Friends of mine filmed my departure and arrival into the Village of Daboto after dropping off a dentist team for a weekend trip. The airstrip is a fun mixture of adrenaline and chaos with an occasional pig crossing.
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Amid all the closures, needing permissions to do anything, ever-changing rules... it has felt impossible to do anything to help with this pandemic in our corner of Papua. Then one thing led to another...
We have a Bible translator friend, Seth, who has been stuck here in Nabire for the last 3 months. We started talking about the news on medicines that help fight against COVID. Turns out the drug chloroquine, formally used for treating malaria, is now thought to be helpful in COVID patients. Chloroquine is more or less not available... except Seth, a former paramedic, had some stored away in his village hut, the only known chloroquine we could get our hands on in all of Indonesia. Fast forward a couple days, Brian (my coworker) and I headed over to Seth's village of Dirau to pick up the meds. After we found them, we added them to our cocktail of drugs that we brought from Nabire. Then neatly packed and labeled them with pictures so the illiterate, after a brief explanation, could understand how to take them. This regimen for 6 people, only for the very sick with all three of the big COVID symptoms (bad cough, high fever and difficulty breathing), could mean the difference between life and death for a villager in isolation. Dirau takes 1-2 weeks to get to from Nabire (via boat, truck, canoe and by foot), yet for us only a 40 minute flight. After an explanation of how to use the soap we gave them, and how to avoid COVID (pretty humorous considering they don't believe in germs, and if you get sick it's an enemy's curse) we were on our way back home. Later on we counted the meds we had left. We had enough chloroquine for 6 adults, and with 9 adult missionaries currently here in Nabire we felt comfortable with that being our contingency plan (considering we have virtually no medical care here in Nabire and no way to leave Nabire to go better care if needed). Then we got a radio call from another Bible translator family. Their village is located far from any roads, a good 3 day hike from the nearest airstrip, so isolated you would think there was no way COVID would find its way there... but it did. At this point they had already been in the village well past their planned visit to Nabire for supply buying and much needed rest due to the lockdown, and not knowing how to help those starting to show symptoms they asked for advice. It was a no brainer, we would package up the meds we were just storing here and give it to them. Finally we had a way to help the people actually suffering from COVID! These people are so isolated and far from medical help, they don't even know what COVID is. But how do you get something to a place, nuzzled high up on a mountain with no airstrip and no helicopter? Ask any 10 year old boy, and they will give you the answer... throw it out the airplane! 2 days later I found myself sitting in the back seat of an empty airplane. MAF has been doing air drops for 75 years, and they know all the dangers associated with it. Lots can go wrong when a pilot is flying low and slow, close to mountainous terrain, fixated on a drop spot, while throwing something out the window. So I was in the back, ready to throw the duck taped cardboard box out the window, while Brian flew the airplane. After a pattern overhead to inspect our drop zone, we set up for an approach. I heard a countdown, then "DROP!", I threw the precious cargo, down to the only open area on the mountain (a small helicopter pad). All I saw looking back was the brief flash of the banner unraveling, and then I quickly pulled my head in before my headset was ripped off by the 100+mph winds. Nothing to do now but go home and wait for the call on how we did. It was a bullseye. It was easy to see God's hand in all of this. It's good to be reminded that although we are unsettled by current events, God isn't surprised. He is still very much in control. "Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD! " - Psalm 31:24 Edit: Later we found out that the medicine has been very beneficial as more and more are showing COVID symptoms. Be in prayer for the missionaries there, as they are worn out, putting in 40+ hours of language/culture learning, plus villagers watching them all day long and the many other things they do to help in a very difficult living environment. Time seems to be lost on me these days. There is the lack of seasons, and the lack of the regular ebb and flow of a college town, but lately I have lost track of time in a more daily way. Days are just so full of little people and of keeping up with all that life requires of us here that spending my few precious moments of rest on writing does not come naturally. Nonetheless, I miss you all and I my heart often bends towards sharing our lives with you. Nap time is nearly over (already), but I would like to address a question that I hear often from you all, and that I have spent countless hours wrestling with myself. It has a few variations, but essentially is this: What does ministry look like for you? I have been placing this before the Lord for years. This past year however He has answered, sometimes sternly, sometimes gently, but always the same: seek my face and leave the rest to me. It is easier said than done. Still, even that simple answer has been full of meaning. It may sound vague, but it has hands and feet. On Friday I stood in the kitchen making Stromboli thinking of you all, and how to explain what defines this season of my life. I decided that lunchtime is as good a place as any to start. You see, Alex eats lunch on long legs between airstrips. He needs sufficient food to have the energy to do what he does effectively and to stay sharp while flying. He spends long sweaty hours loading and unloading the airplane, in between long hours in a small cockpit navigating ever changing weather patterns. So leftovers for lunch are not an option, as eating rice while flying is a challenge. Sandwiches? we don't have deli meat here. In fact, we really don't have anything in the way of packaged ready-to-eat food (except what is basically pure sugar in a few different forms). Did I mention he works outside...on the equator? So on Friday I spent those precious nap time hours making and freezing food, so that Alex can do what he does. That is my ministry. Or at least one small piece of it. I know that in time the boys will get older, we will get more accustom to life here, and I will gradually find that I have more bandwidth to care for things beyond our little tribe. But right now I need to go read books to my two year old, because in just a few more weeks he will be three. (and if i'm being honest also because he apparently woke up on the wrong side of the bed...) We have a couple of fun announcements for you today! The first is that we will be home in Iowa for Christmas! Although our first furlough is not scheduled until a year from now, our time here in language school will be complete the week before Christmas and MAF is sending Alex to Spokane for some simulator training on the new aircraft he will be flying. With a new baby, a new move and the holidays MAF was gracious enough to send the whole family back together. We will have a couple weeks of vacation time there before Alex heads off to training in Washington and Idaho for a couple of weeks, then we will all return to Indonesia to meet our new home in Papua at the end of January. Unfortunately the nature of this trip doesn't leave us with much time to meet with many of you. But we hope to at least see many of you at church and say hello! Announcement number two: Last weekend we were officially assigned to the base where we will move when Alex's flight and maintenance training is complete roughly a year from now. Drum roll please... We have been assigned to the MAF base in Nabire! This is a port town that serves the villages throughout north central Papua. There will be just one other MAF family there, so out Indonesian language skills will certainly be stretched. We are pretty excited that we will live right next to the ocean. You can look forward to hearing more about what our lives there will be like in time, but for the upcoming year we will be on the main base of Sentani, near the city of Jayapura, while Alex works through his in country flight and maintenance training in the Kodiak. We are excited for the time that we will spend there, as it will be the place and people we come back to for resources and support for our life in Nabire. Here are a few pictures of Nabire that or future teammates graciously sent us! Prayer Requests: Finishing up life here in Salatiga well
Getting Ben's passport in time, and international travels with two littles in tow Blessings for our time in Iowa Alex starting the next phase of his training (he hasn't flown in quite awhile) And grace as we start over in a new place and culture again With the recent Tsunami on the island of Sulawesi, several of you have reached out to us to see how we are doing. We appreciate your concern. Here in Salatiga we are not close to where the Tsunami hit. And still being in language school, we are not involved in relief efforts. MAF is however. Our coworkers have boots on the ground there this week doing areal survey flights and bringing in aid. They are working with Ethnos 360 and Samaritan's Purse, among others, to determine what the immediate needs are and to help get them met. Yesterday they flew south from the epicenter. One Pilot observed, "Today, going south, that road is gone. There are areas that are liquefied that make no sense to me. Then we get to this village of 5,000 people, totally cut off from the rest of the world unless they hike out four days, and they’re looking at maybe a week’s worth of food left. So we may have an opportunity to do what we do best—reach isolated people. The devastation today, I felt it more. It hurt today to see that.” To date the death toll is over 1,400 people. Additionally, MAF has national staff with relatives from the area who are still missing. Please be in prayer for this country. Specifically for believing aid workers and local churches, that they would be faithful ambassadors to the hurting people in this area. 2018 has been a rough year for the country of Indonesia.
-The earth continues to shake in Lombok after the earthquake there took over 500 lives just two months ago. (MAF was able to provide some aid there as well.) -Earlier this year there were also church bombings in a city about 200 miles from us. This was the worst act of terror Indonesia has seen since 2002, and was carried out by a family with four children. You can find information about this HERE. HERE is a video put out by one of our teammates. So we ask for your prayers. For us. For Indonesian believers. For government officials. For grace. For this country and ours. “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind?" Job 38: 34-36 T minus 4 days until baby Ludvicek #2's due date! We are currently sitting at a cozy little guest house in the middle of Jakarta waiting for Jack's little brother to arrive. Initially we planed to have the baby a little closer than 12 hours from our home in Salatiga, but we learned just a few weeks ago that is not what God had in mind. So, after we finished our fifth unit of language school we packed up and headed west to meet a new doctor, at a new hospital, and wait for our new baby. We have been here almost two weeks now and our time has been a bit more eventful than I anticipated. First, on hearing we would be here a while Alex was asked to take his Indonesian flight and maintenance certification exams. As quite a few people have failed these the first time around, this caused a sufficient amount of stress. I am happy to report that those tests are now both finished and passed! We have also meet a few interesting folks passing through the guest house since we have been here. Including a local gentleman involved in amazing ministry here in Jakarta (I wish I could share more!), bible translators, a family living in the outer villages of Papua providing schooling for children of the lowest classes and means there, and a few fellow MAFers from Papua who we had not meet before including Indonesia's regional director. As we have meet each family a common theme has come up. There are absolutely not enough pilots right here right now! Just this year at least 6 families have left the MAF program in Papua to return to the states, and five more the year before. And while turnover is part of life here, Alex and I will be the first family headed to the region since over two years ago, and it will be at least another year before anyone else follows who will also be able to serve in the more remote bases once all their training is complete. This is no small thing. It means that nearly all of the MAF bases in Papua are operating dramatically below their average need and capacity. It also means that many workers and nationals are not able to get the help that they desperately need. So, to those of you who have been supporting us and praying for us during this process THANK YOU. What you are doing ACTUALLY matters to REAL people and affects their lives in REAL ways! Even we tend to lose sight of that sometimes as we trudge through the daily process of life here and language learning.
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AuthorsWe are just a couple of kids from Iowa learning to trust Christ daily and aiming to serve Him though mission aviation. Archives
August 2023
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