Dylan's trip- May 2013

So Dylan went interior for a week at the beginning of May.  I've had these pictures loaded and he was supposed to have written about his trip, but that never happened and now he left today for another trip, so I thought I'd help him out a bit:).

 He went in on May 3rd with a father and son duo who are cutting the wood for our house.  They flew with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) to an airstrip that is a 5 min flight from our airstrip.  Our airstrip has not been approved yet by MAF or the other flight programs in our city, so the guys got picked up nearby with a plane from an org who is willing to land on our airstrip right now.  They shuttled over all the supplies (drums of fuel, oil, extra chain saw parts, tools, food for the woodcutters etc.) we had sent ahead.  So thankful for pilots who work so hard to get us in!

Dylan's first item on the agenda was to build a structure to sleep in and store tools and supplies.  The people had that done in a couple hours:)

 

He set a tent up inside after finding a huge hairy spider on the inside of the tarp.

The next few days were spent working on the airstrip.  Tomorrow there is a guy from MAF going in to check it out.  We hope he will say it's ok, but at least, if he doesn't, we'll know specifically what needs to be done to have it finished.

On Sunday, he visited with the people.  They gave him lots of food- bananas, sweet potatoes, greens, peanuts etc
The next day he didn't feel so good:)

The wood cutter set up camp about a 25 minute hike up the mountain and got to work.

 

I would use two hands if I were him, but maybe I'm just paranoid.

Paulus, the wood cutter had told Dylan he would like to bring more guys in to help carry wood because when he has cut wood for other places it's been hard to get people to carry. 

One morning Dylan woke up a 5am to shouting and people running by his camp.  It was a bunch of the people running up to get wood.  Everybody including the women and kids went up and each brought wood back.  Dylan said the old ladies were passing him up. 

There it is!  Soon to be walls and what not (I'm not a house builder, can you tell?:) for our house!

Everyone was so friendly and curious always watching Dylan's every move.  Some of the people can speak a bit of the national language so he was able to communicate with them some that way as well as start to learn a few phrases in the tribal language. 

Interesting note- the typical greeting for a friend literally translates to "I eat your brains".  I thought that was gross until Dylan told me that in the neighboring tribe they say "I eat your poop".  Yummy

I'll end on that special thought.  Hopefully when Dylan gets back next week he'll have lots more pictures and stories and will write about it himself as I'm not sure I did this justice. Our partner Jared went in with him this time and they hope to completely finish the airstrip and start digging holes for the posts for our house.  We'll see how much they get done.

Please pray for their health and safety.  We are so thankful to the Lord that he has kept us all healthy so far.  It is only by His grace and mercy that we can do any of this.  He has clearly been sustaining us and going before us as we start this huge process of building and moving interior.  Puji Tuhan! (Praise the Lord:)