Children and teachers endure rainy season
Rainy season in Papua New Guinea presents challenges for students at the school for missionaries’ children.
Papua New Guinea is considered a tropical rain forest, but for most of the year at the school daytime is sunny and rains occur overnight. Rainy season -- December through March -- is a different story.
"When these rains come down," wrote missionary teacher Patrick Eggleton, "it is not just a mild storm. It is more like standing under a waterfall."
During the first two weeks of January the missionary center received more than six inches of rain. The maintenance crew at the center designed the roads and many of the individual yards to handle large amounts of run-off water but the ditches seem like roaring rivers during the rains.
Students from the nearby Interface training center were not able to make it over the muddy roads to attend school. After two days of attempting to repair the roads the students were transported to the edge of the road where they hiked across the muddy mess and were picked up by a van sent from the mission center to pick them up.
"I can only imagine what it was like for the 6-and-7-year-old girls, wearing their long skirts and boots, trying to get across that mud with their school books and lunches. They never complained," Patrick wrote.
Another challenge created by heavy rains was holding the physical education classes. After playing kick-ball on the muddy soccer field, the children headed back to their classrooms covered in dark, black mud.
"The teachers were a bit hesitant about having them bring all of that back into the classroom," wrote Patrick. "Oh the joys of living in the tropical rain forest."
Pray for Patrick and the other missionary teachers who joyfully endure discomforts and mud to provide an education for the children of missionaries. Please pray also that others would respond to God’s call to share their gifts in this remote corner of the world.