Before a week ago, I had never been on a plane for more than probably 8 hours. In fact, I was antsy trying to sit still flying to Europe a few months ago. Needless to say, it took more than 8 hours to get to Papua New Guinea. After a 16 hour flight from Newark we made it to Hong Kong where we had a 24 hour lay over, which was just enough to get out, sleep in a hotel, and see Noah’s Arc.
We stayed in a very nice hotel that oddly had mirrors everywhere and a glass bathroom that provided no privacy. Strange indeed! Then we were able to take a double decker tram and a ferry to a separate island where they had a life-sized replica of Noah’s Arc. Very cool but not nearly as Biblically based as you would think. The theme was loving life and loving yourself. The best part of the day was traveling around Hong Kong. What a strange city so squished and packed with people!
From there we flew on to Papua New Guinea, which was another 7 hours of flying time. Port Moresby was our entry point where I had my first breath of warm tropical air, and what proved to be a very interesting 6 hour lay over. Port Moresby is the largest city in Papua New Guinea and the biggest airport in the country. That being said, it was so small it made the Columbus airport seem as massive as O’Hare in comparison. We went “downtown” for lunch at one of the nicer hotels then spent the rest of the afternoon at the “café” in the Port Moresby airport, which was of course the only place to eat or drink anything there. Yes, everything in quotations because it isn’t what you would think of for a downtown or a cafe, but I just don’t know how to describe the place. However, they are a country full of amazing coffee and tea and that was our first day to experience it. Cheap airport coffee at the run down cafe – amazing!
Until this point everything had been moving smoothly. We missed the crazy guy who shut down Newark airport by 2 hours and all our flights had surprisingly been on time. That was, until we tried to leave Port Moresby. I’m not sure how to describe this airport. After going through security a couple times, we found ourselves in a large room full of people in chairs. At the end of the room were a few doors. One by one a flight would be called and the people would line up in front of one of the doors. When it came time for our flight, though, no one called for it. And we continued to wait. No one said the flight was delayed. No one said it was cancelled. No one told us anything. Finally, about an hour later, lo and behold, they called our flight number and off we went. Still no explanation. When we landed in Mt Hagen, we all went into a room together and our bags were brought to us by forklift in two big piles. Really it was a bit of a free-for-all in there. But guess what, all of our bags made it on all four flights! We didn’t lose anything! (For anyone who doesn’t know our previous adventures, yes, this is big news.)
The last part of our trip was a short 45 minute drive with Jeff to Kudjip. Driving through the Highlands of Papua New Guinea was such an amazing contrast to Hong Kong. Yes, there were people everywhere walking down the road. But the people weren’t packed together. They had space to breath. And the buildings were few and far between. I felt like I could breath again too. And that is how we made it to Kudjip Nazarene Hospital about 60 hours after leaving Columbus, Ohio. : )
Please pray for the patients, doctors, and staff at Kujip Nazarene Hospital. Pray for health for Ryan and I. At the moment I can’t stop sneezing of all things. And pray that we would be able to learn the lessons God has for us here and be able to participate in God’s work and be useful to the people here. Thank you all so much and stay tuned for Ryan’s random thoughts on Papua New Guinea…