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.
Ray the working Puppy
Ray has been coming into the office with Shiv once a week. He really enjoys seeing all the PNG staff and wondering from office to office. He’s very well behaved but sometimes he gets in the way of the door and has been bashed a few times.
Simulator Flight Training
This week Ryan is doing flight training in the new Red Bird C208 Caravan simulator with fellow pilot, Corné, from the Netherlands. Because of COVID, the MAF trainer based in Cairns isn’t able to come to do the training in person, so a couple of the pilots have managed to rig up cameras, speakers and a microphone. It’s a great set-up, until power or the internet goes wonky, as it is often inclined to do in PNG. But the training is progressing and Ryan should be back in a real cockpit at the start of next week!
Sunday Service at KBBN
We visited KBBN Church with some friends on Sunday, where several MAF families attend regularly. It was not your standard PNG Church, they had a projector which displayed words to the songs, until the power sadly went off. The Pastor gave a really well structured talk and we enjoyed being at a Church outside of town, in the fresh air.
I (Shiv) especially enjoyed singing some older hymns which I haven’t heard in a while! I’ve included a little clip in this post…
Manual Writing
Whilst we may be stuck in Mt Hagen for longer than we wanted, this is giving me (Shiv) the opportunity to work closely with some of the Mt Hagen Ground Operations team to get some headway in writing the manual I’ve been working on for far too long!
Pictured are Levis (left), a Senior Traffic Officer, and John, the Cargo Officer, who have kindly given up some of their time to measure the C208 Caravan for me so I know the maximum dimensions of cargo that we can carry, and they explained the cargo registers, which they are holding up.
Back at Church in Mt Hagen
Today we had the privilege of singing praises to God in the local language, Tok Pisin, at Kiminga Baptist Church in Mt Hagen. We were the only expats in the congregation, but it felt so comfortable and familiar.
Family Afternoon Out
On Saturday afternoon we borrowed a MAF vehicle (ours is waiting for a part) and drove up to Ronden Ridge, about half an hour outside of Mt Hagen. There are beautiful views of Hagen and it’s very peaceful up there. But our main reason for going was to visit the spot where we first said “I love you” about 4 years ago. 😍 The rock in the stream where we had a picnic is still there, pictured just over Ryan’s right shoulder! Happy memories!
Ray the dog seemed a little confused with his new backpack, but he’s an old man now, he can’t keep up with us on walks like he used to. The backpack means he can still come with us for a bit of fresh air and exercise!
Ryan also found an empty Cicada shell, click below to see the pics.
Brief Update for RBC
Attached is a brief update we wrote specifically for our family at Ruislip Baptist Church, but we thought we’d put it on our blog in case others find it useful. It includes some prayer points.
First visit back to Telefomin!
Ryan got to visit our home and friends in Telefomin yesterday, as part of his observer flying before he gets back in the Captain’s chair.
Sadly, he couldn’t stay, he only got an hour on the ground, just long enough to pop to our house and pick up a few things to bring back to Mt Hagen, but he was so encouraged to be able to see the village which we call home!
Shiv has to wait until October to see Telefomin again.
First day back in the “office”
Today was our first day at the base & HQ in Mt Hagen. Ryan spent the day studying and Shiv had several meetings with Ground Operations staff to work on her manual.
There were 3 MAF C208s sitting on the tarmac waiting for a pilot! We hope to be able to take one back with us to Telefomin before the middle of October!?
Catching up with PNG Friends!
To celebrate our release from quarantine (and Mandy’s birthday, pictured right, centre) we went out for dinner on Wednesday evening with some very dear PNG friends.
At the top of the table are pictured Brandon & Sharlene who have been looking after our dog, Ray, for 5 months!!!
Quarantine is Over!
On 1st Sept, 14 days after starting our quarantine, we received official notification from Port Moresby, that we were allowed to be released from quarantine! We have kept a record of our temperatures whilst in quarantine, we’ve had no fevers and shown no symptoms of COVID-19 so we are now allowed to move around as normal, whilst observing social distancing, of course.
We’ve also been reunited with our dog, Ray who is going to be spoilt so much over the next few days!
We’ve moved out of the MAF quarantine accommodation to make space for another Canadian family who will be returning to PNG next week. They got stuck on holiday in Australia when the borders closed.
Stuart King - Legend!
Mission Aviation Fellowship co-founder, former RAF Flight Lieutenant and Normandy Landings veteran Stuart Sendall-King, who died over the weekend, aged 98, was one of the early pioneers to take light aircraft to the remotest parts of Africa in the aftermath of World War II.
It was my (Shiv’s) privilege to meet Stuart King and follow in his footsteps, leaving my service with the Royal Air Force to join Mission Aviation Fellowship!
Read more about this legend on the MAF-UK Obituary page https://www.maf-uk.org/stuartking
Half way through Quarantine!
We’ve been in quarantine for a week, just 7 days left until we can go for a walk outside and Ryan can start flying again!
We left Canada a week ago!
And what a busy week it’s been, traveling around the world!
We are now comfortably in quarantine where we will stay until midnight on 1st September. We’re still suffering from jet-lag, despite staying in hotels en-route, but Ryan has started studying for his flight tests and Shiv has started some of her work too.
Thank you all again so much for your amazing support and encouragement over the past couple of months!
We have arrived in Papua New Guinea!
With ALL of our baggage! :-D
Thank you all SO much for praying us around the world, there we’re so many things which could have gone wrong, but nothing did and we are finally home with all of our luggage. Amazing!!!
About to start our UN Charter Flight.
We met up with our colleague, Fiona, (Pictured with us, socially distanced, of course!) in Kuala Lumpur and we’re all waiting to check in for the UN Humanitarian Charter flight to Dili, Timor Leste and Port Moresby, PNG!
We are so close now! Please continue to pray that there will be no problems on this leg, that our bags will all make it onboard and be offloaded at Port Moresby!
When we get into PNG, we won’t be able to post any details as we need to respect the PNG regulations, but we will let you know we are there as soon as internet access allows. We should be landing just after 3pm PNG time, 6am UK time, 11pm Alberta time!
We’ve Arrived in Kuala Lumpur!
Our 3rd flight, from Doha, Qatar to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was very comfortable. Only 8 hours and only approx. 26 passengers on a Boeing 777 which has a capacity of over 300!!! It almost felt like a private jet!
We have met up with our colleague, Fiona, so it’s great to know, despite all of our various travel challenges, we will be getting on the next flight together! We have a 20 hour layover here before we get on the UN Humanitarian charter flight.
Thank you for praying us around the world, only 1 more flight before we are back in PNG soil!!!
Breakfast at 6pm???
We had a restful sleep in the Airport Hotel in Doha and now we’re having breakfast before we get onboard our next flight, to Kuala Lumpur. This is the first time either of us have stayed in a hotel during a layover, but as we were stuck here for 27 hours, we are super glad we did as we feel so much more rested than we would have felt on a reclining airport chair.
International airports are not cheap places to visit so we’d like to say a massive thank you to the lovely people who have sent us financial gifts recently, you have reduced one of the stress factors of travel for us! Thank you!
Two Flights down, two to go…
We have safely made it to Hamad International Airport, Doha, Qatar! We’ve been up for almost 24 hours straight, but we’re trying to get our body clocks on PNG time.
We have a 27 hour layover here in Doha before we catch our next flight to Kuala Lumpur, so we’re heading to the airport hotel shortly. We don’t have to collect our baggage here, but that means we have no guarantees that our bags made it here with us…
Please keep praying for our journey and our luggage! Thanks!!!
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.