Aibai Airstrip: Travel Update #2

The plan

Thomas and Jonathan Rodgers are preparing for
a 3-week mission trip this August 7-28

to Papua New Guinea (a small island located north of Australia).

The brothers will be working with some heavy equipment the Lord has miraculously provided to finish installing a runway on the side of a mountain at the missionary compound in Aibai, PNG. Aibai is a small village where our friends the Mike Berbin family and a team of other missionaries lead medical, educational, and church ministries.

Both Jonathan and Thomas have experience using such heavy equipment; Jonathan owned a large landscaping company for a number of years, before entering the ministry himself in North Carolina. Thomas learned to operate the equipment while working for Jonathan, and has gone on to use bobcats and bulldozers frequently with his own renovation and property maintenance business. While the runway in Aibai has been "started", it needs to be graded, extended, and then topped with soil from another property to encourage a grass surface and prevent washout.

(the airstrip is located to the left of the Aibai mission compound; note the goats and man standing on the near end of the large airstrip, and the washout lines currently crossing the property)

It will take the men all of their 2.5 weeks on the ground to complete the task, and hopefully will allow the Berbins to see the answer to 15 years of work and prayer, when they fly in and land on the new airstrip. For the first time they will be able to avoid the hazardous road trip to the village when they travel back to Aibai early this fall after their current furlough in the US.

the current method of reaching the Aibai village:
a hazardous mountain trip over washed-out roads

and precarious bridges, through areas favored by theives;
this trip takes 6-8 hours *on a good day*.

The trip is highlighted by the raw beauty of the Papua New Guinea mountains.

How can you help?

Please pray!

-for Thomas and Jonathan to have safety as they travel and work

-for the equipment to work efficiently (no breakdowns!) during the short time alotted for the trip

-for preaching opportunities while the brothers are there - teaching the gospel to some who've never heard

-for safety of their wives and children staying behind in the States

-for financial provision - each brother is raising $4500 to cover trip expenses

Want more information? Email us

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Travel Update #2 - from the brothers

Saturday Sunset - San Francisco, CA (11:30pm Eastern Time) :)

By the time most of you read this it will be Sunday midday. For us globetrotters however, it will be late Sunday night or early Monday morning! I am writing this from Gate 97 in the San Francisco International Airport, awaiting the long flight to Sydney, Australia. Our flight is scheduled to leave late Saturday night local time (about 2am Eastern time) and arrive in Sydney at 6:25 am Monday August 9 (Sunday the 8th 4:25 PM EST - about the time you all are heading to church). It will be a long flight but that will give us plenty of time to listen a "few" of Pastor Minnick's sermons from the Romans series! From Sydney we continue on to Port Moresby and then to Goroka, PNG, and then one last flight to Noumani, PNG.

From there we will drive into the bush to Kiari. Please keep us in prayer as we travel - we won't arrive at Kiari until your Monday mid-day, if all goes well.

The flights to this point have been fairly eventless. We fit all of our luggage into our small carry ons, and one big shared suitcase. This suitcase was to weigh under 40 lbs so it could make it on the Air Nuigini flights - and it came in at 38.5lbs! Through a glitch at the Austin airport, we were not required to pay the checked baggage fee - a small blessing from the Lord. We are praying for smooth flying in the hours to come. I wanted to take this chance to thank all of you who have been praying for us. To borrow the words of John Newton out of context -We know that it is the Lord who has brought us safe this far. Your prayers are very much a part of what has been accomplished to this point and what will be accomplished in the coming weeks.

Thanks again for your support in this endeavor.

Thomas and Jonathan

This is our plane, where we will spend (and partly skip!) Sunday:

1 comment:

Katie said...: By the way - I love their travelling attire. Jonathan goes "camo". Thomas does NOT. :); August 9, 2010 at 11:25 AM