Over the years, I've seen dozens of people come and go from this place. A lot of the guys who work on the support side of missions, (mechanics, plumbers, welders, carpenters, etc.) seem to have a very difficult time raising the funds they need to be able to stay here long term. And so, every couple of years or so, we lose valuable workers and good friends.
Take my friend Ben Parry, for example. Ben is a good mechanic, but like many of us who are good with our hands, he's not very good at selling himself. He'd rather just plug away at his job, quietly doing good work and being as low maintenance as possible. Such people are often important, even vital to supporting the work of Bible Translation, and yet, because they are not good at being "squeaky wheels", they are easily overlooked, forgotten, or taken for granted.
Ben's financial support is not so hot. Because he is not very good at hyping himself, I've decided to write a letter about him and about how important he is to the work that is going on here in PNG. Here it is:
22nd
March, 2016
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Andrew Koens. I would
like to talk to you about Ben Parry, and what a great asset he is to the
Ukarumpa Autoshop,but first a little background as to who I am and why I am
writing this.
Since 2002, I have worked in Papua New Guinea
with Wycliffe Bible Translators. I am
primarily a motorcycle and small engine mechanic, but because we are usually
understaffed, I have had to learn to do and be many other things over the
years. Welding, auto electrical, buying
and shipping parts and equipment from overseas, these are all areas where I
have needed to become proficient.
Lately, we have been critically short on managerial staff and I have
been learning to do that as well.
From time to time over the years, our workshop has been fortunate enough
to be fully staffed. Those are the times
when our shop functions best, when we can offer the best possible support for
the Bible translators and when we can offer the best training to our national
co-workers. When we are fully staffed,
we are able to help people from other missions and people from communities all
over PNG. When we are fully staffed, it
becomes possible to devote time and energy to exploring new (or old)
technologies that might be appropriate for use here: Technologies like
sustainable alternative fuel production, methods of generating electricity in
remote villages, coming up with a
vehicle that would be truly "PNG proof", that sort of thing.
Perhaps the biggest barrier to our being fully staffed is finances. Men who are great mechanics and good at
hands-on, nitty-gritty, behind-the-scenes support work are seldom good at
raising the finances they need to be able to stay here. I know because I have seen many of them
come, work here for a while, and then have to leave. Fixing and improving machines is hardly the
stuff of legends, our culture typically doesn't make heroes out of guys who fix
trucks or repair generators, nobody would watch a webcam feed from our
workshop, it'd be boring.
But nevertheless, these people who quietly plug away behind the scenes
are needed. Here in PNG, there are
dozens of translators from around the world and from within PNG who depend on
us to help keep their four wheel drive trucks running so that they can get to
the remote locations where they work, their generators working so that they can
keep computer batteries charged up or as back-up for their solar panels during
the rainy season, their chainsaws working so that they can mill the lumber
needed to build village houses and translation offices and training
centres. Thousands of people all over
PNG rely on our workshop to maintain the huge, heavy duty lawnmowers which they
use to keep their airstrips open in some of the most remote, hard-to-reach
areas on earth. Many of the services we
offer are simply not available anywhere else in country.
Ben Parry has been a member of our team for some time now. He brings expertise and a good attitude,
which are extremely valuable to us. Ben
is a talented mechanic who has a good understanding of the 4 wheel drive trucks
and other vehicles and machines that he encounters here. Our Papua New Guinean co-workers often ask
for his advice and opinion when dealing with complex maintenance or repair
problems, and he willingly helps them to understand the issues and how to
resolve them. He also takes time when he
can to teach about various automotive technologies, aiming to increase the level
of expertise out on the shop floor, so that our employees/trainees can become
really proficient at what they do.
Ben has also become something of an expert at sourcing hard to find
parts for some of the vehicles we work on here.
For a lot of reasons, cars and trucks used by missionaries here are a
bewildering mix of Australian, American, Indonesian, Japanese and General
Export market specification vehicles, so keeping up with what vehicles need
which parts and where to get those parts can be very difficult, but Ben has
really done wonders in spite of this challenge.
He also has a good sense of what needs to be kept in stock and what
doesn't, and since he started working here at the AutoShop he has helped us to
save thousands of dollars per year by cleaning up our inventory. His contributions in this area alone have
been invaluable. I cannot overemphasize
how much of an asset he has been just in this one area. He has really turned our parts room around.
Personally, I have greatly appreciated Ben's efforts in the past few
months. In December the manager of our
department was forced to go back to the US for family health reasons. This left us without a manager and since I
was the assistant manager, a lot of that job has fallen to me. Without me asking him to do so, Ben has
stepped up and supported me, even though, like me, he is not a manager and has
no interest in managing. Nevertheless,
he saw that I was struggling under the load and has taken some of it on to his
own shoulders, for which I am very grateful.
Ben's generally sunny disposition makes him fun to be around and this is
more valuable than you might expect.
Sometimes he has just the right funny story or comment needed to lift
people's spirits.
Unfortunately for us all, Ben's financial support is low, and he needs
to raise more monthly support in order to be able to stay here. Ben is a valuable asset to the work here and
if I were I able to pay him myself to stay here, I would do so, but I
can't. Please consider helping him to be
able to stay here and keep working with us to support Bible translation in
Papua New Guinea.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew J. Koens
SIL AutoShop
Ukarumpa,
EHP 444
Papua New Guinea
