Our lawyers had never received any official paperwork indicating what was going on.  They just happened to notice our name on the docket for Thursday.  We too had never received any information about the hearing.  So I grabbed our file on the case, without a clue in the world about what was going on, headed off to the courthouse.

Being the time-oriented westerner that I am, I got there a bit early, well actually a lot early as it turned out, and sure enough, there was Pioneer Bible Translators vs our previous tenant listed as the first case in civil court. 

Having never actually been to court in PNG, I had no idea of what to do, where exactly to go, whom to see, etc. etc.  And since there did not seem to be any authority figures present I decided that the best course of action would be to simply have a seat, watch what was happening, and try not to do something stupid.   There were four separate categories of cases to be heard on Thursday: Juvenile, Adult Criminal, Family, and Civil.  All the cases for all four courts were scheduled for 9:30.  And there were only two court rooms.  This was going to be interesting.

9:30 came and went and there was still not an official looking person to be seen anywhere on the compound.  There were a few people like myself milling around waiting for their hearing, but no judges, clerks, janitors, or anyone else.  Ten o’clock came and went; still no one was around.  Finally at about 10:20 a police van drove up filled to capacity with ne’re-do-wells.  It looked like one of those cars in the circus filled with clowns; one after another after another after another the men piled out of the van until the spectators were left wondering how they could have possibly all fit.  The mob then filed into one of the court rooms, several minutes later a judge appeared, and Adult Criminal court began.

Apparently the system is run on a first come first served basis.  The first two judges to show up in the morning get the court rooms and the later judges and their “customers” have to wait.  Shortly after the adult criminal court started, another judge arrived and juvenile court began.  

At about 11:00 across the courtyard a clerk of some type walked out of a door and began calling out names.  When he called for “Pioneer Bible Translators” I hurried over and acknowledged that I was there and ready represent the mission.   He called a few more names, made some notes on his paperwork, and disappeared without a word into the building.  

Justice continued to grind along in the two court rooms.  The juveniles were called one by one to take the stand, the judge asked a few questions, and then one by one they, along with some very somber looking parents, were dismissed to come back another day.  Meanwhile the same thing was happening in the criminal court, although not many were being dismissed.   By noon both court rooms were empty.  The juveniles had been led away by their parents and the criminals had been shoe-horned back into their van for the trip back to prison.  Meanwhile a dozen or so others, including yours truly, continued to mill around, visit, and wonder when or if we would have our time in court.

At 12:30, just as I was getting ready to leave to grab a bite for lunch, an official looking man came out of the offices and walked over to one of the empty court rooms.   He called out several names, including PBT, and invited us into court.  The judge had finally arrived.  There were two cases ahead of me.  Both of them involved the judge asking a few questions, the participants giving a few answers, and the cases being set aside for rehearing at a later date. 

Finally my case was called.   Neither the defendant nor her lawyer had come so it was just me and the judge.  He asked me what the nature of my complaint was.  I told him that I had no idea why I was there – that our name had just appeared on the docket.  He was puzzled.  “But you are the plaintiff,” he said.  I told him that originally we had been but the case had been settled three years before and we had done nothing more with it since then.  I said that apparently today’s hearing had been instigated by the defendant.   He checked his paperwork, he called me to the bench and checked my paperwork, and there was not any indication anywhere of why, exactly, this case was once again on the docket.  So he did what all good judges in PNG do, he set the case aside for a rehearing at a later date.

I suppose that the day was not a complete waste.   I got to visit with some interesting people, listen to some fascinating tales of woe, and see first-hand how the gears of justice turn in PNG.  And almost three months later, the case is still not settled, and as far as I know we still have not been informed of the reason it reappeared on the docket in the first place.

Our family was plunged into a medical care story of a different sort when our new granddaughter Rebekah was born in May with serious Meconium Aspiration Syndrome.   There were some complications at birth and at some point she had aspirated a large quantity of meconium and her lungs were essentially unusable.

She was immediately taken by ambulence to the University of Iowa hospital and admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) there.  This is one of the best medical facilities in the US for treating infants so Rebekah has access to the latest technology and is being cared for by a wonderful team of dedicated doctors and nurses.  She has been in the NICU for six weeks now.  The first five weeks were touch and go and we almost lost her several times.  But over the past week she has started to make progress.  Her lungs are slowly being reinflated and we hope that within another week she will be breathing on her own, at least partially.   Our best guess is that she will be in NICU for at least another two months.

Rebekah's NICU room

We are thankful that Rebekah lives in one of the few places in the world where she could have received treatment.  In PNG she would not have made it and probably her mom would not have either.  For all its problems our health care system is still the best in the world.  Our prayer is that the leaders of PNG will make providing quality health care for the people there a priority.   While their system will probably never equal ours, for any number of reasons, basic quality health care could be and should be available to every PNG citizen.

“A PAPUA New Guinea man made a four-day trip to Cairns, Australia, carrying his badly injured six-year-old niece who had her intestines exposed after an accident. Forty-year-old farmer Lambai Pisau was called to his niece Dulcie Nakai’s village school on the PNG-Indonesian border last April 23 after she fell out of a classroom window and landed on a sharp hibiscus tree. The fall pierced young Dulcie’s abdomen, exposing her intestines. Mr Pisau took his niece to their remote village’s first aid post by canoe only to find the medical officer was away for the night distributing donated mosquito nets. He treated his niece as best as he could using a bandage and tylenol before the pair endured a five-hour ambulance ride to Morehead station on April 24. From Morehead, the two travelled eight hours in a motorised dinghy, which constantly broke down, before spending the night in a bush hut at the mouth of a crocodile-infested river. On Sunday, it was another four hours journey in the dinghy to Boigu island in the Torres Strait. A medical team on the island had a helicopter transfer to Thursday island where the pair was met by the Royal Flying Doctor Service and flown to Cairns (Australia), arriving early the next day (Monday). Surgeons at Cairns Base Hospital successfully conducted life-saving surgery on Dulcie and she is now resting comfortably.”

The full text of the article can be found at: http://www.thenational.com.pg/050409/nation8.php.

• Lead morning prayer time at the office.
• Provide food for the Nend translator who is in town.
• Write a letter to the Provincial Government requesting funding for airstrip maintenance.
• Work up a summary of the duties of a Board of Management to send out to the Mum Board in Katiati.
• Write an eviction letter to a tenant who is two months behind on their rent.
• Purchase anti-malarials for a visitor who will be coming over this summer.
• Work on the logistics of getting a hospital patient back to the village after she finishes her treatment this week.
• Arrange for purchase of translation supplies (pens, paper, etc) for the Nend translation team.

This afternoon if all goes well I can get into some translation work.  That is the part I like best so I try to work in some translation each day.

Things seemed to have settled down a bit over the past 20 minutes.  But before lunch I get to hand deliver the eviction notice.  That should be entertaining.  Actually it is not a full blown eviction letter.  Rather it is more of a blustery “pay your rent or leave the premises” letter.   So I don’t start the day by being totally wretchedly heartless.  That comes later in the week I suppose.

This should dispel any notions that people have about missionary work being glamorous or exciting.  Occasionally it can be that but often the reality is that it is a job, like any other job.   The retirement plan is much better than most jobs though.

Stap Isi resting on its mooring again.

On Monday I re-installed the prop shaft and reconnected all the bits and pieces.   Everything went back together about as easily as it had come out.  Then I sanded the areas that had been patched and gave those areas a coat of bottom paint.  The next day I and two of the PBT workmen gave the bottom a final coat of paint and lastly we let the rudder down so that we could give the rudder shaft a nice coat of grease.  At last, one week after we hauled out, Stap Isi was ready for the water.

Unfortunately the water was not ready for Stap Isi.  By the time everything was done on Tuesday the tide had gone out and rather than take the chance of not having enough water to launch, we decided to wait until Wednesday morning when tide was scheduled to be much higher.

Wednesday I got to the boat and clambered aboard.  The manager said that going down was much easier and faster than going up – that they just lowered the boat into the water and eventually all the blocks holding it up would just float free.  And that is exactly how it went.  The slip operator reversed the drum holding the spool of 1 inch wire and the cart on which the boat sat slid freely into the water.  Eventually I heard the sound of large blocks of timber bumping along the side and we were once again floating.  A couple of guys swam out and herded the blocks to shore, I fired up the engine, and motored gently back over to our mooring.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally have been able to make these repairs.  For awhile it looked like we were going to just end up with a derelict boat, one that we could live on but not much else.  But now, as an answer to many prayers, we have a functional sail boat, ready to take us back out to the Ramu or anywhere else we might need to go.