This may be the third picture of us in the hole, but believe me—you are not as tired of these pictures as we are of the hole. And this is a picture we are pretty proud of.


Dear Friends and Family,

   We are finally finished! The latrine is officially fifteen feet, six inches deep. We dug mud, pulled buckets, and emptied bulldozers for seven and a half hours. Amazingly, we had no rain last night (one of the only dry nights of the last few weeks) and only mist occasionally throughout the day. That made our day much easier, but, needless to say, we are exhausted. And after long showers, we are finally clean.  

    For almost the whole day, we had a small audience of neighborhood children. They did help a bit, cleaning shovels and dumping buckets. Thankfully, Meg did a wonderful job of keeping them away from the hole while she finished the last bit of landscaping by the men’s dorm. Joshua, one of the Bible college students, has also helped us tremendously over the last few days. (If you notice in the picture below, he is barefoot--while we Americans are all in work boots or thick tennis shoes.)

   On a sad note, we received news this afternoon that Christina’s father had passed away. (Christina works for the Bennett’s and is a student at the Bible College. She is also the Sunday school coordinator at Mt. Hagen Church, where we did our youth camp.) Tomorrow we plan to attend the “house cry” for him—a PNG tradition, similar to an American wake, but much longer. It should be both a sobering and fascinating experience.

   Please also keep the other Bible college students in you prayers—several have gotten sick in the last few days. And pray for us as we finish the last of our work here and prepare to return home.
Love, Lisette and the PNG Team