September 2007

We’re still here!

Last time I wrote I told you of our up and coming rainy season. I’ve heard on the radio of all kinds of weather related tragedies around the world. Thankfully for us, there were no tragedies however for July and August, we had 12 feet of rain! NO Kiddin'! Thankfully there was no flooding but our yard was a swamp. Here’s an old picture you may have seen already but it’s a good explanation of what happens every year here.

Evenings “sometimes” get boring and we spend a lot time sitting around…talking. Some nights are more lively than others as the kids always seem to come up with some form of entertainment. I remember my sister years ago using “Dippity Do” to straighten my hair. Something about sisters and hair…. Jared did NOT go out of the house looking like that incase your wondering!

The kids get creative during the day as well which works out nice for me. They’ve all got a knack for woodworking so kept busy with projects.

A barge pulled into town but on their way here, one of the passengers died. We have no facilities here to keep a body so the question was, “what do we do?” There were a number of ideas but it ended up a local businessman donated the money to charter our mission airplane so the body could be flown out. Our pilot said all was OK until he descended and the body let out some gas that left him on the verge of losing his breakfast.

Early one morning we heard a call on the radio. Hoping it would go away I laid in bed unable to sleep. The captain called again and said his engine has quite and needed assistance. We launched the boat and our new Suzuki rescued this 80 foot boat with some 60 passengers. They were all happy and we were so grateful the seas were calm that morning.

We spent the next day welding and fabricating trying to fix the broken part. Jared got some good experience working on diesel engines taking the blowers off and on a couple times working into the morning. The ship did leave town on its own power.

A Church in Australia has donated money for corrugated roofing iron for the roof of one of the Churches planted by our missionaries. We drove for 2 hours on fairly good timber company roads and unloaded. The villagers will have to carry the roofing for another 6 hours hike into their village. Pray for them as these sheets are really sharp on the edges and easy to get cut and then of course, the cuts get infected.

We really appreciate you and your prayers for us. Thank you for standing with us here in Papua New Guinea.

Love,

Mark and Joan Reichman