Packing for PNG

All the paperwork is in and the tickets bought, we’re off to PNG on Mar 11 🙂 That’s of course assuming we have a -ve PCR test on the 10th, airlines don’t cancel our flights and the rules don’t change!

We’re all booked for getting ourselves the 4 hours or so down south to get to the airport too, and we’ll spend a few days in my home town of Bracknell before exploring Heathrow.

International travel isn’t back to normal yet, but the requirements are less onerous than they were for our last trip. I guess it’s a sign things might be calming down?

It’s been a bit hectic getting everything booked and paid for, but we’re becoming seasoned missionaries by now and planning to fly half way around the world is becoming a regular commute.

We’ve not had to do it with 2 babies and a 4 year old before though (Happy Birthday Oscar!). Luggage wise this is probably going to be the most difficult journey we’re likely to do. Our babies get 10kg luggage each and 0 carry-on luggage, so we’re squashing and squeezing nappies and baby clothes into everyone else’s 7kg of carry-on 🙂

It’s actually a good challenge to have as we prepare to go back and minister to some of the poorest people in the world. We tend to default to packing more ‘just in case’ and trust that more stuff equals better prepared.

We’ve been challenged to trust God more. Rather than attempting to pack everything our family needs for the next 2-4 yearsz we’re going to trust that we’ll be able to find what we need when we need it. We’ve always aimed to be ‘light on our feet’, but of course having children is a great excuse to accumulate many things.

Some of those things are needed. We’ve got a stack of home school books for when we start school in September. Some things would be really nice, like a blender we bought for slicing up all the bush food we’re constantly given in Kovol. Some is sentimental, some (a few things) are luxuries, but all of it needs to fit in the In116kg we’ve got with our tickets.

There are ways we could have more baggage, but then I remember that whatever we bring then needs to be flown in by helicopter to Kovol, where we’ll be living with people who sometimes go hungry because they don’t have enough food that day. It’s a balancing act between what keeps our family sane, happy and connected to our western way of living and not having so much that it gets in the way of our relating to Kovol people.

Jesus told us that a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of his possessions, so we’re going to take his word for it and slim our luggage down as much as we can.

At least we don’t need any cold weather clothing, that’s a few kgs saved!

We’ve not really thought ahead too much to what we’ll do when we arrive in PNG. We’re not ready for that yet. I suppose we’ll spend a couple of weeks acclimatizing in Goroka, buying supplies, catching up on the news and booking a flight back into Kovol. We’ll think about all that once we get there and the reality of life in PNG sinks in.