By Nikki Wheeler
Mission Partner in Papua New Guinea

Hello to our won­der­ful NZ Whanau! This is an update to let you know how things have been pro­gress­ing in Kapuna, Papua New Guinea in the last few months.

Scott’s project work has changed a lot since fin­ish­ing the hos­pital upgrade and he is now start­ing to get into other pro­jects. This will involve vis­it­ing various vil­lages, assess­ing how they build their toi­let­ing systems and seeing what works and what doesn’t.

Here is a photo of Joe in a neigh­bour­ing village digging out his old toilet (long drop type system) to make space for it to be used again. There is a ‘stand down’ period where the toilet is not used for a while before this process happens. It’s still not a pleas­ant job though as you can imagine!

Those who know Scott know that he is a bit of a ‘germ-a-phobe’, so it’s mind-blowing to see that God has put this project on his heart, despite his natural tend­en­cies to run from germs and dirty toilets. But he is so pas­sion­ate about provid­ing safe and hygienic toi­let­ing systems to the neigh­bour­ing vil­lages here in the Gulf that he is getting stuck right in!

What has God got lined up next?

The next project Scott has just started is getting great trac­tion with Days for Girls. Hope­fully in the next few months, a group of sewing ladies in Kapuna will be sup­por­ted to sew reusable pads for ladies and young girls in the area. Men­strual equal­ity is not a topic I’d ever envi­sioned Scott speak­ing about so pas­sion­ately at home! I’m con­stantly thank­ing God for using us as vessels for His Kingdom’s goals. They are so much better than our own.

The kids are doing fine — lots of adven­tures with wild­life lately. Levi had a large frog in his room one night, there was a large spider in our mos­quito net and a snake in our neighbour’s bedroom. All this builds huge excite­ment for the boys while their mother shud­ders and takes photos so their Grandma can shudder too. Scott went on a retreat with the boys from the work­shop and had a great time of fel­low­ship learn­ing to make Sago sticks and doing some fishing.

Coming home

We are coming back to Wel­ling­ton for a few months in June to share with some of our sup­port­ers, catch up with our family and friends and rest. We’re looking forward to spend­ing time with you all and eating a dif­fer­ent variety of food again! We will have a busy sched­ule but hope to see every­one who wants to catch up.

Bless­ings,
Nikki, Scott, Isaac, Abby and Levi

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