Friday, June 20, 2014

General update from Mibu

Here in Mibu we continue to plug along with translation and church development efforts. We're encouraged to see how God continues to work here in the hearts and lives of the Mibu people.

Shannon and the kids recently finished out the school year. Rather than take a 'summer break' and have the kids sit in boredom we are actually trying to continue with certain school subjects each day, some where they need catching up and others that will just be good to get a bit ahead in. It keeps things regimented and scheduled and purposeful for the kids and not only helps out with their continuing growth in education but with maintaining family bliss :)

We're starting to ramp things up in preparation for our co-workers, the Walker's, return in September. Lots of logistics being worked out to get the needed tools and supplies in here to renovate their house and make it more functional for them as a family. We find ourselves much busier than we anticipated just trying to work out the logistics! Our email system has been unreliable and intermittent, adding to the difficulty of trying to work all these things out. We're getting really excited though to have the Walkers back to help with the workload here. We're also looking forward to the team coming from Sun Valley Community Church who are planning to come help with the renovations.

Along those lines, we are happy to announce that the Mibu team now has a satellite internet system on the way! The last couple years have made it painfully obvious just how necessary having our own internet access has become for things such as email, voice, and other communications, computer and software updates, finances, and many other matters of business. So we're excited to have finally taken the leap here. It'll be a few months before it is shipped and installed and up and working. We hope it's a tool that will save us a great deal of time in many areas and allow us to focus on being more effective in our service here!

A couple days ago, I (Geoff) had an unexpected overnight on an airstrip not too far away. We had supplies being flown in for ourselves and for the Walkers which required a fair bit of management on the ground. I needed to go up to the airstrip where the helicopter was to rendezvous with a plane bringing our stuff. Things went late and all three of us, the helicopter pilot, the plane pilot and myself got fogged in about 2pm and had to wait and watch the weather the rest of the afternoon, and were eventually consigned to stay the night there. We were thankful for a willing and friendly host who fed us and gave us a warm place to sleep for the night. This left Shannon and all four kids alone in Mibu for the day to handle the supplies that had come in. Again, we were thankful that one of Shannon's good friends here in the village offered to help sort things out with her in my absence. All this simply to show that little unexpected things like this happen as we serve here. It can be interesting and challenging.

One of our friends out in town posted this video of the helicopter landing in Mibu. Gives a little aerial perspective for those who may wonder where we live and what it looks like. Just follow this link to watch