 |
| The fam enjoying Sunday lunch at Pacific Garden Resort in Garoka |
Once again, no snooze alarm on the biological clock... I'm posting this from Dan & Amy's dining room table at 3:20AM which actually works out well in some ways since no one else is using the internet so maybe I can post some more pictures this morning. The connection is surprisingly fast but still slow by normal US standards and gets progressively worse as the other missionary family's on campus access the satellite connection.
Today was an eye-opening day to say the least. No matter how many Discovery Channel documentaries I've watched or how many family pictures and video I've viewed of this place, none of that can accurately depict the entire experience of what it's truly like being here first hand. The 4-D experience is almost surreal at first.
 |
| Children of some of the GBBC students that didn't go home for the break |
The sounds, touch, feel and smells of this land add unparalleled perspective to the visual experience. The natural landscape is incredible with Mountain tops randomly peaking through dynamic puffy white/gray clouds so that there is never the same picture in the background. The vegetation at ground level is dense with lush grass and bushes, interrupted by massive hardwood trees and an occasional evergreen or two. The most significant difference in what I thought versus reality, is the massive human "footprint" of the area. In my mind I thought there would be small collected areas of natives and then vast expanses of tropical "wilderness" with few to no people. It's nothing like that at all... from the moment we arrived at the airport there seems to ALWAYS be people present. For sure the density spreads out in numbers as you move from the heavily populated downtown streets and market to the "highland highway" that runs the expanse of the Eastern Highlands Province where we are located, but you NEVER stop seeing people. Walking, running, sitting, playing, drugging, drinking, eating, sleeping, buying, transporting, a seemingly endless array of people spread out for miles in a bazaar New York city meets Jurassic Park environment.
As I mentioned this "human footprint" doesn't shrink as you move away from the more densely populated areas. I read somewhere online that as of the 2000 census there was approximately 19,000 people in the Garoka district, which is the capital of the Eastern Highlands Province. This seems suspect to me for a couple of reasons... First, how on earth could you actually collect accurate data on how many people there are in this
 |
| Amy's wonderful donuts and ice coffee... who needs Dunkin? |
area. This is almost laughable to consider after surveying the landscape in person. The people seem to be constantly on the move and their geography doesn't exactly match suburban America where you can canvas thousands of cookie cutter homes in a matter of a day. To try and reach some of the "homes" in this area would take days to get to and you can't reach many of them by road. Second, this number is over 10 years ago and I swear I saw what seemed like 10,000 people yesterday just sitting on street corners and watching a rugby match in the field located near the center of town, let alone the myriads of people we passed on the way to church during the 30 min drive to Hosanna Baptist. But without regard for the accuracy of this number, God used it to provide a sobering reminder to me that each one of the people we passed is a soul created in the image of our God that will spend eternity somewhere. The convicting part is that we have the Light that can lead them out of their current Darkness so they will understand Truth and escape the reality of separation from their Creator for eternity. The message of Hope and of His Love represented through the Cross should be at the center of EVERYTHING we do so that others may see Him through us.
As we drove to church Sunday morning, it was also a lesson in Faith. If any of you have ever driven with Dan Thyng (whether on land or sea:)) you likely know that he's not exactly Mr. Conservative. To get a glimpse of the experience, just take a normal American street, remove some asphalt, add a lot of curves and some serious elevation changes, move the steering wheel to the opposite side of the vehicle and try to remember this means oncoming traffic is coming at you from the opposite side you are used to. Now add some large delivery-type trucks barreling at 60 miles an hour and finally speckle animals (pigs, goats, etc.) and some people on both sides of the road (many of them kids.) When it's all said and done, for me this experience has probably been the single most evidence that there is a God and that miracles still do happen:)! We are all alive and so are the other drivers and pedestrians on the road.
On that note, I have a prayer request... I'm told that today we need to haul supplies up to the church nestled on the side of a mountain. These "side" roads are incredible, especially this time of year with regular down pours of rain causing massive craters and drainage ditches. Well the truck we are taking is a flatbed and we won't all fit in the cab so I've been told I have the unique opportunity to ride in the back of the truck with a water tank and some lumber and guess who's driving!!! I suppose since I married into the family last, I have less tenure and therefore less decision making capacity, let's just say there is certainly no hint of democracy in the Thyng family politics:)!
 |
| Our lonely vehicle at Sunday Church |
The church service was amazing... We arrived a few minutes late so they had already started. Parking wasn't an issue since our vehicle was the only one there. Yet inside this newly built church building were over 85 men, women and children, all arriving by foot through terrain that would put most of us latte-blooded Americans on a gurney headed for the hospital after only a few minutes, yet some of these folks had literally walked an hour or two just to get here. What a testimony and rebuke to the "domesticated" church. The passion behind their singing was intense and even though there were n o instruments and the tune wasn't exactly broadway material, there was obvious engagement in their voices and in their bodies! This was a reminder to me that divisive antics on topics such as music, that the American church wastes so much time disputing, does little to promote true worship but in my experience seems to promote man and cause disunity which ironically isn't a lifestyle of worship (see Phil 2)! Worship is truly from the heart and these brothers and sisters in Christ, over 8,000 miles away from my local church body in Wisconsin, were truly worshiping their God without regard for how good or bad they or their neighbor sounded and what man might think of them.
 |
| Sunday Service at Hosanna Baptist Church |
The friendliness of the congregation was infectious, with almost every single person shaking our hands and saying "Morning" which is the common greeting before 12:30pm, when it becomes "Happy Noon!" Several
spoke English but most speak either a tribal language of the area or Malaysian Pidgin, neither of which I know yet so deep conversations weren't in order. Hopefully before I leave I'll have it down:)! We were surprised when Dan told us that the Pastor had asked us to come up front and introduce ourselves... Awkward! Matt went first while Dan interpreted into Pidgin, everyone cheered when they heard he was Dan's brother... I went next and told them I was Dan's brother-in-law, so Dan explained I married his sister. Jake went last and stated that he had also married Dan's sister... in a land where polygamy is alive and well the slight nuance of leaving off the fact we had married DIFFERENT sisters seemed significant:)! Dan clarified to the congregation and everyone had a good laugh.
 | | |
| Dan and Matt with some of the congregation at Hosanna |
 |
| Amy talking to a lady about some physical issues she's been having. Amy is a trained Nurse and this has presented neat opportunities for ministry through random conversations such as this as well as through a formal clinic on the GBBC campus where she helped another missionary lady prior to expanding their family:) |
After church we traveled back to town to a neat secluded resort called The Pacific Garden. Owned by a wealthy Aussie businessman with ties to PNG through his business ventures, he created an oasis of sorts in the middle of the undeveloped culture of Garoka. A hotel/restaurant combo we ate some good food and enjoyed some fellowship together over our meal.
Later in the afternoon Dan and Amy gave us a complete tour of the campus and an adjacent village. This was
 |
| Tour of GBBC Campus |
a phenomenal experience and one I will expand on in a later post with more pics. The ministry here is truly "Lighting-up" the country of PNG with the Gospel message and God is receiving Glory through the efforts of his faithful workers here at the Bible College and the many graduates that have gone out into the land to preach the Good News. Like I said, I'll try to outline the ministry here in a more in-depth way soon since the vision the missionaries have and the opportunity are both great. However, it will take much prayer and many resources to make it come to fruition so hopefully some of us "stateside" can get involved in very pragmatic ways as we learn more about God's work here on the other side of the world. Never has there been a more exciting time to be His Child! God Bless.
 |
| Dan and Amy's house on campus |
 |
| Some children in the village next to the campus |
Thank you to those that prayed for my life as Dan drove to the church in the Mazda flatbed truck with me in the back. Recipe for success for stardom here is quite simple. Be white, look absolutely clueless, hold a video camera and sit in the back of a flatbed truck with a giant round water container and two other white guys as your chauffeur = Guaranteed fame. Matt decided to join me and we felt like movie stars driving through LA (minus the nice cars) with natives the entire way waving and occasionally shouting "White Man!" I guess my tan hasn't had time to "cure" yet, I'm thinking by next week I should blend in and will have lost my "star" status:)!
Once we arrived to the church we unloaded the water container which for the people in the community will be a HUGE blessing. With the church being the largest building in this particular local village area and perched on the side of the mountain. The large metal roof should fill the tank quickly if the rains continue to sustain. Our task list for the next ten days includes the following...
