We had a wonderful surprise at the end of last week as we were wrapping up the "classroom" training here at MAF. On Friday morning as we were eating breakfast and heading to our second to last day of training Jon opened an e-mail telling us that our family will be serving on the island of Papua! We are so excited to have the opportunity to go and serve the over 250 known people groups in this remote and rugged province of Indonesia. I'm sure there is some confusion over where Papua (formerly known as Irian Jaya) is and what ministry will look like there. Let me try to clear some of that up...
Indonesia itself is made up of over 17,000 islands and if laid diagonally over a map of the USA would stretch from Georgia in the southeast to Washington state in the Northwest. The province of Papua is the easternmost part of Indonesia, directly north of Australia and shares the western half of the large island of New Guinea with the country Papua New Guinea on the east. Ok, it's much, much easier to just give you a picture- hopefully this will help!
flickrSLiDR.
The needs in Papua are HUGE. The landscape- mountains, rain forests and swamps are the most obvious challenge and absolutely require the airplane to navigate safely and quickly. However there are other more daunting issues at work in this far-flung place- Papua is home to over 250 people groups (different cultures, different languages) most of whom have still never heard the good news that Jesus loves them. HIV/AIDS has reared it's ugly head here as well, with reports coming in from at least one village that over 50% of all high-school age kids are HIV positive. Due to Papua's rugged terrain and remote location, there is often little or no medical aid available for those with this destructive disease. MAF has been working with dozens of other organizations in this province since the early 60's to provide basic services and be the hands and feet of Jesus to the Papuan people. Just this week MAF medevaced a man from a village clinic when his femoral artery was nicked during an outpatient surgery to the hospital in a larger city- the last report was that he was feeble but alive.
To give you a glimpse of MAF's work in Papua- here is a video that brings me to tears every time I see it. This is the heart of what we do and ties together the need for the airplane, how and why Jon and I are going, and the work that my parents have dedicated their lives to- providing the Word of God to people who have never had a chance to hear it or read it in their own language. Glory!
(PS- The plane in this video is part of the MAF fleet that Jon will be maintaining once we're there!)
