November 18. It has been a long, hot, tiring day. We are thankful that the Lord gave us good weather for the flight to town. Today was the last day for the 206 to fly in this area. MAF is going to set them aside now and use only air vans and twin otters. That means there will be about 13 airstrips that will not have plane service unless they use the twin otter which is big and expensive to charter. Owena is included among the strips where the air van can’t go. (Well, it can go in empty to Owena and out with half a load. That won’t help too much.) Hopefully we can share twin otter flights with others.
We were awake last night for a while with a noisy rat. I thought it was into the bag of plastic bags. But when I went to check I saw that the rat was on the trap. It had somehow dragged a plastic bag onto the trap with itself and was trying to get loose. Hence the racket of plastic bag rattling. Daddy got up and clobbered it. But there was still another rat. It didn’t get caught, and it didn’t eat the rat poison. It did somehow knock the piece of firewood off the top of the garbage bucket and moved the lid off a bit, but apparently wasn’t able to get into the bucket. I hope the critter doesn’t do too much damage while we are gone.
Got up about 6:00 this morning. Warmed up pancakes for breakfast. Finished up the packing. That seemed to take quite a bit of time for some reason. Got things weighed up and boxes taped up. We had been scheduled for the second flight, but as usual, the flight program changed. It was still a little after 10:30 before the plane came so we had plenty of time to get ready. We were thankful for that. When the packing was done and the kitchen was cleaned up and we were all ready to go, I sat down and went over the rest of the children’s songs in the song book. Had to make some changes in some of them. Now I can fix them in the file.
A few of the church men came and did a little work on the airstrip today. Benjamin was there too and so was Solomon. It was too hot to work too long though. A lot of people are still down at the river working on their peanut gardens.
It was about 11:30 when we got to Goroka and noon before someone picked us up and brought us to CRMF. The haus meri (cleaning lady) was busy cleaning up the flat so it was not ready for us yet. We were able to put our cargo in one of the bedrooms. They had had a heavy rain here yesterday, and water flooded into the kitchen and bathroom of this house. So the haus meri was busy cleaning and mopping up.
Randy and family are in town so he came and picked us up and took us to Papindo where we got a little something to eat. I ordered a piece of fried chicken which turned out to be just a little chicken leg. Not much of a lunch. I didn’t see anything else on the menu that I would care about, except for the bigger expensive meals. Daddy was still eating (he got a chicken fillet sandwich), and I started some shopping. I found a small container of soy milk that was low in sugar so decided to get one of those to drink. Daddy gave me some money and I went to the checkout to pay for it. I was thankful to have something refreshing to drink. I was still hungry, but couldn’t find anything else to eat.
Papindo has gotten some new supplies in for the holiday season, and I was happy to see some herbs and spices at affordable prices. Got fennel powder and sage in plastic packets, and oreganoand parsley in large containers. We picked up a few other groceries and then walked over to SVS. Only found a couple things there that we needed.
When we were done, Daddy called Randy, but no answer. We waited there a while to see if he would call back. Then Daddy saw Randy’s car across the street in Papindo parking lot. So we carried our bags of groceries over there. The children - Marcus, Priscilla, and Joanna - were sitting in the car. Their parents were at the bank. I was tired and sat in the car with the children while Daddy walked over to Istana to get mayonnaise, only to find that they didn’t have any. The Smiths have very nice children.
Next we and the Smiths went to Bintangor, and we got meat and veggies and a couple other little things. Last stop was the post office. We were able to get a package that was there. It was from Rod and Staff, and I thought that the books had finally come, only to find out this evening that it was the order of English 3 seconds that Christy had ordered for us. Don’t know what ever happened to the books we ordered in June. We got the invoice in July, but the books never came. The books that came today were just sent on October 17. We also got a packet of pictures and letters from the girls and a letter from some friends.
Got back to the house some time after 3:00. Got boxes unpacked and food items put away. About 4:00, we went down for a little nap. I was very tired and was thankful to rest. It was 4:45 when I got up. I was hungry for some veggies so fixed up the zucchini we bought today and enjoyed that for supper along with egg salad sandwiches.
After supper, I opened the box from Rod and Staff, and then got my clothes unpacked and put away. Daddy had already taken care of his.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ….” Ephesians 1:3