On a 3-Day Hike

One of the aspects of our training here at POC has been training physically.

This included hiking and swimming. All of this training was preparing us for a 3-day hike. Every time this was mentioned I got so nervous. The hiking and swimming haven't been the easiest for me here. In the states I love to go hiking, but hiking in PNG is very different. In PNG hiking you deal with heat and humidity, walking on very narrow foot paths that are sometimes on the edge of steep mountains, we are currently in the raining season which means there is a lot of mud.

However, now that the 3-day hike is over, looking back it was an amazing experience.  It's hard to tell you about everything that happened in three days, but here are some highlights.

There were 10 of us in a group and we had two guides with us, one guy and one gal. Both of them are Papua New Guineans that are staff members from POC that live on Nobnob mountain not far from POC. For this hike we had to bring along all our sleeping supplies, personal items and all the food we will need. So I had about a 20 pound pack on my back.
                                          
Each day we hiked for about 4 hours to get to where we would be staying for the night. Each day we would stop for about an hour by a river for lunch.

Each afternoon once we got to where we were staying we would go and set up our sleeping area and then go waswas(bathe).

This is were we bathed the second day.

While we were doing that, the family that we were staying with would be getting dinner ready for us.

After dinner the first night we were able to have a wonderful time of sitting around and storying(talking). The second night we had the opportunity to show the Jesus Film based off of the Book of Luke. While the movie was playing, it was so great to see everyone, even children as young as 4 or 5 immersed in the movie.
                                      
The first night we stayed at the house of our guy guide, Ugal. The second night we stayed at my Tok Pisin teacher's house. His name is Itbaam.

This is my mosquito net for the first night.

This was our alarm clock after the first night.

The house we stayed in the second night.

Since we were walking a lot each day, we were able to see a lot of things along the way.

The black and white tail feathers of  Bird of Paradise(the national bird)

A very large dead snake we come across.

Overall this three day hike was such a blessing to be in God's creation and to see how far I have come physically since being here. Some of the trails we went on we had went gone on before and they were a lot easier this time. Also it was a huge blessing to be in the villages and strengthen our relationships with the people of Nobnob mountain.