A Few ‘Finally’s’

Finally Flying

 Greetings from warm and sunny/rainy Papua New Guinea.  Thank you all for praying for Travis’s flight permit to arrive.  He finally received it on January 13th and has been flying with a training pilot since then.

He’s been flying missionaries and supplies in and out of the remote locations where they work and has even flown one medivac trip to the capital city already (patient had minor surgery and made a full recovery.) 

The next big step in his training is to have a representative of CASA (that’s the PNG version of the FAA) come and do a check ride with him.  After that he will be allowed to fly solo.  Right now the check ride is scheduled for March 21st.  Please pray that it will not get postponed, and even that it would be moved up a few days.

Finally Happening

Several decades ago (yes decades!) the process was begun to build a second hangar for our airplanes and helicopters here at the airport in Goroka.  Currently some of the airplanes are parked outside overnight where they are exposed to weather and the occasional bored child with really good sling shot aim (there is a tall fence.)  Just this past year the project has cleared all of the paperwork hurdles.   

In January a team of concrete professionals from America joined with mission staff and local workers to complete the very big job of building and pouring the foundation.  It’s a complicated job, especially in a location that only has a limited number of cement trucks and no boom.  (The boom in the picture was hand made for the occasion.)  Many bags of cement were mixed by hand to keep a wet edge in between available trucks.  

Next week another team from Friends In Action (FIA) is coming to begin the rest of the construction.  When the project is complete it will allow one hangar to be used for housing the aircraft and the second to be dedicated to maintenance and repair of aircraft.  Also, all of the aircraft will be parked inside at night!

Finally Learning to Read

 Over the last 75 years, New Tribes Mission PNG has helped the people of around 75 language groups learn to read and write in their heart language. A literacy program has most recently been developed for the Kovol people, subsistence farmers living in small hamlets spread among the Adelbert mountains. Their language had never before been written down until the missionary team of the Hansens, Stanleys and Stouses began the process of learning their language and culture in 2020. 

The exciting part of the process is that the team had 40+ Kovol people on hand to help them each day of the program’s development. They illustrated stories, helped check to see if the stories communicate, suggested words to use and rejoiced along with the team with each page completed.

Steve Stanley says, “We told them clearly that since this was a 2 week-long effort they didn’t have to attend every day. Seeing people attending every day, there at 8 a.m. sharp, is encouraging. People are excited to learn to read. One of our older guys even asked us at the end of a workday if he could borrow a pencil and paper to take home so he could practice drawing. His request certainly made us take note that this might be one of the guys who should be part of the first literacy class in the near future.”  Pray for this new literacy program to go well and to lay the foundation for understanding the Bible in their heart language.

A Final Farewell

 Almost two weeks ago the wife of the man who owns the land that our center is built on passed away suddenly.  She was a believer.  Some of her children work at our center and many of her children and grand children have attended the mission school.  This man is the ‘biggest’ man in the local community and the time of mourning and funeral has been a huge deal.  In a small way we got to participate by throwing flowers for the funeral procession and visiting the ‘haus krai’ (literally house cry) or mourning house.  Her family printed several large banners with her picture, and the following Bible verses.

It’s been both a sad and neat time for us to witness local mourning ceremonies and a family that has hope in the face of death.  Thank you for your prayers, encouragement, and support as we serve church planters in PNG through aviation so that everyone can hear the good news of Grace and Hope.

Love,

Travis and Becky