Wow. Everything here is an adventure. After church yesterday, we were going to take a boat trip to a city called Angoram. It is connected to civilization by road, so there is a government and police post, a couple stores, good medical center, and stuff like that. We were preparing to leave and a mentally challenged guy came to the clinic because he fell in the fire and burned his arm to the point where the skin was puffing up and peeling off. Thus, our nice little sight-seeing trip turned into a medical evacuation. Seven of us piled into a small little boat - (Me, Lea, Jesse, a guy named Nick, the burn victim and his parents) and started toward Angoram. The boat worked great all the way to Angoram - the river was nice and clear and the sun was shining. The trip only took about 2 hours and 15 minutes. We got the patient to the medical center with no glitches.

We were going to pick up two village kids who just finished their school term and bring them back to Samban. While we were waiting for them, a guy from right near Samban came up and asked if he and his daughter could get a ride with us. His daughter who was 20-25 years old (but it was hard to tell because of her sickness) has Tuberculosis and is beyond treatment so they were bringing her back home to die. (We found out later that the reason she was dying was because she and her family refused to take the TB medicine when she was diagnosed over a year ago because they believe in faith healing.) Anyway, Jesse said "Sure, jump in the boat." So it ended up being the TB girl, her father, me, Lea, Jesse, Nick, and two school kids (ages 20 and 22) - A REALLY full boat. We made it back upriver all the way to a town called Kumbarumba (probably a third of the way home) when the motor propellor malfunctioned. Turns out something happened and we could only go in idle speed - an agonizingly slow pace. Many people can paddle their canoes faster than we were going. So we just put-putted along up the river, trying to keep our spirits up by thinking about what a great story it would make.

But in typical PNG style, things got crazier...and worse. At one point, we pulled off to the bank of the river so Jesse could try to fix the motor. The TB patient asked if she could "waswas" or wash off in the river. Nick picked her up (she couldn't have weighed more than 50 lbs - I could have put my hand around her femur) and set her down in the shallow water, clothes and all. Then, she apparently decided she wanted a more thorough washing, because she started taking her shirt off. While culturally acceptable here, it still made for a VERY awkward moment for me. I was just thinking, "It's okay - you can just look at the beautiful scenery, it'll all be covered up in a minute or two." FALSE. She and her father had been sitting in the front of the boat facing the rear. Lea and I were sitting on the middle seat facing forward. This girl proceeded to get into the boat RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME completely bare chested. Nobody except me and Lea seemed to bat an eye. For the next extremely uncomfortable hour and a half I rode at paddleboat speed down a river with a dying, emaciated, half naked village woman's chest smack dab in front of me. I got a cramp in my neck from turning my head to the left for so long. Another difficulty was that we were sitting on tin benches and the boat was SO packed that we couldn't stretch out our legs at all. Talk about a pain. I guess God likes putting us in circumstances that make us uncomfortable...for extended periods of time.

We continued upriver for a few more hours - through crocodile inhabited waters I might add - just watching the sun go down over the PNG grassland. I've been sort of malaria paranoid ever since we got here, and since they are nocturnal, so I was sort of freaking out internally when I realized we would be mosquito fodder for the next few hours. We just had to turn over our health to God and trust in Him and His sovereign plan. So we sat there, slapping blood-hungry skeeters and looking at the stars, creeping up the river. Finally, we got to a village called Wom, and we waited another 15 minutes for villagers to put a motor on a canoe to take us up to Samban. We eventually piled in and took off, leaving Jesse and the school kid to bring the boat up slowly. The sky off in the distance was lit up because some people had set the grass on fire for no apparent reason. It was pretty cool looking though. It was very peaceful - the moonlight illuminating the river, the tropical landscape, and the sound of frogs croaking as we passed. It felt like we were in some sort of movie.

At 9:45 at night (3 hours after dark) we got back to the house in Samban. What was supposed to be a quick 5 hour round trip turned into a 9 hour night excursion. Oh, and this is just the abbreviated version of the story, with a LOT of details left out. We'll give everyone the full story when we get back.

Well...that's the latest and greatest from bush.

-C.R.