On their own…

Erickson family in front of mission house at Gurakor station.

1961 October 29 to Estelle

Letter written by Ina Erickson from the Gurakor Mission station to Durward and Estelle Titus Box 224 Route1, Carlos MN USA 

Dear mom and dad,

Thank you so much for your faithful letters. We surely love to hear any news. We are all fine. On Monday we will drive down to Lae to take the Horoalts to meet their plane on Wednesday. They have a lot of business to take care of, so will go down early. Then we will be on our own to stumble with the language and serve as Bingsu. We pray God will be able to use us in some small way. I hope we can hold the fort until we know what’s going on. Al’s circuit has 60 villages to visit.
A major tragedy happened to Paula today as she fell and broke the last black ring for her bottle so will have to lose one of her prized possessions.
One of the native teachers has 12 children with one coming in December. Paula has some playmates. At first Paula would gather up her toys and hold them and lash and jabber at them, but now she will give them something. They give her anything back if she cried, but I would give it back to them and tell her no. After I left them alone they played together so nice. They sing and jabber and chase and have more fun. Paula comes out with some Jabem words every once in a while.

Paula is getting used to the people. We have 35 schoolgirls on the station and three girls to help with the housework. When we first arrived, we shook hands with all of them. Paula had to also and she jabbered to them and waved as we went into the house. Then someone tried to pick her up and was there a big fuss. My girls are teaching her Jabem. It is quite an experience trying to train girls who come from poverty and filth, to help in the house, and when you can’t talk to them-sign language. I asked the girl to bring me tomatoes, and she pull the vines out, another to pour some milk into a pitcher and put it in the icebox – she put the pail of milk beside the pitcher in the cupboard. Most of our possessions they’ve never seen before, so I haven’t the foggiest idea how to use them.

Al is known as the Bingsu. Has turned carpenter, mechanic and mason farmer or cowboy as one who cares for the cows is called. There are no horses. Many hidden talents of necessity are coming to light.

Yesterday Tommy started laughing. He has such a cute laugh. Such a roly-poly, Tommy laughs and lets the world go by without a care. I hung a spoon up above his crib and he was able to grab it. He would reach for the handle of the car crib when it was down on the crib. He continues to be good-natured most of the time. Sometimes I’ll put him in his little chair on the floor and Paula will talk to him and he coo’s back to her. Paula can kiss now the right way. She starts smacking her lips about a foot away. Then after she’s kissed him she looks for parental approval. She only occasionally gives his ears a pull now. I held a mirror in front of Tom and he smiled and smiled watching the other baby. The other day Tommy was quite fussy so I fixed him a bottle. I was trying to give it to him and Paula crawled up and pushed the bottle away and she wanted me to set it down. Then she started pulling at the neck of my dress and pushing Tommy toward me. She knows Tommy wasn’t supposed to be eating out of a bottle.

Our language is coming slowly. We still can only say a few words. We have electric lights from 5:00 PM until 10 in the evening and in the big house we have running cold water in the kitchen and bathroom and a flush toilet in the bathroom. Our house is spacious, airy and cool. It will be good to finally get settled in our own home. There is great doubt if these people will come back so we might stay here a full six years.

We butchered a bull the other day. We had to give so much away, as the only refrigeration is the fridge in the kitchen and then salted some. How are you supposed to cook it and how do you can meat, salt and smoke it? How do you know when it’s been salted and smoked enough to preserve it?

How is school? What happened to the four men lost in lake Miltona? The school kids and our house girls take care of that huge lawn, flower garden and vegetable gardens. We don’t have a vegetable garden yet but we are going to plant it next week. We will have to repaint most of the house as it was but six years ago that one coat of varnish was put on. It makes it look quite dark. I will have to sew curtains and make cushions for the chairs. It’s going to be fun to fix up our own home! It’s been rather dry, we haven’t had a good rain for a week which is unusual for New Guinea.

God has been very good and we surely don’t lack for anything.

God’s blessings to you both Al, Ina and kids.

Al writes this note on the other side:

To all our very precious people, greetings, in the name of him, born Lord of the nations. Our hearts go out to you and the lives you are leading. May all of our personal fears and problems and enjoys not still that simple Christmas message in our hearts. “That God so loved… That he came to seek and save sinners. “

We are in the magnificent country, where we hope to serve. It will take some getting used to. We’re learning to drive all over again on the wrong side of the road. That’s the new task of figuring - “now how much would that be worth in American money?

Victor or Wolf (one of the German Shepherds with Paula and Tom and playmate.)

Mom told me years later that she got very concerned over the relationship between me (Paula) and these dogs. They became very protective of me and she wasn’t she they would let her come near me.

‘Tonight is the first that we have been in our own home. ‘

1961 November 3 to Beryl,

Letter written by Ina Erickson from the Gurakor Mission station to Beryl and Bruce 2314 So 7th St. Minneapolis 6, Minnesota, USA             Received Nov 13.

Dear Beryl and Bruce,

Thank you for your letters. I was beginning to wonder what had happened to the Westphal‘s. First off, Paula is all right now. So long as she is taking enough of the anti-malarial drug she shouldn’t get another attack. Because we were new on the field, I should have given her more than is recommended for the average child. Tommy got more because of my nursing him. When we leave the field we can take some kind of a cure that will rid our bodies of the organism. So it won’t be so bad. Symptoms include high temperature, if severe, they vomit, get chills and sweating.

Tonight is the first that we have been in our own home. The missionaries that were here just left. We haven’t hardly begun to unpack yet. I am wondering just how much I should get out because today we learned that we will probably be moving in January or February. The station is built on the fringe of the area Al has to serve. Some of the natives have to walk to seven days to get here if they want to talk with the ‘Bingsu’. Not so many are going to do that very often. The plans might be to use the present set of buildings for a Bible school for training native pastors. Then we would move to the town of Mumeng which would be more centrally located. There is a house already there that has three bedrooms. Al saw it today and said it wasn’t quite as nice as this one, but the advantages outweigh that point. We will just have to wait and see.

 I do wear lipstick, deodorant and body powder. I also continue to shave my armpits and legs. Does that answer your question? I only wear jewelry if we go into Lae. Out here only if we have company. Speaking of company, today we arrived here from Lae. We haven’t moved into the big house but only our clothes and what we are sleeping in while the rest of our things are still in the guest house. Al told me just before we left Lae that Dr.Kuder the president of the missions, another man that handles finances, Fred Scherle and another pastor from Lae would be here for dinner. So we brought some hamburger back from Lae. We had mashed potatoes, hamburger patties, peas and tomatoes with fresh pineapple for dessert. We got here at 11:30, and found that the pastor from Lae had arrived before us and the other two arrived at noon.
Paula chose to be fussy at this time, Tom was hungry and the girls couldn’t feed him so we really had a merry time. All the dishes were mixed colors and sizes and I didn’t find any of the napkins until afterwards. I didn’t have enough dessert dishes so everyone ate the pineapple with their fingers. They were all good sports about it all.

I surely will tell the kids about Thanksgiving. As a matter of fact an American couple is going to spend Thanksgiving day with us. None of the rest of the mission personnel celebrate Thanksgiving except Americans. I doubt it will tell them about the Easter bunny or Santa Claus until we come home on furlough.

I’m having such a time with this typewriter because it’s an English one and has the keyboard slightly different. The back spacers on the right hand side, and they don’t have all the punctuation that I’m used to.

Al and I have felt real good and eat like horses so I don’t think we will lose much weight. The climate is more comfortable than most of the Minnesota summers. At our elevation we hardly noticed the humidity at all. The breeze from the mountains keeps the house cool all day long. The nights are so cool that we have to have several blankets. I’m glad to hear about Mrs. Eli and anyone else I know that comes in. So please continue to tell me. I still can’t talk to the girls that help me. I point and use sign language. I could have many things done by the time I’m done showing them what I want.
Today I took the mattress out to air and beat and clean. I had sponged some spots but didn’t want it very wet as it will mildew if it doesn’t dry. Then I asked the girls to brush around the buttons with a scrub brush that I had been sponging spots with. I had to leave. When I came back she was wetting and scrubbing down the mattress very well. Then when I had finished, I told her to get a pail with some water and a cloth to wipe it. She didn’t come and didn’t come so I went to see what was holding up the show and here she was wiping the mattress off with a dry cloth. I asked her if she knew how to make a bed. She indicated that she did so I asked her to show one of the other girls how. I put a blanket on for a mattress pad and then gave them the sheets and blankets. When I came back they were trying to get the sheet straight on top of the blankets. They had taken off the blankets that I put down and put the bottom sheet next to the mattress. Instead of touching the edges under the mattress they just stuffed the sheet haphazardly between the bed and the mattress. Then put on three blankets and then the top sheet.

Oh well. Bruce did you get the job? Beryl did you pass the state boards?

May God be with you always, Al, Ina, Paula and Tom.

To the left of this main house at Gurakor, is the guest house - not seen here. Behind the house is the garden and a cage with a Tree Kangaroo in it. This photo is looking to the east so very likely the mountain peak is Mt Shungol which is 10,000 feet. From the other side of these mountains, Alvin recalls sitting in the Biankon Village in the Buangs looking westward at this mountain. See map above. Alvin visited the Buangs many times.

Alvin recalls that Ina reached up to clean one of the window louvers and there sat a snake. How lovely! I’m surprised she did not mention it in a letter. Maybe she did not want to worry her family more than they must have been already.