Warakar

Warakar is a fairly remote village about 30 min drive and 45 min walk from the station we live on. I was invited to go by a friend who works for the maintenance crew here on station. Of coarse I jumped at the opportunity to go. It's always a treat to go visit the "bush" to go for a hike and see how the majority of people in the highlands of PNG live. This however, was not the typical hiking trip I was used to. The day before the hike I got a letter from the Warakar village leader via my maintenance friend. The letter read very nicely at the beginning talking about how he and his people were exited about my upcoming visit, but the second half was concerning to say the least. The later half of the letter said things about Rachel and I promising to come back to PNG in 3 years to start an orphanage in the Warakar village. Like I said before this was concerning since we had made no such promise. Putting the pleasent first half of the letter in context with the second half made it clear the hike was intended to be a scouting visit for the potential orphanage.

Luckily I was able to express my concerns with Dan, my maintenance friend, before he left that day. Thankfully he shared my concerns and said that if he had read the letter he would have never given it to me. I did the best I could to tell Dan that he needed to go back to his village that night and make it clear that we were just coming for a hike, not a scouting visit. I feared that though Dan was not in agreement with the village leader, the rest of the village may be expecting something of me that I can't deliver.
After some good advice from a full time missionary here on station, Dan and I departed for his village early in the morning. To get to the village we took two PMVs (public motor vehicles), essentially just vans that people pile in to get around for a little money. When we went as far as a PMV would go we push started an old beat up truck that took us a few miles. When we were a far as the truck would take us we walked for another 45 min or so. Finally to the village I was greeted by what seemed to be the entire village. Probably the most interesting greeting I have ever received in my life was by and old man with no teeth who shook my hand, told me that I had big muscles, then proceeded to squeeze my arms, shoulders, and chest with both hands. After recovering from being felt up by a toothless old man we took off on our hike. We hiked for 3 hours or so up and down the mountain side seeing some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever laid my eyes on. The main highlight of the hike was a waterfall that was about 400 ft tall where the water crashed on a ledge and just exploded into mist. I took at least 20 pictures of the waterfall but none of them come even close to capturing the beauty of it all. This was probably the most difficult hike I have ever been on walking up and down streams, crossing rivers, and other things that I will not mention since I know that my mother reads this blog.

The whole experience is one that I will not soon forget. I got to meet some people who were unbelievably kind and hospitable considering my refusal to start an orphanage. I also got to meet my first name-sake, little Jordan the first son of my friend Dan and his wife. Rachel and I have started a small competition of who can have the most name-sakes before we leave PNG. In case you are interested, I am winning Jordan:1, Rachel:1/2 (Dichel, half DIane half raCHEL). Though we make light of it all with a competition I can't help from feeling honored.

Though the concerns with the whole orphanage thing, the people of Warakar have a great need for a school. When Dan was a young he had to walk 2 and 1/2 hours just to get to school, that's five hours of walking every day and it is still that way today. This great distance from school has lead to almost all of the children in the village not attending any kind of school. I am not sure what the best course of action is for the people of Warakar to remedy their education needs, but I know that God has a plan for it all. So please pray for Warakar.