Supply buying

Lesson writing and Bible translation feel like the work I should be focused on right now. Having realised that it is time to start drafting lessons I have been keen to dive in.

I enjoyed several office days of drafting portions of Genesis and carefully checking my drafts to make sure I hadn’t missed any meaning contained in the original. With an upcoming supply flight into Kovol though, I had to step away from “work” to spend 2 days preparing supplies for the flight.

Now, supply buying is also work. Once we return to the bush we’ll be there (Lord willing) for the next 3 months at least and that requires a little preparation and planning. We will continue to receive supplies via helicopter using the NTM PNG supply system. It’s a wonderful system. We email in a request at least 2 weeks before a flight detailing the supplies we want. Employees at the support centre then get the supplies for us, pack them in boxes and weigh them up, and on flight day send them to the hangar.

That takes care of most of our supply needs, but when we realise we need something at the last minute, or the supplies need “processing” it’s best for us to do it ourselves while we are out.

I grudgingly left the office then, for shopping, packing, weighing and preparing supplies. The whole time my mind is telling me that this is necessary and that it’s productive work. My heart though, is telling me “At home people don’t go food shopping during their work hours”. It’s silly, but preparing our supplies for the next 3 months doesn’t feel like work to me!

One of the things we do is blanch fresh vegetables. In a helicopter location we eat fresh fruit and vegetables for about 1 week after a supply flight and then it is all used up and we turn to our pantries. This is where it is very handy to have a store of frozen fruits and vegetables in the freezer.
At the market we purchased fresh strawberries, papayas, pineapples, courgettes, carrots and broccoli. We actually almost cleared one market seller out of all her carrots, we purchased such a large bag.

What follows is hours of peeling, chopping, putting into boiling water, putting into ice water and then bagging in portions, boxing, weighing and freezing.
Something unusual we do is that we make “egg cubes”. We crack an egg at a time (always, always separately as sometimes we get rotten eggs), then whisk them together and pour the mixture into ice cube trays. These freeze as little “egg cubes” which we can pull out of the freezer and use for baking in the bush.

Literacy supplies ready to go

The supply trip was also an opportunity to finish gathering the materials for the upcoming Kovol literacy class. My work on a blackboard was finished after a few coats of blackboard paint and the careful use of masking tape to paint on white lines.
This was loaded up with the other supplies and off we went to tribal supply.

At tribal supply each box needs a sticker recording the owner, where to send it, whom to charge for transport, what day to transport, its priority and how heavy it is. The boxes then get added to the supply spreadsheet and take their place on the Kovol pallet waiting to be sent to the hangar for flight day. It’s a great system, but does have the inevitable hiccups now and then. The flight went in, but none of our freezer items went. We’ll have to see about getting that on the next flight on March 19th when we’re thinking of going in ourselves.

With the supplies for the flight taken care of  it was back to the office.

The hevi in Kovol

On a more concerning note, there is currently a big “hevi” going on in Kovol. Two or three villages are all upset with each other and it has escalated to violence. No threats have been expressed towards the missionary team but there are fights and injuries happening.

Philip had summoned the Kovol community together to discuss plans for the new literacy classroom. Unfortunately, the meeting was overshadowed by a disagreement between villages boiling over into a fight. A “hevi” between the villages has been simmering for a few months now and everyone coming together was the occasion for it to boil over.
After an initial fight there is still a lot of anger and groups of young men remain on edge and the conflict continues.

We’re not completely clear on the underlying reasons for the hevi. It has to do with an act of violence that happened a few months ago, but there’s more than that under the surface we’re sure.

We can be praying though:

• Pray for the community to calm down to the point where they can start talking through the problem.
• Pray for protection for the Hansen family. There is no threat directed towards them, but it is possible for them to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Pray for those that were hurt in the fighting to heal and recover well.
• Pray for wisdom for our team on how to respond.