In PNG Easter is also a long weekend, being a Christian nation. I have had the opportunity of spending Easter out at Kudjip, espeically as we were able to finish a Twin Otter B check on Thursday. It has been a great blessing to spend Easter here with Becky and other missionaires. It has been a good time of fellowship and activities. Friday night Emmuael church on Kudjip station had a Good Friday service in the evening. And this morning had a Resurrection Sunday service.

1. A view from our hike yesterday

Friday’s night service saw the Kudjip missionaires perform different items and preach a sermon. The sermon was on the difference Christ made between Friday and Sunday. Jesus’ desciples were amazed by Herod the Great’s temple. But Jesus said to them that He would destroy it and then raise it in three days. They were impressed by this temple, just as we are impressed by things in this world. We can easily be impressed by things in this world, things that don’t impress God. But we should be impressed by what Jesus has done. He died on Friday and then rose on Sunday. Conquering death, sin and satan (very brief summary of message from this morning’s church service). On Friday there was sorrow, fear and loss. But Sunday brought life, joy and hope. So we may be experiencing a Friday, a dark part of our life, but Sunday is coming. I am amazed at what that Friday must of been like for the disciples. Which reminded me of this video with an audio clip from a Dr S.M. Lockridge preaching. But come Sunday everything was made new. Praise God for doing the impossible.

Another good video with Dr S.M. Lockridge on youtube is: That’s my King, check it out.

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This week in the hangar we saw it return to being overfilled with aircraft. At our peak this week we had at least five aircraft in, two of which was scheduled. We go through busy, normal and not so busy periods. Since the new year we have had a couple of not so busy periods. Which is good as it allows us to catch up on different jobs around the hangar. Ranging from component maintenance to hangar maintenance which is all part of maintaining the aircraft fleet. These different slots of quiet periods has allowed us to work on some big projects over the last few months.

1. The old mechanic & carpenter’s workshop at the back of MAF PNG Headquaters. Now the new Engineering component shop 

Our Engineering department for sometime had been cramped and requiring more space. This saw the MAF mechanic workshop and the Carpenter’s shop relocated down to the MAF base. Allowing Engineering to take on the space to restructure our setup. But before we could start moving into these areas or redesign our hangar workshop area, we had to clean up.

2. Cleaning up – three Dyna loads of junk to town (this one is a small load)

I am amazed in PNG how things do not go to waste, that things which are absolutely rubbish to you. Are recycled and become someone else’s treasure. I have a few stories of experiences trying to get rid of things in PNG. Anyway last December I started cleaning out the back area of headquarters with one of our workmen Kalex. It was a complicated cultural situation and a long story to it. But I had enough of waiting and started cleaning out the area. It really frustrated me how much junk was kept for so many years, it was unbelieveable. It did make me cross and I felt a little bit like Jesus clearing the temple. In the end Kalex and I drove three truck loads of rubbish into town (it’s planned designation was the Hagen tip, but it was not it’s final destination).

3. Inside the old carpenter’s workshop.

Early in the new year saw rearrangging start. The old carpenter’s shop had been preped prior to become our new component workshop (clean environment). So the move started, seeing tools, heavy equipment and even a big lathe relocated. The old mechanics workshop took on welding, sand blasting, hydrualic press, drill press etc. This also saw rearrangment of our hangar workshop as well, which can now be fully utilised for sheet metal work. All of these plans had been discussed and planned for many months.

4. The quarentine store now tidy (I wish I had a photo of how it was)

Kalex and I spent sometime cleaning out our quarentine store which had accumulated many old aircraft parts over the years (the oldest traced to 1977). These parts are meant to be unserviceable, but repariable. All the shelfs were fully loaded and you could not really move in there due to hardly any floor space. So it was almost impossible to find anything in there. Once we had organised the store again and sorted through the parts. Some of the other guys were gracious enough to finish going through the large piles of parts for proper deposial.

5. Removing segments of wall for the new hallway

The previous week I started removing walls in the back of our hangar workshop. This is where a new walkway will be built in order to remove people walking through the hangar and giving us more hangar space. In waiting for the MAF carpertner’s i started removing the walls once the powerpoints had been removed. I think it is the first time I have done demolisition and I really enjoyed it. It was fun to use my big hammer in sepearting the walls, but due to noise I finally got to use mt crow bar which had been dorment in the bottom draw of my toolbox. It didn’t take too long to have it a part.

6. Triple seperator in it’s final stages

The chemical triple seperator is still underway, awaiting parts before concreting an area for paint stripping a C206 fuselage or a Twin Otter wing. The plumbing was completed earlier in the year. A few of us leveled the ground last month which resulted in a few blisters on my hands. So there has been a lot of developments around the hangar in the past few months. A lot of work involved including a lot of little projects, but we are almost there.

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Since earlier in the year I and a few friends at Kudjip had tried planning a social weekend with the young adults. A few of us in Hagen traveled out to Kudjip the first weekend of last month. The group included, Brad & Nikolai and their two girls. Nathan (a visiting Engineer from Germany), Stephen a former MK with MAF in PNG (visiting from New Zealand), Timon and myself. Steph graciously picked us up from town and drove us out to Kudjip. On our arrival we had a hot lunch at Steph’s place.

1. Young adults dinner

In the afternoon a few of us guys went for a short hike off station. It involved working our way through a river which was higher than normal and had a strong current. After getting a little wet we met up with a former national worker from the hospital. He led us through his land and up a small mountain, which gave us a three hundred and sixty view. We were able to see down the Waghi Valley and in the other direction towards Kuri Gap. On our return to station we had a game of ultimate Frisbee with a few more people. It was the first time I have played it and I think the first team sport I have played in PNG. I really enjoyed it, besides running into a barb wire fence hidden in a hedge. Which was painful, but ironically I had a tetanus booster the previous week.

2. Playing Cranium, one team in action

In the evening Jordan and Rachel (construction worker & school teacher at Kudjip) had all the young adults round for dinner. For a few weeks there were a few medical student volunteers visiting Kudjip, so there was a good number of young adults. Following dinner we all played Cranium (another first for me) which was fun. The next morning Erin (doctor at Kudjip) had us round for breakfast and we were able to hang out in the morning. In the early afternoon we gathered for Kudjip’s monthly English church service where missionaries from around the area gather to fellowship. This month included a pot luck lunch. In the late afternoon we returned back to Hagen with the other MAFer’s who traveled out for the English service. I am very grateful for the time’s of fellowship and community God provides here. As it is limited here, especially for young adults. It was a good weekend away of fellowship and being able to build on relationships out at Kudjip.

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