Greetings Everyone,
We’ve had an adventurous time! We did a long, slow trip by banana boat to a remote village on the south coast of Rossel. They weren’t expecting us for another week (the message got mixed up). The house we were to stay in wasn’t finished — roof and floor but no walls. They quickly constructed a ladder so we could climb up and then went off to the garden to finish making sago and collect more food. It was very late by the time we started dinner and the old hurricane lamp didn’t give off much light. They had boiled some eggs as part of the meal and when Phil shelled his he thought it felt funny (couldn’t see well in the dark) and when he had a good look the contents had just started growing feathers. They all turned out to be the same.
The pit toilet hadn’t been built — just go down the slippery slope and find a spot in the mangroves — nor had the “bathroom” — so another slippery slope trip to the “bathing pool”. I took a photo of it — about one metre radius and less than half that in depth with clay all around. Phil nearly did a header into it and we decided washing wasn’t a priority and ended up muddier from the track than when we started. It has been raining almost non-stop here for several weeks and everything is water-logged. The mud here is so slippery it makes Teflon look like glue.
They really wanted to please us and killed two chooks as part of a meal. A young boy about four took the heads, threw them on the fire and cooked them and chewed away, eyes, beak and all with great enjoyment. Phil said if he’d had his way we’d have been eating the rooster that started crowing at 2.30am and kept it up non-stop until dawn.
This is a very poor area and Pastor Sigi told us that the first time he went to visit them (a three day walk over very high, wet and slippery mountain tracks), the only plates they had to put food in for visitors were old floats used by the Japanese long-line fishermen which had washed up on the shore and they had cut them in two to make bowls. Part of our trip this time was to take them some dishes, cups, cutlery, and children’s clothes.
After a late breakfast (11.30am after they had gone looking for food) of yams, taro, chicken and sago we had a meeting for us to speak to them and encourage them. Linus and his wife Concepta have started a CRC house church and their family and friends have ostracized them because of it — a fairly common scenario. But Dim Dims attract a lot of attention so, as well as immediate family here, we had three teenage boys an their way to soccer, two women and Linus’s brother. The meeting went really well — people so hungry to hear Bible teaching — and Linus was almost in tears that his brother had come. It takes courage for them to make a stand like this and God honours them.
After the meeting we left fairly quickly as we had a long trip home. The track to the dinghy was very slippery and I lost my footing going through the mangroves and with a bag in each hand, fell literally flat on my face and arose unhurt but covered in mud, all over my face and clothes. So much for dignity! As they were short of fuel, we then sailed the dinghy (banana boat) for about four hours using a sheet of plastic tied between two sticks.
Please pray for the weather here. We’re waiting now to do a trip to new areas on the north coast but it has been blowing like crazy and raining buckets full. We’ve got cabin fever and webbed feet!!
God bless you all,
Pam and Phil
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