Travis\nTank<\/a>. This was not just any dude\nwith a camera, Travis is a fellow brother in Christ, world traveler, and\naccomplished international photographer.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOne of projects we asked Travis to tackle for us was shooting\na video to help our team tell the story of what we get to be part of here in\nPapua New Guinea, communicating the critical role aviation plays as we work to\nfacilitate the vision of seeing a thriving church for every people. What better way to get fresh footage and some\npersonal perspective on it all than to take him on a trip out to one of our\nmany remote ministry locations? So\nthat\u2019s what we figured we\u2019d do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Challenge 1<\/strong>, we were on the short end of the staffing curve\nfollowing the mass exodus which takes place here over the summer break.<\/p>\n\n\n\nChallenge 2<\/strong>, having not had the opportunity to summit Mt. Wilhelm\n(the highest point in PNG and the greater Oceania area) earlier in the year due\nto inclement weather, Mary Kate was really<\/em>\nwanting to join this mini expedition.<\/p>\n\n\n\nChallenge 3<\/strong>, due to packed flight and aircraft maintenance\nschedules we had to shoehorn said trip into the existing flight schedule as\nspace permitted. <\/p>\n\n\n\nSo, the way it shook out because of challenge 1, I signed up\nto accompany Travis on the hike, and, caving to the pleas of my baby girl, I\nsaid Kate could join in on the adventure which, as the tight schedule\ndetermined, would start at 3:00AM the morning after Travis arrived in\ncountry. Ratcheting up the degree of\ndifficulty on the whole deal we moved forward with a sort of \u201cgo big or go home\u201d\nphilosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
>> Fast Forward<\/em><\/strong> >><\/p>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s now 3:00AM and I\u2019m groping for the phone on the\nnightstand to silence the obnoxious sound emanating from it. After not sleeping most of the night due to\nthe building anticipation, somehow my body then decided to revolt, refusing to\nget out of bed. The mind won, sort of,\nand I stumbled around the house for the next hour getting the last of our gear\npacked and in the car. The sounds of the\ndiesel truck engine turning over and the knobby off-road tires crunching up the\ngravel hill to the guesthouse echoed across the mission campus (or the\n\u201cPonderosa\u201d as we affectionately call it). \nWe loaded up Travis and his gear and set off for the airfield,\nheadlights cutting through the foggy morning darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We got to the airfield, opened up the hangar, weighed everybody\nand everything, helped the pilot get the plane ready to go, closed up the\nhangar, jumped in, started up, and we taxied down to the departure end of the\nrunway where we sat, engine running, ready to launch into the breaking dawn the\ninstant it was official sunrise and the control tower gave the word that we\nwere cleared for takeoff. We were given\nthe green light and the Kodiak lurched forward as power was added and the\nbrakes were released. We climbed\neffortlessly out of the valley and pointed towards our destination 75 miles\naway.<\/p>\n\n\n\nReady for take-off.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nJust \u00bd an hour later we touched down on a small cleared strip of land running up an isolated ridgeline. A few smiling faces emerged from the curious onlookers gathered at the top of the airstrip where we shut down to disembark. A couple men and a few teens (including two young ladies who’d come just to accompany Kate) had hiked in the day before from the village which was to be our final destination for the day. These smiling faces weren\u2019t just any trail guides, these were also brothers and sisters in Christ who embraced the opportunity to use their time and expertise to serve us as we sought to catch a glimpse of the stories God was writing in their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSetting up for the approach to landing. That light green strip isn’t a fairway on a par 3 golf course, it’s a bush strip typical of those our Kodiak 100 airplanes operate on and off of on an almost daily basis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n6 hours. That\u2019s how\nlong it had taken the small group to hike out to this airstrip the day before,\nmost of that in the pouring rain over what we were about to find out was some\nextremely challenging single-track broken up by some crazy sketchy river\ncrossings. In comparison, we were aiming\nfor a \u201cpedestrian\u201d 12-hour trek back in to Mibu. To make it before nightfall, though, that\nmeant we had no time to waste. We paused\nto watch the Kodiak plummet over the rise in the airstrip on its takeoff\nroll. I didn\u2019t realize it until the\nplane climbed back into view in the distance, but I\u2019d been holding my breath\nawaiting a sign it had safely lifted from the airstrip. While it was a relief to see the plane buzz\nover as it headed to its next destination of the day, as the last sound of its\nengine faded the \u201cbigness\u201d of what were now committed to undertake sunk in and\nI was thinking going home didn\u2019t sound so bad at this point. Too late for that, though, we\u2019d already\nslathered on sunscreen and bug repellent and were sliding down a muddy path\ntowards the valley below.<\/p>\n\n\n\nStanding by as the only easy way out rolled down the strip and lifted off into the distance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAfter what could only have been about 15 minutes tops our\nguides hesitantly suggested that if we were going to have any shot at making it\nto their village by nightfall they\u2019d need to carry our packs for us. So, having reluctantly handed over my pack in\nexchange for a long, thick bamboo pole meant to serve as a walking stick, the\nslipping and sliding down the side of the mountain resumed at a somewhat\nimproved pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spirits were high and the conversation lively for about the\nfirst hour. The second hour we settled\ninto a steady rhythm as we slid and stumbled our way over the muddy, twisting\ntrail. Mary Kate and the girls slowly\npulled ahead of the rest of the group and disappeared down the trail about the\ntime I slowly tumbled head first and disappeared over the edge of the\ntrail. Thankfully the thick scrub brush snagged\nme long enough for the guides to grab my feet and pull me back up onto the path,\npreventing what would have been a rapid but painful descent to the base of the\nmountain far below. We counted that as\nour rest stop and set off after the ladies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Somewhere around the third hour into the trek someone\nmumbled something along the lines of, \u201cthis isn\u2019t a hike\u2026this is a death\nmarch.\u201d It was about that time the last\nphoto of the day was snapped. For the\nnext 12 hours we climbed and descended one mountain only to be faced with\nanother. Thinking of what awaited us at\nthe end of the trail we shuffled along for awhile repeating,\n\u201cspaghetti\u2026shower\u2026spaghetti\u2026shower\u201d with alternating steps. Legs turned to jello and as breath became\nshorter, lungs burning for oxygen, we trudged ahead in silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dazed silence was disrupted by intermittent exclamations\nof pain and momentary panic as we passed through sections of the trail with\nhigh undergrowth hiding hungry leeches. \nThey weren\u2019t big, but they definitely made things more exciting for a\nwhile. The only livelier stretch may\nhave been that which was full of a dreadful plant akin to stinging nettles on steroids. The smallish scrubby plants were a bit more scrub\nbrush like than just a weed, some having sharp spikes running up their woody\nstems. Time after time as we lost our\nbalance we either found ourselves sliding into these cursed things or grabbing\nhold of one when we instinctively (but regretfully) threw out our arms, grasping\nfor something to steady ourselves. I\u2019m\nnot sure which was worse, the immediate swelling and throbbing pain or the\nanticipation of what it might turn into after hearing tales of others\u2019\nmisfortunes shared by our guides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Making it by dark was clearly not going to be possible and\nwe began to question if we would be able to make it at all that day. The potential of overnighting on the trail\nand making the final push to the village in the morning was seeming more and\nmore likely. Any last vestiges of the \u201cgo\nbig or go home\u201d bravado we\u2019d approached this mini expedition with had been left\nbehind hours before in the first ravine we\u2019d come to. Continuing on at that point meant crossing over\na broken cable suspension bridge which listed awkwardly to one side and was\nmissing a number of the decking plates, leaving gaping holes beneath your feet\nwhich provided a fantastic but distracting (maybe terrifying) view of the\ntorrent rushing below. A large tree had fallen\nacross the far end of the bridge, uprooting the anchoring structure and leaving\nit lying awkwardly on top of the ground, perched precariously on the slope just\nabove the edge of the drop-off into the ravine. \nThat was the best \u201cbridge\u201d we saw all day. If you don\u2019t count the lengths of bamboo\nwhich had been fastened together with jungle vines to fashion a rickety yet\neffective* means of crossing another river, it was really the only bridge there\nwas over any of the streams and rivers we encountered that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*I feel the term \u201ceffective\u201d bears\nsome further explanation here. The lashed\ntogether bamboo bridge was effective in the sense that the locals and professional\ntightrope walkers from the circus could easily use it to avoid having to negotiate\nthe rapids which crashed noisily through large boulders at that point in the river. Being neither a local nor a circus\nentertainer you might as well have asked Travis, Kate, and I to tightrope walk\nacross Niagara Falls. At that point in\nthe day it\u2019s pretty much what we felt they were asking us to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, yeah, we\u2019d gone big\u2026climbed over big mountains, crossed\nbig rivers. We\u2019d pushed ourselves to our\nlimits and then somehow beyond. Now as\nwe paused in the dark, headlamps off as we fought for breath, trying to summon\nup hidden stores of energy to summit yet another peak, I think we all wished for\nthe fortune of Dorothy in \u201cThe Wizard of Oz,\u201d only there were no ruby slippers\nto be found, just soaking, mud-caked trail shoes. No amount of clicking our heels together was\ngoing to whisk us home. Despite wanting nothing\nmore than to tap out, leaving someone else to get the shots and write the story,\nthe only option was to get back up, turn the headlamps back on, and keep\nputting one foot in front of the other, advancing ever so slowly (and painfully)\ntoward our objective.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRounding a bend as we neared the village our lights\nilluminated a crowd of faces. They\nbelonged to kids and teens who, growing impatient as the time of our\nanticipated arrival had long since come and gone, decided to make their way\ndown the trail to find us. Excited, they\nran ahead, carrying word that the visitors would be arriving soon. Mary Kate, pressing on with the teens while\nTravis and I stopped to rest, arrived first. \nBy the time the rest of our party reached the village there was a welcoming\nfire going in the hut of one of the young widows in the church who\u2019d cooked up\nsome potatoes with greens and a bit of onion and had the hot food ready when we\nwalked in her door. Collapsing on the uneven\nbamboo flooring of the house, soggy bare feet on the edge of the fire pit in\nthe middle of the room, it was several minutes before we could muster the\nenergy to even hold the small metal bowls to eat the food which had been so\ngraciously offered to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We could have probably slept there on the bamboo floor until\nthe morning, but the missionaries\u2019 houses were another half-hour further up the\nmountain, beside the airstrip the village had been working for two decades to\nsee opened. As good as spaghetti and\nshowers had sounded earlier in the day, it was hardly motivating as we limped\nback out into the night to don cold, sopping wet socks and shoes for the final\npush of the day. It probably took Travis\nand I another 45 minutes or so to reach the top. Between patches of trees and stands of bamboo\nwe caught glimpses of light emanating from the missionaries\u2019 houses as we painstakingly\nnavigated the twisting trail. The houses\nwere so tantalizingly close. As we drew\ncloser yet, faint sounds of laughter cascaded down the slopes from the house\nabove. Kate had summited already and was\nflushed with newfound energy after reuniting with her friends and classmates,\nchildren of the family we were there to visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With an entourage of guides, porters, and quizzical observers\nTravis and I lumbered stiffly up the final rise in the trail where we were warmly\ngreeted by the missionaries. Regrettably,\ntheir warmth and enthusiasm were not immediately reciprocated. At that point I could think of little more\nthan collapsing and lying motionless in one spot for about the next decade or\nso. A shower and a hearty dinner behind\nus, we began to process the day\u2019s events. \nTerms like \u201csheer\u201d and \u201cutter\u201d exhaustion seem woefully inadequate for capturing\nour condition as we turned off the lights and climbed, at last, into bed that\nnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A bit more than \u201ca mile in their shoes,\u201d Fitbit logged 38,621*\nsteps over the course of the 15-hour trek from the airstrip to the village. 38,621 excruciatingly unforgettable steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*It is to be noted Kate logged well\nover 40,000 steps over that trek. While\nI attributed it to my longer stride, she suggested that it was more likely due\nto my propensity for sliding rather than walking down the mountain trails as\nshe had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So why do this, again?\u00a0 That\u2019s a story of its own, one which deserves its own space to tell, and it will be told (see “The ‘Why’<\/a>“). All the pain had a purpose and every bit was worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFor “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13-15 (ESV) <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Somewhere, lost to history, is the first person to have uttered some semblance of the phrase \u201cwalk a mile in their shoes.\u201d It\u2019s a saying often used to foster empathy for others. We put ourselves in their position, trying to understand life from their perspective as we attempt to break down barriers of ignorance and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1057,"featured_media":324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[97064,97065,97063],"class_list":{"0":"post-311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ministry","8":"tag-experience-the-story","9":"tag-new-perspective","10":"tag-pain-with-purpose","11":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1057"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/imie-mark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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