Seven Weeks with the Notsi in 2011
We praise God for bringing us safely across the beautiful and not too choppy waters of St. George‘s Channel by 60 hp speed boat from Kokopo, East New Britain Province to the west coast of New Ireland Province (~2 hours). From there we travelled safely by truck over partially sealed roads to our north east coast village for about 3 hours (120 miles).
The above picture is an arial view of the St. George Channel. I took this picture another time when we were able to fly back to New Ireland. The small island in the foreground is in the area where I caught the 20 pound yellow fin tuna. In the background at the horizon is New Ireland.
We were warmly welcomed back by the Notsi people as we drove through the village to the house we call "home". A few more posts under the house had been replaced with a clear commitment from our "son" Obed and his team to finish the task. The sawn timber under his house was an encouraging sight representing half of what we need to replace the bat-infested outer walls of our house. It was evening and we were too tired to do more than minor cleaning, eat something, dust the beds off and put on clean bed linen. The next day we could see more clearly that the bats had taken over the upper windows in the kitchen and inside/between the closed shutters as well as between the insulation just under the roof. 
The wire screening installed in 2009 was rusted and falling apart. Thankfully, we were able to remove their hiding places and replace the wire screens. This has made a huge difference in the air quality in the house! After one week we have not needed sweep up piles of bat manure nor take antihistamines for allergy to bat dander. Praise the Lord. We found several families busily repairing or building new houses.
Within a week of returning several young men, one of them a school teacher, of Lossu came to ask for a drink of cold water. Gertrude served them cold water and some special scones she had baked that morning. While they enjoying the scones, Gertrude asked if they would be interested in attending a transfer literacy class for adult readers of English but who found it difficult to read Notsi. They thought for a moment and all agreed to attend one hour classes starting the following week. We would meet for three –four days a week to cover the 19 lessons in the book. It's been an eye-opening experience to find out who actually can read at all and who the fluent readers are. The first week went well.
Created on Feburary 25, 2011..................................