[Sanford News] Going Bush: Day 5

News from Lane and Karrie Sanford - Papua New Guinea

9.29.06

Well we finally arrived here in Gergering village. The trip was fun
and thankfully everything went ok and we arrived safely. Here's a
brief play-by-play...

The Trip

Our flight left Hoskins around noon on Thursday and we flew straight to
Kandrian. It was cloudy and rainy but we still landed safely at the
airstrip. The kids all slept on the flight so that made it pretty
peaceful. I was having flashbacks to growing up in Venezuela and
flying around in the little Cessna; it sure was fun. After arriving in
Kandrian we drove down to the guest house and the house of the supply
buyer that supplies all the south coast works in the islands for NTM.
It happens to be right on the coast and so we had to spend a little
time fishing on Friday while we waited for our trip on Saturday (hey,
its rough but someone has to do it).

On Saturday we left in the morning on the supply buyer's boat with
us, Lujans, Rory Fuller (our orientation coordinator) and our supplies.
We rode about 2 hours in the boat up the coast until we came to the
trail that leads into Gergering. There were about 30 of the tribal
people waiting for us to help carry all the cargo in. It had rained a
bit, so the trail was fairly muddy at points, but overall it was real
nice hiking. We crossed about 4 small rivers, most of them only about
waist deep and were actually nice to cool us off. The kids did great.
They were carried by tribal people the whole way which really was a lot
safer for them in the slippery mud. Here I am with all my fancy hiking
shoes, etc, and I am slipping all over the place and the barefooted
tribal guys walk thru it as if it was concrete (and with a heavy load
balancing on their heads!) It is really totally embarrassing how
pathetic we are when we enter their domain. It took us about 3 ½
hours and was a pretty flat hike, but we were still sore when we got
there. The Lord gave us great weather for hiking - nice and overcast
to keep us cool. At one point it started to drizzle a bit but never
rained. Literally minutes after we got to the house it started pouring
with rain - I mean a torrential down pour!

The Rat

We got here to Gergering and helped Rory get their house cleaned up and
we spent the first 2 nights there with him. After walking thru the mud
and rain, we all needed a bath. We cleaned up the house and bathed and
soon after we all went to bed. The next day was Sunday and we went to
church. The Lamogai tribe now has over 10 indigenous churches that are
all functioning on their own. It was neat to be with them and see them
teaching and exhorting each other. They actually gave all of the
teaching in the Lamogai language and Pidgin so we could understand.

That night we went home and before we went to bed Rory called me back
to the laundry room. When I got back there he was in the middle of a
rat hunt behind the washing machine. He had trapped a rather large
rodent (I am talking the size of a small dog) behind the washing
machine and enlisted Chris and I to help him "deal with it". We
finally got the thing out and managed to "relocate him". It was
pretty fun to go on the hunt and see a true bush rat. Unfortunately we
didn't get a picture to prove the size - trust me, this thing was
like a wooly mammoth with teeth like a shark. If you only could have
seen it...

Our Place

Today we cleaned up the other missionary's house where us and
Lujan's are staying. So tonight is our first night in our own place.
Hopefully tomorrow we can get finished settled in and get out to be
with the people a bit. I am looking forward to talking with them and
seeing how they function as believers out here in the middle of
nowhere. Please continue to pray for us as we try to progress in our
Pidgin study too. We still hope to get to where we need to be in the
language so we can go on survey in November/December of this year. We
would covet your prayers for all of the preparations for this!

We will try to give you another update in the next few days. Thanks
for your prayers and support!

Lane & Karrie Sanford
New Tribes Mission - Papua New Guinea
email: lane_sanford@ntm.org
web: www.lksanford.blogspot.com