Where in the World Am I?

On final approach, descending across Lake Sentani.

Don't worry - I'm not lost nor did I get lost on the way between Jakarta and my new home. I made it and I thought I'd share a little bit more about where I'm going to be serving. Get ready for some head-scratching unless you're already very familiar with the geography of this part of the world.

I am currently living in Papua, Indonesia. This is the eastern-most province of Indonesia and is located on the world's second largest island, New Guinea. Now just 40 miles away from my home is the border of...Papua New Guinea (commonly abbreviated PNG), which is an independent nation. The island is split down the middle, and Papua, Indonesia is on the western half and PNG owns the eastern half. Confusing, I know! I guess it's akin to having a Nevada City in California or something like that. If it helps any, the region of Indonesia I'm living in was once called Irian Jaya.

Does this picture take care of the thousand words? (Borrowed the graphic from Wikipedia)

Confusing countries aside, I live in a little suburn town called Doyo Baru, just a few minutes away from the larger town of Sentani. The region's main commercial airport is located in Sentani and a lot of mission operators like MAF, JAARS, and AMA fly out of Sentani airport. Adventist Aviation Indonesia has its own campus in Doyo Baru and we're fortunate to have our own runway and hangars right there. With staff housing located on the airbase, I get to live a few hundred yards away from work!

Time for some produce. It really helps to know numbers here.

Right now I'm in the process of getting everyday life figured out here which means stuff like learning how to shop at the pasar (market), setting up the house I'm staying in, figuring out to make bread (quality whole wheat bread isn't to be found here), and dispatching the sizeable cockroaches that make regular, unwanted appearances in my kitchen. Language learning will come next and then as the mission planes are returned to service from maintenance and my FAA pilot's license is validated, it will be on to flight training!

And that written test I took in Jakarta? After 2 weeks of waiting, the results are finally in: I passed!! And just to satisfy the curiosity of my former flight students who might be reading this, I scored 80% on one and 72.5% on the other, haha! But the typical American that I am, I was just happy to pass in the first place! All that matters is I don't have to go and make a special trip back to Jakarta to retake that thing.

As I settle in, there are so many things to thank God for. The written test was a big one for me, but also just the wonderful blessings of everyday life: a beautiful campus to live on with plenty of clean well water, the ability to eat fresh fruits and vegetables again after carefully avoid all such raw produce in Jakarta, and a great team to serve alongside. And most of all, I'm thankful for the promise that in the not-too-distant future we're going to be going home - to heaven - for good. That's going to be a great day. You coming?

Friday evening sunset at Doyo Baru.