Tupela Morobe Meri

This is Mama Grace and Mama Jen, two teachers at our school. They are such beautiful women, who have hearts full of passion, dedication, thankfulness and love for God. Here they are dressed in their provincial colours all day for the Meri Bung - women's bible conference. These women are very close to my heart!

Anna-Rita

This little poppet is Anna-Rita. She's a precious little girl who is part of our congregation. Her mum and dad have studied at the Bible College in Port Moresby and are now back in Lae, living in Biwat - one of the settlements. She was very little when she was born but 6 months on she looks reasonably healthy, is happy and interacts well with others. Praise God! She has a few sisters and is part of the largest extended family in our church. Our prayer is that she grows up free of the sickness and disease that is so prevalent here. Settlement life is tough, so we pray too that she can grow to know God and His love even in the difficult circumstances of life. Here's some photos for you all xxx

Yumi go raun raun lik lik lo taun

I drive in and out of Lae city quite regularly at the moment because I'm doing a lot more with our school in town. The drive used to be around about 40 minutes due to the state of the roads - gravel, potholes galore, ditches and traffic going all over the place - attempting to avoid the potholes! Lae is affectionately known as pothole city but since the road crews have been working on the highway the trip into town has been cut down to 20 minutes - on a good traffic day! It's rather marvellous!

There's a few sections of road that are really beautiful, especially when you look up above street level. Here's a few examples of some of my favourite parts of driving in Lae.

I love the trees here - a little tunnel of greenery. So pretty.

Coconut palms against a sunset sky. Doesn't get much more beautiful out you really think about it! It was hard to capture the colours on this shot but you get the idea!

By the way -  yumi go raun raun lik lik lo taun means let's go around town a bit

Changes changes

As many of you know, our small RM compound is positioned within the broader Lae City Mission plantation. It's a beautiful plantation, full of tropical plants, flowers, coconut palms and lots of other gorgeous greenery. Driving in through the gates has always been a favourite experience of mine because you see the lush, green gardens and it feels like you're driving into an oasis (after having been out on the rough, dusty, dirty, people filled roads). Both sides of the driveway are full of trees and other plants, and you feel like you're driving through a tunnel of trees... that is, until a few weeks ago....! 

LCM is currently working on a project to build a children's orphanage on the property. Their current orphanage is in quite a rough area of town, so to keep the children as safe as possible, they are going to move it out here to 11 Mile. The first stage of the project was to mark out the area, so we started noticing caution tape around the place, marking out where the building would be placed. Then, a few big trees were cut down. No biggie. But then a few more.... and more.... and more.... until about 15 had been cut down! This was happening about 100m from my house - where I live and work - and every time I heard a tree being felled, a little piece of my heart broke! All those beautiful trees!!!! Cut down in seconds..... (Stu, you would have had a great time with the boys here, getting that done. Plenty of whooping, cheering and excitement when a tree felled in the right direction :) )

After about a week of felling, roughly 15 trees were removed, but a lot of the trees along the edge and the little plants and bushes were left. That was great, I thought, because at least their would be some garden around so the building wouldn't look like it was plonked in the middle of nowhere.  But then.... the boys started chopping down everything that grew and lighting fires madly. I reckon there were about 20 fires going on in the small area of space the boys had created. One fire for each guy! 

Last Saturday when I went for a walk, I noticed more work going on. By this stage I had given up hope that any greenery would be left... and by the time I got back, this is what I saw....

A cleared patch of land....

With barely any growth left....

To make way for progress. A part of me is very sad to see the beauty disappear, even though I know it's for a good reason! 

I though that was the end of it all, but no... this whole week, they've continued cutting, trimming and clearing and now there's nothing left. An empty patch of land. Waiting for the building to begin and for the children to arrive! The day the kids arrive will be a great day. It will make all of this destruction worth it :)