The Papua New Guineans in the very remote village of Megau have been working for many years to finish an airstrip. This is the only way they can travel out of the area and will allow them to get goods and supplies into the village that they have not had access to before. An SIL translation has been in progress in this language area for many years. With an open airstrip, we hope someday Bibles in their language will be brought in by airplane!
On Friday, I made my third visit to Megau in the helicopter, bringing two other pilots, Jonathan Federwitz and James Nelson. We checked the progress of their work and the surveying pilot in charge decided it was ready for an airplane to land. While we were there, the people were very excited to show us the work they had done and were dressed up in traditional "bilas" (decorations)-- faces painted, bird of paradise feathers on their heads, tree branches and leaves around the waist, pig tusks around their necks, etc.
I took the two pilots back to their plane at another airstrip 9 miles away and they returned to do the first landing. It was a big day for the Megau people.
I continued on from there to deliver 3 different single women to their areas where they are doing translation and literacy work in the northern part of PNG.
This picture below is the Sepik River, a large river running for hundreds of miles starting in the rugged mountains and then traveling through severe swampland. The only practical ways to travel long distances is by the river (filled with crocodiles) or by air.
We've been working recently with the European Union to deliver over 400 pounds of books to many schools in several areas of PNG. In a country where getting books and supplies to remote bush areas to allow for a good education is a real challenge for people, their faces sure lit up when they saw the books coming out of the helicopter. 
The water is life to the people of PNG, but it is sometimes also a dividing and damaging force. There are landslides regularly throughout the country as the jungle-covered hillsides are saturated with rain. They often cover up or break roads cut into steep mountainsides or even destroy villages as they fall. Too much rain also causes gardens to spoil, leaving the people with little useful food. 
The mountains and water flow in PNG are some of the biggest reasons that there are over 830 languages spoken here-- people are divided and separated into their own remote areas where they have developed their own languages and cultures. 200 of these languages still don't have any of God's Word written in their language. Our prayer is that the Lord of the Harvest will send more workers to these language groups so they may receive his life-giving Word!
