Hello again! Another week has flown by! On Monday Hugo had the opportunity to fly with Fred Heier to Boma to bring Rev. Henk van Hemmen back home as he had been visiting his collegue Rev. Vandebeek in Sentani . This was a neat opportunity for Hugo as Boma is one of the most remote MAF bases on the island and is where our Dutch churches have been working for many years. This is where you will see people wearing the traditional dress including gourds. They also flew to a couple other places and took some passengers who had never flown before. Some of the ladies were so scared they covered their eyes the entire flight. When an Indonesian is nervous they will laugh so you never know if they are enjoying their flight or if they are just really nervous. Hugo also worked on various aircraft components including alternators and the installation of a new ELT. Even though Indonesia has the largest percentage of muslims in the world, the province of Papua is considered "Christian." I put the word in quotes as it is christian in name only, meaning that there are very few muslims here. The muslims that are here were brought over here from other islands by the Indonesian government in an attempt to dilute the population of Papuans. The Indonesian government has put religions into five main groups: Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu. When we went to Jayapura to be fingerprinted we had to fill in some forms and on those forms we were asked what our religion was - protestant is what we chose. They also asked us our height and weight.... There are definitely true christians here, but there are many people living ungodly lives. There is much mission work to be done. There are also still many unreached peoples in the interior. The province of Papua has been trying to obtain autonomy for many years as it is so different from the rest of Indonesia. Dec 10, 2001 the government of Indonesia allowed the province to change its name from Irian Jaya to Papua and gave them a little more control over their own affairs. Total autonomy is something that will probably never be attained. Farther south from Sentani is a place called Timika. Timika is home to a gigantic mining operation run with American dollars. The Freeport Mine company has created a mini America there and they are also involved in the operation of two very good hospitals. This company pays millions and millions of dollars in taxes to the Indonesian government in Jakarta. There is speculation that the Indonesian government would be bankrupt without this money. Unfortunately very little of it comes back to the Papuan people. Therefore Jakarta would never allow Papua to become independant from Indonesia. Interestingly enough, Papua has only 1 percent of the total population of Indonesia. That concludes the history portion of this week's update. I mentioned the hospitals earlier because we are planning to go to Timika and visit one of the hospitals and meet the Obgyn there and make plans to go there to have the baby. MAF now has a written agreement with the Freeport Mine company which gives us use of their hospital facilities when needed. They are now willing to deliver expat babies. This is a new thing and the result of MAF now having a base and permanent pilot in Timika. The Freeport Mine hospital is unofficially considered to be the best hospital in Indonesia. When we go we will also see if they can do anything on the audiological end for Christiaan. On Friday we enjoyed the volleyball games at the school. This weeks supper was hamburgers and potato chips! This was the first hamburger that we have eaten since we left Canada. They weren't quite as good as a home barbequed hamburger from Canada, but when you're way out here, who cares! The beef, actually all the meat, that you purchase here is very lean as the animals are not fed growth hormones or the like. The ground beef is so lean that you need to add oil when frying and some sort of flavour enhancer. On Saturday we went to the beach for the first time. All we can say is WOW! Saturday morning we packed our stuff along with two other families and a single woman, into a hired taxi and the MAF Van. The MAF van that you can use to go to the beach is a 1977 Volkswagon Bus. To give you an idea of the condition, the first question Mikah asked was, "Why are there so many holes inside this van Mommy?" However, the body and motor are in fine shape. The drive to the beach is a 40 minute white knuckler down the windiest roads on the planet we think. Parts of the road were originally made by the American army during world war 2. The entire road is the width of one lane in Canada. So you pass by cars going the opposite direction incredibly closely. Once you arrive at the town on the shore of the ocean you must check in at the police station and show them your surat jalan (travelling
papers) and let them know what you are doing. You only need to check in when you arrive, not when you leave. All foreigners must have surat jalan's to travel to certain parts of the province. We believe that this is simply a way for the local government to make more money and keep an eye on all foreigners. The best thing is to make lots of photocopies of your surat jalan and give a copy to the officials wherever you travel. This makes them very happy. Anyways, once you have checked in you proceed to the wharf and park. Then you must negotiate for a boat to take you to one of the beaches in the bay or outside the bay. There is a man at the wharf who is known as the wharf mafia as he owns the most boats and tries to monopolize the business of westerners. He is trying to raise the prices of the trips higher and higher. It is very important not to give in when they try to get more as there will be no stopping them once the prices start to go up. They make a lot of money off of westerners doing this ferrying. It cost us 120,000 Rupiahs for our entire boat there and back-about $20.00 canadian. Gas only costs the boat owners 1,500 Rupiahs per liter, about .25 CAD. Pretty cheap. So we, well not us personally, Jonathan Raney the assistant program manager here in Sentani, negotiated a boat for us with the wharf mafia and we loaded it up. The boats are long and narrow with outriggers on both sides made of bamboo. You put your stuff in the middle and sit facing eachother along the edges. Needless to say, we hung onto our kids for dear life and had them in their water wings. The ride took about 15 minutes and was very beautiful. The beach we went to had a covered shelter which we could sit under. About 50 feet from the ocean behind the shelter was a fresh water pool which you could also swim in or just rinse the salt off your body. The ocean water was so warm and clear. There is a lot of coral and tropical fish there so everyone that could was snorkeling. Hugo found a huge shell which will probably put us overweight when we take it back to Canada. Someone also brought back some incredible blue starfish. The kids had such a good time that they rarely left the water. It was a visit to a tropical paradise - a wonderful day enjoying the beauty of God's creation. That was our week, we'd love to hear about yours! In His service, Hugo and Erica Feunekes and kids

P.S. Check out our website to see some photos of our life here! www.hwfeunekes.com