Andrew's UKARUMPA

10 years in PNG!

2012-01-27T21:20:00.003+10:00

10 years ago today, (January 27th), I first set foot on PNG soil. I don't remember much of that day, I had started out from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore, (where I had a 22 hour layover and dozed in the observation lounge of the airport), and then finally to Port Moresby. I was very tired--as I recall, one of my new colleagues who I had met in Singapore, proposed spending the day in a local hotel to get rested up before our next flight to Madang that afternoon, where we would go through Wycliffe's Pacific Orientation Course.

Anyway, it's been 10 years since that day. A lot has happened in that time, but I'm as sure of my calling now as I have ever been. This is where I am supposed to be, and this is the work I am supposed ot be doing. Sure, it's frustrating some times, and life might be easier somewhere else, but we weren't called to a life of ease, were we?

Ahhhhhh, Brisbane.

2012-01-17T08:11:00.003+10:00

Ah, it's nice to be back in Australia. We left the US a few days ago and had a mad series of flights between Tampa, Florida and Brisbane, Australia. We were delayed by weather on our first flight, which meant that we missed our connecting flight in Atlanta, which meant that all of our subsequent flights were shuffled around and rearranged and what we ended up with was somewhat different from what we started with, and included what must be one of the longest commercial flights on Earth: Dallas, Texas to Brisbane in 15 hours and 15 minutes or so.

Anyway, these few days in Brisbane have been great, to me it feels like maybe only the second time we've really relaxed since we stopped in Hawaii after leaving PNG back in June. Today, however, we leave and fly back to PNG. We're planning to spend the night in Port Moresby, then tomorrow on back to Ukarumpa!

Here's a photo from the archives, me back when I was still single, riding a borrowed bike (US spec 1987 Honda XL600R) to Madang for Christmas holidays with friends back in 2004, (I think?).

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-21T01:35:00.004+10:00

So about a week or two ago we had a couple of inches of snow at our place in Tennessee, which was nice for Levi to see, since it was his first snowfall. Since we seem to live mostly in our car, I decided to just decorate that instead of a house. That's a real wreath on the grille, made out of branches of real trees.

There were lots of Christmas decorations going up in that area, (the Stoney Creek area outside of Elizabethton, TN, if you are familiar with that part of the USA), but I think my favorite was this shockingly blue tree:

The photo really doesn't do it justice. The look was heightened by the fact that there were no other exterior lights and the curtains were drawn in the house behind the tree.

We are back in Waxhaw again now. Between my last post and this one we were back in TN, where I made another trip to the motorcycle junkyard and picked up another load of useful parts to ship to PNG. I also met up with a couple of old friends who each gave me loads of parts that they had been squirrelling away for me, good stuff. Then we crammed all of this stuff into the Mighty Explorer, (glad I installed those air adjustable rear shocks-we really needed them in order to handle the load), cleaned the house we had been staying in, and headed south again. We're here in Waxhaw for a few days, then will head to FL on Christmas Eve. While here, we'll drop off all of the motorcycle parts to be shipped to PNG, so we shouldn't be so heavily loaded for the trip to FL.

It's good to be in Waxhaw, TN was good, but I'm glad to be back in a place where we have good internet access (rather than having to drive 15 miles to a McDonald's parking lot to use the Wifi) and a reliable cell phone connection.

We're all looking forward to Christmas and I think we're all starting to look forward to getting back to PNG!

Waxhaw!

2011-12-05T12:34:00.002+10:00

Okay, so today we piled into the Family Ford and pointed the grille, (now festively decorated with a Christmas wreath in good Tennessee mountain tradition), towards Waxhaw, North Carolina. Waxhaw is where the JAARS Center is. For those who don't know, JAARS, (used to be an acronym for Jungle Aviation And Radio Service, now "JAARS" just short for "JAARS" I guess), anyway, JAARS specialises in technical support services for missionaries serving overseas. JAARS provides aviation services, communications services, computer support services, land transportation support services, etc., etc., lots of stuff. Among the things they help us out with is shipping items overseas from the US. We are here this time to get a small crate loaded up to go to PNG, mostly loaded with used motorcycle parts, but also some other bits and bobs that we have picked up here and would like to have in PNG.

Anyway, the contained is being sealed tomorrow afternoon, so we have to get our crate all packed up and turn in the manifest and other paperwork. It should get to PNG sometime in February or March, maybe April. I can't complain about how long it takes, my first shipment to PNG took nearly 10 months, (long story) and the worst I ever heard about was a poor missionary in Peru whose crate arrived 11 YEARS (!) after he had made arrangements to ship it from the US.

We'l only be in Waxhaw for a couple of days, then back to TN for a couple more weeks and then back to FL!

very quick update

2011-11-24T04:09:00.002+10:00

We made it safely to the US, beat the old Explorer into shape and made it safely to Tennessee. We're living in a house with no phone, no TV and no internet, so we only check e-mail every couple of days when we come into town and use the Chick-Fil-A WiFi.

My airplane seat was wretched in 100 ways.

The seats in the Explorer are comfy, the whole car is comfy and nice to drive, especially after I fixed the front sway bar. The rear springs seem a little tired, I am planning to install a set of adjustable air shocks so that it can better deal with missionary-family-on-furlough loads.

More next time!

Westward, ho!

2011-10-31T08:56:00.002+10:00

Tomorrow we fly! London to Tampa, about an 8 hour flight in a Boeing 777. I think this might be my first flight in the Triple 7, not sure.

8 hours of pure misery. Horrible seats, screaming baby and wailing little boy, too much luggage, trying to avoid overpriced "help" in Tampa airport, etc. I like travelling, I even like airplanes, it's just airliner seats that I loathe and despise.

All in all, I think I'd much rather travel by airship. That'd be cool. What a relaxing way to travel that would be! (Most of the time--I'm sure that things can get pretty hairy in an airship, too.) But how cool would it be to be living on a big airship for a few weeks while you travel from place to place around the world? Maybe have a hammock to sleep in, maybe a comfy chair to lounge around in, maybe an observation deck to stroll around. Ah, bliss!

Once or twice in my life I've had the opportunity to fly first class or "business plus" class for free. Man, that was nice. But to fly anywhere now is so expensive even for cattle class that upgrading to anything better is pretty much out of the question.

Ah, but I'm complaining. I'll stop.

It'll be good to see Mom and Dad Koens again! They haven't met Heidi yet, so naturally they are looking forward to that! Levi is excited about going to see them, too. Tonight when I tucked him in to bed he said, "I want to go to Oma-n-Opa's house NOW! I don't want to go to bed!"

So, while in FL, I need to beat our car into shape and then hit the road, north to North Carolina and Tennessee!

St. Saviour's, Brooklands, we must be south again

2011-10-25T08:19:00.003+10:00

Scotland was great! I really liked it--it seemed really cold at first, but while helping my new friend Adrian clean up the grounds outside his late 17th century castle/manor (it doesn't really fit into either of those categories in my mind), I got used to the cold and wet and eventually found myself working outside in my t-shirt and jeans, in weather that would normally have me dressing in many layers.

I was pleased to be offered the chance to eat haggis, since I generally like to sample the local cuisine wherever we go. I liked it, and would happily eat it again.

We hung around up North (it's always capitalised on the motorway signs i.e. "this way to The North"), for a week or so, staying in Scotland for 3 days, then in a place near Keswick for a few more days, from where we visited friends of ours working with Operation Mobilisastion in Carlisle, (I also took the time to visit Carlisle Castle--which is a "real" castle, and worth a visit if you are in the area and are into history and castles, as I am). We drove up into Scotland a second time to meet up with some friends for the day, visited the Castlerigg standing stones, visited the Keswick Illusions Museum, where we took this photo:

Naturally, Levi didn't quite understand what was going on, and the camera angle isn't 100% perfect, so the effect is a little bit spoiled, but you get the idea.

After all that we took the longest road trip we have yet done in the UK, and drove all the way down to Guildford, (south of London, The South), where we have friends and where we were scheduled to speak at St.Saviour's, the church where we were married. That was a long drive, as both kids were really unhappy, Heidi screaming for a lot of it and Levi crying inexplicably. Poor kids, they must be really sick of constantly moving around, and who can blame them?

So this last Sunday we spoke 3 times at St. Saviour's, (both of the morning services and the evening one) and also made ourselves available for a special seminar on Bible translation that was put on after the evening service. It was the first time that we've had four things at one church in one day. All went fairly well. We are used to using a lectern/podium, so when we were given a hand-held microphone that threw us for a loop as we suddenly had to figure out how to shuffle our presentation notes and the microphone around. But like I said, all went well, we got the message out about who we are and what God has us doing in PNG.

Today we spent most of the day with Clare's folks who drove down from north of London yesterday to visit us. We went to the Brooklands Museum, where I got to see all kinds of cool stuff, mostly pre-war racing cars and bikes, but also some airplanes, including a replica of a WWI Vickers Vimy bi-plane bomber that over the last 15 years or so has flown California to Ireland, UK to Australia, and UK to South Africa, all at the blazing speed of 75 mph, and remember that the Vimy is an open cockpit aircraft. It sounded like a fantastic adventure and one I would love to have been a part of. Maybe one day Levi and I will drive the Land Rover back to the UK or the US from PNG. That would be a similar kind of adventure.

On the Road Again....

2011-10-10T06:13:00.003+10:00

Yep! It's that time again! Time to load up the Mighty (Battered) Demio and move house again. It's pretty easy this time, as Levi is staying the weekend with Granny and Grandad, so we can use his seat as a place to put stuff.

And so, we bid a fond farewell to the "Moffat B" flat here at the Wycliffe Centre, oganising our goods and chattel into our various suitcases and army duffel bags, (and one big, old wooden chest!) cramming them all in, and heading out first to the petrol station to fill up the tank and the tires, and then to Clare's parents' place in Barnet. Once there, we plan to off-load a lot of the cargo from the holds of the good ship Demio, pick up our cabin boy, (Levi), and point our bow to the north.

We have several places to visit, but will eventually end up in Scotland before we turn south again.

3 weeks left in the UK!

Stop! Heidi Time!

2011-10-08T03:03:00.004+10:00

Okay, so I wasn't sure about a daughter at first--I know that I didn't have a say in the matter, and I know that we couldn't exactly send her back, so obviously I knew as soon as she was born that we were now the parents of a girl, but still, at first I was surprised and asked myself the question, "what in the world are we going to do with a DAUGHTER?!" All of this ran through my head in just an instant. In mere nanoseconds I went from "Oh, no! A girl!" to full acceptance. And then to fatherly love and wondering how in the world I could ever have thought anything other than "Hooray! It's a girl!" All in the twinkling of an eye.

Anyway, here's a couple of photos of Heidi with Daddy. These have been shown in other places, I know, but there are those who will see them here who won't see them on FB or in our newsletters:

She's still pretty nocturnal and keeps Clare up a lot at night. Levi is getting into the spirit by showing up in bed next to me every morning around 4:00 a.m., I'm not sure what that's about, as I don't usually wake up except to help him get under a blanket, at which point I fall asleep again until he decides to start singing sometime later.

In other news, we are leaving Horsleys Green in a few days! Yes, we are getting ready to do a big UK road trip up north all the way to Scotland, then back south all the way to Guildford, then back north a little ways to Barnet, and then off to the US on the 31st!

I won't deny that this time in the UK has been hard for me--it's hard for me not to have any tools, no access to a workshop, and nothing interesting to work on. We lacked funds to buy interesting projects or tools to work on interesting projects, I had the wrong kind of visa to be able to work with the maintenance guys here at HG, and we don't have a place to store anything that would have been interesting to work on when we leave, (I'm thinking of an old car or a motorcycle).

I am looking forward to our road trip, however. We have several friends to see along the way, so that will be great.

How to make an American

2011-09-27T06:12:00.004+10:00

Okay, so as with our first child, we decided to get both US and UK citizenship for our daughter. I feel that this gives our kids as many options as possible for the future, plus it means a lot less hassle when we travel to the US or to the UK as they each have a legal right to live in either country without needing a visa.

Here's how it went this time, and this is copied from an e-mail I sent to a friend of mine about it:

We went into London to get Heidi's US passport and citizenship. We bought an all day pass for the underground so that when we were done at the Embassy we could on and do other things.
So our appointment at the US Embassy was for 8:30 a.m. (!) which meant that we had to get up around 5:00 so that Dad Noble could take us to the train station and we took a train into London. I asked Clare why we were doing it this way, she said that just driving into London you have to pay a 10 pound "congestion charge" and then you'd still never find a place to park. Fancy that! Just to drive into London will cost you $15-16! Anyway, I agreed to ride in on the train, even though train tickets cost $21. Each. So...can't drive to London because it will cost us $15 to do so, (plus fuel and parking--bringing the total up to maybe $30), so we'll take a train, which will cost us $42. On the other hand, we did have all day passes for the Underground, so we could concievably have travelled all over London until midnight, or at least until the trains stopped for the day. So ultimately it probably was a good deal.

Anyway, back to the Embassy--we got there in time for our appointment, but naturally we had trouble at the guard shack--before we left the house, I purposely removed any pocket knives that I was carrying, (it's an MK thing to carry multiple pocket knives--they are just so useful!). However, I left my Swiss Tool on my belt and there was another little Swiss Army knife (a little one--only half-a-dozen tools in it--the "Tinker" model for those who know about such things), in the ruler pocket on my carpenter's jeans that I forgot about. No big deal, I've been to US Embassies in other countries before, you always have to leave stuff like that at the guard shack, no problem.

Except this time it was a problem. I went through the usual rigamarole, emptied my pockets, took of my belt, dumped my biker wallet and chain, my camera and my small LED torch, (another thing I always carry), a handful of UK coins (and a few of the big old PNG Kina coins that I usually keep in my pocket to give to interested people) and my Swiss Tool and Swiss Army Knife--both 100% UK and USA legal to carry in your pocket--into the tray. I was perfectly happy to leave any or all of this stuff with the guards in the guard shack, subject to their discretion.

Suddenly there was a problem. The guards--all of whom were armed with real weapons as I recall--picked up my little Swiss Army knife and inspected it carefully. Finally one of them held it up and said to me:
"Sir, you'll have to dispose of this outside before we can let you in."
"Excuse me?"
"You can't bring a knife into the embassy."
"I don't want to bring it into the embassy, I want to leave it here with my camera and stuff."
"Sorry sir, can't do that. Nothing with a blade." (Also bear in mind that these guys had already decided that my Swiss Tool was perfectly okay, even though it technically has locking blades, which are a big no-no in the UK, though on a Swiss Tool they are completely legal, I know because I've looked into it, and Swiss Tools identical to mine are available for legal sale to the public within the UK at most camping equipment stores.)
"You've GOT to be kidding me."
"No."
I picked up the Swiss Tool and held it side by side with the little Tinker--"Explain to me why this Swiss Tool is okay, but the little tiny Tinker isn't."
The guard looked at the Swiss Tool. "Oh. Can't bring that in either."
"Ummm..." So now I'm wondering what I'm supposed to do--am I supposed to go outside and dump these things in the trash? Was I supposed to go away and come back some other day when I wasn't carrying anything in my pockets? What exactly were they expecting from me at this point? I had no clue, other than that they were apparently expecting me to go all Matrix on them with a 3 inch long Swiss Army knife blade.
"Ummmm..." I'm looking around helplessly. Suddenly, after what felt to me like several decades, one of the guards remembered to help me:
"Sir, there's a chemist's up the road a little ways where you can pay to store these items."
"Huh? Where is it?"
So they gave me directions, and I couldn't see the place from where we were, which gave me a Bad Feeling. But I was out of options, so off I went to try to find it. Clare went on to the appointment without me, (I was really wondering how THAT was going to work--I had visions of her sitting in an office with my passport trying to prove that yes, her husband really was an American. Or at least, he claimed to be an American and had a US passport, though yes, he had actually spent almost 1/2 of his life to date outside the USA.) So she went on ahead, (she had already passed through the metal detector anyway), and I hoofed it for the chemist's.

Thankfully I managed to find the place with no trouble, though if I hadn't been looking for it, I never would have seen it. As I walked in, I passed an Indian fella sitting at a little desk. I started to pass another one, but he stopped me and asked what I needed.

"I'm going into the US Embassy and I need to store some items before I go in there."
"Yes sir, I can help you." A soft spoken man, with what I think of as a typical Indian accent.
"Okay, umm..." (I've never done this before, why does everybody simply expect me to know what's next today?)
"Will your items fit into this bag, sir?" he holds up a small grey poly bag.
"Yep. No problem." I held up a Swiss Tool in its sheath and a small Swiss Army knife.
He puts the knives in the bag, then asks me what they are so that he can write it on the label.
"2 Swiss Army knives."
Hesitation. He'd gotten as far as writing "2 x " Surely he's heard of a Swiss Army knife? He pulls the Swiss Tool out of its sheath, sees "SWISS TOOL" engraved on it.
"There you go!" I said, "1 Swiss Tool and 1 Swiss army knife." no problem, right?
More hesitation. Finally he writes "Swish" So now the label says "2 x Swish" his pen is still hovering over the label. It seems clear to me that he is unwilling to write "army" or "knife".
"Okay, how about '2 x Swish tools'?" I prompt.
Finally he finishes the label, now it says (sic) "2 x Swish Tolls".
"That will be 3 pounds, sir, sign here and pay at the counter."
I look up and suddenly realise that the place is full of Americans all dumping stuff before going into the US Embassy. People storing cameras, laptops, etc., etc. There's a list of prohibited items going around and another Indian guy advising people as to what is and what isn't allowed in the US Embassy. I hear American accents all around me and I realise that this place is doing a land office business storing things for Americans for a few hours each. I don't see anybody else dropping off Swish Tolls, though. Honestly, I was in a bit of a hurry, so somebody could have been dropping off a bazooka or a Sherman tank and I might not have noticed it.
So I paid at the counter, got a claim ticket and fast walked back to the Embassy. This time I made it through the guard shack without incident, and casually mentioned to the guards that the chemist's shop seemed to be doing a big business in storing stuff for Americans, "Yes, sir, they do, sir."

I followed the arrows to "Citizen services" hoping to eventually bump into Clare and Heidi. The arrows directed me halfway around the main building on the outside, then finally into a huge set of doors. I should mention at this point that the US Embassy in London must have been a very modern and imposing building back in the 1960's. There is lots of metal that isn't quite brass or copper coloured, and for some reason it feels to me like it should be in an Asimov book. Anyway, it looks rather dated and shabby now. I let myself in and found myself standing in front of a huge desk and once again I was unsure where to go next. A lady at the desk asked,
"Can I help you. sir?" (I think she was an American, can't remember for sure right now.)
"Well, I'm looking for my wife and small baby...." I would have said more, but there was no need.
"They're waiting for you up those stairs, sir."
"Thanks."

I followed the stairs up to a large waiting room and found Clare sitting in the middle of the room. Apparently they tell everybody that their appointment is at 8:30, so though it was around 9:00 now, she still hadn't been called, though she had, apparently, been assigned a case number. I mentioned to her that the lady at the desk had told me where to find her, she told me that she had told the lady at the desk to be looking for "a Large American who might come in looking for his wife and small baby" and had asked her to tell me where they were.

Okay, so eventually our number was called, we went to one of the several windows where they were serving people and completed Step One of getting Heidi's US citizenship, then were told to go back and take a seat.

After a while we got called to another window, talked to another person, who directed us to another window, where I had to pay $100, then go back and take a seat. Guess that was Step 2.

After a while we got called to another window, talked to yet another person, who quizzed me on what I had written on my sworn affidavit concerning all the places I had lived both in the US and abroad, names of elementary schools I went to, states I lived in, etc., all stuff that I did when Levi was born and foolishly forgot to re-study before going in this time. At any rate, my answers to the pop quiz about my life were good enough, she decided that I was an American after all, so she sent me to another window, where I had to pay another $100, and then had to take another seat.

After a while, we got called up again, were warmly congratulated for succeeding in getting Heidi her US citizenship and passport approval, and were finally told that we could leave.

I admit that I was, perhaps foolishly, surprised that I had to go through all the same rigamarole for Heidi as I did for Levi in Australia--I guess I really thought that once I had proven my citizenship and succeeded in passing that on to one child, that I should be able to do the same again with no hassle for a second child, but no. I suppose it is possible that I could end up succeeding in proving that I am a citizen for some of my kids but not for others.

So after that we hopped back on the Underground, (after first going to the Chemist's to pick up my 100% UK legal 2 x Swish Tolls), and headed off to Greenwich. Yes, the same Greenwich that is the home of Greenwich Mean Time. We wanted to see the Cutty Sark, the last of the Tea Clippers, but it was closed for renovation, (they even had the masts off of her!), so instead we went to the National Maritime Museum, which at least was free. It wasn't spectacularly interesting, though it did have a lot of interesting old personal artifacts. They had the uniform that Admiral Nelson was wearing when he died on display there, (he was a little guy!) and they had an old record breaking speedboat there, the Miss Britain III, which set a 111 mph world speed record in 1935 that stood for 50 years or something. It was a cool looking boat, all polished alumin(i)um. I got some good photos of it:

Before we went there, we had lunch at a nice pub, "The Spanish Galleon" named after a Spanish galleon that was captured in the early 1600's and brought back to Greenwich--(it was one of the few pubs we've been to on this trip), wandered around Greenwich a bit more, then headed back to Clare's folks' place.

So that's what we've been up to!

10 years and one day ago

2011-09-13T03:08:00.003+10:00

10 years and one day ago, I was in Tennessee. I had already quit my job in preparation for going to PNG in January, (2002). I was awake, but still in bed when my Mom called and left a message on my machine. She told me that an airliner had crashed into one of the twin towers and that some people were wondering if it had really been an accident or not. I turned on my TV, and a few minutes later, the second plane hit, and all doubts about whether or not the first had been an accident vanished.

I had been living in that house for 7 or 8 years and so had accumulated a fair amount of stuff in that time. I dug out every TV I could find, (this came to a total of 3 or 4 TV's) even a little Sony Watchman that somebody had given me, and tuned in all of the major networks at once. I also turned on two radios to different stations and then watched and listened in shock as the story unfolded, watched in horror as people chose to leap to their deaths live on TV rather than burn to death, and continued to watch long after the towers eventually fell.

I shifted my attention to whichever TV was showing scenes of Ground Zero rather than some idiotic talking head spouting gibberish. I believe it may have been the only time that any news event has ever reduced me to tears. I was on my knees in my living room, crying my eyes out and not even certain what I was feeling.

If war had been declared the next day, I would have joined up. I was 28 years old and felt that I had something to contribute. Emotions were running high all over the country and everybody was banding together against a perceived threat. I even sent out an e-mail to my supporters telling them what I was thinking, and got e-mails in return encouraging me to follow where God was leading.

Eventually, things calmed down and life went on into a new kind of normal. When I left for PNG the following January, there were still National Guard units stationed at the airports, guys with rifles who watched me (and anybody else who was travelling) carefully from the time I arrived to the time I left--it was a lot like what I experienced in South America in the 1980's, actually. I had a 21 hour layover in Singapore and I was afraid to leave the airport, as I didn't have a boarding pass for my next flight and when I had left the US they weren't letting people into the airports without boarding passes. So I slept on a bench in the observation lounge at the Singapore Airport.

During my language and culture training in PNG, Spetember 11 was all anybody wanted to talk about, and I sat around many a smoky cook fire under many a thatched roof hut, talking long into the night with the young men of various villages about the motivations for the attacks.

There was a theory in my village was that I was a refugee from America, who was fleeing the war after the Philistines had attacked my country.

Anyway, that's where I was 10 yeas ago!

and speaking of MK's, here's a new one...

2011-08-30T07:55:00.002+10:00

And she's only an hour old or so in this photo! Yes, our second child has finally been born. Heidi Lorraine Koens. She was born at 1:20 p.m. today at the birthing centre just a few miles from where we are here at Horsely's Green (England, for those who came in late). She weighed 7 lbs. 14 oz. and was 22 inches long. The delivery was long and difficult, but without complications, other than the fact that Heidi was facing the wrong direction. Her umbilical cord was wrapped twice around her neck, but as it was the longest umbilical cord the midwives had seen in a long time, (over 3 feet long), there was minimal danger to her on delivery.

I may talk more about this another day--right now I am beat and am going to bed.

For Those Who Came In Late...Part IV

2011-08-23T05:37:00.004+10:00

"Okay, so what about your kids? How do you justify taking them overseas and effectively denying them the opportunities that other kids in your home countries have?"

Ah, good question. So far, we've got one little boy, Levi, and one baby due any day now, (we don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet). Children of missionaries are usually referred to as "MK's", (Missionary Kids). I know a lot about MK's, because I am one, (or "was one" if you prefer--though once you've got it, the MK title usually sticks with you for life, sort of like OBE, or Ph.D. "Andrew Koens, MK".)

Back to the question--let's examine what life is like for an MK. Naturally, what an MK gets out of his experiences depends largely on what he puts in to it and on what kind of person he is, (I hope you'll forgive me for not saying "his/her" or "he/she"--I have a limited amount of patience for that kind of silliness in writing, and I expect my readers will know what I mean). So!

Many PNG MK's will admit that they don't have access to the following:

--amusement parks,
--video game arcades,
--movie theaters/cinemas,
--malls,
--sporting events,
--satellite TV,
--cheap high speed internet,
--fast food chains,
--the latest fashions in clothing and hairstyles,
--the latest music,
--concerts,
--a chance to get a paying job,
--fast cars/bikes,
--etc., the list could go on and on.

But most of those MK's will also tell you that they've never missed any of these things, (oh sure, you get the odd one who hates his life and is determined to be miserable), but as I've already said, what you get out of being an MK depends a lot on what you put in to being an MK. Besides the usual things that are common to all MK's around the world, like learning to eat strange food, learning to wear strange clothing or learning local language and customs back-to-front until they become second nature, most of the MK's I know in Ukarumpa are pretty creative in one way or another:

--some build their own go-carts from bits of broken motorcycles,
--others make their own clothing or jewelry,
--an extraordinary number of them are talented musicians.
--some write,
--some paint,
--some take advantage of the high school workshop to become decent carpenters or metal workers,
--some will participate in the weekly soccer game.
--some will get into rugby.
--some are pretty good photographers, (and PNG presents the skilled photographer with no end of interesting subject matter to shoot).
--Some PNG MK's will get ahold of some old car and will learn how to keep it running on next to no money.
--Many ride motorcycles, some will organise motorcycle trips to the cities of Lae, Madang, or Mt. Hagen (I've been involved in a number of these). Some get involved in local off-road motorcycle racing or trail riding.

(PNG MK Palmer B., out having fun on his bike)

--Some get into horse riding and will even get involved in small scale horsemanship competitions.
--There are opportunities for those who are interested in acting, (I've been in several community theater productions myself).
--there are several talent shows each year,
--the topography around Ukarumpa is good for paragliding, so some will get into that,
--many will come up with creative ways to make money like making ginger beer or rhubarb beer (non-alcoholic), baking cookies, running a small scale dairy, providing needed services like cleaning out water storage tanks or cleaning hot water system solar panels, car washes, babysitting or dog sitting, to name a few.
--some will travel out to a translator's language group and will help out with cooking or babysitting while the translators are busy teaching a course in the village
--many will learn a sense of responsibility quite early in their lives,
--most will develop meaningful and lasting relationships not only with Papua New Guineans, but also with their MK peers, who come to PNG from all over the world,
--most, after leaving PNG, are likely to travel to other parts of the world as time and money permit--the wanderlust never quite leaves them,
--many will end up with a deeper appreciation of their home countries; both for what those countries have to offer, and for the problems that face those countries.
--most will end up with a global world view, a better then average understanding and appreciation of different cultures and how cultures can impact relationships between people,
--and again, this list could go on and on.

This is not to suggest that an MK's home-country peers are in any way inferior, or are not capable of all the same things that an MK may be capable of. Far be it from me to suggest that. It's just MK's live so much of this stuff first hand. Their knowledge is based on life experience, and the nature of their lives often demands that they learn things that "normal" kids simply don't need to. The reverse is also true and there are lots of funny stories out there about MK's who went back to their home countries and couldn't figure out how to get a driver's license or open a bank account, as they'd just never had to do that before, or were used to doing that kind of thing in a very different way, (most end up landing on their feet, though).

The parents aren't left out, either. In addition to the many things I've learned about and from PNG and PNGians, I've also learned a ton of stuff about and from my fellow missionaries. Strange non-PNG food that I have learned to like are Vegemite (Australia), and salmiakki (Finland--though this one wasn't too big of a stretch for me because I already liked dutch dubbel zout), and pickled kumquats (China--okay, nobody taught me to like these--I found them in a local store and bought them on a whim--I loved 'em!). Some of my best friends now are Australians, Kiwis (New Zealanders for those who don't know), and Finns, (and of course, Papua New Guineans!). Over the years I have worked closely with Koreans, Germans, Dutch, Japanese, Swedes, and others and have gained an appreciation for each of their different approaches to the work we're all involved in.

So you see, I don't look at the mission field as a place that lacks opportunities for kids; I look at it as a place that offers a whole different set of opportunities. Speaking to my own experiences, I've never once regretted the fact that I grew up in Peru and didn't have the same opportunities my peers in the US had. I treasure the upbringing I had, and I wouldn't trade it for anything! As a kid, I loved being an MK.

And it's still true today, though slightly different--as a kid I loved experiencing a life that was different from anything my American peers were experiencing. As an adult, I love being involved in the work in PNG. Even though there are some aspects my job that frustrate me nearly to tears from time to time, I still plan to keep doing it for as long as we can. I look back on all the jobs I had before, and although I did love one or two of them, none of them can hold a candle to the one I have now. Yes, there are some things I would dearly love to change about my work, (for example, I'd love to have at least three guys doing my job, as there is more than enough work for three men), but the satisfaction of knowing that I am supporting something worthwhile, something of potentially eternal significance and not just fixing toys for people who have too much money, is priceless to me.

End of Part IV

For Those Who Came In Late...part III

2011-08-17T22:07:00.008+10:00

"Okay," I hear you saying again, "now we know LOADS about YOU. What about the better half of this team? What about Clare?"

When Clare arrived in PNG in May of 2005, I had already been there for nearly 3.5 years. Clare came to PNG to teach in the Ukarumpa International School, Primary Campus. I met her in the first week that she was in Ukarumpa, and while I won't say that it was love at first sight, there did seem to be a mutual attraction from early on. Eventually (Dec. 2005-Jan. 2006) we started dating and in July of 2006 I had the opportunity to meet her parents in Australia. Once I obtained her parents' blessing, (which was important to me), I asked Clare to marry me. We were married in England in Feb. 2007.

(The happy couple in Feb. 2007)

Before we were married, Clare taught the year 2/second grade class. After we were married, she became the vice principal/deputy head of the primary campus. In early 2008 she became pregnant with our first child, Levi, who was born in November of that year. She continued to work at the school until early October, when we left for Australia, where Levi was born. I have already described the other reasons why earlier in this blog, (check the archives back in 2008), but after losing a couple of babies born in our clinic back in the 1980's--babies that would have been saved in countries where more health care options were available--our organisation made it a policy that expectant mothers were required to go to Australia or to their home countries to give birth.

Returning to PNG after Levi was born, I went back to work as usual (but with fewer late evenings at the shop) and Clare started doing part time school work from home during Levi's nap times and in the evenings. She specialised in researching and ordering supplies for the school through the internet. She also did short term teaching jobs, like teaching a beginning music class.

Clare continues to be active in the school, though less so now with an active toddler! She is involved in recruiting new teachers for the school from other countries.

(active toddler Levizilla, recently spotted rampaging through the small English village of Bekonscot...)

I am very thankful for my wife and family. Being single in Ukarumpa wasn't bad at all (most of the time), but I am glad that part of my life is behind me now. Clare capably handles all the things that I find tiresome about the missionary life, like finances, travel arrangements, and--while on furlough--speaking engagements, and she does it happily.

(Clare happy in Ukarumpa)

End of Part III

For Those Who Came In Late... Part II

2011-08-12T03:43:00.005+10:00

"Okay great," I hear you say, "so now we have some idea of how you got to where you are, but we're still fuzzy on what you actually DO. From your blog it looks like you just live in the middle of nowhere and play around big army trucks and build motorcycles." (Hopefully my blog is a little more informative than that.)

But the question is a good one. What do we do in Ukarumpa, and why do we do it?

In simplest terms, I fix machines, primarily machines used by people who are translating the Bible in Papua New Guinea. There is a lot of Bible translation work to be done in Papua New Guinea Out of around 800 seperate languages on the Papua New Guinea side of the island, (yes, around 800, I don't think that anyone knows the exact number, as a lot of language survey work is still being done), anyway, out of those 800, there are some which will very likely never have the Bible in their own language, as they are dying out for various reasons. I could be wrong, but I think that translation work is currently being done in about 200 languages (by Wycliffe and other organisations combined), and there are still at least 300 languages where no translation work has even started yet.

Once upon a time, Bible translators working in remote locations needed very few machines. Usually all they needed was a way to get out to the place where they were working, and it usually took them 20-30 years to translate the New Testament. In many places, translators were (and still are) responsible for keeping local airstrips open, which mean that large, heavy duty lawnmowers were needed. In some countries, translators got involved in community development projects, (at the request of the people they were working with and with the blessing of the local government), and so other machines were needed, like pumps, chainsaws, small tractors, etc. Sometimes, a translator would come into an area where the people already had a few machines, and would often help the people to keep them running, (that is to say, he would ask people like me to come help him to keep them running!).

Then in the 1980's, computers came along and greatly sped up the work. Now, instead of writing all the information out on 3"x5" cards and keeping it all in shoe boxes, information could be stored on discs and accessed quickly and easily. At first, computers were kept in central locations within the countries where translators worked, as they were too fragile to travel into remote areas and too difficult to keep running in areas that had no electricity.

As time went on, computers became smaller and more portable and translators began to carry computers with them out to their language areas. Naturally, as there was no electricity to be had in many of these areas, small generators were needed. When utility ATV's were invented in the late 1980's, some translators started using them to get around on the trails in the rugged, roadless terrain where they were working. Some translators had already been using dirtbikes to get around, (I know one translator in PNG--recently retired--who wore out several bikes in the 50 years that he worked in PNG, starting with BSA and Matchless bikes before he got his first Honda in the early 1970's). All of these machines greatly sped up the work of Bible translation; the time it took to translate the New Testament was virtually cut in half.

But unfortunately, these machines also all required maintenance and repairs from time to time. And unfortunately for them, most translators are not good mechanics. Some of them are, but most of them have devoted their efforts to being good translators, (which requires a good chunk of brain wattage, by the way), and simply don't have the time to be constantly fiddling with broken machines.

So that's where I come in. Joe Translator brings his broken or ailing machines to me, (or he transports me to his language area by road, air, or sea), and I do what is needed to keep everything running.

(a big Honda engine off of a large, heavy duty airstrip mower all apart on one of my workbenches. This one died from improper maintenance, but I was able to rebuild it. It worked well for several more years after this photo was taken.)

The obvious question that you should be asking right about now is: "why are YOU needed? Why can't JT just bring his machines to a local mechanic?" And that is a very logical question. The simple fact of the matter is that, in PNG anyway, there are very few good mechanics. It's not uncommon to see machines that are only a few years old already dead and decayed because nobody knew how to fix them. Good mechanics are few and far between in Papua New Guinea, and replacement parts for any machine are also very hard to come by.

So my job now becomes a little more complex than simply removing broken parts and installing new ones. I may find myself working on a Japanese motorcycle one day, a chinese throw-away generator the next day, a heavy duty German diesel engine on a pump the next day, an antique British diesel generator the next, a Swedish chainsaw later that day, an Indian copy of something British a week later, a Turkish or Egyptian copy of a Japanese generator after that, etc. You just never know what is going to get dragged into my shop, and getting parts for them can be a real challenge. Thankfully, we have decent internet access in Ukarumpa, so I am able to find a lot of things online. We have contacts in the US and in Australia who are able to buy parts on our behalf and ship them to us, which makes life a lot easier than it could be.

Sorry, I guess maybe I'm rambling a bit--I like my job and I like the unique challenges it presents me with (most of the time!) and it's easy for me to get lost in the minutiae when talking about it.

(in Bougainville with a translator and his at-that-time-future-son-in-law. We are figuring out why there was suddenly smoke rolling out from under the hood and are rigging up a new wire to replace a burned one.)

End of Part II.

For Those Who Came In Late... Part I

2011-08-11T07:16:00.004+10:00

Every now and then I find it beneficial to remind people who we are and what we are doing. This is especially true while we are on furlough and more people are visiting my blog!

To borrow a phrase from the old Phantom comic strip whenever the writer wanted to remind people of Phantom's history: For Those Who Came In Late...

My name is easily found here on this blog, so we won't waste time on that.

I first felt called into missions when I was 10 years old. At that time, my parents had just moved the family to Peru, where my Dad was working as an aircraft mechanic for a small missions organisation based in Florida and working exclusively in South America. At that time, I knew that I wanted to use whatever God had given me in the same way that my Dad was doing, supporting missions in a very practical way.

As time went on, I discovered that I, too was mechanically inclined, as they say, and I eventually became a motorcycle and small engines mechanic, though I was never afraid to work on any other machine when I needed to. In high school, still in Peru, I learned how to use a lathe, how to weld, how to design and build my own parts from scratch when necessary, sometimes making changes along the way in an effort to make a machine work better for a specific purpose.

(me, my friend Richard, my brother Peter, Peru, 1990)

After high school, I returned to the US with a plan to get whatever schooling I needed to get as fast as I could in order to return to Peru within 4 years tops. Through the generosity of a family friend, I was able to attend a year of Bible school, but my grades weren't the best, and my very kind, very generous friend very justly decided that her money was not being invested wisely and decided not to help me anymore.

I left school and went through a period where I drifted from job to job, apparently aimlessly. In the back of my mind, I still had a burning desire to get back into missions and to use my skills to support the work of other missionaries. I even knew that I wanted to work for Wycliffe Bible Translators, as the goal of translating the Bible was one that I could support without reservation. But I wasn't sure how to get the training I needed, and I wasn't even sure what kind of needs there were. I remembered mechanics in Peru who were good at fixing everything, working on a 4x4 one day and a refrigerator the next, but I had no idea where to go to get general Mr. Fixit training.

I began to despair. I began to believe that I would never get the chance to go back to the mission field, and that the Lord must have some other life for me, something undoubtedly humdrum and boring. I knew that I could get a loan for school if I needed it, (and I would have), but I just didn't know where to begin, and I was very much opposed to being in debt.

In the meantime, I was drifting from job to job; I had a 40 mile rural paper route, I worked in a nursing home doing linens-type laundry and waxing and buffing floors, I worked in construction for a brick mason, I worked in a small print shop, I worked in a huge warehouse, and finally I got a job at a motorcycle shop where I had been trying for years to get in. During all this drifting time, I did the odd motorcycle or car repair job on the side, while also repairing and maintaining my own old clunkers, (I used to brag that I had never spent more than $400 on a car). What I didn't realise was that I was slowly getting the education I had been looking for.

About a year after I got on at the motorcycle shop, I attended a Wycliffe Associates Banquet with my brother and a friend of ours. We were all interested in missions, but at this point in my life, I had resigned myself to the apparent fact that I would never be a missionary myself and had started to ask God to give me a "pet" missionary to support, one who was doing the kind of work I wanted to do so badly. At the time, I was 24, maybe 25 years old.

While we were seated at our table, my brother noticed a piece of paper laying out that had a list of job that Wycliffe was looking for people to fill. "Hey, look at this," he said to me, "they need motorcycle mechanics." "Yeah, right!" I said. I didn't believe him, I thought he was just messing around with me. "No, really," he insisted, "Look!" So I looked and sure enough, "motorcycle mechanic" was on the list.

I could hardly wait for the banquet speaker to finish his presentation. As soon as it looked like he was done, I got up and made a bee-line for him, and asked him what I had to do to get into Wycliffe. He agreed to send me a preliminary questionnaire, and the rest, as they say, is history, though it took me a few more years of applications, training, etc., before I was actually assigned to PNG.

End of part I

(Andrew in PNG, the early years!)

Tourist Visa Forces Lifestyle Mod

2011-07-23T03:08:00.008+10:00

Okay, so here I am in the UK. Because I'm an American here on a tourist visa, I am not allowed to work for money, and even volunteer work could put me at risk of being told to go away, and furthermore could make life difficult for anybody who decided to employ me.

So I'm here, and some days I get a little bored. I'm a mechanic. Not just a mechanic who fixes thing for pay or for a good cause, I fix things because I have an innate need to fix things (cue the superhero theme background music). I fix things not too put food on the table, not to pad my wallet, not in hope of recognition or fame, but because I must. Keep your vile monies! I MUST FIX MACHINES!

So I was wandering around the place where we are staying, having run out of little mechanical things to fix around the house, and I came across a small pile of dilapidated bicycle parts. After a bit of a rummage, I realised that there were a lot of interesting parts around, and that with a little work, a ridable bicycle could probably be built. I started with this old Peugeot Esprit road bike frame, which I liked because it was huge and because it reminded me of an early 1900's bicycle:

And this old Puch ladies bike. It had obviously been sitting outside unused for many years--there was a lot of rust, (the chain had a big spot that was rusted solid, for example), but there were some things I really liked about it, like the three speed rear hub and the drum brakes:
"Wait a minute!" I hear you saying, "Three speed hub and drum brakes?? Don't those date back to the early Iron Age?" Well, yes, such technology is more or less obsolescent, but it has two redeeming features: 1.) internal gear hubs and drum brakes are quite reliable, and 2.) they require very little maintenance.

Normally, I hate working on bicycles, because they tend to be loaded down with all kinds of fiddly little bits that are fragile and always seem to be in constant need of adjustment. I find bicycle caliper rim brakes to be a pain, and deraileurs to be a serious headache. In fact, these things have probably historically been among the biggest barriers to me ever owning a bicycle, (the fact that Ukarumpa is all steep hills doesn't help either).

So here was my chance to build up a bike that had none of the things I hate most about bicycles; how could I not build it? Naturally I didn't have any tools with me, but in the saddle bags of one of the dead bikes in the junkyard, I found a 10-way combination wrench/spanner, and that was enough to get me started. Over the next few days I collected a number of other tools, mostly really cheap junk, but hey, I don't know yet where to get good tools, and I'm not exactly swimming in cash.

So the Peugeot frame ended up with the wheels, control cables and levers from the Puch, as well as the handlebar grips. Other bits and pieces come from other bikes. The Puch also happened to have an old Brooks B66 leather cruiser saddle on it, (to buy it new would cost $150-$200 USD), so I snagged that as well. It was a bit moldy from sitting out in the weather for so many years, but it's still more comfy than what was on the Peugeot frame.

I knew I wanted a simple bike, and I knew that I wanted a sitting-up riding position, so with these goals in mind, I removed the mudguards/fenders, lights, luggage carrier, and brake calipers and those horrible deraileurs and all their associated controls from the Peugeot frame, and installed the drum brake wheels (which appear to have stainless steel rims!) and the Brooks saddle. The drive chain came off of one of the other bikes out in the junkyard. I couldn't figure out how to get the handlebars off, (the bolt that holds the stem in place is rusted up tight and I can't get it to move with the tools I have), so I just flipped them over and made do. I stuck the handlebar grips from the Puch onto the ends of the bars.

None of the tires in the junkyard were any good. The local supermarket had 20", 24", and 26" tires/tyres, but the Puch rims are 27", so I ended up having to order some new tyres on-line. The supplier accidentally sent me 26" tires, so while waiting for him to get his muddle sorted out, I went ahead and put a rotten old set of tyres on with new tubes, (mistake).

I wanted to be able to ride at night, so I put a headlight and tail light on it. I happened to have a rear wheel mounted dynamo/generator as well as a front wheel mounted generator/dynamo, so I went ahead and installed both of them, the rear one powers the rear light, the front one powers the headlight. Simple and reliable, no fragile wires running all over the frame.

Here's what it looks like today. I was out riding it last night and again today, but while I was stopped and talking to somebody, the rotten rear tire let go and the tube blew out, (sounded like a pistol shot, which oddly enough made me miss the days when I used to be able to go out and shoot in the backyard in Tennessee), so the rear tyre is flat in this photo:

So now I'm gaining a bit of a reputation as a bicycle mechanic, but the truth is that I'm pretty much only interested in building things that are simple and reliable, which means that deraileurs anyway are pretty much out. I might be able to do something with rim brake calipers, but ugh! I still don't like them.

So I guess I'm a bit of a bicycle rider now. Worse things could have happened to me, I suppose. I haven't ridden very far yet, mainly because I didn't trust my tires, but once my new tyres and tubes get here and are installed, I look forward to riding farther.

I'm thinking of brush painting my bike all black to enhance it's "I found this in my great-grandad's barn" look.

An Unexpected Move & How to be Large and Drive a Microcar

2011-07-08T01:42:00.007+10:00

So, our first place here at the Wycliffe Centre at Horsely's Green was alright, we got the lights sorted out, we were adjusting to the weird fold out sofa bed, etc., the only fly in our ointment was the living room furniture--it was apparently designed for normal people rather than large men and heavily pregnant women, so we asked the housing folks if there was any chance of getting a either a.) a different bed so that we could use the fold-out one as a sofa in the living room, or b.) a larger and more comfy sofa. The next thing we knew, we were being moved out of the Fraser A flat and into the Moffat B flat! Moffat B is a bigger flat and is more comfy in some ways, though it lacks the high-ceilinged charm of the old flat. Anyway, we're happy.

In other news, here's an illustration of how to Be Large and Drive a Microcar. Yes, according to Wikipedia, the Mazda Demio is considered a micro-car, so that explains why I have to drive with the sunroof open so that I don't bump my head on the roof. Truthfully, I only bumped my head on the roof for the first couple of days, then I found a knob on the side of the seat that adjusted the seat height. Naturally, I adjusted the seat height all the way down and got myself some headroom, though I lost some legroom. To compensate for the loss of legroom, I switched to driving MK style, (a style I prefer anyway), barefoot, right big toe controlling the throttle. NOW we're getting somewhere! I admit it, I am becoming a little fond of the old Demio. It is surprising how much stuff can be crammed into this car, though the rear suspension becomes overwhelmed fairly quickly and then the car feels all squirrelly on the motorway.

This is only the second car I have ever had that had a sunroof, and the first one I ever had we bought just the day before we left the US a couple of weeks ago, (there just happens to be one on the old Explorer we bought). Sunroofs are great!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the reports from Ukarumpa continue to be encouraging! It seems as if maybe the local criminal element really has experienced a change of heart. We have seen photos of huge amounts of food that have been given to our co-workers there as an expression of apology for the past several years of stealing. Here's hoping that we can go into the future as good neighbors in the Aiyura Valley, with a mutual respect and understanding for each other.

Back in the Green and Pleasant Land

2011-07-02T21:06:00.006+10:00

So we landed in England a few days ago. Our flight from the US was delayed by two or three hours as the plane was struck by lightning on its way to the US and needed to be carefully inspected before it could be cleared to fly back to the UK. So we had some extra time to say our tearful good-byes to my folks before leaving.

Anyway, we landed at Gatwick and were met by Clare's parents, who were excited to see us, especially Levi, who they haven't seen since they met us in Australia in October of 2010 for a short holiday.

Jet lag wasn't quite as bad this time, it's only a 5 hour time difference from the Eastern US.

For the first couple of days we stayed with Clare's folks in their house. Dad gave us a car to use for the time we are in the UK:

After leaving the in-laws, we moved to the Wycliffe UK headquarters at Horsley's Green near High Wycombe. Here's what the front of our flat looks like:

History buff that I am, I asked about the history of this building and was told that it was one of several originally built here in 1940 as a place for Londoners to send their children to during the Blitz, (like some of you, I immediately thought of the Pevensey kids from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe!) After the war it was turned into a what would probably be called a "juvenile detention center" in the US (!) so the place has had a colorful history even before Wycliffe acquired it.

Our flat is old, but reasonably comfortable. I like the high ceilings and I was pleased to see how many radiators there are scattered around the place, as we will still be here when it starts to turn cold outside. There seems to be a problem with the wiring as only one of the lights works, but when we told the maintenance people about it, they immediately came over and started working on it. Unfortunately, even though they were here until after 10 pm they weren't able to fix it, though lots of progress was made determining where the problem ISN'T! :) Anyway, they got us some nice lamps to use in the meantime, so all's well.

We have lots to do here in the UK, including having a baby! I think that I am actually glad that my visa won't allow me to do any work here, (including volunteer work).

Meanwhile, back in Ukarumpa, we are getting some very encouraging reports about the security situation there--apparently a group of people who have been directly responsible for much of the criminal activity in our area have decided to turn from their old ways. They have issued a very impressive apology to those who they have wronged, including a huge gift of garden food! Perhaps the tide has turned and we are at the beginning of a time of greater peace? Only time will tell, but the outlook seems promising to me right now.

Strider Lives! And Meet The New Guy.

2011-06-28T12:10:00.006+10:00

So! Strider the Ranger is alive and kicking and better than ever. Well, at least better than he has been since I first met him in 2006. I got the new transmission installed, put the exhaust all back together, put new fuel in the tank, brought the tires back up to the proper pressure, etc. and took him for a spin to Wal-Mart and back, (I didn't dare drive any farther because my registration expired 3.5 years ago).

Anyway, Strider lives, but is still too small for our family. So I will probably end up selling him, but probably not until we come back to the US in the fall. Dad had a nice aluminum cap from back when he had a Ranger and so I put that on the back of Strider, thinking maybe the cap might boost his value a bit on the used car market. I really liked this truck. I admit that at first I wasn't too thrilled about the small wheels, but at one point I experimentally put a set of tall tires on there, (ones that came from the old police car I junked out back in 2006), and they felt really scary to me because I was used to the better acceleration of the smaller ones, so I switched back. I do like the offset better than the stock rims. They are wide. Wide enough that I think that they might be messing with the front suspension geometry.

So now meet the New Guy. New Guy is a 1996 Ford Explorer 4x4. Originally a top spec Explorer, New Guy is showing a few signs of wear and tear, but appears to be a basically sound old car. Certainly better than the other similarly priced Explorer we looked at, which was only a 2 wheel drive and which had a "CHECK ENGINE" light that stayed on all the time. New Guy has lots of things that normal people care about, like power windows and door locks and ABS, air conditioning and dual front air bags. Things that I quite literally couldn't care less about, but there you have it, it's hard to get simple cars anymore! I do like the sunroof, though.

You might be wondering why I chose to get a 4x4 SUV. Well, we were originally looking for an RV, simply because an RV would allow us to live life more or less normally while travelling. I realised one day while driving here in FL with a very gumpy toddler screaming in the back seat that travelling with kids could well end up being very difficult, so I was hoping to find a cheap RV that would allow Clare and the kids to live life in the back, watching TV, eating snacks, etc. while I got on with the business of driving us from FL to MI and back again. Unfortunately, most of the RV that we looked at in our price range, ($1,000-$2500, and there were a surprising number in that range), were in pretty rough shape. All of them were advertised as "running" and yet, none of the owners were able to get them started, mainly because nobody wanted to spend the money on a new battery to get them started. So, because I didn't have time to do a lot of fixing up on an RV, I reluctantly let them all go and decided to get an Explorer instead.

Why an Explorer and not a Blazer or a a similar Japanese car? Well, I do all my own work on our cars and I'm most familiar with Fords and Very Olde Land Rovers. I was impressed with the Ranger (Strider) that I drove all over the East Coast in 2006, so I decided to get something of similar vintage and technology so that I wouldn't have to spend a lot of time learning how to work on it. Besides, Explorers are well supported in the aftermarket.

While I did not initially go out looking for a 4x4, I was happy when this one came up for sale, as we'll be doing a lot of driving over the winter and some of that in places where having 4x4 in the winter is a good thing, (like TN, for example).

Haven't decided on a name for New Guy yet. Clare says that all the baddies on TV drive black SUV's. I told her that we can drive around pretending to be baddies.

Strider will live again!

2011-06-10T09:19:00.004+10:00

So here's the car I used last time I was in the US, about 4 years ago. It's a 1994 Ford Ranger, (which I naturally named Strider, which is probably not a very original name for a Ranger, but there you have it--I did do my fair share of "striding" though--over I drove over 12,000 miles in various cars the last time I was in the US, which is quite a bit of driving over a 6 month period) :

Anyway, on my last scheduled road trip last furlough, the transmission died. Apparently there is an oil line inside the tranny that is plugged at one end by a plastic plug and after a few years that plug shrinks and falls out, which causes the rest of the trans to not get enough lube and to eventually die a dry, horrible death due to lack of lubrication. I believe this is what happened to Strider's tranny. My Dad loaned me his truck instead for that trip and I left Strider parked at my folks' house in FL, thinking that Dad might replace the trans and get some use out of the truck as he had decided to sell his.

Well, Dad had a hard time figuring out what transmission Strider actually needed, and one thing after another pushed the old truck out of his mind. Finally, 4 years passed and Clare and I were due for another trip back to the US. We got to my folks' house and found that Strider had been parked under a tree int he back yard for a few years. I was afraid that the engine might be locked up with rust, but after putting in a new battery and putting an old ratchet handle across the contacts ont he solenoid, (the solenoid has gone bad), Strider's engine started right up and sounded good. At that point I decided to go ahead and replace the transmission with a new (remanufactured) transmission. So today Dad and I moved it across the yard, (Mom helped by pulling the truck with Dad's car while Dad and I pushed), and Levi sat in the passenger seat next to Oma, cheering everybody on.

So here's what it looks like now:

So what's a little mold and a few cobwebs?! New tranny and a visit to the carwash and he'll be good as new. Of course, this car really isn't very useful for a family with a toddler and an infant on the way, so we'll probably put it up for sale in a few weeks, or maybe try to trade it for an Explorer or something.

More on Maui

2011-06-04T02:04:00.007+10:00

Because Maui was such a photogenic place, (and because blogging is so EASY from the US), I decided to put up a few more photos from our time there. Above is Levi at his favorite place in Maui, a huge playground called Giggle Hill.

Below is Clare and Levi and our friend Rebecca (who lives in Maui and who we stayed with while we were there--thanks Rebecca!). Also Some Dude (holding the masculine pink flotation device) who wouldn't get out of the shot.

Wind surfers at Kanaha Beach. There were dozens of wind and kite surfers there that day:

It was really windy at Ho'okipa Beach when we went there:

More later....

Safely in Florida!

2011-06-03T07:02:00.002+10:00

For those of you who have been following our travels, we have now finally made it safely to Florida. Yes, after 7 different airplanes in 10 days, we've finally made it. My parents were there ot meet us at the airport in orlando and from there they drove us across the state to where they live. It's great to see them again, and of course they are ecstatic to see Levi (their only grandchild at this point), and he is also thrilled to see them!

It's normal for people returning to the US from a developing nation to experience some culture shock, and we are all going through a little of that. Here's some of the things that have been a little bit of a culture shock to me--funny things mostly:

--I feel like there is waaaay too much packaging on everything.
--TV is full of more inane idiots than ever.
--Just being here turns on a materialism switch in my brain; I caught myself looking at $400 watches on the web today. I think looking at $20,000 watches in the airline catalogs was probably part of what made me willing to look at stuff in the $350-$400 range. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that won't happen! LOL!
--The highways are super clean, they look almost sterile.
--Americans are just so incredibly FRIENDLY! It takes a little getting used to. I keep having to remind myself that they aren't doing it because they want something from me, it's just the way they are.

Some changes I have seen: big signs in airports, warning you not to take photos. I have seen this before, but never in the US, only in countries, where the government went overboard to protect little things like military trucks or helicopters, stuff that would be easy to get info on from a thousand other sources.

Anyway, more later....

Oh, and one more thing:

2011-05-29T11:03:00.002+10:00

Saw a Japanese movie called Space Battleship Yamato on the plane. The ship is made out of the wreck of the WWII Japanese battleship Yamato, which I think is a pretty cool premise. I think the starship Yamato now has my vote as the number one coolest starship ever.

hahahahaha! I'm not used to being able to blog so fast, it usually takes me an hour or so per blog posting.

Furlough, Maui and Star Trek

2011-05-29T09:05:00.003+10:00

So we're on our way back "home" to have another baby and to spend some time with our friends, family and financial partners. I say "home" in quotes because I don't currently feel like any one particular place is home these days, I have family connections in FL,TN, and MI, and close friends in SC, NC, ID, OH, CA, WA, MN, and more (if you are a close friend of mine and don't see your state listed, don't feel bad). We also have family and friends in the UK, (admittedly Clare has more close friends in the Uk than I do, fair enough, it's her home country after all).

Anyway, we found that for us the cheapest way back to the US was to go through HI. Since we have friends in Hawaii, we decided to take advantage of their offer of a free place to stay in Maui. Here's a view from her back porch, partway up the side of a dead volcano:

So Maui has been great! I haven't seen a bit of it, but after the flurry of our last couple of weeks in Ukarumpa, getting the house sorted out for our renter, gettign as much work as possible done at the shop, etc., it feels great to rest for a while.

So, flipping through the channels for a while at the house we are staying with, I stumbled upon maybe the best thing I could have found for me right now, an all-day Star Trek marathon! Clare and Levi are out with our friend Rebecca at a local aquarium, so I have the TV to myself for now.

More later.

Andrew Koens, Pneumonia Survivor

2011-04-04T12:40:00.011+10:00

Ugh. I have pneumonia again. In my mind, pneumonia is something that people get in places where it gets cold, how in the world I've gotten it twice here in PNG, where the coldest temperatures I usually experience are in the low 70's (Fahrenheit) is a little bit beyond me. Nevertheless, back in 2004 I got it and now again in 2011.

It's rare for me to get sick--I was looking at my file at the clinic while I was down there today and it looks like it's only 3 or 4 hand-written pages long for a 9 year time span. I think the first entry was my pneumonia case of 2004, then a couple of foot/ankle related injuries/pains over the years and now pneumonia again.

Overall, I'm very thankful for my generally good health and for the generally good health of my family. I have noticed, over the years, that I tend to get sick during times when I am under a lot of stress of one kind or another. Right now we are making furlough plans, (furlough is always a big stress for me), and I am more or less swamped at work, and Levi has been keeping us up at night with night terrors, (hoping he gets through this stage soon!), and we've been having our biannual SIL PNG branch conference, where we've been discussing a lot of possible changes to our little piece of the organisation (some I agree with and am in favor of, others I am much opposed to) so I guess I am under a bit of stress right now. I always seem to get sick right at the time when I need to take a break.

In other news, my '85 Honda XR600 is running again! Like a Phoenix rising fromt he ashes, Brutus rides again! Only now he's more "brutey" than ever, while at the same time being easier to start than ever. Man, it's good to be back on two wheels again.

I bought Brutus from a Swedish missionary family who had gone back to Sweden. He had been thoroughly used and abused by their oldest son and all of his careless friends and was in pretty rough shape when I made the offer to buy him. I got him cheap and have been modifying him ever since. At one point, not long after I got him, I was working on somebody else's XL600 which needed a new cylinder head. I order a good used one from a place in New Zealand and although the seller assured me that thehead he was selling me was the right one, when it arrived it turned out to be a later style head that wouldn't work with the XL carburetors. The owner fo the XL was really wanting his bike fixed, so I ended up taking the cylinder head from Brutus and putting it on the other guy's bike, then I went through all the trouble of modifying Brutus to use to newer style head--that was the beginning of my modifications!

For those who are interested, here's a list of Brutus' current list of mods: (keep in mind that these mods have happened over a space of 6 or 7 years)

--early 1980's Yamaha DT 125 headlight shell with a 100 watt yellow fog light in it
--custom 36 inch wide handlebars, (I widened them myself from 32 inches to 36--much more comfy for me now!)
--I rebuilt the seat with a XR's Only Australia seat cover and new, very hard foam--believe it or not, this is actually much more comfortable on long trips than the ultra soft foam that was on there before. I won't go on a long bike trip with a soft seat--a soft seat will wear you out in a couple of hours.
--later style XR wheels--I got them off of a dead XR250L, but they are the same as later style XR250/400/600p wheels, except that the rear one has a rubber mounted sprocket. I rebuilt these wheels with new bearings, new stainless spokes and straight rims salvaged from other wheels, (thankfully I just happened to have a good 32 spoke rim off of an '89 CR250 in the shop that I was able to use).
--XR250L rear swing arm and disc brake. This was a huge improvement--the original XR600 rear wheel had a woefully inadequate (microscopic) rear brake--it actually used the same size brake shoes as the old Honda 70 mini bikes. The new rear disc is almost too powerful--it requires a lot more finesse to use it, but it is so much more effective. The swingarm required extensive modifications to make it fit. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't modify the swingarm, but would instead reposition the upper rear shcok mount, which would have been so much easier and would have been the work of only a couple hours instead of the days I spent modifying the swing arm. The XR250L had the rear shock positioned centrally, the old XR600 had it's shock mounted to one side. In retrospect, it would have been much better to move the 600 shcok to one side, I'm not sure what I was thinking.
--the engine is a real hodge-podge. The bottom end is all original 1985 XR600, but with all new bearings and a new output shaft. I can't remember for sure, but I think I rebuilt the crankshaft, too. I had re-wound part of the original stator when I first got the bike, but it had only lasted about 4 years before it burned up again, so now I have a 200W Ricky Stator unit in there, running through 2 legs of a 3 phase heavy duty regulator/rectifier out of a Ducati streetbike. The cylinder is a 1989 Honda NX650 cylinder I got in Cairns, Aus. last time I was there--I paid too much for it, especially as I had to resleeve it anyway to work with my piston. The piston is a thing of beauty, a nicely forged and machined original Honda HRC race part that I got new off of eBay for a song some time ago. It's the 628cc big bore piston with an 11:1 compression ratio. Normally, an 11:1 XR600 is a real pain to start, but thankfully eBay came to my rescue again and I was able to get a later model XR650L cylinder head with the later style automatic decompressor and anti-kickback device. The head had been portd by XR's Only in the US, and I installed new stainless steel valves in it. it already had a set of high performance springs in it when I got it.
--exhaust is an FMF Powerbomb header with an ancient SuperTrapp muffler on it. Sounds good, seems to work pretty well.

No photo today--I waited 20 minutes for one to upload, then tried again but it was going even slower so I finally gave up. The interweb is far too slow today for photos.

The Midnight Ride

2011-01-02T11:35:00.003+10:00

Ah, the Midnight Motorcycle Ride! Every year, on New Year's Eve, Ukarumpa motorcycle riders get together for a 45 minute ride around Ukarumpa starting at 11:30 and going to 12:15. The tradition of missionary kids riding motorcycles around Ukarumpa has waxed and waned over the years, but for the past 9 or 10 years it has been a consistent annual event. We close down public access to the roads in Ukarumpa so as to cut down on the amount of potential traffic. We make an effort to make the ride as safe as possible for both the riders and the spectators, as many people will line the roads in some areas to see us ride by as midnight approaches.

Over the last 2 or three years the Ride has been organised by me on my own, but for the first several years that I was here, I organised it as a part of my role as the Vice President of the Ukarumpa Motorcycle Club, which is a club that was created to help organise the shool-aged bike riders. Today's photo is from a few years ago when I was still the Vice Prez. Some of the kids really look forward to the Midnight Ride and will spend the last few days of December in a flurry of activity trying to get their working bikes ready and trying to resurrect as many "dead" bikes as possible in time for the ride so that as many people as possible can participate.

The New Year's Eve Midnight Ride is a tradition that has been observed by Wycliffe missionary kids all around the world for many years. No one knows who started it or when the first Midnight Ride happened, though the earliest ones I know of happened back in the 1960's, both here among Wycliffe members in PNG and among Wycliffe members in Peru.

This year's ride was really dry and dusty, some years we have had rain and mud the whole time, other times we have fog, and sometimes the weather is clear and the roads are perfect. Participation varies from year to year, this year we had about 10 guys at the start with another 4 or 5 joining in later, some years we have had as many as 25 or 30, with mix of vehicles including little dirt bikes, big dirt bikes, old race bikes, 3 wheelers, 4 wheelers, a golf cart, and this year included a chinese made, 3 wheeled light duty truck at the beginning.

If you come to PNG and end up living in Ukarumpa, you too can become a part of the tradition. It's fun, it gives the kids a chance to do something they ordinarily can't, (this is the only time of the year that unregisterable bikes--like old race bikes--are allowed on the roads), and it's a fun way to ring in the new year.

HAPPY 2011, EVERYBODY!

POC Off-Road Movers

2010-12-05T09:44:00.004+10:00

So! We're all done with the Pacific Orientation Course now. We left the course when the students left to go into the "village living" portion of their training. Village living lasts for 5 weeks and we had originally planned to return for the last week of POC, when all the students come back out of the villages, but Clare ended up having to stay behind in Ukarumpa to help out at the elementary school when one of the other staff members had to leave unexpectedly for medical reasons. In the end, I went back to POC by myself.

The day after I got there, I was asked to be one of the drivers who went out to the villages to collect the students. The POC Toyota Dyna, (a 3 ton truck that we use for carrying lots of people or supplies at one time) was still down with a bad transmission so we had to make multiple trips in POC's 2 Toyota Hilux double-cab pick-up trucks. That's one of the Hiluxes in the photo today, and that's one of the many river crossings we had to do. This is one of the "middle" depth rivers--there were several that were shallower and a couple that were significantly deeper--to the point where the wheels were completely under water and water was leaking through the firewall and onto my feet. (At least the door seals were still good and we didn't end up sitting in water!) The biggest river I ended up having to drive through 4 times that day. It was a good 100 yards/meters wide and well over 3 feet (1 meter) deep in the morning, though it went down a little bit during the day.

So the last week of POC went well enough, I started off with all the fun off-road driving, drove through one attempted hold-up, fixed up a bunch of Primus and Primus-copy pressurized kerosene stoves for the next group of POC students, got the POC director's beat-up '84 Honda XR200R running again, and since Clare and Levi weren't there, I got to spend a bit of time in the evenings with the other staff members and the students. All in all, a decent wrap up to the course.

This isn't to say that the course wasn't without its frustrations; Madang is a terrible place to try to get vehicle or machine parts, the POC workshop is in serious need of more tools, (and Madang also happens to be a terrible place to get tools--I spent $1,000 on tools that I could have gotten in the US for about $200, and that was only about 1/3 of what the workshop there needs).

But it was great to see the 30+ new people coming to help out with the work here, and I'm excited to see that another 30+ are expected at the next course in January.

So Long, Sunshine Coast!

2010-10-29T20:21:00.003+10:00

Well! Being on staff at POC was a lot of hard work. The campus where we hold the course is under constant attack from termites (I think they're white ants, actually), the elements (the sun, the heavy rains, the high heat and high humidity, and the salt air from the nearby ocean), and as a result needs constant maintenance. Overall, we enjoyed being there and having the opportunity to get to know the new people a bit.

So! The day that the POC course ended, (well, it's not ended quite yet, there's still a wekk to go, but right now all the students are spending a few weeks in villages near Madang, learning more about the trade language and cultures of PNG), so as soon as the students headed out to the village, we headed off to Brisbane to spend a couple of weeks there with Clare's folks. It has been great to spend time with them, and they are especially happy to have had a couple weeks with Levi, who is their first grandchild. Anyway, we haven't really been in Brisbane, we've been a ways north of Brisbane in the Sunshine Coast, in a beautiful place called Caloundra. After a couple of weeks here, I'm pretty sure that I can say that we would happily come here again! It's a child friendly place, with more playgrounds than you can shake a stick at, much to Levi's delight. Also not far away is the Australia Zoo, (of Steve Irwin, aka The Crocodile Hunter fame), as well as Underwater World, (where today's photo was taken), and the Buderim Ginger Factory, (more interesting than it sounds), and a place rather intriguingly called "The Big Pineapple", which, unfortunately was closed when we went there.

So, after 2 and a half weeks, our time here is finally drawing to a close. We leave here the day after tomorrow. I think that Clare and I needed this short break more than either of us realised, but I think that now we are both ready to go back to Ukarumpa, ready to get back to our respective jobs there.

I promise that I will talk more about POC another time.

A Change of Pace, Maybe. Of Place, Certainly

2010-08-08T12:05:00.004+10:00

No, it's not a refugee camp, though I admit that it does look a bit like one. This is one of the photos I took during my time at the SIL Pacific Orientation Course in Madang, back in 2002. It's in black and white because I like shooting black and white and because at the time I was trying hard to come up with ways to make the batteries in my camera last longer. (By the way, on that Toshiba camera that I had back then, I did find that by switching to black and white I could squeeze a few more photos onto my camera's memory card and that there was a little less waiting time between shots.) This photo was shot from the door of the room where I lived for 16 weeks, (with 5 weeks taken out near the end where I went and lived with a family in a village about 100 km north of Madang). POC is where we all go to start learning to speak Melanesian Pidgin and to start learning a bit about Melanesian cultures, all to prepare us for living and working in Papua New Guinea.

For most of us, POC is roughing it. If we wanted hot showers, we had to build fires and heat the water ourselves; the power was often off, so we used lanterns and candles to see at night. A few weeks into the course, the kitchen closes on the weekends and you are left to fend for yourselves if you want food, so you learn to cook over an open fire. If you want to go into town, you have to walk a few miles down to the main road and hope to catch a ride on a PMV that isn't already full of people going to town. The whole experience is meant to prepare people for living in remote villages in PNG. Even people like me, who don't live in remote villages, are often required to go through POC so that they can have a better understanding of what life is like for their co-workers and national friends who do live that way.

POC also involves a fair amount of physical training, including required daily hikes through the surrounding jungle and required swimming down at the ocean. Here's a photo of myself and two couples from my POC group heading out on a three day hike with 3 Papua New Guineans who were on staff for our course. The man next to me with the cowboy hat on was a good friend of mine at the time. He helped to teach me Tok Pisin (Melanesian Pidgin) and I spent a lot of time with him and his family:

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was approached by the director of the Pacific Orientation Course and asked to be on staff for the next POC, which, with 32 adults enrolled, will be one of the biggest courses in several years. (In contrast, mine had only 13 adults enrolled.) As mine was the first POC to happen after the current directors took over, it seemed fitting to me to be on staff for this one, which will be their last course before moving on to take up another position in Vanuatu.

SO! Starting later this month, we will be in Madang for 8 weeks on staff at POC! What was I thinking?! Hopefully we can be an encouragement to our fellow staffers and a blessing to the students.

Farewell, Faithful Lumix, You Will Be Missed.

2010-08-02T21:16:00.003+10:00

Ah, sad day. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ15 digital camera that I have been using for several years now has finally bitten the dust. It was a great camera, I took it with me all over PNG, all over tropical North Queensland, Sydney, Melbourne, the US, and twice to the UK and took an awful lot of pictures with it. It was the first good digital camera that I ever had. My first digital still camera was a really cheap RCA that predated USB connections and took forever to upload it's entire load of 16, low resolution images through a serial port cable to my computer. (Or maybe it was the computer I had at the time that predated USB, I can't remember now--I just remember that it took lousy photos, not very many of them, and they were a pain to get off of the camera). My second digital camera was a Toshiba--a big, clunky one. It too, was severely limited, but at least it took reasonably good quality photos, but I could only take 1 photo on a cheap set of AA batteries before they were dead or 10 photos on Duracells. Only 10! And that was with the flash, the LCD display, and all the sounds turned off! The Toshiba was the camera I brought with me to PNG when I arrived in 2002. It lasted me a couple years, then one day I was in a little museum in Goroka and I was taking photos of WWII junk in this museum when a Papua New Guinean man walked up behind me and quietly said "no pictures". I protested that I wasn't even using the flash and again he said quietly, "no pictures". Oddly enough, that camera never took another photo, and even the photos that I had just taken were not retrievable. I've always wondered if maybe that man cursed my camera somehow, it just seemed like too much of a weird coincidence to me.

Anyway, the death of the Toshiba made it into my newsletter, which had no photos that month. One of my financial partners contacted me shortly after that and told me that he wanted to buy me a new camera, and to let him know what I wanted. Well, I sent him a list of my top 4 or 5 cameras, (naturally a really nice Nikon dSLR was at the top of the list, yeah, pricey, but he did say to let him know what I wanted, so I did), and the Panasonic Lumix was, as I recall, right in the middle of my list. That's the one he ended up buying for me and I was very happy with it. So happy, in fact, that I've decided to buy another Panasonic, but this time I'm buying a used one off of eBay, one that is a few years old, but is in very good condition and has seen little use as it was somebody's back-up camera.

I can't say for sure what happened to my FZ15--one day it just wouldn't come on any more. But it had lived a full, rich life and its carcass has the scars to prove it. I think that I can honestly say that I used it up. My new camera will be able to use the same SD media cards that I have for the FZ15, and I think I might be able to make the FZ15 rechargable Li-ion batteries work, too.

As a back-up camera I've been using a little Canon Powershot A430, (I think it's an A430), but recently it has suddenly decided to make every photo look washed out. With a good deal of jiggerypokery, I can manage to get a photo that is at least viewable, but certainly not what I'd call a "good" photo. So, no photos for now until the new-to-me Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30 gets here. I'm hoping it will get here within a couple of weeks, but will more likely be a couple of months.

Troublesniping

2010-07-25T10:34:00.002+10:00

One of the most practical skills learned by any mechanic is the ability to troubleshoot. In this case, troubleshooting is evaluating a machine that isn't working properly, usually by talking to people who used it last, trying to get it going, etc. Eventually the mechanic builds up a knowledge of what should be happening, observes what isn't happening, and investigates what it will take to make it work.

Sometimes, I'm called upon to troubleshoot a machine that is far away from my workshop. Sometimes I'll be asked to troubleshoot something over the 2 way radio, or through a series of e-mails or even letters. I call this long-range troubleshooting "troublesniping".

Recently I was asked to troublesnipe a generator out in the Sandaun province, which is hundreds of miles from here, and the only way to get there is to fly as far as you can, then catch a ride on a series of local trucks the rest of the way. It takes days to get out to the village, and it's not practical to haul a 300+ lb. diesel generator out of there unless you REALLY have to.

After talking extensively with the translators who work out there, looking at photos of a broken part, and spending a few hours researching on the internet, I finally decided that the problem must be a bad capacitor. Unfortunately I didn't have any capacitors of the type we needed in stock and the people who built the generator were very unhelpful when I tried to find out if they had the parts we needed, so I did a bit more internet research and finally took an educated guess at what we needed. I tied to find a part that was much heavier duty than the one that had failed, in the interest of longevity.

Now the fun part! I had originally planned to get out to the village and install the part myself, but for various reasons this ended up not being possible, so I talked to the translator and expalined to him that he would have to install it. Unfortunately, he wasn't going to be going out to the village as he had originally planned, so he asked me to write up a set of instructions so that his village language helpers could install it.

Well, if it had been a simple case of removing the old part and replacing it with a new one, it would have been easy. But the heavy duty part I had chosen to replace the original one was a good deal bigger than the original, so, with the help of another similar generator I built up a nice little rubber mounted holder for the new capacitor and a set of extended wires to connect it to where the original capacitor used to be plugged on. Then I took a bunch of photos of the part in various stages of installation, wrote a set of directions and hoped for the best. The final curveball came when the translator asked me if I could "pre-charge" the capacitor before sending it out to the village. (In order for the generator to work properly, the capacitor needs to be charged up, sort of like a battery, but imagine a capacitor as a battery that releases all of its stored energy at once.)

I admit it, I really didn't think that pre charging the capacitor was going to work, or at worst I feared somebody might shock themselves while trying to install it, but I went ahead and gave it a go anyway, remembering to carefully wrap the wire ends with electrical tape before shipping it out to the village. Somehow I didn't have a photo here at the house--how boring! I'll have ot add one later.

Anyway, here's what happened, in the words of the translator who works out there:

"Andrew,


I talked to Emil today. Some of the translators have arrived for the
translation workshop. Kenny, Petrus, Dominic, Jack & Joe, Peter & Emil are
there so far. 

Emil said, "We looked at Andrew's instructions, and then we went out the
power house together. We had Pastor Peter read the instructions to us one
step at a time. We talked about it together as we followed his instructions.
Then we started up the generator and it gave us 230 volts and 49 Hertz.
Please tell him the translators say thank you for building the capacitor and
for giving us such great instructions!" "

 So!  Success!  Apparently the guys in the village who are working on the translation usually like to work until 10 p.m., and they wouldn't be able to when the sun goes down at around 6 p.m.  Whew!  I'm so glad that worked.

Off-Road 6x6 Trucking! Thrill-a-minute stuff.

2010-07-18T21:01:00.006+10:00

Okay, so I've mentioned my all time favorite PNG truck here a few times before. It's the 1979 AM General, 6 wheel drive, 5 ton cargo truck, the M813A1. Ours is an ex-USMC example, with the locking differentials in the rear, which means that it is an extremely capable machine. We also have the PTO driven 10 ton winch on the front of ours.

I admit it, I was starting to feel a little bad about the fact that we weren't using the truck much. I am pretty sure that I have discussed our reasons for buying it elsewhere in this blog. At any rate, we bought it, shipped it here, sorted out various little problems that it had, and then did exactly what the US Marines apparently did with it for much of its 30 years--we parked it and only used it once in a while.

And then one day we got asked to haul some cargo for a Papua New Guinean man who had worked for Wycliffe for many years and was moving all of his goods and chattel back to his home village, which was about 10 or 12 hours drive away, and very much of that on rough, single lane dirt roads. We struck a deal on the price for this kind of hauling, and suddenly people started coming out of the woodwork asking for us to haul cargo to remote places.

My friend Tony did the first trip, and I went with him on the second trip. On the second trip we were hired to haul a 4 ton piece of mining equipment out to a place about 3 or 4 hours from here. It was a dreary, drizzly day and the road was mostly mud and had several places like this in it:

Don't be fooled by the ruts in the road--those are the width of "normal" cars, which, if you are reading this from the US, are narrower than what you are used to, and quite a bit narrower than our 6x6 truck. There were only inches to spare on either side of the wheels, and these washouts could really only be safely crossed with the help of somebody standing on the far side helping the driver make precise adjustments to the wheels. That was my job this time. We also had to cross several old Bailey bridges, some better than others. This was probably the best one:

When we got close to our destination, we were stopped by a group of obviously angry young men who demanded that we shut off the engine and wanted to know who we were and what our business was. Instead of shutting down, we reversed out of there and back into more friendly territory until we could figure out what was going on. What followed was a heated 45 minute discussion among the members of one clan arguing about why the other clan had stopped us, what should be done about it, etc., etc. Eventually we were told by the men who hired us to just unload the truck and they would figure out later how to get the load to where it was supposed to go. We were halfway through unloading it when suddenly we got word that it was okay for us to drive through to the original destination, so which much effort, we got the load back on to the truck and tied it back down, then drove on through the troubled area, (turns out that there was fighting going on between two clans in that area, but the very same guys who had angrily stopped us before were all smiles and cheers when we drove through the second time), and eventually made it to where we had been hired to go. By the way, this is what our load looked like--I took this photo at about 6:15 a.m. as we were doing a final check of the load before hitting the bush road:

So when we got to the final destination, the equipment that was originally supposed to be there to unload the truck wasn't there yet and the guys who hired us told us to simply chain the load to a tree and drive the truck out from under it!! I got some good video of that, here's Tony carefully driving the truck out from under the load, EXACTLY according to the directions of the man who built the machine that we were unloading. He's standing on the other side of the truck, giving Tony directions through the driver's window. It's my voice you hear in the foreground as I was getting impatient and wondering why it was taking so long to unload :

So we've got a couple more of these trips planned in the not too distant future, the next one is down into the Ramu valley to move 7 tons of lumber for a local guy and I'll be driving for that one. Then it's back to where we dropped off the mining equipment to drop off a mostly empty 20 foot container that they will be using as a secure storage area. Hopefully the road will be a little bit better this time, as an excavator is being driven up there on that road and he will have to make repairs to it in order to make it through.

So why do we do this? Well, the fact is that we are in need of funds! We don't make very much money doing this, but we do make a little and it helps to keep the workshop open and to pay our employees. Anything extra gets funneled back into Wycliffe to support the work of Bible translation. We've been trying to do more commercial work lately and this is one of those services that we can offer which is in demand and which no one else is offering.

Almost done! And Professional Development

2010-07-01T08:21:00.007+10:00

Okay, so I've only got a few hours left before the deadline to finish this bike I've been working on in my "spare" time. It won't actually be "finished", but it might be close enough to please the judges in this on-line build off that I entered a few months ago. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with it so far. It's actually a bit closer to done now than it was when I took this photo yesterday:

Good stuff. Practical? No way. Fast? Probably not. Why build stuff like this? Ummm, well, people climb Mt. Everest "because it's there", maybe I do this kind of thing for the opposite reason; because it isn't there. It's just an outlet for my creativity, I guess. I certainly learn a lot whenever I do something like this--I'd never built any kind of I-beam frame before, nor had I ever built a girder front end before, (wow, that was a learning experience! Next time I build one it will be much better than this one). So there, call it "professional development".

ROAD TRIPS!

2010-06-29T15:12:00.004+10:00

I love road trips. Especially on motorcycles, but in a car with friends is also really good. Here in PNG we don't normally do any very long road trips--Goroka is about 100 km away, (2 hours in a car, 1 hour on a bike--it's the curves and hills that kill a car's speed so much on that trip), Lae is 230 km away, Madang is 260 km away and those are the 3 most likely places that we are likely to go to by road. Mt. Hagen is also reachable by road, but it's 300 km away and the road is often blocked by landslides/landslips, plus there aren't a lot of reason to go to Mt Hagen, so I've only been there once by road. Mt. Wilhelm isn't a town, but it is another place that people in Ukarumpa might drive to, just because some people like the idea of getting up at 3:30 in the morning to climb to the top of PNG highest mountain (13,000 ft. I think?), just to see the sun rise and then rush back down before the fog cuts visibility down and makes the descent much harder. It's really not my cup of tea, so I've never been there. I understand that there is a plane wreck up there, though, so someday maybe I'll go along so that I can play around on the wreck while everybody else goes up to see the sun rise.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Road trips. Lots of good reasons to do a road trip here. For one thing, it's a way to get away from Ukarumpa. Sometimes you get to feeling like you'd just like to be somewhere else for a little while, and a road trip to Lae does it for me, though most people seem to prefer Madang. Another good reason to go is because there are no restaurants in Ukarumpa! Hard to believe, but it's true. If you want to go out to eat, you've gotta drive at least 100 km to get to a restaurant. Okay, so there are one or two restaurants in Kainantu, which is only a few km from Ukarumpa, but (it must be said) they leave a bit to be desired. Another good reason is shopping. Lae has some of the best stores in PNG. Lae actually has not one, but TWO pretty decent supermarkets, as well as a couple of slightly less decent ones. Lae also has the best places to buy appliances when your stove or fridge finally bites the dust. Oh, and an added perk--our guest house in Lae has a pool. Sure, it's only 3.5 or 4 feet deep and isn't exactly Olympic sized, but man, after a long, hot, dusty day in town it sure feels nice.

Road trips are on my mind today because I nearly had to go on a road trip to Mt. Hagen tomorrow in the Mighty M813A1 Cargo Truck:

In spite of the fact that I generally enjoy road trips, I wasn't looking forward to this one, as I am getting behind in my work here in Ukarumpa and besides I just did a road trip to Lae last week. (Lae and back in one day--I hate doing it that way; I much prefer to spend the night, but this time it couldn't be avoided.) Anyway, my friend Tony is doing the Mt. Hagen trip now, so that's all good.

Road trips here can present special challenges. I've already mentioned landslides, but it's also worth noting that at least 40 km of the road to Madang through the Finisterre Mountains is not paved at all, and the road to Mt. Hagen also has big stretches of un-paved road. In this case, the destination is actually somewhere beyond Mt. Hagen, and may involve a fair amount of driving on a pretty rough dirt road. Before driving to Lae it's always wise to ask around and see what the road is like, as its condition changes pretty often, from "full of nasty square-edged potholes" to "new pavement, a regular, 2 lane, superhighway". Before going to Goroka, it's worth finding out if there has been any tribal fighting in the area and if all the bridges are up, especially during rainy season, when bridges are more apt to be washed away.

As long as you remember to keep an eye out for the three perils of the PNG Highway, you're generally okay. The P's are Pigs, People, and PMV's (PMV's being Public Motor Vehicles, sort of privately owned buses).

My Wife the Brewess

2010-05-30T19:49:00.002+10:00

Okay, so I arrived in PNG with certain presuppositions. Among them was the idea that I might find a local soft drink to adopt as my new favorite. Sure, it's silly, but as a kid in Bolivia my favorite drink was an apple flavoured drink called Brahma, and in Peru of course my favorite drink was el Sabor Nacional, Inca Kola. So I just assumed that in PNG I would find something similar. But alas, it was not to be. I tried the local Fanta varieties, lemon and pineapple, but neither one really impressed me. Eventually I resigned myself to the fact that all there was to be had here were the usual hum-drum things that can be found anywhere on the planet, namely Coke, Sprite, and Fanta. There are a few other things, like Scweppe's Orange-mango, which is pretty nice, but there is nothing that is uniquely Papua New Guinean.

So not long after I got to Ukarumpa, I started seeing some of the high schoolers advertising home-made ginger beer or rhubarb beer for sale. Naturally, I was interested; perhaps if I couldn't find something uniquely PNG, I could find something uniquely Ukarumpian.

What I found was a wide variety of flavour and quality. Some people made their ginger beer really spicy, others made it so that you could hardly tell there was any ginger in it at all. The rhubarb brew was the same way.

So thus began my own experiments with rhubarb beer. I eventually got to where I could make a pretty good batch of the stuff, it was popular at friendly get togethers, etc. (I feel I should clarify at this point that although we refer to this stuff as "beer" in truth the alcohol content is immeasurably small), but it was a lot of work, and the recipe I was using took 3 or 4 weeks to make.

Okay, so a little over a year ago, Clare decided that she wanted a hobby, so she decided to get into brewing ginger beer on a regular basis. She got a recipe from another family and changed it slightly, using me as her guinea pig. Eventually she settled on a recipe that used a lot more ginger than the recipe she started with, giving her ginger beer a reputation for spiciness.

And so I finally got my uniquely Ukarumpian soft drink. Ginger grows very well here and is always available, so Clare is able to make a batch of the stuff every week. She bottles it in washed out plastic Coke bottles and old glass root beer bottles that we got from a family that left some time ago. The glass bottles we got came with a home-made bottle capper and about 1,000 new bottle caps. The photo shows the batch that she just bottled today. We don't really drink 12 liters of ginger beer a week, Clare has started selling several liters a week to people in the community, mainly so that she will have a little bit of spending money when we go to Australia later this year on holiday with her parents.

Koens Ginger Beer, (KGB). Especially popular with one of our Finnish co-workers.

Levi Loves Dogs And Tractors

2010-05-29T21:01:00.003+10:00

So today, (Saturday) I was down at the shop working on my own stuff when Clare and Levi showed up to see the puppies. They are all huge now, it's amazing how fast puppies grow. Their eyes are finally open now and they are all gradually learning how to walk. This photo was actually taken last week, before their eyes were open:

Here you see Levi giggling at a puppy while mama dog looks on in bemused interest. Levi likes coming down to the shop, there are lots of interesting things to see there. For some reason he is especially fond of the shop tractor:

On Friday we had a big good-bye party for Dan Hudson, who is leaving PNG after serving here for several years as the Auto Shop manager. It was a huge barbeque, I think the most impressive one I have ever seen Auto Shop put on, with huge amounts of pork, lamb, beef, chicken, goat (?), 3 kinds of sausages, and umm, oh yeah, some kind of vegatables, I seem to remember potatoes and rice and sliced tomatoes, too. One thing is for sure about an Auto Shop barbeque--no matter how much food you cook, there are NEVER any leftovers. I tell you, NOBODY can put food away like a Papua New Guinean can. I once tried to out-eat a PNGian, and I had to quit after 3 huge plates of food while he just kept going. I honestly don't understand where they put it all. On Friday I took a pretty good big plate of food, but Jane, the smallest, lightest person in our shop sat down a couple seats away from me with a plate that had twice as much food on it as mine did, all of which she ate. I must weigh three times as much as she does, and yet...

Friday night was also Banquet. Banquet corresponds roughly with the Prom at a US high school. It's for the high school kids and takes place in the Teen Centre, (which I have mentioned here before). It's a more or less formal meal that everybody dresses up for and each year the Teen Centre is redecorated according to the theme of that year's Banquet. Each year there is also a play put on by adult members of the community, most of whom are parents or other people who have had something to do with the kids.

This year I decided not to be involved in Banquet. Last year was the first year since arriving in PNG that I was not in the Banquet play, but that's only because Clare was asked to be in it instead that year and I stayed home with Levi during all of her rehearsals and performances.

But as I say, this year I decided not to be involved. I haven't had as much to do with the kids this past year, (been busy with my own now!), and I just felt like I had enough other stuff going on that I couldn't spare the time for it.

Ah, but I guess we were involved after all--Clare did make 24 litres of ginger beer, (not really alcoholic) for Banquet this year, and I did help her with that. Mmmmm, ginger beer. I'll talk more about that in a future posting.

Of Tuk Tuks and Zongers

2010-05-23T22:56:00.003+10:00

So when Clare and I got back from furlough last time, I discovered that the manager of the Auto Shop had bought 15 chinese motorcycles at an auction. He had gotten them cheap because they were new old stock items that had been imported by a company in Lae and they had been sitting outdoors for some time. Many of them were missing bits and pieces, but the whole lot came with several boxes of spare parts.

To be more specific, only 2 of the 15 were really motorcycles; the rest were these half motorcycle/half pick-up truck things: About half of the ones we got were water-cooled and have simple roofs over the driver's area. These went to various departments here in Ukarumpa. 3 went to the Industrial department, 2 to the Construction department, others I can't remember right now. The others we offered for sale to the community and they are slowly being sold.

The ones we have were all made by a Chinese company called "Zongshen". The engines are based on a Honda engine that I don't think was ever sold in the US, although I have seen them in South America. It is a well-proven design and should hold up fairly well unless they are made out of poor materials. They are simple, 200cc, 2 valve engines with pushrod valve actuation(!). Not terribly high performance, but unless they are abused, they should hold up alright. The ones currently in use by Industrial and Construction seem to be giving good service overall.

Although these vehicles are often mistaken for Tuk Tuks, they are really something different. It's true that they have three wheels like a Tuk Tuk, but that's about where the similarity ends. We have a couple of real Thai Tuk Tuks running around here as well, and they are much heavier duty machines. Where the Zongshens use a 200cc, single cylinder motorcycle engine and super lightweight drive shaft and rear axle, the Tuk Tuks actually use a small 2 cylinder (550cc) Diahatsu car engine, transmission and rear axle. They are also made out of much heavier materials everywhere else. There are many other areas where Tuk Tuks, although a much older design, are better machines.

So now you are one of the cognoscenti; next time you hear somebody refer to a Zonger as a Tuk Tuk, you can smile knowingly to yourself because you know the truth--it's not a Tuk Tuk, it's a Zonger.

I've still got three like the one pictured above for sale, but I really don't know if I'll be able to make them go; there have been just too many parts stripped off of them over the years that I don't have more of, like starter motors, for example. I suppose I could make one or two of them up as "kick-start only" propositions, but the kick starter on these things is more of an emergency back-up, and not really meant for full time use.

Puppies!

2010-05-18T02:38:00.003+10:00

Who doesn't love puppies? Okay, so I suppose there's a handful of dyed-in-the-wool dog haters out there who don't, but then, I have no use for cats and yet I still find kittens cute.

Down at the workshop we have a borrowed watch dog. Her name is Destiny and she belongs to a family that is in the US right now but will be returning in June. After the last time that the shop got broken into, we decided to get a dog to replace the one we had which had died some time before. Anyway, Destiny was pregnant when she moved in to Auto Shop, but we didn't know that until she suddenly started "getting all huge and stuff". And so, about a week ago, she spent ALL DAY giving birth to 9 cute little puppies. I think that they were only a day old or so when I took this photo.

So like most dogs here in Ukarumpa, Destiny and her brood are no particular breed. We're thinking that we would like to keep a couple of the puppies for the shop as future watch dogs. Destiny's owners have been gone for nearly a year and have told us that we can do what we like with the puppies. The ones we don't keep we will likely offer for sale, first to our employees at the shop, then to the community. I'm looking forward to the idea of having 2 watch dogs at the shop. Been thinking about names; Smith & Wesson come to mind, Zeus and Apollo, (like Higgns's dogs from Magnum P.I.), I'll keep working on it.

Dogs are a big part of life in Ukarumpa. Many people here keeps dogs for security reasons. I know that in our house we sleep better at night knowing that our dog, Guinny, (who is an inside dog), will bark like mad if anybody attempts to come into the house. He's got a good, loud bark that sounds like it belongs to a dog bigger than he is. I only wish that I had paid more attention to him one night a few months ago. It was late in the evening and I was watching a DVD in the living room when I saw Guinny prowling around restlessly with his hackles raised and growling quietly. I looked out the windows and checked the yard but couldn't see what was making him uneasy. The next day I found out that our next door neighbour's house had been broken into right at the time when Guinny was pacing and growling. If it happens again, I'll know what's going on.

As I say, dogs are a big part of life here. Many people keep them, some do it better than others. We keep our dog inside a fence or on a leash/lead when he is outside, some others don't, which from time to time leads to conflict among the people living here. I remember once answering the emergency phone in the wee hours of the morning to hear a poor, distraught man complaining about his neighbor's unrestrained dog who was wandering around the neighborhood and causing his own dog to bark incessantly. Apparently this poor man hadn't slept in several days because of it. (That story does have a happy ending--the people taking care of the wandering dog eventually figured out how to effectively restrain her and nocturnal peace returned to that neighborhood.)

There are no veterinarians in the area, so we have to take care of our dogs ourselves. When puppies get their shots, we have to get the vaccines from elsewhere and it is often one of the nurses from the clinic here who administers them. For bigger veterinary needs, like neutering or other surgery, we have to take the dog on a road trip to the city of Lae, which is 2.5-3 hours drive from here. There is a vet there who can handle that sort of thing. From time to time a traveling vet will come into our area for a day or two and will take care of whatever animal care needs we may have at that time.

Of course, in a community like this one, where every few years a family will go back home for several months to a year, there are special challenges concerning what to do with the family dog. It's not unusual for home owners to make special deals for renters willing to look after a dog, or for somebody's dog to go on loan to another family while the owners are away. At Auto Shop we borrowed Destiny from a single lady who had agreed to look after her for the family who owned her, but who was finding the job too demanding. When Destiny goes back to her owners in June, we have a plan in place to borrow another dog from another family who is leaving for a few months. Of course, I made this plan back before we knew that Destiny was pregnant, but it's okay, by the time Budge's owners get back, the puppies will be just old enough to start being watch dogs. It's like an intricate ballet of planning, a chess game of strategic watchdog movement, or maybe just Musical Dogs.

Ukarumpa Auto Shop: Your one stop shop for all of your Auto, Motorcycle, Small Engine Maintenance and Repair, Fabrication and Long Term Dog Storage/Kennel needs.

Oh yeah, I built a pretty nice kennel for whatever dog happens to be in residence at Auto Shop. Forgot to mention that. We used to just keep the dog tied up all day, but having a kennel is really a much better solution.

The Downside and Coping With It

2010-05-09T21:08:00.003+10:00

So believe it or not, there is a downside to this lifestyle. Like any other place where people live, or any other job that people have, it has got its drawbacks. Sure, there are lots of things about living here that could be pointed to as drawbacks; a general lack of movie theaters (cinemas), good restaurants, big junkyards full of relatively cheap parts, good auto and motorcycle parts sources, excellent availability of just about anything you could ever need to fix just about anything you ever wanted to, properly trained and funded police forces, excellent roads and infrastructure, these are all things that I miss from life in the US or the UK. But all of them pale in comparison to what I consider to be the biggest drawback of all in living here.

Living in a close community like we do here, you tend to develop close friendships. I dunno if they are any closer than relationships anywhere else, I mean how do you quantify the closeness of a relationship? Anyway, one of the great things about living here is the friendships that you make with your co-workers, and one of the worst things is that fact that every few years either your friends go away or you do for 6 months to a year, and sometimes they don't come back.

This year is a tough one for me. My 2 closest friends are leaving in June. One of them is planning to be back in 6 months, and the other is leaving here for good after 10 years of service here. Generally I don't have more than 2 or 3 close friendships at a time, so when these guys leave, I'm going to be sort of drifting for a while until I develop a couple of my other friendships into closer ones. So you see, it's sort of a triple, or even quadruple edged sword--the community here is fairly close, you tend to make close friendships here, but then people leave. People leaving cause you to develop other friendships into close ones, because most of us need a close friend or two.

Of course, my being an MK may be throwing a curve ball into the equation, too. Especially as it was so hard to keep in touch with people who had left when I was a kid, (yes, I predate e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. Why, sonny, I remember when we used to write letters on this super thin paper called "onion skin" just to save on postage between the US and Peru!).

Anywhooo, my best friends are leaving. One of them will be back, the other plans to keep in touch and also to be a shipping/storage address for me in the US, which will be very helpful to me when planning for furloughs. So even this sad drawback of life here has its good side.

There are various ways to cope with the pain of friends leaving, (boy, that sounds grim! It's really not as bleak as I am making it sound, honest!). With communications as good as they are most of the time these days, it's not nearly as bad as it used to be when people go, so that's good. One of the ways I cope is to take the time that I would have spent with them and throw myself into one of my projects for a while. It's almost a relief to have the time to devote to some of the things I really want to do outside of my normal job here. In that vein, I got some more work done on my sanity maintenance project yesterday. The frame is tacked together now and the lower motor mounts are tacked into place. The next big project will be the front suspension and steering:

In other news, Happy Mother's Day, Mom and Clare!

The Last Great Accumulators and The Pause That Refreshes

2010-04-25T15:40:00.003+10:00

Early on in the history of this blog I decided not to post on Sundays. I hereby change my mind. These days it seems that Sunday afternoons, while The Boy is taking his nap and nothing else is demanding my time is the ideal time to jump on the interweb and post something to my blog. So there.

Yesterday Clare went to the Everything Sale. Every year the teens go around collecting whatever garage sale/flea market type junk they can from the community, put it all together in one big room, organise it, and then hold a huge garage sale. They do it to raise money for the Ukarumpa Teen Centre, which is a cool place dedicated solely to the teens of Ukarumpa. It had an indoor basketball court, a stage, a big room for Sunday morning Soul Purpose meetings, (like church, but infinitely cooler if you are between 14 and 19). Also for most Friday nights of the school term they put on a Hamburger Night for the local community, so it's also like the only restaurant in town.

So anyway, yesterday was the Everything Sale. I suppose it would be logical to ask how in the world it is possible that a group of missionaries would have anything to sell at a garage sale, but consider these facts: 1.) Ukarumpa has been here as a translation support centre since the late 1950's. In that time, thousands of people have passed through here, each of them bringing things with them that they left behind when they went back home. 2.) missionaries are terrific accumlators. We live a lot like people in the US did who survived the Depression; that is to say, most of us never throw away anything that might possibly one day be of slight use to somebody, and generally it doesn't cost us anything to keep junk. 3.) MK's are super at finding interesting stuff and dragging it home.

At the everything sale Clare picked up some toys, books, and videos for Levi, some old Dr. Who videos for me, and three old Coke bottles. She spent a grand total of 3 Kina, I think it was, which is just over 1 US dollar. Today I was looking over these Coke bottles. I had seen them on Friday when I happened to be at the Teen Centre for another reason and had noticed that they were in a box with a handful of WWII junk, (some aircraft part data plates and US army canteen dated 1943 with a big hole in it), but didn't realise until thinking about it later that they had probably all been recovered from the same place. Most likely they were all pulled out of a WWII US military base garbage dump by some MK. WWII garbage dumps are great--I could spend all day pulling interesting bits of junk out of one, and actually have done so, in fact. My favorite things to collect are bits and pieces of fighter planes.

So anyway, I started researching these Coke bottles and found that they are all dated 1944 and were originally shipped to US servicemen serving overseas in places like here. How cool is that?

Some may wonder about my interest in WWII objects. What can I say? Finding some little bit of junk that was actually used during that conflict somehow makes history become more alive for me. Finding WWII junk to look at is one of the perks of living here.

OOPS! But good timing!

2010-04-10T23:29:00.004+10:00

So today was Saturday. I did a bunch of work around the house in the morning because we had friends coming over for dinner and lots of dishes to wash. After that, I picked up my friend Chad and we ran out to visit some of our neighbors here in the valley who have a coffee plantation. They are building a new house after a fire they had a couple of months ago and we wanted to see how the work was coming along and also if they needed any help with getting their satellite communications set up, as Chad has some experience along those lines, plus he is blessed with an uncanny ability to accurately guess his way around a lot of that kind of stuff.

Anyway, the coffee plantation is a few miles away and we drove the Ancient Land Rover out there. We spent a few hours with our friends there and headed back home. After I dropped off Chad at his place, I drove up to our house. Just a hundred yards from home I shifted gears and suddenly lost forward pulling power! I've been through a few broken axles before, so I groaned inwardly, put the truck in 4 wheel drive and just kept going on the front wheel drive alone. As I turned the last corner near our house, I started hearing a squeak-squeak squeak sound and lost all my brakes. I also passed a couple of women who looked at me as if I were doing something really strange. I shifted the transfer case into low range, (which is geared so low that you can almost live without brakes), and limped to the front of our house. I elected not to turn into the driveway, (which slopes towards the front of the house and is not the ideal place to park a car without brakes) and instead parked by the hedge on the level road in front of the house. When I got out to take a look, I discovered this:

Yes, Virginia, that IS the left rear wheel sitting out about 2 feet from where it is supposed to be! And that is the inner wheel bearing hanging there in the breeze on the axle shaft. The squeaking I was hearing was the axle slowly sliding out of the axle housing whith each rotation of the wheel. I'm really surprised that the axle didn't break! If I had turned into our driveway, the axle would almost certainly have come all the way out.

So it turns out that the big nut(s?) that hold the wheel hub on to the stub axle must have come loose--I jacked up the car and pushed the wheel back in as far as I could--I didn't have time today to get into the wheel hub--tomorrow afternoon I should have the time to open it up and find out why it came loose. I was not the last one to tighten this nut, so it's possible that it was just assembled wrong. Thankfully there doesn't seem to be any damage, and even if I find that there is, I have a good collection of parts for these trucks, so it probably won't cost me anything to fix it.

So this happened just minutes after a several mile drive on a very rough dirt road! Thank the Lord it didn't happen halfway between here and the coffee plantation. If nothing else it would have been a hassle to fix on the side of the road.

Happy Easter! And Sanity Maintenance

2010-04-05T22:25:00.004+10:00

Happy Easter to one and all! We had a 4 day weekend here, which was nice. Funny thing though, today I went down to the shop to work on one of my own projects and found all of the volunteer guys I work with all down there working on various projects of their own, except John, who is a welder and who is here for only a few weeks. He was bored and so came into the shop to work on stuff he would normally work on during normal work hours.

Anyway. I've been working on an electric fence to keep the dog from escaping. We picked up a really old Guardian electric fencer a while back that I had intended to hook up to our window bars as an added deterrent to anyone who might try to pry the bars apart to get into the house, but now we've decided that we really need to contain the dog more than we need to electrify the security bars. Right now I'm thinking that there's really no reason why one fencer unit couldn't do both the dog fence and the window bars, but for now I'll jut concentrate on the dog fence.

But that's NOT what I worked on this weekend. Well, okay, I did a little bit of work on it, making up some brackets to weld to our steel fenceposts to mount the insulators on, but that was all I did on it. I spent a little time on Friday and a little on Saturday and a little today, (Monday) working on building a motorcycle frame for my latest sanity-maintenance project.

"Sanity maintenance?" you ask. Yes, even I sometimes feel the stress of working on the same kinds of things all the time. I love my job, and there really is LOTS of variety in it, but sometimes I just get the urge to do something really different. Something that is probably really impractical for use here, but nevertheless is fun to build and causes me to have to use my mind to solve unusual problems. This time I am building a motorcycle frame from scratch around a 1978 Kawasaki KZ750 twin engine. For those who understand the lingo, it's a hardtailed bobber frame made out of i-beams that I am building up myself. This is a great chance for me to continue to improve my welding and fabrication skills, which is sort of what this kind of project is all about. Just sharpening skills that I don't have to use that often.

So yeah, it's completely impractical for use here in PNG, but that doesn't mean that I won't use it, oh no, I plan to ride the wheels off of it, learning how my design holds up, what should have been done differently, what works well, etc. It's all part of my professional development, further developing my skills and adding to my abilities and experience.

Here's what it looks like so far, and I warn you that it doesn't look like much yet:

Don't be fooled by those short exhaust pipes--I only put those on there so that I could see if the engine would run (it does).

Most of this bike is going to be made up of used parts that I have accumulated over the years, parts that are currently laying around the shop looking for homes. Parts that are no longer useful for most of the stuff I normally work on. Take the wheels for instance--I'm going with 23" rims front and back just because I have a couple of 23" front rims off of early '80's Hondas that I converted to 21" rims because the 21's are so much easier to get tires for. I also just happen to have a couple of old stock 23" tires that I got for free from somebody who was cleaning out his shed. They should be just fine on this bike, although they would be virtually useless on a bike that got used on trails or in mud, (like most of the stuff I work on).

So! Sanity Maintenance. I do it by stretching my mind.

my foray in furniture fabrication

2010-03-27T18:41:00.004+10:00

I'm not normally a "wood" guy. I usually work with metals like steel, alumin(i)um, stainless steel, copper, steel, brass, steel and often steel. More than once I have welded up some contraption out of steel that any other person might have hammered together out of wood and nails.

Anyway, a couple months ago one of the high school shop teachers decided to do a woodworking course for anyone in the community who might be interested, so several members of the local community took him up on the offer.

Our projects were many and varied. One guy built a nice shoe rack to put near his front door, (when you go to someone's house here you usually remove your shoes at the door--this is because it is hard to get to anybody's house without getting your shoes muddy, especially now, during rainy season), another guy built a recipe box for his wife, another a hat and coat rack, that kind of thing.

Well, I had been giving this some thought for some time as the arrangement of our living room has always bothered me a little bit. The problem with our living room was that we had lots of space, but because of the furniture we had, it wasn't being used very well, and in spite of it's size, it was hard to put more than 4 or 5 people in it comfortably. So in my mind I designed a piece of furniture that was 1 part entertainment center and 2 parts book and storage shelves. Not having any idea how much time it would take to build something like this, I presented my idea to the shop teacher. He was kind enough to refrain from telling me that I needed to come up with a smaller project.

Well, this being one of the few places where rosewood is cheaper than plywood, and because there was a ready supply of nicely dried rosewood available, I built the whole thing out of mostly rosewood! Here's how it turned out:

Our more astute viewers will notice three things: 1.) there are no bookshelves, 2.) there is a huge empty space on the left, and 3.) MST3K is on the TV, (the beginning of Jack Frost, specifically). The reason why there are no book shelves is because I'm not quite finished with it yet--this is only the bottom half of my plan, although I admit that the bottom half is by far the bigger half. The upper shelves will be much easier to build and I can build them in pieces over the next few months. The reason for the big empty space is that I am planning to build a secure storage area there--basically, I'll be building a heavy steel box, (a safe of sorts) that will go in that area and will be a place where we can store things that we'd rather not have stolen in case our house ever gets broken into. Although our own house has not yet been broken into, over the past couple of years many other houses in the community have, so I feel that building a safe is a fairly sensible precaution, especially as I have a source of free scrap steel to build it out of. Rebuild, reuse, recycle, yeah whatever, I just can't afford to spend $200-$500 for the steel I need if I were to build it out of new steel.

And as for MST3K, I mean c'mon. That's high entertainment, there. Thanks to my brother and his wife for sending it to me!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! (belated by time zones!)

2010-03-18T23:01:00.005+10:00

Okay, so maybe my Happy New Year's wishes haven't really been delayed by time zones--I mean, if the Earth were a million miles in diameter or if it were turning REALLY slowly, then maybe people might be able to live 3 months' worth of time zones apart. Instead of just 15 hours ahead of US Eastern Standard Time, which is the last time zone I lived in before coming here.

So every New Year's Eve at around midnight, all the kids who have bikes, (and a lot of the adults) go for a 45 minute ride around Ukarumpa. we try to hit all the roads that aren't dead ends, and we try to spread a little holiday cheer in the process. We do have a few rules--we have a tech inspection before the ride to make sure that everybody has some sort of headlight and tail light and also to make sure that nobody has removed their mufflers. We're not hooligans, we don't tear around at top speed. We get approval from the administration beforehand and we make sure that people are aware of what is going to happen so that nobody is surprised by it. It's usually a lot of fun. This past New Year's Eve it rained for the whole time, which means that we all ended up really muddy, but a good time was had by all nonetheless. The photo here was actually taken a few years ago when I was more active in the Ukarumpa Motorcycle Club, (in fact I was Vice President, as my temporarily tatooed knuckles proudly show). I'm not sure what that light running across my helmet is--maybe photographic proof of tiny UFO's?

Way too busy at work these days. I'm really glad that help appears to be on the way in the form of my friend Evan. Evan was here before as a short term guy with WA helping out at our training and orientation course in Madang. He was the mechanic and general handyman. He's also an ace welder. Anyway, we just got word that he has been accepted in the organisation, so tjhat's really good news. Looks like he'll be working at AutoShop, (YAY!), doing whatever we need doing, like motorcycle/small engine stuff, (double, nay, quadruple YAY!), and some welding. I imagine we'll find some training for him to do as well.

Finally! Relief appears to be on the horizon! For 8 years I've been the only motorcycle/small engine guy we have and over that time the work load has increased steadily as more and more people are riding bikes. Evan's not scheduled to get here before 2012, (BOO!), but there's always a chance that his support could come in sooner than expected and he could get here before that.

WOW, it's been a long time!

2009-11-01T09:33:00.004+10:00

Okay, so it's been nearly 5 months since I added anything to my blog! I am filled with shame and self-loathing, but will probably soon recover.

So what have I been up to for 5 months? Quite a bit, actually--our 6x6, 5 ton, ex-marine truck finally arrived and we have had lots of fun figuring out what its capabilities are. In fact, here's a photo of me "stuck" in a river crossing during one of our first test drives. I say "stuck" because I wasn't really stuck, I only thought I was. Guess you could say that I was stuck in my mind. To be fair to myself, I did attempt to back out of the hole I was in, (actually I had managed to get the front axle grounded on a huge rock), and I couldn't. Later, however, after we had gotten a friend of ours with another big truck to come hook up to our truck with a chain to pull us out, I managed to simply back out without difficulty. I'm not exactly sure why it backed out so easily in the end, but at first I just had all 4 rear wheels churning up sand from the river bottom. (And yes, because this is an ex-USMC truck, it DOES have differential locks in the rear diffs, so all 4 wheels can actually be spinning at once. Apparently the Army trucks don't have this feature and are therefore puny and inferior.) In the background of the photo you can see the wooden bridge that I was trying to avoid driving our 12 ton truck over. After we got back out of the river, I drove over the wooden bridge without difficulty. On the way home, I drove over it again. Doesn't look the strongest, but apparently there is a truck bigger and heavier than ours that drives over it on a regular basis. In the background you can also see our neighbor's russian army truck that he was about to try pulling us out with.

Other things that have been keeping me busy: I put new tires (light truck mud tires!) on Clare's '81 Mitsubishi Galant then picked up another car like it to use for parts, (the previous owner was practically giving it away and it's actually quite a bit nicer than Clare's) and then picked up another car like mine to use for parts, (once again, the previous owner was practically giving it away), I sold one of my bike projects, (the NX250 engine in the XR250 chassis), finished and sold another bike project on behalf of one of the departments here, finally got started on a huge quasi-restoration job for a commercial customer who has patiently waited 5 years for me to get started on it (!), agreed to play the part of Lazar Wolf in the Ukarumpa Community Theatre's production of Fiddler on the Roof, agreed to become the "pointman" of the Quick Response Team, wrote a few newsletters, helped my friend Tim get his Volkswagen Kubel (Thing) running enough to get it to his house from where it had been sitting for a few years, (the throttle linkage needs some work so at one point I was steering and working the gearbox while Tim rode on the back bumper and moved the throttle by hand) and of course, the day to day business of keeping things running in support of the translation work going on here. I'm sure I've left a lot of stuff out, but I think you get the idea. Some of this stuff will be showing up in the blog over the next few weeks (I hope).

Children Take Time

2009-06-13T19:30:00.002+10:00

Yup. No doubt about it. Kids take up a lot of time. Not to say that we aren't happy to spend that time in that way. But I don't have quite as much "free" time as I used to.

Another good thing about living in Ukarumpa: you can save a ton of money on baby toys and paraphanalia. Levi's walker is borrowed, (I know, I know, "walkers are dangerous!" you protest. Get over it. Somehow we all survived. Don't buy into the media hype. Be free!), most of his toys were given to us, his crib was given to us, and so on. People in this community pass around stuff like that almost as soon as the word gets out that somebody is pregnant.

Ukarumpa. A cheap place to raise kids.

In other news, I am at it again--this time squeezing a BMW F650 engine into a Husaberg FE400 frame. So far it's coming along very nicely. Photos to come another time.

Why My Blog Has Slowed Down Considerably

2009-04-02T21:29:00.002+10:00

By now you've all noticed that I haven't posted anything on this blog since January. There's a reason for that. It was in January that I learned that one of the people who follows this blog is a reporter for a newspaper here in PNG. Now I feel like I have to be really careful about what I write!

Experiment in Sino-Japanese Transportational Solutions and Financial Yikes!

2009-02-01T21:33:00.003+10:00

First, a Levi update: Levi is doing well. He often sleeps for 6 hours at a stretch at night. He is growing fast and is actually bigger than I was when I was his age. He generally seems to be a happy baby--he smiles a lot and is beginning to figure out how to laugh, which is fun. Clare took him to the clinic the other day to get his 2 month vaccinations and being jabbed with needles made him grumpy for the rest of that day and sleepy for the next couple of days. Overall, we are very happy with him.

So when we got back from Australia after Levi was born, I found that my department had bought 12 Chinese made 3 wheeled trucks and 2 Chinese motorcycles at an auction in Lae. Apparently we were the only bidders, so we got the whole lot for a song. The idea is to use them for department run-abouts on centre--certainly a cheaper solution than the Toyota Hilux and Hiace diesels that are currently being used. Anyway, they've all been sitting for some time in the salt air around Lae, so they all need some attention to get them running. Most of them are new with only 2 or 3 km showing on the odometers. They are all powered by 200cc engines, (the motorcycles are 125's), that are based on an old Honda design. I've known about the existence of these Chinese-made Honda derivatives for several years, but had never had a chance to see one up close. Among all the spare parts that we got with the lot of bikes and trikes were 2 engines that had come to bad ends, so I was thrilled to finally have the chance to pull them apart and see what there was to see inside of them. These particular engines were made by Zongshen, (affectionately known as "Zongers"), but as far as I can tell the ones made by Lifan, Jialing, Loncin, etc. are all very similar.

Other than a very unusual valve train that uses only one camshaft lobe to operate both valves, and a weird circular shift pattern, they were quite normal inside. I put one good engine together out of the parts and decided, (for the sake of scientific research) to put one into a 1975 Honda XL 125 chassis that I had laying around the shop. The idea here is to ride one around in a motorcycle chassis for a while and see if these Chinese engines would be a viable option for people who want to resurrect dead Hondas. 125-200cc Chinese Honda clones are almost always available on eBay, and I have often wondered if they were worth the USD$350 or so that they usually go for.

So far I'd have to say that they seem pretty good. The one in the bike pictured above had at least 3,500 km on it when it was taken apart, (I'm not sure why it was taken apart when we got it), and the rings still look new, nor is there any discernable wear on the cylinder walls. I really like the clutch in this motor--it's far better than the original Honda unit and has 6 springs instead of just four. I've only just started to ride this thing, but my initial impressions are better than I was expecting. Some research on the internet has shown that most of the troubles people have with Chinese bikes seem to be with the chassis and not with the engines. One thing I will say though, is that some parts are REALLY hard to find. For example, I have no trouble finding cylinder heads, carburetors, stators, flywheels and other parts that I will probably never have to replace, but trying to find a piston and rings for the 200cc engine has proven to be nearly impossible. Many of the parts in the engine can be replaced with original Honda parts, but the piston (a part that will have to be replaced every now and then), is an oddball--not like any Honda that I know of. So! That's my new challenge--to find a source of pistons to be able to keep these things going for a few years.

In other news, my wife sat me down tonight and told me that our trip to Australia for Levi's birth and the World Financial Crisis (which has effectively reduced the value of our income from the UK by about 25%) has knocked something of a hole in the boat of our finances and we need to start bailing in order to stay afloat. (Aren't metaphors grand?) I told her that I am planning to sell off a couple of my motorcycle projects this year, namely The World's Fastest (and only) NXR 250 and the Bush Bomber 280. Later she told me that she had made a mistake on her spreadsheet and that things weren't quite as dire as the had at first thought. But still a long way from rosy.

Ah, it's good to be back at work again.

Loooooooong time, no see

2009-01-11T00:49:00.002+10:00

Wow, it has been a while, hasn't it? I think things are finally starting to settle down a bit for us. When I last posted, we were getting ready to leave Melbourne, where we had been living for 10 weeks around the birth of our son, Levi. There were a number of things that we wanted/needed to do before we left there and so my poor blog got shuffled into an electronic corner and left to gather electric dust for a time.

When we left Melbourne, we still didn't have a PNG visa for Levi, (not for lack of effort on our part, but our timing wasn't so good--first we had to get Levi's official Australia birth certificate, then we had to take him to the Embassy to be sighted by a representative of the US government as part of the US passport application process, then we had to wait for a passport to arrive in the mail, then we had to send that off for a visa stamp, etc., etc. By the time we had a passport for him, many government offices were closing for Christmas & New Year's.

So, we sat around at our mission guesthouse in Cairns, (tropical north Queensland), and waited. Our planned return to PNG ont he 19th of December came and went and we had no word or hint concerning the status of Levi's visa. We changed our return date to the next available flight, (9th of January), and continued waiting. We knew that the visa office was closed until the 5th of January, and honestly I wasn't sure that there would be enough time to get the details sorted out by our 9 January flight, so reluctantly we started thinking about extending our stay in Cairns by another 10 days. This was especially "headacheful" as it meant that we were going to have to extend our Australian visas, (which were due to expire on the 9th) and that was going to cost us $240 each.

And then a strange thing happened. Suddenly, on the 2nd of January, we recieved Levi's completed PNG visa. This was really a mystery to us, as the postmark clearly indicated that the visa had been sent out after Christmas from a visa office that we knew was closed.

Never ones to look a gift visa in the mouth, we excitedly finished up the various things we wanted/needed to do in Cairns and finally flew back to Ukarumpa on yesterday, the 9th of January, (the day before my birthday, I might add!)

Now some of you clever ones are probably wondering why I didn't write to my blog while I was sitting around with all that extra time in Cairns. Good question! The reason is because we had to pay $2/hour for internet access there (regardless of the amount downloaded/uploaded). Sure, that's not the world's greatest excuse, but for some reason when I am on line and am aware of a clock slowly, inexorably ticking down the seconds in the background I find it hard to concentrate on my blog. Too much pressure.

Anyway, we're back home now! Phew!

And Now For Something Completely Different

2008-12-03T16:36:00.003+10:00

This photo was taken at our house some time ago. Shortly after we moved in, I think it was. This is just inside or front door, and this is a happy photo. If you see this near your front door in Ukarumpa, it probably means that a bunch of your friends are over at your house. In this case, it looks like maybe 30 people at our house.

This is one of the greatest things about living in a close community where your friends are all within walking distance. Sure, living in Ukarumpa does have its drawbacks, and sure, sometimes living there can be a pain, but there are some really good things about it as well. I guess a lot of how people feel about living there depends on them. Like so many things in life, you get out of it what you put into it, and in Ukarumpa you'll usually get a pretty good return on any effort you put into living there.

Some are probably asking, "Why does everybody take their shoes off when they come in?" It's because the roads in Ukarumpa aren't paved--they are dirt roads and int he wet season they can be quite muddy, so when you go into somebody's home, many people feel that it's polite to remove their shoes so that they don't track mud or dirt all over the place.

I'm looking forward to getting back to Ukarumpa--we leave Melbourne on the 15th, fly to Cairns and then are in Cairns until the 19th, when we fly back to Ukarumpa. Naturally, all of these plans could change if we don't get Levi's PNG visa paperwork all sorted out in time!

Blog Policy Change, Thanksgiving Down Unda

2008-11-27T17:22:00.003+10:00

Well, it's that time of year again in the USA--Thanksgiving Day! This year Clare decided to tackle a full Thanksgiving Dinner all by herself while I watched over Levi. We managed to find a turkey at a nearby store and Clare downloaded a number of traditional Thanksgiving recipes, like green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, cornbread, gravy, and of, course, the turkey. We celebrated with our hosts the Knuckeys, and Clare's parents. A good time was had by all.

Recently an old friend of mine wrote and asked me why he couldn't comment on my blog--this blog isn't totally my own; it's part of a small project on the part of some of my bosses at Wycliffe who are interested in putting more information about daily life with Wycliffe in PNG on the internet. At first we had decided not to allow comments, as we can't control what people write, but now we've decided to give it a go and see what happens.

As we say in the old country, "Em tasol"! (That's it!)

Clare's folks, New American Passport Holder

2008-11-25T21:07:00.003+10:00

I may have forgotten to mention this, but Clare's parents are here for 3 weeks to see us and to get to know their first grandchild.

Incidentally, it's because Levi is the first grandchild on both sides of our family that he has 2 middle names. Because he is the first one, we chose to honour our dads by using both of their first names as his middle names. Hence, Levi, (his own name), Robert, (Clare's dad) Willem, (my dad) Koens. Levi Willem Robert was another option, but then there was the risk of him being nicknamed "Billy Bob" and I just couldn't handle that. Here's Levi with Clare's Mum. We haven't settled on whether she is to be called "Granny" or "Nana", but it'll be a while before Levi can speak, so I reckon we have time to think about it.

On a related subject, we took Levi into Melbourne today to the American Consulate. We were all ready with as much proof as we could find that I had spent over 4 years in the US over the age of 14, but in the end all I had to do was sign an affidavit that I had previously written describing where I was born, how many years I spent in the US before going to South America, where I lived in South America and how long I was there, where I lived in the US when I returned from South America, etc., etc. I was very glad that they accepted my affidavit, as I had a difficult time proving that I had actually lived in the US, even though I spent 10 years there before going to PNG.

Anyway, bottom line is that Levi was approved for his US passport and Social Security number. I have to admit that a part of me hated plugging my son into a government system at such a young age, but there you have it. It's certainly much easier to travel with passports and visa stamps and all that jazz. We finally gave up on trying to do the passport photo ourselves and had it done in a pharmacy not far from the US Consulate--naturally Levi was asleep when it was photo time, so we had to figure out how to wake him up, get him to open his eyes and look at the camera. I'm not sure how many photos the camera man ended up taking, but it was probably over 20. Wonder of wonders, we finally did get a pretty good one, if maybe a little bit grumpy looking. I'm glad that the cameraman had such a patient attitude about it all.

We also plan to get him his UK passport. I figure it's a good idea to get them both and thus try to give him as many options as possible for the future. Who knows what the future may hold for him?

So that was OUR day! The folks at the US Consulate were really nice, even though I had my usual trouble with the metal detector which resulted in me having to go through over and over again before I finally found a small pocket knife in my change pocket that I had completely forgotten about. (Unfortunately the net effect was that it looked as though I had tried repeatedly to sneak it in!) Thankfully the guard was very understanding and didn't give me a hard time. I refrained from telling her a story about my trip to the US consulate in Lima, Peru when I was 16 which resulted in me having to shed 6 knives (nothing illegal) at the metal detector....

Long Time No See!

2008-11-24T13:06:00.003+10:00

Well! It's been an awful long time since I posted anything here. Having a baby around takes up a lot of time and effort. Now that Clare and Levi have been home for a while, we've been establishing new routines and getting a handle on all the new things in our lives, like nappies (or "diapers" depending on where you're from), prams, (or "strollers" or "pushers", take your pick), car seats, (or "baby capsules"), etc., etc. We love our little boy! Especially as he seems to be so easy at this point--mostly he just eats, sleeps, and makes dirty nappies. If he's fussy, it usually means that he is hungry. Anyway, all that to say that we've been busy learning all about our baby and how to take care of him and that has been taking up a lot of time, sometimes at odd hours of the night.

Tomorrow we take a trip down to the US Consulate to see about getting a US passport for Levi. By US law he has to be sighted by somebody at the embassy before they will let him have a passport. Hopefully one of the 50-100 attempts at passport photos that we have taken will be acceptable. It's just difficult to get a 2 week old baby to look straight ahead, (or look straight up if you have him lying on the floor), with his eyes open, both ears visible, no parents' hands in sight, on a flat, white background with no shadows.

In the near future we will also be applying for a UK passport for Levi, but it sounds like that one will be much easier to get.

Once we have one of the passports, we will be applying for a PNG visa--this is the part that might be the most difficult, as the PNG visa office is often overworked and sometimes visa applications take an unavoidably long time to process.

And by the way, who turned off the heat here in Melbourne? I'm freezing!

Finally Home from the Hospital!

2008-11-15T15:42:00.003+10:00

YAAAAY! My wife and son are finally home from the hospital! I thought we would never get out of there--apparently there were several other women and babies being discharged at the same time, so it took us over an hour to get permission to leave. This photo is of Clare lying on the sofa with Levi watching TV. It looks like Levi has already figured out that there is nothing on worth watching.

It's so good to have them back! By the end of their time in hospital, I was starting to really miss them, even though I was spending much of every day at the hospital with them.

I installed a baby seat in The Mighty Holden pick-up. That was a trick! I had to remove the whole back seat to find a place to mount one of the straps. I was warned that some hospitals here won't let you take your baby until they see receipts from a professional workshop for having your baby's car seat installed, but thankfully the Mercy Hospital wasn't that way. Many thanks to the folks who loaned us the car seat!

Levi is cute, I think I'll tell Clare that we can keep him.

Levi Robert Willem Koens

2008-11-12T06:53:00.004+10:00

On 11th November, (local time) at 1:49 a.m., our son Levi Robert Willem was born. At 7lbs 10oz, he was about 1 lb over his projected birth weight. He was 20 inches long. Clare and he are both doing well, resting comfortably at the hospital.

American father, English mother, born in Australia and moving to PNG at the age of 1 month--yup, he's definitely an MK. He's going to have more difficulty than average when asked where he's from! I guess he'll get to choose the place he likes best.

Between hundreds of emails, trips back and forth to the hospital, etc., etc., I don't really feel like I have the time to write any more right now--hopefully I'll get a chance to add to the blog later today. Maybe in about 12 hours or so?

Thanks to those who were praying.

Oh, and contrary to popular prophesy, he was not born with a bandana on and with a wrench in his mouth! :)

Election Day USA and the Dog

2008-11-04T22:00:00.004+10:00

This is our dog in Ukarumpa. His name is Guinny. I only put this photo here because I didn't have another one I wanted to put up today and because we miss him. He's a good dog, especially now that he pretty much no longer chews up things that are important. I'm sure that he would like kangaroos if he were here to see them and eat them.

Today is Election Day in the USA, and so naturally, since I am a citizen of that country I feel compelled to at least mention it. I admit regretfully that I haven't been able to vote in the last couple of presidential elections--usually my voting disctrict gets my presidential ballot to me in PNG sometime in April after the election, by which time even the recounts are usually finished.

Politics are a little bit of a sticky thing in Ukarumpa. Most citizens of the USA who go there, (and this happened to me), eventually find themselves in a situation where they feel as though they are at odds with citizens of other countries who also live in Ukarumpa. The Wycliffe Centre at Ukarumpa is an international community with Wycliffe members from 15-20 different countries. Within the main body of Wycliffe at Ukarumpa, there are sub-groups of American, Australian, Dutch, English, Canadian, German, Swiss, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Finnish and New Zealand people, just to name a few. Obviously we don't all agree on politics, and I have found that people from different countries will often have very different ideas on the role and form of government. Some people love to talk about politics and love to critique the politics of other nations.

(I should also add at this point, that I really like the international aspect of living in Ukarumpa. It can be a really good place to live and work--like most things in life, it is what you make of it.)

When I first arrived in Ukarumpa, I engaged a few non-Americans in these types of political discussions, but soon found myself embroiled in long and sometimes heated conversations that I was only marginally interested in. After a while I ceased talking about politics with non-US citizens altogether, as I felt the topic was too divisive. Now, in the interests of "...living at peace with all men...", I make it my habit to keep political discussions to a minimum. I'll happily explain the way the US system of government is designed to work and what some of it's current challenges are, and I will also happily listen to others describe how their country is supposed to work and how they feel about it, but as soon as somebody starts asking me to explain why America did this or why America doesn't do that, I start looking for a way out of the conversation.

This is one of those areas where I take Romans 12:18 to heart--"Insofar as it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live at peace with all men." (mostly KJV, I think). When I used to get into these discussions, I used to find myself avoiding people or treating them differently because I couldn't get around our political differences. But over time I learned that relationships with people are more important than political rhetoric, and being vocal about my political views was something that I learned I was happy to sacrifice to live at peace.

And that's pretty much all I've got to say about the election.

In Which Kangaroos Figure Prominently

2008-10-30T11:16:00.003+10:00

Wow! It's been 5 days since I last posted on this blog! I was shocked when I looked at a calendar and relaised that it had been so long. We've been keeping busy and so I'd lost track of the time.

Here's a photo I took of Clare when we were out exploring the Wilds of Australia. Yesterday we took a short trip to the Sugarloaf Reservoir. As it was the middle of the day on a weekday, we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. It's pretty country out there, lots of rolling hills, evergreen and I think gum and eucalyptus trees, (I'm not a botanist), and short grass growing everywhere. And kangaroo sign EVERYWHERE. Either kangaroos cover a lot of territory in a short time or the place is simply overrun with them. The other day we saw dozens of them in another little fenced-in park we visited. Certainly not endangered, are kangaroos.

Yesterday we also took a trip out to the headquarters of Wycliffe Australia at Kangaroo Ground, (there's that word again!), and had a look around. We enjoyed the opportunity we had to catch up with some of our PNG friends who are there now, like Faye Canavan, Jim Savage (leading a WA construction team from the US), and others. One man we spent quite a bit of time talking to was our old friend David Wake, who is involved in all sorts of things for Wycliffe Australia, mainly along the lines of recruitment and training. I think "mobilisation" is the term we're usin these days. Here's a link to one of the exciting things he was telling us about. http://www.endsoftheearth.com.au/index.html It's about a program called Go MAD Oz 2009, which sounds like loads of fun.

Tuesday night I went to the movies with Knuckey and a couple of his mates. It was the first time I have been to a movie theatre/cinema in Australia. It was just like any other movie theatre I've been to in the US or in the UK--a big room with a sloping floor, lots of seats and a big screen at one end. I like going to the movies--it's something we can't do in PNG, (no theatres/cinemas), so when we are away from there I like to try to get in a movie or two. Simple pleasures, I know. Clare went to another theater/cinema with Alison to see chick flick. I am so thankful that my wife doesn't insist on me going to romantic comedies with her! And also thankful that she is okay with me going to guy movies.

No kangaroos in either of the movies we saw.

Unexpected Encounter Whilst Shopping

2008-10-25T11:55:00.004+10:00

Yesterday Clare and I went shopping for baby stuff at the Greensborough Shopping Centre. Nice place, maybe a little bit of an overload for people like us who have gotten used to having only one or two brands to choose from rather than 20, but hey, we're adapting.

So there we were, sort of window shopping in this mall when all of a sudden I heard somebody call my name. I turned around and saw one of our fellow missionaries from Ukarumpa! He and his wife had left a few months ago on a combination furlough/have a baby trip and I had completely forgotten that they were in Melbourne. So we had a good chat with them and got all caught up on their news and them on ours, you know how it goes.

Anyway, as often happens when missionaries bump into each other in some other place, the question came up, "So when are you guys planning to go back to PNG?" At that question, our friend's face clouded over and he said, "Well, we were planning to be back in January, but because of the sudden loss of strength of the Aussie Dollar, we now have to raise 30% more financial support in order for that to happen."

When we are in PNG, I often forget how far-reaching the effects of world financial troubles are. Sure, I notice that the price of supplies or spare parts from Australia or from the US is suddenly higher or lower than it was last month, but it isn't until I talk to somebody whose support is suddenly cut by 30% (through no fault of his own) that it really hits home.

So we're remembering our Australian missionary friends in prayer these days as they are all feeling the effects of the sudden devaluation of their currency. Over the last few years it's been the American missionaries who have been feeling the effects of the devaluation of the US Dollar, so we have some idea of what the Aussies are going through now. The value will probably come back up at some point, but when is anybody's guess.

In other news, we got the baby mittens we were looking for. I didn't know this, but apparently newborn babys need mittens to keep them from scratching their faces and hurting themselves. We also started investigating what is available (and what we think we might need) to childproof our house in Ukarumpa. I was in favor of building a padded room that we could just put the baby in, but I'm sure Clare wouldn't go for that. :)

Pre-Natal Parenting Class

2008-10-23T10:01:00.009+10:00

Yesterday (Wednesday) we went to the Mercy Hospital for Women where we are planning to have our baby. On Tuesday we drove there on a recon mission so that we would know how to get there and what the parking situation might be like. While there we asked about the hospital's somewhat enigmatically named "Labour Overview and Tour" (made me wonder if maybe we were going to have a tour of labour--maybe even ride in little carts shaped like babies through a gigantic birth canal with lots of confusing lights and sounds to end with being picked up and slapped on the bottom by a giant mechanical doctor), and found that the next such class was scheduled for the next day and the next class after that wasn't scheduled until sometime after our baby's due date.

So we signed up and found ourselves in a class with another couple of about the same age and condition as ourselves. Like us, (unusually), they also had just come in from overseas, but they had come from much farther away and we still showing obvious effects of jet-lag, poor things.

The class was interesting and informative, but I found the video to be extremely emotional. It was an American produced video with lots of touching scenes of expectant parents holding each other, supportive fathers massaging their wives' backs, babies being born etc., all to very stirring background music. I had a hard time not weeping, then despised myself for weeping at the recorded images of other people having babies. I'm not afraid of my feelings, (not by a long shot), but I'm sure that there won't be a choir singing in the background when our baby is born--not to suggest that the birth of our own won't be an amazing and beautiful thing. Ask me more about this after he/she is born.

The photo is of the midwife who conducted the class explaining how to use the bed in the labour room. The midwife was a very nice lady who had spent some time in PNG in the '70's, so when we learned that, we immediately felt as though we had a connection with her.

The class went on for about 2 hours--I admit that I was never a good classroom student, so my mind wandered from time to time, but overall it was a good experience. Clare found it to be very helpful, especially the tour of one of the birthing rooms and the maternity ward. I was glad to learn about where to park the car, how to get the doors open if we arrive at night, etc., etc. All the little details that will make life so much easier when the time comes.

On a related note, I had noticed that the car we've been driving had a very rough idle that seemed to be getting worse and I had nightmares of trying to drive to the hospital in a car that wouldn't idle but would only run full speed or not at all, (trust me--I've done this and it's not as fun as it sounds), so on the way home from the hospital we found a car parts place and bought some fuel injector cleaner. It must be good stuff--I put it into the tank before we left the car parts place and by the time we got home the engine was running noticably better. When we drove to Bible study later that night it was running even better, so I have high hopes of having it purring like a kitten by the time Baby is born. Phew!

Baby Clothes, Missions Prayer Meeting

2008-10-21T22:28:00.003+10:00

One of the nice things about living in Ukarumpa is how supportive the community there can be. When our fellow missionaries heard that we were expecting a baby, we were suddenly showered with no end of baby clothes and baby equipment. Eventually we had to even start turning people down when they would call with the offer of another crib or playpen or high chair. We constantly marvel at the generosity of those we work with. This photo (taken a few weeks ago), shows about half of the baby clothes we have been given so far.

This evening was Missions Prayer Night at our hosts' house. Several young people from the Knuckeys' church showed up and we spent some time with them explaining who we are and what we do in Ukarumpa, as well as talking about missions in general. We were asked to talk about how people at home can best support missionaries, so we talked about prayer support, moral support and financial support.

Prayer support is exactly what it sounds like--spend time praying for your missionaries. We often underestimate the importance of prayer.

Moral support is one that doesn't get talked about very often, but is one that I think will soon be getting more attention as it gets easier and easier to communicate with missionaries in the field. Moral support as we described it tonight is mainly just communicating with your missionaries, letting them know that you prayed for them or sending them an encouraging e-mail from time to time, or even just spending a few minutes chatting with them on-line if you can. We also talked about care packages from home and how it's not as important what's in the package as it is to just send one so that your missionaries know that you care about them.

Financial support is also an easily explained one--missionaries with Wycliffe (as well as with many other organisations) don't get a wage--our daily living costs are covered by financial gifts from friends, family and churches in our home countries.

Clare and I appreciated the opportunity we had to chat with the folks who came to the prayer meeting. It was good getting to know them a bit and to spend time in prayer with them for other missionaries as well as being prayed for by them.

Huh! It occurs to me that this post is all about the Body of Christ in action.

First Doctor Visit

2008-10-20T14:08:00.002+10:00

So! Today we finally had our first doctor visit here in Australia! Dr. W seems to be a very busy man indeed--while we were sitting in his very busy waiting room he had to deliver a baby next door, which put all of his morning appointments off by a bit. Seems he was dashing back and forth between delivering the baby and examining other patients!

Anyway, we had a short chat with him and found that he had spent time in both England and the US and that the church he belongs to has a church plant in Mt. Hagen, PNG, which is a few hours away from us by road. He seemed pleased with his examination of Clare--everything seems to be on track and looking and sounding good, so Clare and I are both happy about that.

Next week we go back for the results of some blood work and also for a sonogram, so that'll be fun.

Kangaroo BBQ

2008-10-17T22:42:00.003+10:00

So, today being Friday and all and because we haven't done much in the way of just pure socialising, the Knuckeysand us decided to have a barbeque. The girls sent us off for the meat while they took care of other things.

Once we got to the store we noticed that marinated kangaroo fillets were actually cheaper than beef, so we decided to give them a try. We also got some kangaroo kebabs. Here you can see if all sizzling nicely on the grill.

It was really good. I think kangaroo may be the perfect BBQ meat because it doesn't seem too sensitive to the amount of time it spends on the grill. Sometimes, 1 or 2 minutes is all that seperates a really nice beef steak from a merely mediocre or even awful one, but kangaroo doesn't seem to be that way. It has a somewhat stronger flavour than beef, but I like it. I'll definitely eat it again sometime.

While we were cooking, Damien (Knuckey) and I reflected on how declaring a BBQ gets the entire household mobilised--decide to cook meat over fire outdoors and suddenly everybody is involved. The men gather around the flames and the meat and swap opinions on how the meat should be prepared and cooked, the women gather inside and chop up veggies for the salad. I said it must be some sort of primal instinct. And what better way to socialise than to roast and eat meat? Or veggie burger patties if you prefer. At any rate, a good time was had by all.

For those of you following the Tale of the Moto Guzzi, I believe it is done now. I may take it for another test ride tomorrow.

Bump Photo

2008-10-16T20:41:00.002+10:00

Ah, here she is--the amazing Clare. Some have complained about not getting enough photos of her in our newsletter, especially now that she is pregnant, so I decided to pre-empt any complaints I might get along those lines here in the blog.

I took this photo just a few days before we left for Australia. This is at about 34 weeks pregnant.

Today we went shopping again, this time for food and for more maternity stuff. The sheer volume and variety of maternity STUFF that exists boggles my mind. How did Eve cope? How did Sarah or Rebecca manage? It's shocking the amount of equipment that is needed to have babies these days.

It always takes me a couple of hours worth of driving time to get used to driving in Australia, England or the US after being in PNG for a while. I'm happy to report that my confidence for driving in the Melbourne area is increasing rapidly. I still need to get some pointers on the proper interpretation of green arrow signals, though. Today we sat at an intersection through 2 green lights waiting for a green arrow signal so that we could turn left but the signal never came. Finally the cars waiting behind us started driving around us and I realised that I was doing something wrong. Clare gently suggested to me today that maybe I enter car parks/parking lots all wrong, so I guess I'll need to examine that aspect of my driving habits. I'm not convinced that I am doing it wrong--maybe I'll have a chat with Knuckey about it.

Speaking of our illustrious host, he got a new battery for his Moto Guzzi today and I filled it with electrolyte and installed it. I haven't tried it out yet, I decided to put it on the trickle charger over night and try it out tomorrow. I'm hoping that he will be able to ride this thing to work next week.

Yesterday somebody asked me if I'd take a look at a Vespa. Typically, I hate working on scooters, as they tend to be covered with all kinds of body work that gets in the way and sometimes you have to do strange things like, remove the entire exhaust system to fix a flat in the rear tire, (Honda Elite). Evil stuff, really. But if this guy is serious, sure, I'll take a look at his Vespa. I helped rebuild/restore a Lambretta once, surely a Vespa can't be to different.

Tomorrow I think I'll start looking into motorcycle junkyards and maybe for a source of Toyota Land Cruiser pick-up doors for one of the vehicles in Ukarumpa.

Car and Bike Show, Kinglake Park, Bible Study

2008-10-15T23:37:00.003+10:00

So today Knuckey and I went to a car show that his church put on in the evening. This very nice example of an Indian Chief was there, as well as lots of old cars. I couldn't help chuckling at one nice 1973 Lincoln Continental Mk IV, as just a few years ago, (before I went to PNG), I was driving one very much like it back and forth to work in TN and I had only paid $260 for it. I guess I must be getting old, because that car really didn't look very old to me. Anyway...

Afterwards we met Clare and Knuckey's wife Ali at their Bible study. I was struck once again, (as I often am when meeting with other Christians around the world) at how easily we were able to fit in, in spite of our different backgrounds and our different expectations of life, etc., we share a common bond in Christ.

Earlier in the day I had a chance to take Knuckey's Moto Guzzi on a long ride through the Kinglake national park. Good motocycle roads there. I was testing his bike's battery charging system and I am more convinced than ever that it needs a new battery. I checked the charging system with a meter earlier int he day and found that the charging system seems to be up to snuff, it's just the batteyr that doesn't seem to be holding a charge. I wonder if the fact that his bike calls for an 18 amp hour battery and yet has been fitted with a 14 amp hour battery might be making a difference? I recommended that he go back to the original size battery, anyway. Apparently the bike's original battery lasted 10 years (!!) but the one in it now lasted maybe 6 months before it started to give him trouble.

Still adjusting

2008-10-14T10:47:00.003+10:00

Well! Being here in Melbourne and getting into new routines has seriously thrown my normal routines into confusion. But that's okay, I'll adapt.

Yesterday I started taking a look at Knuckey's Moto Guzzi in the morning to see if I could figure out what is wrong with it. Once I got it started it worked fine, but this morning it wouldn't start again--looks like the battery isn't holding a charge. It was fun to ride on paved roads again at speeds higher than I can normally get up to in PNG.

In the afternoon Clare and I went on a shopping trip--we saw that newborn baby nappies/diapers were on sale, so we bought a load of those since we didn't have the space to bring all of our washable ones with us from PNG. Int he background of the photo above you can see the little pick-up truck that we've been given to use while we are here. Another case of God providing for our needs when we simply step out of His way--I was originally planning to buy a cheap car to use while we were here and I was starting to get a little stressed about the logistics of registration and insurance for non-residents in Australia, so one evening I made a concious decision not to worry about it anymore and turned the whole problem over to the Lord. I continued keeping an eye open for a vehicle to use, but stopped relying on my own strength to make it all happen. It's difficult for me to explain what I mean by this, but when I truly give a problem over to the Lord, I am able to stop worrying about it, secure in the knowledge that He, being infinite and all-powerful will be able to work it all out for me. Often times, the hardest part for me is just letting go of the problem, but once I do, He never lets me down. This time, a couple of days after I chose to turn it over to Him, we were offered a car that is absolutely perfect for us--it runs good, being a double cab 4 door, it has enough space for us and for the Baby, and it has enough dents and dings on it that we don't have to worry too much about it. God is good to us.

In other news, Clare and I are happily taking advantage of the opportunities we have here that we don't have when we are in PNG, and one of those is high-speed internet with (more or less) unlimited downloads!

"Home" for a few weeks

2008-10-11T22:09:00.003+10:00

We've made it safely to Melbourne! Today was our last flight for a while, and I am glad of that. Airplane seats are mainly designed for very average sized (or even somewhat smaller than average sized) people, and I am bigger than average. I always find airplane seats to be cramped and uncomfortable. Lately they've been getting worse as the airlines attempt to upgrade their seats to more ergonomically comfy designs. The better they get for average sized people, the worse they get for me. Anyway all that to say that I am tired of flying for a while.

My good mate Damien Knuckey met us at the airport--some of you may remember that Knuckey was my best man at our wedding. He and his wife, Ali, have graciously given us a place to stay here in Melbourne. Their place is great! Clare and I are very comfy here.

You know, now that we are here, suddenly the imminent arrival of Baby is much more real to both of us. Months of careful planning went into getting us here at this time and we've been so caught up in the planning that now, when all we really have to do is wait, we can take a moment to realise why we are really here. I guess we should probably start thinking a little harder about possible names for Baby...

Clare and I spent a little time this evening praying and thanking the Lord for bringing us safely to this point. God has been so good to us.

Yesterday I fully intended to post something here, but I was wiped out from travelling and the heat in Cairns, so I fell asleep much earlier than I normally do and never got to post. Today I would rather have had a photo of Damien and Ali to put up, but we got in late from the airport and didn't get a chance to snap a photo. I'll try to get one tomorrow. For now, if you're not from Australia, you can use the map above to see that today we travelled from Cairns, (way up north) to Melbourne, (way down south).

Well, it's late and I should sleep. Tomorrow being Sunday, I probably won't post anything here.

First stop in Australia: CAIRNS

2008-10-09T21:11:00.003+10:00

SO! Here we are in Cains, once again! The photo is of some of our fellow passengers standing around outside the plane after we've landed. At the point that this photo was taken we were all getting our luggage sorted out and are about to head into the terminal.

Clare and I are only here for a couple of nights before we catch another flight for Melbourne. Thanks so mauch to those of you who have been praying for us. Thanks also to those friends of ours who came out to the runway to see us off as we were leaving Ukarumpa.

Really short one today--travelling in the tropics can take a lot out of you.

Later.

T-minus 10 hours 30 minutes

2008-10-08T23:25:00.003+10:00

So tomorrow morning we embark on our epic journey to await the arrival of Baby Koens! Today's photo is the view out of the left side of a Beechcraft King Air B200, which is the biggest and fastest airplane in the small fleet of airplanes and helicopters that Wycliffe uses in PNG. Most of our airplanes are Cessna 206's, but we also have one Britten-Norman Islander, (the rare turbo-prop variant), the aforementioned Beechcraft King Air, and a couple of Bell helicopters, (1 Long Ranger and 1 Jet Ranger, I believe). These planes are used primarily to transport translators in and out of remote villages, but when not busy being used that way, they are available for commercial work. Proceeds from commercial work are plowed back into the aviation department or are used to further the work of Bible translation in other parts of the PNG Branch of Wycliffe.

Tomorrow we get picked up at our house by the Aviation bus at 8:30, driven to the runway, check ourselves and our baggage in, and will hopefully be off the ground by 10:00. As I am writing this at 11:30 p.m., that makes less than 11 hours to go!

On our way to Australia, we'll stop in PNG's capital city of Port Moresby, where we will go through the usual exit paperwork rituals, then off again for our first stop in Australia, the city of Cairns in Northern Queensland. After 2 nights in Cairns, we're planning to hop onto a commercial flight to Melbourne, where we will be met by some Aussie friends of ours who have graciaously invited us to stay with them while we are in Australia.

I started packing today. I think I spent about 3 hours packing some clothes and various other sundries into an old German army surplus back-pack. After I did that, I went down to the workshop and made sure that there weren't any loose ends there that I needed to take care of before I left. Later I went and picked up the nice lady who is going to be staying at our house while we are gone and brought her to the hosue so that Clare and I could show her around the place and let her get aquainted with our dog. For security reasons, it's highly desirable to have somebody stay in your house if at all possible while you are gone somewhere.

Later some friends came by to say good-bye--one family will be leaving for a year's furlough while we are gone, so we won't be seeing them for a long time. That's probably one of the biggest downsides of this line of work--good friends are always leavingand going to be gone for at least a year. Sometimes they go and for various reasons they never come back. That can be hard.

Well, as it's late and we are travelling far tomorrow, I think I need to turn in. I may not get to post anything for the next couple of days--we'll see what happens!

Oops! Forgetion and What It's All About

2008-10-07T22:43:00.004+10:00

On Saturday I signed off with a jaunty "See you Monday!" And on Monday I experienced an incident of forgetion and completely forgot to write to my blog! Ah well, as my friend Doyle says all the time, "I'm new here myself."....

So it occurs to me that "Those Who Came In Late", (to quote from the Phantom), might appreciate a bit more info about why Clare and I are living and working in Papua New Guinea, when we could be living and working in the US or the UK where we could be making money and living "the good life". So why would we choose instead to leave our comfy lifestyles in our home countries and go to a place far, far away from our families and friends, far, far away from the nearest McDonald's, the nearest movie theatre, the nearest take away pizza? Why would we go to a young country like PNG, where the culture is very different from our own, which is still deciding how much emphasis to put on infrastrucure like roads and bridges, and which is still sorting out how to fund things we might take for granted in other countries, like an empowered police force?

It's easy really. It's all about the Bible. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God. We believe that it is as relevant today as it was when it was written. And we want anyone who desires to do so to be able to read and study God's Word in his own language.

Imagine recieving an important message--a message containing information that could change your life, but unfortunately written in a language that you couldn't read or understand. How frustrating would that be? Obviously most people would take that message and begin looking for somebody to help them translate it. This is what Wycliffe Bible Translators does. Wycliffe is not a church planting organisation, nor do members of Wycliffe go around trying to cram anything down anybody's throat. Rather, Wycliffe makes its resources available to translate the Bible for language groups that have expressed an interest in having the Word of God in their own language.

Today's photo is of a group of Angaatha men (edit--I mispelled this language name--it should have been Angaataha, but could also have been Langimar, Angataha, Angaatiya, Angaatiha--AK) who have just recieved the New Testament in their own language. Members of Wycliffe Bible Translators lived among them for many years, learning their language and culture, helping the Angaathas come up with an alphabet that suited the particular needs of their langauge, teaching the Angaathas to read and write in their own langauge, testing their own understanding of the language by translating various health booklets with the help of Angaatha co-translators, test translating various short stories from the Bible and on and on, over hundreds of steps finally culminating in a complete New Testament that can be read and understood by anybody who speaks Angaatha! It's an amazing thing to see people reading God's Word in their own language for the first time--many times they are already familiar with various passages in Melanesian Pidgin or in simple English, but it's not unusual to see people overcome with emotion when they see for the first time that God truly speaks their own heart langauge.

So where do we fit into this picture? Well, imagine that you are Joe Translator and you are working in a little village deep in the bush. Imagine that although there are dirt roads and trails in your immediate area, there are no roads connecting your area to any other part of the country and that the only way that you can get in and out of the area is by small plane. It just so happens that the nearest airstrip is 30 km away, but through the generosity of one of your financial partners back home, you have a small ATV that you use to get around on. You are very thankful for this ATV--what used to be a 2 day hike to the next village is now reduced to a couple of hours of riding time, and when one of your national co-translators is sick and needs to get to the nearest clinic or aid post, you can give him a ride. On the way home, you can pick up supplies of food and fuel at a little tradestore. All in all, the ATV has made your life so much easier and your time is now spent so much more efficiently. It used to be that you would hike 2 days to another village to work with some local translators only to find that they were called away unexpectedly and no one knows when they will be back, so you ended up with 4 days of hiking for nothing. Now, with the ATV, you spend a couple of hours riding to the other village and if nobody is there to work with you, you can ride back home and try again tomorrow.

Now imagine that your super-duper, ultra handy-dandy ATV broke down. Now what? You're not a mechanic, in fact you don't know the first thing about engines. Nobody in the village knows anything about them either. The nearest local mechanic is hundreds of km away and you're not sure that you trust him after he burned up your new generator last year. What do you do? Is this the end?

This is where I step in to the story. When Joe Translator's motorcycle, ATV, generator or other small engine powered equipment breaks down, I'm here to fix it for him. I'm also here to help advise him on what to buy when he needs a new one--which products are long lasting and repairable, which ones are easy to break and impossible to find parts for. If Joe's ATV is too much of a hassle to fit on the plane when it breaks down, he can choose instead to fly me out to his place to work on it in situ. Right now, I am personally responsible for the maintennce and repair needs of around 100 motorcycles and ATV's and any number of chainsaws, lawnmowers, generators, pumps, etc. The skills I have are very much in demand here, where there are very few local mechanics.

Joe Translator doesn't spend all of his time in the village. Several times a year he comes out of the bush to the Wycliffe translation centre at Ukarumpa. He may spend a couple of months at a time there, doing whatever translation work he can't do in the village. While he is in Ukarumpa, his kids go to school at the Ukarumpa International School--this is where Clare works. She started out teaching on the primary campus, but her most recent job there was as the vice principal, a position that she handled very well and seemed to enjoy. Now that she is pregnant, she will stop teaching for a while, but eventually she will probably start working there again.

So that's basically what it's all about. :)

Relaxing Saturday

2008-10-05T00:15:00.003+10:00

Today was Saturday. In fact it is the last Saturday that we will be in Ukarumpa for several weeks. In less than a week we are off to Australia, which means that our baby is due in just over a month, yikes! I guess we should start thinking about names...

So yesterday I mentioned that I was hoping to go down to the shop to work on some of my own projects today. I was happy to have a chance to do that today--Clare was gone to an all-day birthday celebration with a close friend of hers, so I was able to stay at the shop for most of the day. Today's photo is of one of my past projects--it was basically built up out of a pile of mismatched prts that had accumulated around the shop. It's really not that useful here, but it was fun to build. Some of my projects are more useful than others, but they all have one thing in common--they are all chances for me to create things from what we have laying around. I love doing it, especially when the result is something useful. Or something cool.

Today I just checked out a couple of engines that I recently got in from the US--they are used motorcycle engines that I got really cheap because their condition was unknown. I was very pleased with what I found inside them--I have high hopes for these engines for future projects, and it's nice to know that I'm not going ot have to completely rebuild them before I use them.

I think I'm making a decision right now not to add to this blog on Sundays. So, see you again on Monday!

Double (good) whammy, (almost)

2008-10-03T23:11:00.004+10:00

For those of you who don't know, a double whammy is when anything big happens in a pair. For example, if your house caught fire and then a tornado blew it away, that would be a double whammy. I guess "double whammies" are usually bad, but today I use the expression in a good way, sort of.

The first good thing, (definitely good), is the good news about the workshop guard dog. I really didn't know if he was going to make it, but poor old Lobo actually got up and walked today! He looks pretty rough in this photo, but that's mainly because he is all wet from being washed with the sprayer we use to wash cars. He loves the sprayer and ordinarily he runs and barks and plays with it, but this time he just sat still and let us wash him. A couple of hours later he started walking around and he pretty much stayed on all fours for the rest of the day. Needless to say, all the guys were happy to see him up and around again. His hind legs are still a bit unsteady, but the fact that he is walking at all is an improvement. I'm more and more certain that he must have eaten a cane toad.

Th other good thing is that that stocktake is finally over, (sort of). At the end of the day the auditor came down from the finance department and picked out a handful of stock items to do random checks on. I ended up leaving before her final verdict was in, so that's why I'm not 100% certain if we are actually done with stock take or not. I sure hope that we are, though.

Other good news: Clare is over her illness! Today she was able to eat and keep it all down, so that's a huge improvement.

This evening we had a little get-together where we said good-bye to one of our own who is leaving early to go back to the US. She's a teacher at the primary school--she is leaving earlier than planned because of family problems that are causing her much stress. It's sad that we have to lose her, as she is a well-loved member of the community, but living here can be stressful enough without extra stress coming from home. When one of us is really hurting or needs help, often times a trip back home is required as we simply don't have the resources or the personnel here to deal with big issues. So, a sad time this evening, but a good time of fellowship as well. She leaves here knowing that the rest of us love and care for her and want her to come back when she is able to.

So tomorrow is Saturday! I'm hoping to get a chance to go down to the shop and work on one of my projects, but we'll see what really ends uphappening. I try never to plan too hard for Saturdays.

More later, Andrew

supper invite!

2008-10-02T23:14:00.003+10:00

Tonight we got an invite to our good friend Donna's house for a Morrocan supper. Donna's a good cook who enjoys having her friends over from time to time and feeding them exotic food from around the world. I really don't know how she does it. Here's a photo of my lovely wife Clare, our friend Dan and the aforementioned Donna. Another thing I really don't know about Donna is where she gets all her Japanese house decorations. I know she gets a lot of stuff at second-hand shops in town.

A word about second-hand shops in PNG: you never know what you are going to find in them. They sell mainly used clothing from Australia and New Zealand, (I buy most of my clothes at second-hand shops), but they usually also have a delightfully random assortment of garage sale items as well and it is astomishing some of the stuff that turns up in these places. One of the MK's here even came back with a bowling ball once. I usually find obscure old sci-fi or fantasy books, which is great because other than Christian book stores, I don't think I've ever seen a book store in PNG. I got a very nice laptop computer bag once for $3. Sometimes people will go to a second-hand shop looking for old leather jackets that they end up making into motorcycle seat covers. Good stuff. Perhaps the greatest thing about second-hand stores is the prices--Donna is always on the look-out for silver stuff--once she got a nice silver teapot for about US $1.50, and has found other silver cups and sugar bowls, etc. Why silver gets sent to PNG with shipments of used clothes is beyond me. I once found a set of 2 silver cups, in a velvet presentation case and engraved as a reward for a tennis doubles championship for US $4. I think the thing that surprised me most about second-hand shopping was the time I bought a set of 6 mis-matched heavy silver forks for $2 and when I got them home I was cleaning them up and found that one of them had my initials stamped in the back! They had obviously been stamped there by somebody after the fork left the factory, which is a little bit weird, but how much stranger that that very fork should eventually find its way into a second-hand shop in PNG where it was bought by an American missionary with the same initials?

Anyway, supper was marvelous. That's one of the things I really like about living here in this community--none of your friends are very far away and it's easy to get people to come over for supper if you want to. I'd say that we get invited out or inivte others over to our place almost once a week, sometimes more often. Afterwards we hung out and socialised for a few hours--there was one couple there who I don't usually spend much time with, so I appreciated getting a chance to chat with them for a while.

Clare was feeling much better today, so that's a relief. Our paralysed dog at the work shop is still paralyzed, but was a bit more active today. Our stocktake is going well, hopefully we'll be done with it around noon tomorrow. I know that my Papua New Guinean co-workers are eager to be done with stocktake, and who can blame them? It can be really tedious. But from where I stand it looks to me like the guys have done a terrific job. Normally, stocktake is a terrifically mind-numbing and frustrating experience, but this time there seems to have been significantly less stress than normal. Maybe we're just getting a better handle on the process, now.

Well, it's just about midnight here, so I'm gonna call it a night.

dog paralysis

2008-10-01T22:23:00.006+10:00

Here's a photo of me with a bird on my head. Thankfully it didn't leave anything behind when it left. I was walking around in this rainforest habitat in the city of Lae when this dove flew over and landed on my head. He stayed there for a good 10 minutes while I walked around as if this sort of thing happens to me all the time. This photo was taken a couple of years ago. I only put it in here because it's a funny picture and now I know how to put photos in my blog, so that's exciting.
So Monday we came in to work and found the that the workshop guard dog was paralyzed in the hind legs. That was a real surprise, because I had seen him on Saturday and he was fine. We're not sure what has happened to him, but we suspect that he may have eaten a cane toad. Cane toads are these really big, fat toads that apparently like to live in sugar cane fields. Apparently if a dog eats one, the toxin in the skin will paralyze the dog's hind legs. Anyway, we have cane toads here and naturally they like to congregate under security lights at night and eat the bugs that fly around bumping into the light because they get confused and think they've found the moon or something.
Okay, so now we've got this pathetic dog, (his name is Lobo), who can't do his job guarding the shop and who now requires that we hand feed and water him. The question is, how long do we do this? If he were acting really sick, it would be easy to justify putting him out of his misery, but the problem is that he doesn't act sick at all--he just can't walk. His spirit is definitely willing, but his flesh just isn't cooperating. I guess we'll keep nursing him along for a few more days and see if he improves--today he managed to drag himself several yards, which is certainly better than he could do on Monday. So maybe there is hope for him yet?
We kept working on stocktake today--it looks like it will take us the rest of the week to get it all nailed down, but I have to say that it is really going pretty well, overall--I'm sure it was far more stressful last time we did it. Whenever we do stocktake, (which for me involves lots of time in the office in front of a computer inputting numbers), I realise that my normal job takes a lot out of me--during a normal week, I often come home tired and a little achey in a few joints from a long day and I just want to relax and vegitate for a while, but during the week of stocktake I find myself coming home with energy to spare.
Clare is still not feeling so hot, poor thing. If she's still unable to keep food down tomorrow she'll call the clinic again and see what they have to say.

Branch Strategy Workshop and Stock Take

2008-09-30T19:07:00.004+10:00

So this is it! My very own blog. Today I didn't get to work out in the shop. This morning was the second and last morning of what we call Branch Strategy Workshop. Over the past several months, all of us who work with Wycliffe in Papua New Guinea have been meeting together in small groups to discuss the future of the Papua New Guinea Branch of Wycliffe Bible Translators. I admit that at first I was skeptical of the whole idea of Branch Strategy Workshops, but now having experienced it, I think it was a brilliant idea--if nothing else, at least now everybody is aware of the challenges that we face as an organisation and what some of the possible solutions to those challenges may be. I actually enjoyed the strategy workshop much more than I thought I would.

Last night Clare was sick--34 weeks pregnant and she's never really gotten over morning sickness, but this was worse than "normal". She was sick again during the day. This is our first experience with having a child, so niether of us is really certain what to expect. Today in the afternoon, she went to the clinic just to make sure that things were okay. The doctor told her that there has been some sort of intestinal bug going around and that she is probably fine. I was relieved to hear that--I'm really not much of a worrier, but this is my wife and baby that we were talking about and so I admit that I was a little bit concerned. I felt a need to talk to somebody about my fears, so I got ahold of my friend Chad who has 2 kids and he told me that there was most likely nothing to worry about. He was right in the end.

After the Branch Strategy Workshop I went home to lunch and then to work in the afternoon, but at the shop we are in the midst of stock take/inventory, so I spent the afternoon entering numbers in the computer--sort of like this: "our records show tha we have 22 of part number 42-0025. Aka counted 12 in location 9B4 and Sep counted 10 in location 10E2, so yeah, we have 22" Gripping stuff, really. (Yeah, right! It's really pretty mind-numbing, but it is a break from the routine, so that's one good thing about it.) It's the business side of what we do--as a workshop, we repair cars, motorcycles, small engines of all shapes, sizes, descriptions,. and conditions--we also fabricate special parts and and do lots of welding repairs. We also stock parts for the more common local vehicles, (Toyota Hiluxes, Hiaces, Dynas, Mitsubishi L300s, that kind of thing), which we sell to the public as a service to the local community.

Anyway, every 6 months we have to count everything that we have in stock so that we can keep the finance guys happy. The only problem is that all of us who work in the Ukarumpa Auto Shop are real "hands on" kinds of guys who don't do so well with office work, so while we may be able to rebuild your Toyota Land Cruiser or Honda XR250 in our sleep, some times we struggle with basic office tasks, like navigating an Excel spreadsheet. So every 6 months we have to step out of our "comfort zones" (I detest that term), count fiddly bits and then poke and prod the computers until all the numbers get juggled into information that makes sense. I guess that makes it sound like we aren't quite honest with the numbers, but we are, really.

In other news, our preparation for travelling to Australia is moving right along. As a developing nation, Papua New Guinea faces some real challenges when it comes to medical emergencies, so Wycliffe policy is that we leave the country when it is time to have a baby. Our local clinic and hospitals aren't equipped to deal with some of the complications that can arise during childbirth, and leaving the country also helps to keep us from taxing an already burdened local medical system. So most Wycliffe members who are having babies go to Australia to have them. We chose to go to Melbourne for 3 reasons--1.) we were offered a place to stay with friends, (saves money on hotel costs for 8 weeks!), 2.) in order for the baby to get his/her US citizenship he/she needs to be "sighted" by somebody from the US Embassy, and 3.) I honestly don't know what I would do with myself in Cairns, (which is where most Wycliffe members from PNG go to have babies), for 8 weeks, but in Melbourne I might be able to help out at Wycliffe Australia. Plus I might get the opportunity to develop contacts at motorcycle junkyards, which could come in handy in the future when we need second-hand parts, (which we often do).

Going to Australia to have a baby is a bit more complicated than just hopping on a plane. There are medical visas to be obtained, arrangements to be made with doctors and hospitals, etc. Thankfully my wife is really good at that sort of thing! I'll give more details about that another day. I think I'm done for today...