Thank you, team, for your prayers. We arrived back on campus Friday afternoon after Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) added a Goroka-Hagen flight to move several of us stranded folks to the other side of the landslide.
Below the wing strut, the open road and a river can be seen. This is the Warabum area near the Eastern Highlands-Chimbu border. The road had been cleared, but the villagers were not allowing traffic to pass.We had to leave our little car and washing machine in Goroka. Probably Jeff will PMV back to Goroka next week-end to pick them up.
We were certainly thankful for the several mission organizations that helped us in the past week. Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) has a large base at Ukarumpa. The dentist there fixed a tooth of mine that was aching. Another department fixed our washing machine, and a third gave us priority to repair our car.
Christian Radio Missionary Fellowship (CRMF) in Goroka let us stay in their transit flat. It was an affordable place where we could prepare our own meals. They assisted us in assessing the possibilities for returning.
It was a strange situation to have difficulty getting the information we needed to decide how to proceed. The national news on the television never did report that a landslide had occurred. Only one of the two national newspapers mentioned the slide. The one that did report would, of course, have news of the previous day.
The PMV drivers and local police had the most information. Sometimes it was conflicting. A couple of times we were able to talk to people who had been to the slide area. With the different reports, we would make our best guess about what was happening.
It's a comfort to be back to our own place. Next week we will double up on lectures to catch our classes up with what was missed last week.
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