Aurimi - Part 1

"Everything is so different here. The people are different. The culture is different. The language is different. The food is different. The houses are different. The weather is different. The trees and plants.... And the list goes on. But the love? The love is the same." -Ashley Wilkens

The general area of Aurimi

Aurimi is a small low land village about an hour flight west of Sentani. It was decided rather suddenly that all 3 of us would spend the week of Thanksgiving in this beautifully swampy village. Our mission? To assist Kathleen in any nursing opportunity and to help Pastor Desmond in the KKR (evangelistic meetings) held in their church every night. I couldn't tell if we were actually helping or hindering the project but what I do know is God works in mysterious ways and I'm thankful He sent us.

Although I have to admit flying makes me a little nervous, the raw beauty of Papua makes it worth it! Not 5 minutes out of Doyo Baru, the roads have disappeared and there's nothing but jungle for miles. We followed the coast basically the entire way to Aurimi. The sapphire waters were so striking against the emerald jungle. 

 

View of the ocean and jungle

Bird's eye view of Aurimi

As we began to descend into Aurimi, its tropical beauty immediately blew me away! From our birds eye view the tin roofs gleamed, and white cockatoos fled their tree top nest.  We landed on the muddy airstrip and as the doors slid open we were greeted by a wave of humidity and tears of joy.  It had been over a year since the people of Aurimi had any missionaries or outside visitors. The new Pastor, Yeri, and his family were probably the most excited to see us.  As of recently, they only had enough food to feed their 2-year-old daughter Gracia, and were desperately praying for help. So God sent us, a strange hodgepodge team of 8 Papuan men, 1 Indonesian nurse, and 3 Americans. Yet, brought the physical nourishment they so desperately prayed for and Pastor Desmond brought the spiritual nourishment we all needed.

We girls (Paige, Ashley, Kathleen, and myself) stayed with Pastor Yeri, Mam Martha and Gracia (who very quickly had everyone wrapped around her finger). All the houses in Aurimi are built up on stilts to protect them from the frequent torrential down pours and flood waters.

Later Sunday afternoon Pastor Desmond and his posse showed up. Let me explain a little about his story:

Desmond Sirami is a Papuan pastor and ex-missionary (but once a missionary, always a missionary!).  He is all around a man's man with a big laugh and a bigger heart. He didn't fly into the village like we did instead he walked.  He and 2-3 others began the long trek Monday, November 14, from a larger village called Sarimi. They hiked through the jungle stopping at villages, and surging down swift rivers on a bamboo rafts.  As he walked he accumulated more travel companions, 8 men in total arrived in Aurimi. The trek took just under a week to complete.  For the past 3 years, Pastor Desmond has done this same hike and most of the men that arrived in Aurimi have done it before as well. Pastor Desmond uses this walk as a ministry opportunity.  He loves visiting with the people but most importantly to share the Word with anyone and everyone. The men that came with him have experienced his genuine Christ-like love first hand and have become Adventists as the result. At first the guys were all very shy and many barriers separated us (like culture and language), but by the end of the week we were all close (even though the language was still hard).

Our home for a week

 

Our room...

Village trails

Dinning room

Our general day to day activities generally went as follows. I won't add times because it was a very flexible schedule.  My value of time as an American is very different from most villagers.  Mornings were especially hard for me and not just because greatly dislike mornings but I somehow found all the comfortable positions  on my thin mat in the morning. Even with that being said, I loved waking up to hymns being sung on our front porch. Every morning Pastor Desmond, Kathleen, and some of the guys would get up very early (5am) and have personal devotions and sing together.

After our personal devotion time we would do visitations. This was basically time for us to visit personally with families and invite them to the meetings. However, since I was with all the nurses this also meant we would visit the sick and help them to the best of our knowledge and available supplies (more nursing stories to come).

Following visitations we (Kathleen, Paige, Ashley, and myself) would scury off to the radio room. We all looked forward to contacting Wendy and Cherise back at Adventist Aviation. However, in true mission fashion our plans had to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances. On Monday we attempted to call but there was so much radio traffic that Wendy could barely hear us. Tuesday, and Wednesday we had to use a different radio but it worked so much better! Thursday the man who had the key to the radio room had gone into the jungle (with the key) so we could not contact home on Thanksgiving.  Friday we were put on standby (or hold) as Wendy delivered a message to Gary for is. We sat there waiting for her reply but after 45 minutes we gave up. Come to find out she tried calling us back but for whatever reason we couldn’t hear her. Sunday the man with the key again left the village early so we just prayed that we hadn't  been bumped from the flight schedule by another emergency and that Gary would eventually come to retrieve us.

So the time spent at the radio greatly fluctuated depending on the day which meant the time for breakfast changed daily.  Flexibility seems to be the theme of this year for me.    

Martha and her sister-in-law prepared all of our meals. I honestly can't complain about the food! We had far more than I expected.  Things like rice, noodles, cooked greens, Tempe, bananas, and papaya. Although it varied slightly, one thing was for sure, every meal had white rice and cooked greens.

Generally our afternoons were spent preparing and hosting a children's program before the main meetings began. Then attending the main meetings. By the end of the day I was exhausted. Not necessarily from a long day but more from the heat.  But thankfully several days were super rainy and just about every evening it would downpour. The rain would significantly cool it down and would provide drinking water, on the flip side though the paths would turn to complete mud.  

I hope this gives you an idea of Aurimi.  Check out the other parts to this blog for more interesting stories! And sorry for the lack of pictures those are still in process too :)

Baby Gracia

SDA Church and School.  (L-R: Pastor Yeri, Mam Martha, Gracia, Ashley, KD, Paige, Kathleen, Pastor Desmond)