I’m racking my brain for news to write about…
Well, they’ve started repairing our road again. A number of months ago they were working hard and filling the potholes and making nice cement drainage ditches alongside the road when suddenly the work ceased. Ice tells me that the people in charge are given plenty of funds to complete the project but a chunk of those funds tends to mysteriously make its way into the pockets of those in charge. What’s new??? The other night I heard a funny sound like someone banging an empty water bottle. So I went outside and took a look. There were about four guys working on a pothole by the light of a single headlight from a car. One guy was holding a can of tar on a string and periodically hitting it so the tar would sprinkle out. Today there was a guy out driving a big roller doing something up the road from us. I don’t know what his big plan was but he was in the middle of the road when I went by and I barely had room to pass him on the “shoulder”. I guess we’ll see how far the work progresses this time.
Last Saturday I went alone to Bible study. It was held in the home of our pastor who lives down the road from us. They live in an older two storey wooden home owned by the ZGK (Dutch Mission). We sat in their “living room”. Actually, we sat on the wooden floor. Inside that room there isn’t a stitch of furniture or anything on the walls. There is a bare bulb on one side of the ceiling and on the other was a hanging lamp. Against the one wall is a large tv stand housing a 21 inch tv and various players and satellite receptors. Sitting in front of this set-up is a large VCD (video disc) player situated on top of a hunk of Styrofoam and the box that the satellite receiver came in. Beside the whole lot are two very large speakers. By the time the Bible study was finished, my neck and bottom were about as sore as they can get… By skin colour, I was the only white person there, but I didn’t feel like it. For that I am very thankful! We are, after one year of attendance, beginning to feel like a part of the church.
Last week one of the MAF pilots had to make a medivac flight for a little girl who was badly burned when her family’s honai (grass hut) caught fire. She was brought to Timika to one of the better hospitals on the island and received treatment. It was because of an “M” family living in their village that she was able to be medivaced and receive treatment.
And Ice has malaria again… So tonight I went to her house and watched her down 5 pills in one swallow. At least I hope she downed them all…

I've had these photos of our gudang (storage area) in my photos preshrunken for blog posting folder but hadn't posted them yet. This is some of the kind of stuff that we deliver to villages around the island. Some of the boxes contain The Book that has been translated into a native tongue.