Today was the first of three major transitions we’ll make in Papua New Guinea. We flew from the capitol of Port Moresby, where we initially landed in the wee hours of Friday morning, to the city of Lae.
Port Moresby is kind of center on the map above. Look directly north (up) from it and you’ll see Lae on the northern side of PNG. It doesn’t look like a long ways a way, and it’s not. Less than 400 Km. Shorter than driving from Los Angeles to Phoenix! But there are no highways (or other roads) that link Lae and Port Moresby. The only way to get there from here, so to speak, is a 45-minute flight.
So that’s what we did today.
PNG has two airlines and I opted for Air New Guinea, the national airline of PNG.
I honestly had no idea what to expect. Most of the stories Gena’s family tells about travel in PNG involve Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) planes and flights on small prop planes. I’ll admit, the prospect of flying over the mountains of PNG in a prop plane are more than a little terrifying to me. In fact in nearly four years overseas, the only other time I’ve been noticeably nervous about travel is when I went to Nepal two years ago. Yet, if this is what God has called us to, so be it. Every day is in his hands whether we think it’s a challenging day or not!
Sure enough, we walk out on the tarmac and the first plane I see is a prop plane. A decent-sized one – not a little crop duster or anything – but still! However, we walked by that towards an actual jet. Is that any safer than a prop plane? I have no idea. But I have to admit I breathed a sigh of relief. The plane was modern and all in all no different than flying on any number of other airlines I don’t think twice about to get over much larger distances as part of my work. God is good!
We arrive in Lae late in the afternoon. Early evening, really. It’s beginning to get dark (especially with thick cloud cover) as we make our way out of the airport. We’re looking for a secure transport option called Guard Dog. It was recommended to me by Rev. Mickey (Mick) Hauser, who serves with the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA). He’s worked in PNG for years at the Martin Luther Seminary in Lae, and is my key contact point to see that facility tomorrow and meet some of the key people involved with it. The seminary is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of PNG (ELC-PNG). While the LCMS has not worked closely with this church body, as one of the two Lutheran church bodies in PNG it makes sense to learn more about them and look for ways we could possibly work together.
A brief digression.
A month or two ago I inquired with the LCMS manager of security operations about a possible trip to PNG and how to do that wisely. The recommendation was something along the lines of hiring a dedicated security team to accompany us in-country. To be fair, the manager of security operations is a smart guy who knows a lot and has experienced a lot. The recommendation is what you would call best-practice.
But as we all know, best practices are not always feasible or realistic. So I arranged our travels sans security team. But I asked Mick for how he recommended getting from the airport to Lae – a 40-minute drive. His answer was immediate. Hire a secure transport bus to take us from the airport to the city. Everyone uses them. And, as he diplomatically put it, “Sometimes the roads have problems.”
Meaning sometimes due to heavy rains the roads are flooded or damaged and professional courier companies know how to manage such situations and still get us to our destination. Also meaning, sometimes as one travels between the airport and the city, as Jesus put it, one can “fall among robbers” (Luke 10). Rather than negotiate with armed robbers on your own, it’s better to take a secure transport that can call from backup and, in general, robbers know it’s not worth their time to try and rob.
Sure enough we see a large bus outside the airport with the Guard Dog logo. We tell them our destination and for the fee of less than $40 USD per person (payable on arrival, just in case we don’t arrive, perhaps?!?!), we are safely conveyed out of the airport and towards Lae.
The driver has one other employee on board. Both are somewhat formidable looking gentlemen. I don’t see evidence of any weapons, but I have no doubt they are not completely unarmed, and I have no intention of finding out. We make our way to the back of the bus quickly and are on our way.
To call the landscape lush is inadequate, perhaps even offensive to the word lush. It is beyond lush. Verdant? Abundant? Life pulses from the ground everywhere it isn’t hacked back. Trees and bushes are dense and massive. There is no concept of biological frugality here. This land is fertile. Rain and warmth are abundant. Life exuberantly basks in the abundance.
But it was also getting dark so I couldn’t get any decent pictures of it. So just trust me.
We arrived at our hotel safely, and after checking in came downstairs to the hotel restaurant to meet Rev. Hauser for the first time and discuss the basic schedule for a day of meetings tomorrow. A pleasant end to a very smooth and uneventful – if not entirely worry-free – day.
The Nelson Family Indonesia 