Devotion about Bariai Bible Distribution

pieces of the puzzle

Click to read an article written about our journey to PNG

waterfall videos

After a week of distributing AudiBibles we took a hike one afternoon to a nearby waterfall.  Here is part of how we got there:

But as you can see it was worth the two hour hike each way:

thank you

Hello we just wanted to thank everyone for their support of us on our trip.  We will be posting some more photos of the AudiBible distribution soon, but wanted to post this one now as part of our thanks for all your prayers and comments.

Home

I am typing this from home!  It was a great trip home, our luggage arrived with us in Sioux Falls and we had only slight delays in our flights.  I don't know where to begin to describe our experiences as there were so many and so varied.  I will start with a quick description of our trip back.  We started Friday morning at 5 AM getting picked up by taxi after our stay at Tree Tops in Cairns.  We were so excited I couldn't keep Karissa from playing at the airport.

We then went to the domestic terminal and flew to Sydney on a quick 3 hour flight down the coast of Australia, it was beautiful.  After we landed we were able to grab a taxi to get a photo of the Sydney Opera House.

Then it was straight back to the international terminal at the airport where we just had enough time to get through the ticketing line, security and customs and grab a bite to eat before boarding.  Oh yes, we also grabbed some Tim Tams as comfort food on the flight home.  The flight home went well, we even got some sleep.

DFW was fun as well.

And then it seems we were home.

We arrived in Sioux Falls around 11 PM local time.  So if you add in the 15 hour time difference we travelled about 33 hours and covered over 10,000 miles.  I hope to update more later today, maybe after a nap.

Brad

Australia....

Hello! We arrived in Australia last night and our flights went really well. Today we were able to go the beach and go grocery shopping and tomorrow we hope to go on a sky tram here in Cairns (pronounced like cans, took me a few weird looks to get that straightened out).  It's really nice here, but I wish that we were back in PNG for a while longer.

That's about it! Thanks for all your prayers and support!

Karissa :)

Village talk

Hello!  Today we were able to go to Goroka, a town about 2 hours away from Ukarumpa.  We went shopping, and we met the Bowers, with whom Dad has been in contact with for a while.  It was a lot of fun!
So, this past week we've been with the Bariai people on the northwest coast of New Britain island.  We left on Thursday morning (Jun 26, It was about a 2 hour helicopter ride out there (which was awesome and included the refueling stop where dad got to pump from the drum after the wind from the helicopter blew the outhouse door open).  We arrived in Bombak (the village that the Gallagher's house is in) around 10 am and landed about 50 feet from their house!  We cleaned the house, got the battery and solar going so we could pump water, set up our mosquito nets and such, and tried to stay cool, because it was quite toasty.  We walked through the jungle for about 10 minutes to reach the river (the villagers usually wash and clean dishes there).  It was nice to sit in the river for a while and cool off.  We went there a couple of times during our stay.  On Friday we stayed at the house, and the dads worked on updating AudiBibles and Sabers (Sabers have the same content as AudiBibles, but are much larger and instead of solar power, they have a hand crank to charge the battery.  Sabers have much older technology than AudiBibles, and usually had batteries that were biting the dust.  Towards the end, we ended up giving AudiBibles to those who had faulty Sabers).  On Saturday, we went on a boat to some of the outer villages (the Barai speaking people are in about 8 villages, all along the coast).  It would have been a 4 hour walk to the village of Siamatai (the picture of the man with the toothbrush necklace was from Siamatai.  Also, they gave us really good kulaus--young coconuts--there), but by boat it was much quicker.  Instead of just parking ourselves at one village for a while, we stopped at a village and told them about the AudiBibles and the opportunity to update their old ones, then we would go to the next village so that they could gather their money and AudiBibles.  On our way back, we would stop at the villages and sell and update the AudiBibles then.  We left around 6 am, and didn't get back to the house until around 2 pm.  We were able to go to three villages that day.  On Sunday we went to church. Mando, the man in the picture with Anessa and I with the white shirt.  He is the minister/bishop/Catholic authoritative figure in that church.  It took us about a half hour to walk to the parish, and we were able to sell a few AudiBibles after church.  On Monday we walked to the west for about 30-45 minutes, and were able to update a lot of Sabers and AudiBibles in Aliado where Brad and Laveryl recieved nice necklaces like the girls already had.  On Tuesday, we did about the same thing, except we went the other direction to Kokopo.  That is where they had the dedication two years ago and the bamboo bridge had not been kept up so we just walked in the mud beside the bridge.  That afternoon, we were able to go to about a 100' waterfall, which was about a 2 hour hike through the jungle, but totally worth it.  It was really cool, literally :)  On Wednesday, we went fishing (but it was raining and windy, so the fish weren't really biting), and also to a little island that we could see from the village.  We walked around it, picking up some shells and having fun.  Side note: Final AudiBible count: 125!  The Gallaghers and the translation committee (men in the villages that helped translate the Bible into their language).  We also updated about 20 Sabers and 30 AudiBibles.  We thank God that so many people are able to hear more of God's Word!  Anyways, on Thursday, we had quite the adventure.  We prepared to leave the village, but there was poor weather surrounding us, so after circling around for a while, our pilot landed, took off again by himself for more fuel, and came back after several hours (kind of confusing), and after that we actually left the Barai people and went to Lae (On a totally unrelated note, Mr. Voss believes he saw pterodactyls on Umboi island, where there have been other pterodactyl sightings.  Unfortunately, the rest of us were not glancing in the right direction and there was some miscommunication.  Not like I'm bitter about not seeing them or anything :).  We weren't able to arrive in Ukarumpa that night, but we overnighted in Lae at the SIL guest house and ate at a really good Chinese restaurant (I tried, unsuccessfully, to use chopsticks.  The waitress took pity and gave us some silverware).  That morning we went to the airport really early and waited for a long time until the weather cleared up enough in Lae for our plane to land.  We ended up arriving in Ukarumpa around noon, and ate a scrumptious moo moo for lunch.  A moo moo is when you dig a hole in the ground and light a fire, and somehow arrange banana leaves, meat, and vegetables so that the food is essentially steam cooked.  It was really good.  That night we celebrated the 4th of July at a person's house and it was probably the most patriotic 4th  I've ever attended.  We sang the national anthem and other American songs, said the pledge of allegiance, and as always, ate good food and lit some fireworks.  It was not the traditional American fireworks though...mostly sparklers and some steel wool.

This was an extremely condensed version, and I apologize for the dullness it implies about our time at the village and such.  It would probably be better, when we get back, to talk to my Dad or I personally, as we would be happy to yak your ears off about our trip.
Karissa :)

village pictures

Hello from cloudy Ukarumpa.  Not much time to update right now, sorry.  We just returned from our village trip and have a lot of great pictures and stories.  I will try to have another update soon, but we are quite hungry and a mumu has been prepared for us.  I am looking forward to that as it looked delicious as they spread food over fire heated rocks and covered it all with banana leaves.

Our flight back from the village did not go as smoothly as the flight there.   Our helicopter showed up early yesterday, but had rough weather en route.  We encountered rougher weather when we tried to leave so we returned to the village house, unpacked the helicopter and he went for more fuel.  He took a long time there, again with weather issues, by the time we left we only had enough time to get to Lae so we overnighted there and waited for good weather to take a fixed wing flight back to Ukarumpa. 
More later
Brad

Saturday Night Phone Call!

We received a phone call from Brad and Karissa tonight.  They had just gotten back from the Sunday morning service in the village.  They are doing well.  I wasn't able to get a lot of details but found out they were able to distribute around 60 AudiBibles so far.  They mentioned that It's very hot, but they are able to do their laundry in a sink with collected rainwater and then hang it to dry under the house they are staying in!  We can't wait to hear more stories from their trip!

Thanks again for your prayers!  Kim

Friday Update

Our apologies for not updating for a few days.  LaVeryl, Anessa, Brad and Karissa left Ukarumpa a day and a half ago.   Max Voss emailed me later that day that they made it to the village. She wrote me last night, "I got a quick call this morning.  They wanted a number for someone here since they were having a few issues with trying to get the files to work with the Sabers (crank-recharged mp3-like players that were used previously) that are out there.  I asked if everyone was well, and it was affirmative.  Tomorrow they are going to start going to a different village."

Thank you for covering this trip with your prayers.   Kim

Tuesday update

Hello!  Things are going great in Ukarumpa.  We had a wonderful time at Sunday worship in the morning and at night with praise and a report of a Bible dedication.  Monday was filled with a variety of activities including loading the Sim cards into the AudiBibles.  It sounds easy, but doing it 200 times over and checking each one to make sure it works too took a good bit of the afternoon.  We also got a treat as we had burger and chips (big fries) at noon at the 'Store'.  That is the name, 'Store', so that should tell you where you go to buy things here.  It does have a nice selection of items including beef crackers and digi cell top up cards (prepaid cell phone minutes).  I love learning new terms and think I may be using some of them correctly.  Last night we had a scrumptious meal of puk puk fajitas (crocodile meat, just like chicken).  We did have pot roast and baked potatoes on Sunday so we are eating well.  We have also tried new things like kulau (a young coconut), sugar cane, and more tasty fruits that we know from the US like oranges, strawberries (!!!), and bananas.
Today was a great day as Karissa got to play trumpet-clarinet duets with Anessa and help Anessa paint part of the senior lounge at their school.  Painting that room is apparently normal for the incoming senior class to do here.  I got to exercise in the weight room which is very close to where I am at.  Speaking of that, I am staying in the other half of the duplex that the Voss's are in and Karissa is staying in Anessa's room as planned.  The family that owns it is back in the states right now so it works out great.
We will be getting the items needed to update the existing AudiBibles tomorrow and doing last minute preparations before we fly out on Thursday.  We are not sure exactly what we will find when we arrive in the village as the translator is not currently there.  Please pray that everything will be in good order and that the people will be receptive to getting the Bible as we work to be the arms and legs of Jesus.
It probably did not make the news in the states, but we had a 5.4 earthquake last night around midnight here.  I was asleep in bed at the time, but the boards stacked behind my bedroom door fell over and caused the door to slam shut.  That was enough to wake me up.  No aftershocks that I noticed so now I can check that off my list of things to do while here :)

Brad and Karissa

A few pictures for you now

 Here are some images of our travel and the market in Ukarumpa on Monday morning as well as us in the yard at the Voss'  Enjoy!

We're here!!

Hello from PNG!!!   We apologize that we haven't been very good about updating the blog, but hopefully we will be able to write more since we have a steady source of wifi for few days. Thank you for all your prayers on our behalf, they are much appreciated.  There are many things I could say about our flights, but suffice it to say that we never missed a connecting flight and were conscious when we arrived in Port Moresby, where we were met after immigration by Mosley who was a tremendous help.  He lead us straight to Mapang house where we had a toasty room ready for us to spend the night.  The next day, after a quick hour long flight to Nadzab by Lae, we were met by the Vosses who were a most welcome sight.  Karissa was so excited she dropped her luggage on the spot and gave Anessa a great big hug.  The truck was having starting problems, but after a prayer for help, some locals showed up and pushed the truck while LaVeryl started it.  We didn't have any truck troubles at all on the way up to Ukarumpa!  We spent about 3 hours in the truck and were able to take in the gorgeous scenery--pictures do not do the PNG landscape justice!  If you've ever been to a Montana, it's kind of like that, but with palm trees instead of evergreens.

This morning we went to church (in English!), and it kind of reminded me of church at home.  Ukarumpa is sometimes called Little America because of all the English speakers here.  After dinner, we went to a river and skipped rocks :)

Anyways, feel free to comment, and please keep on praying for us!  Especially for the truck, it's still not working quite right.  Everything else seems to be working out great.
Karissa :)

We're ready to go and hope to arrive in Ukarumpa on Saturday night (local time) which is early Saturday morning in the States.  Please pray for safe travels.  Thank you.

Prayer request

We will be traveling the Bariai area in a couple of weeks via helicopter. We will be on our own for a week after being dropped off as the helicopter has other important things to attend to. Once we are dropped off we will distribute as many AudiBibles as we can. The area we will cover is rather large so we would like to travel by boat so we can maximize the number of people contacted. There is no reliabe source of fuel for the boats so we would request prayers that a shipment of fuel arrive before we do so we can reach as many people as possible with our distribution. I know it sounds a little odd, but that is what we are challenged with.

Thanks for your prayers!

Here is Ukarumpa from the air, where we will be staying for a few days before heading to the Bariai area.

Here is a picture of where we will be visiting in a few short weeks!  Can't wait to go.

This is our pile of things we have organized so far. We have some more work to do before we leave in two weeks!

April 30 Update

We have been overwhelmed by the level of support we have gotten for this trip. Our church has raised the amount necessary to cover the expenses of the AudiBibles and transportation and we have received support from family and friends that has been wonderful.

Our whole family was able to be involved in a concert at our church on Thursday, April 17 that was presented to the Senior and Friends group. We had a lot of music including singing, flute, piano and trumpets and was a wonderful time.

On Sunday, April 27 we were privileged to participate in a mission morning at our church. Ruth V was kind enough to bring items from her trip five years ago to PNG along with pictures so we had that out on display and talked with many people about mission opportunities that are available. It was an exciting event that involved a lot of people.

We are very excited to be traveling in June and July of 2014 to Papua New Guinea (PNG).  The origins of this trip started many years ago with an idea my daughter Kassidy read about in a devotion book to write to a missionary child her age.  Over time my other daughter Karissa got involved as the missionary family had a daughter her age as well.  Fast forward a few years and the missionary family came to live in our community for year of home service and our family was thrilled they could attend the same school as us!

That year turned into two for a variety of reasons and our family got to know them even better.  When they returned to PNG I promised Karissa I would do my best to take her there to visit her friend and help out with their mission work.

That promise will come true this June as Karissa and I will be traveling to PNG for two weeks of mission work with them.  We will be sent from our church and charged with delivering AudiBibles in a specific language.  An Audibible is basically a solar powered mp3 player, only it plays a format other than MP3 to make sure the Bible contents stay on it.

We have many details to work out for logistics so please pray for us as things start to fall into place.  We appreciate everyone's support as we move forward.

Soli Deo Gloria