Fun with Telefomin Friends
The Christmas Party for my Telefomin Church Fellowship Group. We had such fun and shared lots of food together. I am blessed to have these friends & neighbours!
Eliptamin Women’s Conference
The Women’s Conference in Eliptamin at the end of June was a wonderful experience. I praised God with bush women from 14 language groups and, with help from some friends, gave out education, encouragement and “Days for Girls” Sanitary kits to 100 young women.
Collecting Gravel
With the help of our local friends, we spent the day moving gravel from the river to the MAF base in preparation for the maintenance team laying new cement in our passenger waiting area. We all got soaked in the afternoon rain storm!
Easter Weekend
We had a fun and busy long Easter weekend with visitors, a picnic, Easter Egg Hunt, meals with friends and a visit to one of the local villages. Lots of fun but it ended with saying goodbye, as things so often do in our life in PNG…
Weekend up the Mountain
After a busy month of May, preparing the house next door for our new neighbours, we were really grateful to get away for the weekend with some of our friends in Mt Hagen.
Sending the Love!
Thank you! For every one of our dear friends, family & supporters who have ever sent us a piece of mail, thank you so much!
As much as I miss mail, I would still advise to not send us post this year, but I just wanted to say a really warm & heartfelt thank you to all of you who have made the effort to go the extra mile in the past, it really made the distance between us feel less! Thank you and God bless.
Telefomin Base Christmas Party
We celebrated Christmas as a Telefomin Team with most of the families together. We shared lunch topped off with a big treat of ice cream! As none of our local colleagues have fridges or freezers this was a big novelty. Our Base Manager, Lucy, brought a big box from Mt Hagen and we stored it in the freezer of our empty transit house before cracking it open for the celebration.
Telefomin Family
We are very blessed, living in Telefomin!
This is some of our local family who help us maintain the gardens and look after the MAF houses.
We don’t have time to maintain the MAF gardens and clean the empty houses, so these lovely people come and help us regularly, and bless us with their time, skills and friendship.
Getting the Grass Cut
We are responsible for cutting our own grass and looking after the garden in the MAF transit house next door.
This lovely team came from Ankem Church, just down the road from us, and worked for 3 hours to tidy all the fiddly bits using bush knives. And they didn’t even do it for money!
Shiv’s Birthday Celebration
My birthday’s on Tuesday this year, so we celebrated a little early as Ryan is flying on Tuesday and we don’t have any expat neighbours for me to have a birthday tea party with.
As I expected, no post from overseas arrived in time, although I know some is coming! However, my Parents-in-Law sent my birthday card with us from Canada and I have some wonderful friends in PNG who sent me cards and gifts.
So, even though this was an unusually quiet birthday with no friends around, I feel throughly spoilt and extremely blessed, thanks mostly to my wonderful husband!
Unexpected Guests
Last month, we had Fiona, our Finance Manager, plan to pay us a visit in Telefomin for 2 nights. As we had 2 members of our Maintenance Team staying in the MAF transit house, I arranged for Fiona to stay in one of my absent neighbours’ houses. We like to provide a meal to our MAF visitors, and as Fiona is Gluten intolerant, I made Pumpkin Soup & Gluten Free bread. Then, mid-afternoon, Ryan called me over the radio (the mobile reception was out!) to tell me that the Wewak pilots (Brad & Andy, pictured) were stuck on the ground in Eliptamin waiting for the weather to clear up. Their flying programme had them coming to Telefomin next and as they had been on the ground for so long, it was likely they would run out of daylight and not be able to make it home to Wewak…
New Ground Power Unit
When we landed in Mt Hagen, we were greeted by our old friends and neighbours, Paul (pictured, front), the Fuels Coordinator, and Nawi (pictured, back), the Ground Ops Trainer, who were ready and waiting to plug the new Ground Power Unit (GPU) into our aircraft and help with the loading. What awesome team work, helping out when things get busy at the MAF PNG HQ!
KETCHUP - CATCH UP!
Last week we held a 4-day gathering for all of the MAF PNG, in-country expat families. “The KETCHUP” was a chance for all expats to gather, get some spiritual input and share in some overdue fellowship. As our expat colleagues are based in 4 different locations, it is often a long time between visits, so this was a wonderful opportunity to meet the new families and have time to support and encourage each other.
Click to see more pics and find out a bit of what we got up to.
Friendship Across the Ocean
Whilst we have been away, my sisters and mothers who attend the Saturday morning Ladies’ group at our local church in Telefomin, have been praying for God to protect us and bring us home. When I was able to re-join them last week I was told by many of them how they had prayed for us and how they were so glad we had brought the MAF plane home to Telefomin. We had a lovely time of singing worship songs and sharing together, as-well-as lots of hugs! It’s so great to be back with the ladies who literally welcomed me with open arms!
Sunday up the Mountain
After a week in Mt Hagen which included a very loud party at 4am on Saturday morning, and a rock-fight in the neighbouring field on Wednesday evening (which was ended when the police shot tear-gas into the crowd), our Sunday afternoon at Rondan Ridge Lodge, overlooking Mt Hagen, was not only a welcome respite, but very relaxing.
We enjoyed a lovely lunch with our friends the Glass and Coker families, followed by a board game and a little walk amongst the animals. Ray even got to enjoy the Lodge with us (he is pictured in Shiv’s lap).
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!
We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend with two other Canadian families, one with MAF and the other who works for a local tourism company.
Ray enjoyed the leftovers!
Mushrooms!!!
Simple pleasures can be a huge blessing!
Our friend, Glenys who is a pilot based in Goroka, kindly arranged to send some locally grown Oyster Mushrooms on the MAF plane to some of us in Mt Hagen (My friend, Mandy is pictured with me). This is only the third time I have seen fresh mushrooms in my 6.5 years in PNG! Usually we just use tinned ones, so this is a lovely treat.
Sunday Afternoon Games!
I (Shiv) had a very fun and relaxing Sunday afternoon playing our new board game, “Palace”, with my dear friend, Sharlene. However, she beat me in both games! ;-D
We’re only in Mt Hagen for the next 10 days, so I’m making the most of spending time with friends here!
Meeting my old Guard, James!
When I (Shiv) lived on Kum Road in my single days, James was our compound day guard who would also keep the garden tidy and even wash my car on occasion. His smiling face greeted me when the work bus returned to our compound at the end of the day.
When Ryan & I got engaged his wife very sweetly made me a Hagen-style bilum (string Bag) saying “I (heart) PNG” and she made Ryan a Hagen-style wool hat. These gifts are very traditionally part of PNG wedding ceremonies, know as the “Bride Price”, so we were honoured and blessed to receive them.
Since we moved out of Mt Hagen, James left one security company and went to work for another one, so we haven’t seen him much. It was lovely to see his smiling face again!
Saturday fun with friends…
Most of the MAF ladies currently in Mt Hagen spent Saturday morning glass painting, thanks to Fiona, who brought all the glass painting pens with her from the UK last year.
It was a fun time to spend together and rather novel to do a different activity whilst sharing a cuppa!
As we will only be in Mt Hagen for a couple more weeks, I (Shiv) am trying to make the most of these lovely social opportunities.
Click on the picture, left, to watch a video of our friend, Nurse Rhema, one of the local health care workers who MAF supports and we fly out of Telefomin.