One step closer…
This morning we finished packing the last bits and pieces into our suitcases and said goodbye to Ryan’s childhood home. This afternoon we piled into 2 cars with Ryan’s parents, his sister and her 2 daughters, and headed to Calgary. We’re spending tonight together in a hotel so we don’t have to leave the farm at 5.30am to check-in at 9am! Plus, it’s a fun trip out for everyone; they are going off camping after they drop us at the airport tomorrow!
Everything is on schedule, but we still don’t have our COVID test results yet! Please keep praying they will come through and our journey, starting tomorrow, will be uneventful.
Thank you!!!
Making the most!
We have roughly 36 hours left before we check in for our first flight on Friday. In the past couple of days we’ve been saying goodbye (again) and trying to make the most of our final days in Canada.
We had our 4th (!!!) COVID test on Monday morning (we’re still waiting for the results). Shiv visited a Chiropractor to try and help some more with her on-going back pain. We had dinner with some lovely friends, who are also family, and played a final game of Carcassonne with Ryan’s sister. (Shiv won!)
We have asked our Travel Agent to re-confirm all of our flights, just to be sure none have cancelled at the last minute, and unfortunately we are still waiting on our COVID test results.
Please keep praying!!!
Our Flights are Booked… Again!
Despite many challenges over the past few days our wonderful Travel Agents in Australia have been able to book us new flights. We depart Canada this Friday, routing:
Calgary-Montreal-Doha-Kuala Lumpur-Port Moresby
More than 3 whole days of travel with over 32 hours of flying!
Click on Read More, below, for more details including our flight numbers.
Face Masks for MAF!
This is our friend, Kim.
Kim has been making these fun and funky face masks and selling them to help raise money for MAF! We so appreciate her time and effort to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to help fund Mission Aviation Fellowship.
As MAF is a charity, we rely on kind gifts from people like Kim, from all over the world, to be able to provide help and hope to some of the world’s most isolated people. Since the start of COVID, we all have a better appreciation of what isolation feels like, but the world’s most isolated are struggling more than ever!
We can’t wait to get back to PNG and continue to serve these people. Thank you Kim, and all of our supoorters, for helping to make that possible!
Brownfield Baptist Church
Although we were disappointed to not be traveling to PNG today, it was really great to be able to worship with our friends and family at Brownfield Baptist, Ryan’s home Church. And we were super blessed to be prayed for by the whole Church.
After the service, many people echoed our loving hope that we would NOT see them again next weekend! ;-D
Peter & Grace make a Difference
Peter & Grace Make a Difference is a movie filmed in Arawa, Bougainville, by kids and youths from 'Voice in the Wilderness.' The film addresses 'Sorcery Accusation Related Violence' (SARV) and follows two kids, Peter & Grace, as they find out more about SARV issues in their village and community.
This movie is in Tok Pisin (Melanesian Pidgin) with English subtitles. It is suitable to watch as a family to learn more about the topic of sorcery and sanguma (witchcraft), its threats, and how to respond. Sorcery Accusation Related Violence is sadly still a significant problem in areas of PNG.
MAF PNG’s partner and our friend Anton Lutz was part of the production, in front of and behind the camera!
An update on our Travels…
We have a booking to fly from Malaysia direct to PNG on a humanitarian Charter flight departing Tuesday 18th August. We also have our 4th COVID test booked for Monday 10th.
Our prayer points now are:
1) Our COVID test results would be negative and we would be able to get a print-out before we leave Canada.
2) Our flights to Malaysia would be booked this weekend at MINIMAL additional cost to MAF!
3) That we would be on these flights!!!
Thank you for all the encouraging words and prayers we have received, it’s so great to know we are not standing alone through this frustration!
BAD NEWS!
We just heard from our Travel Agent that our long-haul flights between Canada and Australia have been CANCELLED. We don’t know why.
We are totally gutted, again! We know the need for us to return to Telefomin and serve the communities there as MAF is so short of pilots in PNG right now. Plus, we are really missing our home!
Our Travel Agent is trying to rebook us for next weekend, but it’s a long-shot…Please continue to pray with us that our flight will happen very soon. Each rebooking costs MAF money and we don’t want to waste those limited resources! Our colleagues in PNG also have to go to a lot of effort to get us new permissions each time…
Enjoying some Simple Pleasures!
We went to the city today for me (Shiv) to have acupuncture, another effort to try and reduce my daily back pain.
On the way home, we thought we’d indulge in drive-through ice cream! Just one of the little things we won’t be able to have once we return to PNG. But it’s ok, I know how to make home-made ice cream! :-D
Latest COVID-19 Test
We took our 3rd COVID test this afternoon, not because we’ve had symptoms, but because PNG requires a negative test result within 7 days of departing Canada. Our previous tests were negative, but they were too long ago to be valid.
Please pray these results come through by FRIDAY as we can’t enter PNG without a print-out to say we are negative! Thanks!
Zoom with our MAF PNG Family!
Isn’t technology brilliant!
Our colleagues in PNG had an update from the MAFI CEO, Dave Fyock, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we were able to join them along with friends in the UK, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, the USA and even Suriname!
The MAF PNG team really is a global family!
Updated Newsletter for Print
Our July Newsletter went out on 10th July, but the details changed within 24 hours when we got kicked off our flight, so we’ve written an update for our friends and supporters who do not have emails. For those of you who do have emails, we thought we’d put this on our blog in case anyone would like to read the latest…
3rd Anniversary!
On 22nd July we celebrated our 3rd anniversary! It feels like the last 3 years have really flown by…
Update: Our return to PNG
We are still in Canada!
Sadly we were bumped off our flight from Doha, Qatar to Brisbane, Australia. We are trying to re-book our tickets, but we may have to wait another month.
The Cole Special Communiqué
This Newsletter was sent out on Friday 10th July - sorry I didn’t link it through our Blog immediately, I’m still learning all the tricks to our new website.
URGENT PRAYER REQUEST!
To all our praying friends,
We just got a phone call to say we would be denied boarding on one of our flights due to new travel restrictions allowing only 30 passengers per flight landing in Australia.
We have since had confirmation that we are booked on all of our flights but this has left us rather shaken up about the possibility of getting stuck en route…
Please PRAY that we do not hit anymore bumps in the road and we would be allowed to board each of our 4 flights without further issue. Thank you!
Enjoying the Alberta Countryside
We’ve had some beautiful weather the past couple of days, so we thought we’d make the most of it. On Tuesday we ventured out to get a COVID-19 test, which is one of the requirements for getting into PNG. On our way back home, we stopped by our friend’s field to enjoy the beautiful view of Canola in bloom.
So much yellow!!!
We have our plane tickets!
This morning we got our plane tickets through, so on Sunday 12th July, almost 8 weeks later than we had originally planned, we will be leaving Canada and starting the long journey back to our home in Telefomin, Papua New Guinea.
We will be traveling for approximately 60 hours and flying for just over 33 of those hours, a lot longer than usual! But we are so relieved to finally have our tickets in our hands!
There are so many new procedures and regulations as a result of COVID-19 so we would REALLY appreciate LOTS of prayer over the next 2 weeks. Thanks so much!!!
PNG Coffee for Sale
We have 17 bags of PNG ground coffee which we have not been able to sell due to not visiting people in person. $5 per bag, available for collection/personal delivery only in the Brownfield/Coronation, Alberta area.
All proceeds will go towards helping pay for our luggage to travel with us back to PNG next week.
Permission to return to PNG!
After weeks of waiting we have just received word that we have permission to enter PNG! What a huge relief! But we still have practical hoops to jump through, can we find a flight that will work at a reasonable price, can we get there within our allotted time frame, can we get a COVID-19 test before we go, will we have to quarantine in PNG for 7 days or 14 days?
Please continue to pray for the logistics to work out, all the way until we reach Mt Hagen, where MAF PNG has our HQ, where Ryan will do his flight tests and we will buy 3-months’ worth of groceries before we can head all the way home to Telefomin.
Click on the picture, left, to watch a video of our friend, Nurse Rhema, one of the local health care workers who MAF supports and we fly out of Telefomin.