Passports arrived

Admiral’s Update 2007 No 19

Greetings Everyone,

A big thankyou for the many e-mails we received expressing concern and assurance of your prayers. We value them more than words can express. My arm has been out of action and so I haven’t answered each individual e-mail so please accept this collective “Thankyou”. It is still sore but mending and I am hopeful of a full recovery in the next few days. Phil has been taking photos to show you what a tropical ulcer looks like. It’s hard being right on the tip of my elbow — difficult to dress it and easy to bump. I knocked the board on the end of the bed one night and it really killed and bled like crazy. Phil said it did it good but he didn’t feel it!!

We’ve had such a frustrating time with our passports — mainly trying to get any info at all from Port Moresby as the phone lines and e-mail have been out at Bethel. We finally made contact with an Adelaide man going there for a conference and he organized to courier them to us. We eventually received them on Tuesday evening and cleared customs this morning. We have sailed to Waga Waga to get some fuel off Pacific mercy and then will be on our way Thursday — weather permitting.

Please pray for enough wind (and not too much) a difficult one at this time of the year with fluky winds and squalls the order of the day.

See you soon in Oz

God bless you all,

Pam and Phil

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Awaiting passports to leave

Admiral’ Update 2007 No 18

Greetings Everyone,

The conference at Waga Waga was Fantastic! I’m running out of adjectives and Phil tells me not to use “incredible” ever again. It poured raining the first day and has drizzled on and off ever since but it didn’t stop us. We just waded ankle deep up muddy bush tracks every day — 20 minutes each way — and changed when we got there. The people were very responsive.

I was talking to a man called John. This is what he said, “Mother and father died young and I didn’t have much education. At school the teachers used big words and if we didn’t understand they hit us with sticks. Your teaching is not like that. It’s easy to understand. We have never had teaching like this. It touches my heart and I drop tears.”

We are now at Alotau, only to find that our passports are still in Port Moresby. One of the local doctors went to retrieve them for us but couldn’t do so as the person who had charge of them was away. Typical PNG frustration. We are in a quandary as to what to do — we don’t have the finance for one of us to go to Port Moresby as we spent it all on fuel this year and we don’t know whether we can trust the PNG mail (all the locals say “NO”).

Phil has e-mail Kevin Hughes from the Adelaide CRC Centre who will be at Bethel from the 25th onwards to see what he can do for us. Would appreciate your prayers on this matter. We can’t leave PNG until we get them back and the cyclone season is approaching. There has already been one alert earlier this month to the east of us. (And Phil is out of chocolate).

Pray also for healing for me of a badly infected elbow. We are really looking forward to seeing you all; seeing some sunshine and seeing Sizzelers.

God bless you all,

Pam and Phil

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Heading for mainland PNG

Admiral’s Update 2007 No 17

Greetings Everyone,

We are heading for mainland PNG to do our ninth and final teaching conference before clearing customs at Alotau hopefully before the end of the month.

The average attendance has been 50+, some groups 80+ and the smallest about 35, so we will have reached at least 450 people! Each time God has worked mightily in people’s lives — far beyond the words I am saying. Although I am teaching on Family Relationships, everywhere we go, God is drawing people back to a stronger commitment to Him and firing whole churches up for evangelism to reach out to neighbouring islands and beyond. It’s been a mountain top experience for us. Everytime I hear comments such as one man said at Liak, “I realize I NEVER listen to my wife. That is not right. I must listen to her. Now I will”, I know it’s all been worthwhile.

Phil is feeling MUCH better — starting to dream of chocolate and icecream again. The wind has DIED. Please pray for our return trip that we have enough wind to sail (but not too much) and that our passports will indeed be in Alotau by the end of the month as we have been told.

We are looking forward to seeing you again,

God bless you all,

Pam and Phil

PS Sam Doyle, the fellow who has built our web page has now put a Blogs section in where people can put their comments if they wish.

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Skipper sick .. thanks for praying

Admiral’s Update 2007 No 16

Greetings Everyone, Phil and I have been touched by the many e-mails received saying you were praying for him. He is getting better though still very tired — a trip ashore and a short walk to the village was enough exercise for today.

The reason we were so concerned for him was that ten days before we got to Bwagaoia, two New Zealand yachts had arrived there and the skipper of one had the minutest nick on his shin and within 24 hours it was so infected that he had a temperature over 40 degrees and was semi delirious and had severe cellulitis. Thankfully the woman on the other vessel was a trauma nurse and had a well stocked first aid box including intravenous antibiotics. He was on these for four days and then oral ones for another week before he was well enough to do a day sail to a nicer anchorage. Our concern was that if Phil’s took off like that we had nothing like that to deal with it and the hospital had run out of everything except “Amoxil” which he is violently allergic to. The alternative would have been a medi-vac to Alotau if a plane was available (usually not) and we had the fare. We will be consulting our trusty doctor about upgrading our first aid kit when we get home!! Anyway, thankyou for your prayers they are always appreciated.

We will be sailing around to Liak on the north coast of Misima on Monday. Five small outreaches there are combining and expecting big things to come from the conference that starts there on Wednesday. Growth has been slow on that coast but they feel the timing is ripe and have invited many friend and family members. Please pray that the weather is not too wet or too hot as the meetings will be held under a makeshift shelter with a tarp over it and can get really stifling.

When we were at Kimuta one man, David, told us how he came to marry Janet, from Liak. Her family didn’t want her to marry him as they think Kimuta people don’t have enough land. He persisted for three years till they gave in. They now have two lovely children and he says his inlaws think he’s the greatest. He told the meeting that he chose his wife and will always love her. I’ve used David’s story to encourage a number of Christian couples who are facing the same problem. We heard more horror stories of how different ones were disciplined as children. One man’s father used to shoot at him (over his head) with a shot gun when he was naughty and he was terrified. He told us, also, according to tradition, women who had given birth were taken away by the older people so that the husband couldn’t sleep with his wife until the baby was weaned (2-3 yrs) as they said it spoilt the milk. It may have been an effective means of birth control but it certainly caused a lot of adultery!!

The youth in Misima are flourishing under Lawrence’s leadership. Last Friday night they had a formal debate on whether a Christian should marry a non-Christian. I’m going along this Friday night to hear one of the up-and-coming new leaders deliver a message. I love the freshness and commitment of these young people.

God bless you all,

Pam and Phil

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