When the Central States Synod visitation team of Gary Teske,  Gary Kallansrud,  Daniel Lilienkamp and AL Lang arrived in Finschhafen earlier this week,  they discovered there was no hot water and just a little more than a dribble of cold water coming out of the faucets.   Not so bad.   Lots of people have survived cold showers.  A couple of days later,  they discovered that the cold water had also stopped flowing.   Our PNG hosts had just the solution.   A big bucket.   Today the group returned from a visit to Senior Flierl seminary to discover that there was no electricity.   They were beginning to wonder what was next.   Fortunately,  the power outage was temporary,  and the lights came on shortly after dark.  A station worker even showed up late in the afternoon and managed to get a faucet in the bathroom dribbling again,  so, we don't have to go outside to fill the big bucket.   We are optimistic that things are on their way up.

As I said,  the group visited Ann Klavano at Senior Flierl Seminary at Logaweng.  They arrived in time to catch the end of one of her English classes,  the teacher's coffee break,  and another English class.   Ann had the group tell a bit about themselves in English so the students could hear English being spoken by native speakers.  Gary Kallansrud was a big hit when he pulled out pictures of his family and his hometown of St. Louis.  The students gathered around with great interest (see picture).  Ann did her seminary internship at Prairie Faith Parish in western Kansas.   She also has support congregations in the Central States Synod.   After a tour of the campus, we had lunch with Ann at her home.   It was good to see Ann, and especially to see her in her classroom with the students.

We picked up Alex on our way to the seminary after he spent the night in the village of Supong with a PNG youth and his family.   They took him on a raft trip on the Mapay river among other things.   He learned some Kote language phases and had a great time.   However,  a problem arose with heavy rains over night.   There is a bridge under construction between Heldsbach where we were at, and the village where Alex spent the night requiring vehicles to drive through a shallow part of the river.   After a heavy rain,  the water is often too high for cars to get through.   We thought we would be unable to get Alex back to Heldsbach, or make the trip to see Ann due to the high water.  Our plan was for one jeep to drive us from Heldsbach to the bridge which is under construction,  walk across the partially finished bridge,  join Alex and a different jeep on the other side, and go on from there.   However,  the driver from Heldsbach was either brave or reckless or maybe both,  and he plunged right into and through the three feet of water flowing in the river.
I would not have thought that even a four wheel drive vehicle such as the one we were in could have made that crossing.

When we returned from Logaweng,  we found the computer students were gathered in the classroom,  working with their computers.   The Internet service seemed incredibly slow,  but they all were able to complete their assignment of sending an email with attachments to me.  No rain during the day,  Hallelujah.   We hope it stays dry for a few more days.