Robert@PNG

Last Monday night a few of us went out for dinner to the Lae International Hotel. Quite a “ritzy” hotel by any standards. Also a nice place to go for dinner with friends.

The dinner Monday night come about as Pastor Keith Piper (far left) is currently visiting PNG for 4 weeks and he is currently staying in Lae before moving on to some of the rural villages. My understanding is that Keith is here to sponsor the building of some tin roofs and also some water tanks. Many people in PNG do not have running water in their homes and this effort by Keith and his congregation back in Cherrybrook (Sydney) will be a great help and service to some of the locals.

It turns out that Cherrybrook is a suburb in the Hornsby Shire and surprise surprise, Keith has a friend called Russell that works at Hornsby !!  Small world indeed. It so happens that Russell was one of my “lunch” buddies. There were four of us at Hornsby Council that used to go out for lunch at least once per week. Besides Russell there was also Bill and George. All three came to my farewell picnic at Lane Cove National Park. I became pretty good friends with all 3.

The other 3x gentleman in the picture starting from the left are :

Pastor Keith Piper : baptist minister from Cherrybrook in Sydney currently in PNG doing the rounds. A fundamentalist who puts a lot of energy into trying to convince people to see the world and truth from his perspective.

Pastor Michael Saka : also a baptist minister based here in Lae at the Baptist church at Tent City (just outside of Lae). We have become good friends and normally hug and crack a joke whenever we meet. I think Pastor would like to see me go to church a little more often ! 

Dominique : has a communications company in Lae which specialises in 2-Way radios and installation/maintenance of wireless infrastructure.

Peter : principal of Killen Technologies (www.schilt.info/killen), a local engineering firm and also a good friend. I hang out with Peter and his family most Saturdays.