Em Nau Wantok bilong mi stret hia.  (Hey, my true friend!)  

Yupela stap iorait o nogat?  (How are you all doing?) 

It was a real lift to my day to receive your email Jack.  I have often wondered how you guys are and looked back with joy at the times we have shared.  Some how I lost touch with you and have often wondered how I might catch up with you again and here I am with an email address at last.  So how are you guys? 

Things have really changed in PNG. Some positive developments and some really challenging ones.  They began having major problems with the aircraft . So the brethren met and decided that they would  buy a new one that would be more reliable and concentrate on doing the local mission district flying again with less emphasis on the commercial flying around Goroka.  The South Pacific Division is putting in some funds to pay for some of the operating cost of running the airplane which is a big plus. The local missions are just so poor.  

What is great about this is that new aircraft will be hopefully more reliable and less costly and time consuming to maintain.  Also the SPD helping with the operating cost is a real benefit.  It  starts to match church resources to the expectations they have of the staff and the equipment.  That will make the job so much more pleasant.

Yet this scenario leaves us with a tremendous challenge.

I think the best thing I got out of the commercial program that we had running Jack, was the insight into a brilliant and exciting field of missionary service. It opened new vistas of mission endeavor to my mind. So many missionary opportunities came to light as we went down that road. Making regular daily contact with people in remote areas opened our eyes to the spiritual and physical needs of the people. We picked up for instance that in many of the villages 60% of the kids were dying before reaching maturity. We went back to Goroka and I mentioned this to a few people and before long I had nurses coming to me and asking if they could help as volunteers. A meeting was held and the Laity Mobile Health Service was born. They raised their own funds - which I thought was a miracle. They have done an outstanding job in providing basic health care to remote villages. 

Most of the government health services in remote areas are non functional these days. This provides a fabulous opportunity to Adventists to prosecute their missionary outreach. It has been so effective. Today is the day of opportunity for mission in PNG.  LMHS has been one of those ministries that God has blessed in spades right from the start. Today we have several permanent clinics in remote villages. LMHS volunteers man these outposts and Adventist Aviation Service was carrying the supplies given by government and NGOs to immunize and treat the people. They run flying clinics to areas where they do not have a permanent presence and immunization patrols with vaccines from the WHO.  

Jack, the results from their work are staggering. The death rate amongst the kids has dropped from 60% down to 5% in a lot of villages. The nurses are running clean up campaigns in villages, helping the people to fence out the pigs and teaching mothers the principles of hygiene. They are teaching the proper construction of pit toilets and many other public health issues to try and combat disease and bring the abundant life promised by the gospel. Their work is very openly and frankly missionary. They carry their picture rolls with them and always take a bit of time out to share the gospel story with the villagers. It means so much more when they hear about the healing Jesus to see people bringing healing to them. I had one old village elder tell me "mipela harim harim harim gut nius tasol nau mipela lukim" (We have heard the good news over and over but NOW we SEE it!) He shook his index finger with a lot of conviction as he said it.

There are 2 new villages who once were hostile to Adventists. They are Kapi and Wabo. When I first went up there I was told never to go into Kapi because they hate Adventists. The Kapi people asked me to take in a coffin one day. When I got there I asked about the mortality rate amongst their kids. They were a 60% village. They were enthusiastic about a team of nurses coming. I will never forget the experience we had the first day a team went in there. They had tried to kill one of our missionaries just a few months before. Now there is a permanent clinic there and recently I sent Pr Jessley the money to send a church approved Layman in there to answer the people's request for a minister to help them to become Adventists. Is Medical missionary work still the right arm of the message? It sure is.

There were many other things that we did to assist missionary work on our commercial ops. We often were able to help a District Director to go somewhere "very economically" when he needed to. Pr Kassi at Karimui is a terrific pastor. He has a very bad knee Jack. He gets terrible pain if he has to walk any distance and you know what the terrain is like up there. I used to pick him up and take him places when ever I could so that the people in his scattered area could get the nurture they needed and importantly When they needed it. We have ferried laymen around and ferried messages in and out to the local mission, and to and from the DDs around their areas and equipment for them too. Just having a plane regularly circulating has opened up opportunities for a new school with Adventist teachers at Dobu funded by the Chimbu Government. We have carried countless tons of roofing iron in at discounted rates to help our church members with building schools and churches.

We have done so many medical evacuations I have lost count. I have seen God's hand so many times diverting us unexpectedly into places where we have been needed. If the people could not pay, then God gave us special blessings time after time to compensate. Jack I know the church has made the decision to turn away from this model of operation to a large extent and re prioritize reviving the local mission flying for local missions. I think they have a valid point.  The work we were doing is dependent on regular circulating around the area. That's the way you build up the current of business upon which it rides. That's how you can maintain your commitment to medevac flights which crop up any old time, not in gaps in the district flying program.

Anyhow Jack, I am convicted that there is a very wide missionary field available away from Goroka too for this kind of missionary work. When Jessley was president down in Morobe mission we talked about all the unentered villages up in the Finnestere Ranges behind Lae. We have a few isolated churches up in there, but there are a lot of strips we never go to. I have a burning desire to get nurses into that area and start breaking down prejudice and opening the doors for our missionaries to go in there. There are areas down North East too where I know from the little medical work we tried to do there, that this type of program would be dynamite for building up the church. So I see  a Lay Model aviation service which would be managed outside of the financial pressures the church faces with all the other needs it has to care for and would be able to grow with God's blessing and be able to establish bases in other areas and pursue this outstanding missionary opportunity into as many areas as possible, for the love of people and for the effective presentation of the Gospel by the church.

By the way, all the missionaries that my group supports up there are approved by the church and are told that they are servants of the church and work under the direction of the church government structure in place in PNG. They are subject to their DD (District Director) and the local mission, not to us. We get reports from the local mission so we can gauge the effectiveness of those missionaries. We support them but they do not work under our direction. What I want to do is provide a logistical frame work for the church to do its own missionary work, not provide a new mission. I am a supportive member of the church and believe in church government and try my best to co operate with it. I do believe in the personal calling to mission of individuals within that context and am interested in finding ways to help others achieve their calling to mission as well.

There are a number of things we want to do. I want to establish a "library" of equipment for pastors and laymen like generators, Av equipment, lighting etc so that those who cannot afford these things do not need to hold back if an evangelistic opportunity arises. They can borrow from the library. We would transport the equipment out and back, train people to use it and maintain it. This way more people will be able to utilize this kind of equipment and more people will hear the message. It would be available for AAS to use for church work as needed as well.

I have projects in mind to help the people out of poverty. This text in Psalms sums up what I am on about here and how it relates to the gospel. Ps 113: 6,7 New Living Translation "...He stoops to look, and He lifts the poor from the dirt and the needy from the garbage dump." I don't share the Hillsong church's view that the gospel is all about God blessing us with more earthly riches than anyone else Jack, but I do believe that Christian believers have a legitimate field of ministry in trying to help people out of abject poverty, where they do not have the chance to educate their kids or clothe them for church or buy them life saving medicines when they are sick. I can see why the church itself has a different focus. That is appropriate too. One of the benefits of lay people being involved is that we can go ahead and do a wider variety of things to help people.

The coffee price is about the same now as when I went up there about 10 years ago. The cost of flying has gone up to about triple of what it was then. The margin for growers has shrunk to the point that distant places are just not even bothering to pick the stuff any more. Some are heaping and burning it in frustration. Peanuts are worth far more than coffee and are a more spiritually correct crop for Adventists too. I know we tried to develop Markham peanuts at one stage and that failed because of their poor quality. Karimui peanuts are pretty good.  I hope to be able to boost tithe, income and hope out in the bush by developing new industries that can help the people earn a decent living to educate their kids and give them clothes to go to Sabbath school in.

The other thing we did a bit of with AAS and which I would like to do more of with a Lay model program, is to get out to remote areas and bring people in to church programs like camp meetings. We had a scheme going where the plane would go out and the people would fly in at a discounted rate so more could have the opportunity of attending. They then go back with renewed spiritual insights and vigor to strengthen their own remote communities.

I have a real burden for remote areas. There are so many of the remote areas where the church is really struggling because of the lack of contact and nurture that the church can provide those communities now. AAS will be helping this by taking local mission guys out to visit in the bush again and that is fabulous. I just want to share one quick example of a community that has really suffered under the current climate of cut backs in ministry. I flew into Wia Wia one day and was told by the elder that their church had dropped to 30 members from 115. When I asked the reason he told me that the mission had sacked their pastor because they could not afford to pay him any more.

Local missions have been sacking scores of pastors over the last couple of years to contain costs. This has a devastating effect in remote areas where people are unable to read and find nourishment for their spiritual life if there is no shepherd to lead them. In Wia Wias case, we found a sponsor down south and the president selected a suitable Layman and we flew him in there and supported him in his work with regular flights. We established a clinic there too. Within a few months we were getting the request for roofing iron and nails to build a new and bigger church because the one they had was not big enough any more. You have worked in PNG as a missionary and you would understand the joy and excitement that we as pilots felt at seeing this transformation in a hurting remote church community. Bonnie, Bill's wife contacted someone back home in the states and a kindergarten Sabbath school there raised the money for the roofing iron for Wia wia church. Some one fixed a radio up and had it sent there. We flew a layman in from Goroka to help with the building of the church. It was a combined effort of lots of normally pew bound church members. They all got a blessing for being involved and participating in the churches missionary effort. The benefit of mission participation to the soul is tremendous. Last I hear there are a group of people there waiting for baptism now. With God's healing power, and the faithful ministry of Aileen our national nurse there, the village population which has steadily declined to just over 200 over the last few years is now rebounding and growing for the first time in living memory. Lots of Mums were dying of hemorrhage after child birth. Aileen is a good bush mid wife and I think they have only had one death over the last 12 months she has been there. I just praise God for His blessing of the efforts of ordinary church members who have seen needs and put them selves in God's hands to go out and do what the corporate church can not afford to do by its own means. 

 I just heard that we now no longer have a nurse at Wia Wia. The reason is that there are no longer any flights out there. It astounds me how God has blessed the Nurses work there in Eastern Highlands. They had measles completely eradicated in Eastern Highlands there at one stage. Now as the flights have stopped they will not be able to contain the disease problems. I am inspired by God's leadership and blessing of this humble group of Christian workers who get no or very little pay for their efforts (About $55 US per month) and do what they do for the love of Jesus. People have really responded to this. What they have developed is the most effective tool of Gospel ministry I have seen in my time up there in PNG. For the moment the Devil has stopped it in its tracks by the grounding of our aircraft. They still have some clinics they are able to work by road. They took on some of the Sopas nurses when the hospital closed.

Jack I have a burden which I feel to the point of desperation some times that this  model of ministry that they have developed, must be transplanted into other areas of the country as well. e.g. Sepik. I want to get into the dark areas in the Finnesterres. I want to get into the areas around Poppondetta too and there is a vast area of need out west of Hagen. There are all the remote areas in the Sepik. The church's clinic at Tumolbil on the border has influenced the starting of new churches over in Irian and lots of new groups our side as well.

I see huge potential for church member involvement in mission. There is a group of professional laymen at Goroka town church who are always looking for opportunities to go out and share their love for the Lord and their ministry skills with remote communities. They have several hand churches they are supporting around town. The DDs (District Directors) in the bush have expressed the desire to have their help in the bush if we can get them out there. The excitement for me is finding ways of connecting the resources God has put in our pews with those who are crying out for their help. I would like to continue AAS practice of developing commercial routes where our missionaries are in need of special assistance. Eg. Haia where there is a lot of opposition to our mission work.

What I have in mind Jack is a privately run air service managed at a Lay level which would focus on the commercial dependent missionary work that AAS pioneered so well.

The Adventist Aviation Association and NNSW conference here where I live had a very harmonious relationship. They even had their own separate aircraft at one stage. I remember when I was president of AAA, we were invited to the conference office when they were planning the following years visitation so that they could liaise with us to make best use of the aircraft. I have seen church work enhanced by lay support and involvement in the past and believe that it can work in PNG.

Another thing that is very dear to my heart, is to be able to hold out hope to young people.  I want to see a mission opportunity that a kid can hook into for life that will provide the opportunity for professional and spiritual growth over time. To achieve what needs to be done will take a lot of guys. I want Adventist young people who are faithful to God and want to keep the Sabbath Holy, to have a rewarding career path in missionary aviation to set their sites on as the contemplate the expense of pilot training.

Anyhow Jack I should stop rambling here. Thanks for making contact. If you have any suggestions about the project I have in mind or would like to be involved, I would sure value your input. I know you guys have been in the self supporting side of mission and I admire that. I see room for lots of paid people and lots of volunteer in and out sort of people as well as the thing develops. This is a critical time for this program.

God bless
Regards
Trevor

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