Chad Wells Family Blog

We found out today that a power pole near Ialibu was knocked down by a falling tree. That’s why the power is out. They are saying it should be 2 weeks before it is fixed. We hadn’t hooked the generator up to the new power boxes to the houses and realized we better do that today. Dad and I worked on it this afternoon, after church was finished. We got it all hooked in to the new power box and by this evening we had generator power. Mom and Kirsten were happy because the fridge wasn’t actually cold and the food in the freezer was thawing. We just killed, and put in dad’ and our freezers, 25 chickens. It would be a shame to lose them! We will run the generator for a couple hours in the morning and several hours in the evening. That should keep the fridge and freezer cold enough. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific

Connor took some branches and whittled some pencils. “But, they aren’t really pencils because you can’t write with them!” He was sure excited to give them to us, though! The power went off first thing this morning and hasn’t returned. It often goes off (multiple times per day) but it isn’t usually off for more than a few hours at a time. Joseph and I went out soulwinning this afternoon. We were able to witness to Mepa (the Pangia Health Administrator) for about an hour. We also got out some of our newly printed tracts! Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific

We arrived home this evening, safe and sound! We ended up having no problems on the roads. We are thankful for the prayers that went up and are thankful that God cleared the roads before we were to drive on them. We ended up bringing 42 pastors with us to the meeting. They were from the Wiru tribe, that we work directly with, the Imbungu tribe (where Ted Mullins works), and the Kagua tribe (where Wayne Fair used to work). They all rode back with us. I dropped 2 groups off, along the way, and the rest came all the way back to Pangia. There were close to 70 pastors in all, from the Southern Highlands, at the meeting. The pastor’s wife, in Mendi, sent back 2 ducks for Amber (a male and a female). They have lots of ducks there. All week, at the meeting, we ate duck eggs. They were great! Amber was very excited about her ducks! I am looking forward to some eggs! Trevor finished his snake habitat. He did it completely by himself. He’s enjoying building and figuring all that out. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific

From Kirsten: Trevor worked today on his “project”. He’s building a safe. He has it all worked out how the locking mechanism will work. It’s all out of wood. He loves trying to figure it all out. He worked on it during lunch break. After school he worked on a cage for the snake the kids found at lunch. We don’t know what kind it is. But, hopefully he gets the cage done tomorrow because as of right now there’s a snake in my living room (safely in a tupperware tote, of course!). Late last night we got word about some trouble on the road between here and Mendi (where Chad and Dennis are). It looks like problems that started from an incident last year. A Pangia man (Pangia is where we live) murdered a Ialibu man (Ialibu is about 1/2 way from here to Mt. Hagen). A price to be paid for compensation was agreed upon and has been paid (Daniel told me today that it was 15,000 kina – around $7000 US – and 4 pigs). Something happened to stir it all up again. One story I heard is that they decided they wanted more money. Later I heard that Pangia is actually the one causing the problem. I’m sure we’ll get the full story when Chad gets home. Regardless of who is doing it, there are 2 roadblocks that would prevent Chad from getting home tomorrow. We kept waiting for information to find out if they have left yet, but I never heard anything. I talked to Chad tonight and he said that, based on the latest information, it looks like it should be safe for them to come home tomorrow. We are praying hard that it is, and that nothing will change before he gets home. If it’s too dangerous to go through – they won’t! They wouldn’t purposefully put themselves in harm’s way. They would just have to stay in Mendi (along with the 17 pastors they brought with them for the meeting) until it all blows over. Our prayer, all day today, is that Chad and Dennis will be safely home tomorrow! I read a story in the newspaper a couple months ago about a roadblock in Nipa (Dennis was doing some outreach in that area a few years ago). A family (plus the whole funeral procession for a little girl) was going through that area at 2:00am (I don’t know why at that time!). They were stopped by a roadblock. Everyone had to get out and they made everyone undress. They robbed everyone and tossed the girl’s coffin down into the ravine (it broke apart on the way down). So there’s no respector of persons. That’s why we are careful on the road! And, that’s why Chad won’t come back unless he feels it is safe. The roads have been really good since we’ve been back this time. We are thankful for that. The problems should all start again next year. It will be an election year and that’s where a lot of the turmoil comes from. People who don’t vote “the right way” get their houses burned down. People get beat up. Last election (when we were here in 2008) the government building in Hagen was burned down. The night my parents arrived in PNG (they came for 1 1/2 weeks) was the night the election results were announced. We listened to the gunfire as 18 people were killed outside the restaurant where we were eating. So it really is very real! We sure do appreciate everyone’s prayers! Thank you! Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific

From Kirsten: It looks like Amber will finish up the week and teach school for Dee. Dennis would like her to finish getting better and not push it (and get sick again). Amber is happy about that! Joseph (Bible School student) preached for church this morning. During prayer points he mentioned praying for Amber as she teaches. Then he said that all the kids say she does a good job. That made my heart happy! We had work day today, too, for church. The kids and I moved rocks from the rock pile to the mud holes in the road (between the church and the new Bible School building). I am quite sore now! The Religious Instruction class at the grade school was cancelled today. Thankfully, I received word a few minutes before I was to start walking. They had a school break for the last 3 weeks. School was to start again on Monday. But, they sent the kids home today because the teachers still weren’t there. They should all be there by next Monday. That’s the way it is after every school break (even if the break is only a week long). It takes about a week for everyone to come back. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific

From Kirsten: Dee is still sick so Amber did school again for her. Dee’s school goes until noon, so after lunch Amber continues with her own schoolwork until 3:30pm. Dee had Vero and Junie kill some of the chickens and clean them. The “pay” for the job is that they get to keep the head, feet, and “guts”. They are very happy about this pay – and we are always happy that we don’t have to do the job! Those are the parts we would throw away (we haven’t come up with any recipes that call for intestines) and it would appear that we were wasting these parts if people saw them in our trash (which people DO go through our trash if we don’t do a good enough job of burning it). It is a win-win situation! We heard a commotion under the house (involving squeaking) today. I was afraid that Java (the dog) was killing our new kitten. But it turned out she was killing (by playing with it) a rat! We’ve not seen her do this before but we made sure she knew how happy we were with her! Maybe we will have both a rat killing cat AND dog! It would be nice if we could reduce the rat population drastically. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific

From Kirsten: Chad left today to go to the Mendi Pastor’s Conference. I believe he took 17 pastors in the truck with him. Dennis took the other truck, along with a few more pastors. The meeting ends Friday morning, after breakfast, so he will be back Friday. Dee is sick so Amber is teaching school for her today. Amber absolutely loves teaching! Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific

After preaching this morning I needed to help take care of a problem that has come up. The problem came up between two of the older men in the church. Pastor Sam had asked me to come with him to deal with these 2 men (Pupu and James – the 2 most faithful men in the church). The problem is actually between 2 of their lost kids. Pupu’s daughter, Rosalyn, who is from one of his other wives (he had 3, but 1 has died), and Jame’s son (Enoch). Both were attending high school in a different province. The bottom line is that Rosalyn is pregnant and Enoch is denying his involvement. This has now put the 2 faithful church fathers against each other. But, both are trying very hard not to allow it to come between them, while trying to do right by their kids. Pupu’s older children from his number one wife gave some very disturbing (and definitely not empty) threats to Enoch and his family. Now that Rosalyn is pregnant James’ family is very apprehensive about taking responsibility. The threats is that they will kill Enoch and 2 of James’ grandbabies. So we really needed to tread lightly but still try to come up with the right outcome. When Pastor Sam and I got to the village of Maiya, to talk to the kids, there were about 1000 people in the middle of the village ready to discuss and fix the problem. Our goal, including James and Pupu’s, was to settle this without involving the village leaders, council members, etc. So, Pastor Sam and I had Enoch and Rosalyn come into the house where we talked for several hours. In the end, Enoch stood up and took responsibility and said that he would accept Rosalyn as his wife as well as any other consequences that Pupu’s family put out. That was our goal and it was worth the 6 hours of talking that it took! There are so many other cultural issues around these types of situations. It takes a long time to cut through everything to finally get down to decision time. Rosalyn made a profession of faith in our youth group, back in 2008, and Enoch was raised in church but has not been around for the last 5 years. So please pray for the situation between these 2 families. That God would get the glory and that we would see both Rosalyn and Enoch get saved, or get right, and serve God. This is Amber during the morning service with some of the kids. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific

The high school girls came to the house today and helped put together the youth song books that we printed up. They liked being a part of the process. They said that they are looking forward to having the print shop, too! Joseph came in and helped the boys and I with tract folding and cutting. We got 639 tracts done! We are very excited about this! Kirsten led the ladies’ devotional tonight for the prayer meeting (for the ladies meeting next month). She said she had to laugh because of the reaction to the illustration she used. The subject was prayer and she was talking about how if you don’t ask you won’t receive. She had a k5 phone card sitting on the table in front of her. When she finished she asked if anyone had a question for her. She said that if someone had asked for the phone card she would have given it to them, but now it is going back to the house with her. Just like how God has wonderful blessings He would like to give us. But, because we don’t ask He can’t give them to us. She said that the horrified look on their faces, when they realized they had just missed out on getting a free phone card was priceless! Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific

We worked on tracts today. We got 500 printed. Setting them up to print on large sheets of paper took most of the time. Once we get the printing presses going we will be able to use these same layouts. This is Trevor and Little Bear (our tree kangaroo). He is a very sweet animal and can’t seem to get enough loving from us. He likes to lick, then nibble, us. We are working on “no nibbling”. He holds onto our hands tightly. He likes fruit, vegetable peelings, and kaukau leaves (the vines that grow above ground while the sweet potatoes grow underground). He needs tea leaves to keep his fur dark. We only have small tea bush so his fur has been getting blonder. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Digicel Pacific