In less than a two hour flight, we are in a totally different world. Step outside the new Papua New Guinea airport and you step off a cliff into poverty. Streets lined with make shift tin shacks and people selling beetle nut, wood, peanuts, and gasoline in a variety of containers...and more people.
A grinning Junior Petro Nelson was at the airport with Mindex Kay, our happy go lucky driver to greet us with warm hugs. We drove to our room for the next three weeks...it is really Junior's but he is staying with a friend. It is quite new with tile floor....five various patterns...window with screens and a 1 1/2 in foam pad covered with a sheet...our bed. There is also a table and chairs and best of all...a small fan. The bathroom with flush toilet and cold shower is just outside the door. It'll work....and we are grateful to Junior! After we dropped our bags we did a quick tour of the capital building...very modern with manicured grounds. Then at Junior's request, we went to purchase a phone at a very fancy mall. It always amazes me that malls and shacks can be side by side. jUnior is very efficient and knowledgeable so we let him make the deal and set up the phone. Then off to find Tembari Children Care center which was much harder! Somewhere in our communication between David (PNG lives in Detroit), Alfredo (our Tembari connection)and Junior (our local host), we failed to get a firm location and phone numbers proved wrong. Junior was persistent and finally Kay, our driver figured it out as he knew the school but not its name. So off we went until we got to a dirt road full of chuck holes and ruts that we were barely creeping along which gave me lots of time to absorb the scenes at the side of the road. Thick dust covered everything. People seemed to be in still motion. Moms with babies sitting by market stalls. Kids sitting on tires. Piles of smoldering trash. Junk skeletons of vehicles. How do people manage to live...and smile...this way??? Kay was right. We found Tembari. The teachers were in a meeting when we arrived. They greeted us warmly but no one knew we were coming. We briefly explained who we were and that we had come to help in anyway we could. Their response, "It is amazing you just arrived cause we had called this meeting to discuss how we were able to continue teaching without some urgently needed materials! God is good!" We told them our church sent money with us so in ten minutes we had a list and two teachers were going to meet us at a computer store as that was their first need...they had none. In true fashion, Junior help select a computer and printer and negotiated a discount price. Then we went to a school supply store and loaded up on paper, pencils, pens, glue, crayons, teacher manuals, etc...we used every last cent and some out of our pocket. The teachers were elated. Finally, we want to find some supper. PNG usually eat one meal and it is in the evening...starting my mission diet!!! By the time we laid down on our mat, we were wiped out!!! We could have slept on anything!
