Overseas Friends
This is worth a read for an insight into mission overseas. Some of you may remember Daniel & Rachel Hulley and their son Ben who were planning to go to Papua New Guinea. They come from Llandaff North Gospel Hall. Well they finally arrived and sent some news all the way from their new home. Enjoy the photos!
You can email them at: daniel_hulley@ntm.org.pg
Click on any photo to enlarge
3rd March 2005
Dear friends,
Just to let you all know that we have arrived safely in Papua New Guinea. After a few wonderful days in Australia with Dan’s brother and family, we flew out of Sydney to Port Moresby and then took a domestic flight to Goroka in the Highlands of PNG. We were met at the airport by four friends that we got to know during our training with NTM in the UK. Ben was a good lad during the trip although he did try and run off a few times as we were waiting to get through immigration and the various other queues at the airports. We had some pleasant surprises during our trip. We were told that we would have to pay for any excess luggage with Air Nuigini so we were expecting to pay £200 or more as we had 25 Kg extra. Thankfully they only charged us £40 so that was a blessing. Because of Ben’s lactose intolerance we took some milk with us and again we thought that they would not allow us to take it into PNG, but they happily let us take it through. Thank you for your prayers!!!
The NTM base in Goroka where we are living definitely exceeded our expectations!! We live in a wooden house with two bedrooms, kitchen/dining room/living room and bathroom with shower. We even have a twin tub washing machine right outside our house, which Rach is really pleased about! The folks who live here spent hours painting it, adding a new porch and making it as welcoming as possible. Goroka is surrounded by high mountains that take your breath away. The base is 1600 metres above sea-level, that’s higher than Ben Nevis! The climate is wonderful with 30 plus Celsius during the day and much cooler during the night. On Sunday we met together in the meeting building for worship and a message from the Word and then a Pot Luck dinner was arranged for all the folks who live on the base. Fruit and veg are in abundance here so everyone makes the most of fresh fruit in juice form, as smoothies or whatever and lots of salads. It’s all organic too and very cheap. We hope to go shopping on Wed and experience Goroka market for ourselves. The afternoon was spent relaxing and then a soccer game for the lads and volleyball for the ladies.
Ben has started to make friends with the nationals, mainly asking, ‘What you doing?’ to anyone and everyone. He has no idea that they speak a different language to him. He is enjoying investigating the area and especially enjoys the dog who lives here, Rasta and also 2 little kittens. He visited a local house of some folks who kept pigs. There are some goats and ducks by the oxy pond(?) and the toads and gekkos come out at night. He is not too sure about the bugs although really liked a large beetle we found under one of the guava trees. Ben has latched on to a little girl called Debbie who is 19 months old. She lives in the house next door so when he disappears that is usually where he is. There are some other missionary kids here to play with too.
We have just had our first, no doubt of many, thunderstorms. The thunder and lightning were amazing. We walked back from tea with some folks through the rain which we are told is nowhere near as heavy as it gets. We are now finishing writing this email by candlelight as the electricity has gone off. Thankfully, the outside lights run off a generator so it is not pitch black.
We have attached photos of: us getting off the plane in PNG, us outside our new home, Ben in his new bedroom (this is MY bedroom, he said) and a view of the NTM base where we live,
Enjoy the photos, keep on praying - our God answers prayers,
Much love,
Dan, Rach and Ben. | 