Our morning started off at 4:00 am with breakfast... then a 4:30 am departure to Goroka, squished into the Land Cruiser!
Jacob and I took 7 students on their side trip to Mibu...Mindy, Nicole, Lynnea, Duane, Ryan, Ragan and Justin ( taking the picture).
Ragan helping the guys move the planes out of the hanger for our dawn departure.... at 6:10 am.
Half of us flew in the helicopter for about 50 minutes, straight into Mibu, a helicopter only location in the mountains. And the other half few in the 206 to a nearby airstrip. Then they were picked up by the helicopter for a 5 minute flight into the bush location.
Justin, Jacob, Ragan and Nicole flew in the 206 to the airstrip that is just a 5 minute heli flight from the tribe.
MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) also uses this airstrip... seems to be quite the place to gather for the nationals who live nearby.
Waiting for the helicopter... we flew in all the food that we needed for the team and the missionaries for the 7 day side trip.
Brent, the pilot.
All of the missionaries supplies come in on the helicopter, so they took advantage of any extra weight we had available on the flights in and out of the tribe!
Geoff and Shannon, the missionaries in Mibu, their girls, Skyler, Madie and Abby and our Interface Mibu team! Geoff and Shannon are Interface Alumni, they attended the Interface program in 2000. They were excited to be able to host the students and be a part of teaching them all that God is doing to plant a church in the jungle. It was an amazing time for the students as they met and interacted with believers. And it was a great time with Geoff and Shannon as the students were able to ask lots of questions!
Our home away from home in the middle of the mountainous jungle!
I enjoyed cooking for everyone! It was fun to have the missionaries join us for meals!
This house belonged to another missionary family who was on home assignment at the time. It was a great place to be able to stay!
Our only communication was this radio, which allowed us to talk to Geoff and Shannon who also lived right there in the same area. It is a different experience for the students with no email, no internet and no cell phone!
Mibu is located about 12 miles from the ocean, but about 3,000 feet in the mountains, so the clouds usually moved in around lunch time and stayed around until the next morning. Although we were thankful that this didn't happen as often when we were there so the students had great weather for all the hiking that they did around the valley!
The missionaries lived about a mile hike from the main village. You could see Mibu across the valley, but it took about 30 minutes to hike down to it. I only had the opportunity to hike once on Sunday to worship with the believers.
You can see the village of Mibu as we started our hike from Tibu (where the missionaries live).
I made it! It is a nice neat village and we enjoyed our time with the believers that Sunday!
Teaching from the book of Romans...they don't have the entire Bible in their own language yet.
After church we ate lunch with one of the families close by.
Then we hiked back up the mountain to our home. Normally I would love all this hiking, but this summer of cooking non-stop really drained me. So here I am a bit tired hiking back up. :)
The students sped right by me. :) They all loved the hiking and I enjoyed staying home to rest and cook for everyone. It was so cool to hear about their experiences and see how God was working in their lives through the time in the tribe!
One day they got to hike down to the river and water falls! This is a picture before the hike.
Jacob was able to go with the students on most hikes! He loved it as much as the students did!
Jacob and the students, with their guides, after they hiked to the river and waterfalls!
The students also got to hike to the village of Beng, which is just the next mountain over from Mibu.
We were sad that our time in the Mibu was coming to an end. We were ready to fly out via helicopter at 7:30 am after spending a week in the bush. But the helicopter got socked in nearby the day before. We had great weather for the first few hours of the morning. But by the time the helicopter got out, returned to Goroka for fuel, loaded up and made it back to Mibu, the clouds had moved in.
The clouds never left, we couldn't see very far at all. So the helicopter never headed our way.
We had high hopes the next day as the clouds lifted and the helicopter was able to land!
Jacob and 3 other students were able to get out of Mibu by helicopter and then they caught the plane to Goroka.
But there was only a small opening, a small hole of sunlight and the helicopter was off! And it was never able to come back that day. It was stuck at the airstrip just 5 minutes away, waiting for the clouds to clear. At one point in the afternoon we radioed the pilot to tell him that it was starting to clear, but by the time he made it over, we were socked in again. We could hear the helicopter but we couldn't see it!
The next day our hopes were up again as we saw lots of sun and we could see Mibu below us! But the helicopter didn't come... we waited for an hour and a half and finally we heard it!!
Needless to say we were very excited to see the helicopter after the 5 of us were in the tribe for 2 extra days!!
Ragan and I excited to be flying back to Interface!!
Finally we landed just in front of our house! :)
