Container and School Trouble

In my last entry, I told you about the expected arrival of the container. We were informed that it arrived in PNG on September 1st. Unfortunately, they were unable to locate it until September 11th, but it has finally been found. The next step is for the customs inspection. We are hoping that can take place tomorrow (Tuesday). Wednesday is PNG Independence Day and so all businesses will be closed. Once the customs inspection is completed, the missionaries will load the contents into pickups and drive them to Goroka (our nearest major town). The bulldozers will be brought by flatbed truck to the start of the bush road. Then Michael Berbin and Randy Smith will drive the machines back to Kiari, clearing the road as necessary as they go. They are expecting it to take at least 3 days to make the trip, so a national will drive a pickup as a support vehicle for fuel, food, bedding, etc. Once the machines are here, they will have to make more trips to town to bring in the rest of the contents of the container and get more fuel for the bulldozers.

In the meantime, we are trying to purchase all the ground for the airstrip. (Technically, the land will be owned by the government when the airstrip is open, but our ownership of it will give us control over the clearing and maintenance of the strip.) Land ownership is a bit unusual here and there are 20 different land owners for just this area of ground, each with their own section. A committee of 3 national guys from our church is busy dealing with each of these landowners to reach an appropriate settlement.

On top of all this, the list of students accepted into our Christian school for the coming year was posted after church yesterday. Unfortunately, six former students were not reaccepted due to their conduct either during last school year or over the school break. This led to a rather major reaction from the parents of some of the students. One man had a tirade in the church yard after the service yesterday and this morning cut trees and blocked the path to the school. Also this morning, two former students came to the home of one of our national preachers and threatened he and his wife, then later came to the clinic where his wife was working and tried to get me to kick her out so they could "talk" to her. Brother Randy had a long meeting (several hours) with everyone involved this morning, and things seem to have calmed down for the present.

So, please pray for all the details associated with the container, the machine transport, the clearing of the airstrip. Also pray for clear heads to prevail regarding this school situation. At least it's never boring here:-)