play a factor...
*Aidan already gave me his Mothers Day present. He made a book for me with pictures that he had drawn about me. Most of the pictures were food oriented... :-)
*Christiaan is done with speech therapy. The speech therapist here feels that his speech is so good that he doesn't need to see her anymore. Yippee!!
*We have been getting a lot of rain lately. Often I'll wake up at 3:00 am to the thunderous sound of torrential rain hitting our metal roof... and then Brynnie will crawl in beside me as she has also woken up from the rain and is "scared".
*This year our MAF family conference is in the middle of July. We all go up to an interior village for 6 days. I'm on the food committee. I don't have to cook at all (thankfully) but we have to prepare the menu and then buy all the stuff we need. It's amazing, all the food gets cooked on wood ovens/stoves... I'll be sure to take photos when the time comes...

Today we had a potluck lunch with all the MAF folks here in Sentani. The purpose was to say good-bye to those families who are leaving the field and returning home, the seniors who will be moving onto university or college and also a number of families who are going for summer furlough. That is the nature of life here; people are always coming and going. I guess you just kind of get used to it.

Fun Times...

Hugo and I are back from our 2 night-3 day get-a-way at the beautiful Swiss-Belhotel in Jayapura. (The 4 oldest kids stayed with friends and Brynnie stayed home with Rita and her daughters) Located on the ocean-front, the Swiss-Belhotel offers a stunning view of the harbour of Jayapura where you can watch container ships being unloaded, well, all day if you wish. From the other side of the hotel you are treated to the view of the street in front of the hotel and the crumbling, or, in the process of being built, concrete buildings. The hotel is like an oasis, it really is. This is actually the only hotel around that we would voluntarily stay at. It is actually really quite nice.
We drove to Jayapura on our motorbike and not 15 minutes into what was feeling like a wobbly ride, our back tire was flat… What to do? We asked a guy what we should do and he said to ask his friend for help as he had some dead fish that needed to get into a fridge. So we asked the friend and after much discussion and deliberation, it was decided that as I was the lightest person I would sit as far forward on the seat as possible and drive it to the nearest tire repair place while the guy gave Hugo a ride and followed behind. So we putt-putted our way to a tire repair place. The guy didn’t even want any money for helping us. What a guy! Well, we needed a whole new tire so the tire guy went out and bought us a tire and put it on the bike along with a brand new Honda brand inner tube… And off we went and the ride was much smoother after that….
Our first evening we dined next to an anatomically correct Papuan man… wooden carving… Yikes, it is best to view this carving from the front where his shield is strategically located… Unfortunately, there was no lettuce, so salads were out. But they had plenty of chicken and freshly caught fish for the grill, yummy! Sadly, they were also out of ice cream so we were forced to walk to the nearest StarMart to fulfill that craving… For lunch the next day, we drove to a town about 15 minutes away and ate at a new pizza place there. This restaurant, which decorated in only black and white giving it a sterile feeling-so unusual for here, was started by a man (can’t remember his name) from Victoria. It’s called Sarpino’s and the colours and logo look suspiciously like the Panagopolous logo. The pizza was amazing, fresh mushrooms (WOW!!!) and other fresh veggies and a crisp salad of iceberg lettuce on the side (WOW!!!-iceberg lettuce in Papua????). Okay, you get the idea…
Then we walked the streets of Jayapura. I would liken it to playing a game of Mario Brothers. Watch out for the open pits of sewage water and garbage, look out for the hunks of concrete scattered around and the pools of beetle nut spit. Watch out for that scary guy following you… Ignore that weird guy calling out to you… Watch out for that motorbike!! We saw no other white people the entire time we were walking around the city. You feel as though you are an alien, especially when you see people nudging their friends and looking over at you… Anyways, we did manage to find some nice little gold hoop earings for Brynnie. She’d still been wearing her piercing studs which are not gold. There are lots and lots of people buying and selling gold in Jayapura. We bought from a street vendor because half a gram of gold from them was 35,000 cheaper than from a store. No taxes or rent when you’re a street vendor. The gold is 23 karet here. In South Papua there is the world’s largest single gold deposit at the Freeport Mine. I guess that would explain the big gold market here.
Each morning as we left our hotel room and walked through the hallway, we were treated to the chirping of birds. The night before we left they came and made up our bed (yes mom, I didn’t make the bed…) and left a little bag of chocolate on top of a survey they really, really wanted us to fill in. I told them I was quite happy with the hotel, but that the orange carpet in the rooms really had to go… Okay, it was dark orange but still rather reminiscent of the 70’s…
Fun times in Jayapura! Have a great weekend!