Ubuo Housewarming

 All aboard for the trip from the airstrip
 to the village (R.Petterson)

Among all the ceremony of the Jesus Film dedication, one thing I very much enjoyed was having outside friends come to visit my village, meet my village friends and stay in my house. After months of living in my Ukarumpa house, I have not organised to have a housewarming, but my village house had a housewarming in my second week of occupation.

Coming from Kapuna were Robbie and Debbie, my mentors and friends as I work in the region. Aunty Barb, Segana and Nilza came too. As the hospital is my second home in Gulf Province and these are people who support me both prayerfully and practically, it was really good to have them here. They were able to renew their own local connections and to see the outcome of their help with getting toilets and water tanks installed in my house.

Coming from Ukarumpa were two couples from my Bible study group. My Bible study is my Ukarumpa family and now some of them have seen my place and met the people I spend my time with. My regional director came as the official representative from our organisation, but she too is a friend. One person came from the media department and spent all her time behind a camera (there will be a video produced eventually). As we used to have offices across the corridor from each other, we are good friends. We had a visitor who was only in PNG for two weeks, but managed to squeeze the dedication trip in and experience village life. Another woman who is part of a family that Robbie and Debbie are close to, came as their representative. As there was space on the plane, a father and son pair came to experience the village side of our work. This was not a man I knew well, but he represented all the people who work quietly in the background at Ukarumpa to keep things running. It was nice to share with him the field side of what the support of our office workers makes possible. I really appreciate the work these people do, even if I don’t understand most of it.

 Group photos of all the visitors (H.Schulz)

With all these people coming for the dedication and a sleep-over, my house was full! It spent a few days swallowing mountains of cargo that first I, and then the visitors, brought with us. The verandah kept receiving a pile of cargo that then got sorted into various places in the house.

Robbie and Debbie used their room. The wall has woven into it, ‘Uncle Robbie and Auntie Debbie’, so there is no denying it is theirs! The Kapuna visitors were in the room with ‘Kapuna Visitors’ woven into the wall. All of the women who flew down from Ukarumpa slept under one enormous mosquito net in my living area, and the men under a collection of nets on the verandah. I kept my room to myself, as a place of escape amidst the chaos.

Chaos it was, especially on Saturday morning as everyone was waking, changing, packing and eating. I gave the women my room as a change room and offered the storage room to the men as it was the only room left available. Debbie shared her coffee supply and made a saucepan of coffee for everyone. I have a plunger to make coffee for myself, but for a crowd the saucepan did a fine job.  I had brought muesli and milk powder for breakfast and Debbie had brought bread. Her bread proved the most popular and I ended up with an excess of muesli and a shortage of peanut butter. Thankfully I had some back-up supplies I could break into.

 Farewell wave from the village (H.Schulz)

When it was time to go, the cargo was sent ahead of us to the boat and it was time for farewells. A group photo was taken at the house and we walked to the wharf. More photos were taken at the wharf before everyone got onto the waiting boats and we finally waved them off. Robbie and Debbie stayed an extra night, but the house seemed very quiet after the noisy fun of a crowd.

I have a record of their visit though, in my visitors map. A while ago I found a world map at a fabric store. It still has the USSR marked on it, so it is not very politically current, but the geography has not changed. Well, except for where a piece of Siberia has been printed in the Pacific Ocean. I’ll sew a patch over that some day… after all this is a map from a fabric shop. Around the map I added a border of plain cloth and this is where my visitors signed. A string runs between their name and their place of origin, even if that is a trick question for some of my friends. Many of them have been here so long, or moved so often, that they had to choose a place for the string to end. I look forward to adding more strings when others visit, but the map is off to a good start, after such a big housewarming.

A corner of my visitor's map (H.Schulz)

More than the fun of having people to visit though, was the fact that they went away with a much better understanding of my life, friends and work in Ubuo village. They have slept in my house, eaten village food, walked between Goiravi and Ubuo, taken a boat ride on the river and met my friends. When I share stories, they now have not just a photo in their mind, but a place with real people, sights, sounds and smells.

Who will be my next visitor? :-D