This letter has a good description of the station…

Malalo office view from the house. Porch overlooking ocean. Steps were struck by lightening and a chunk broke off.

1963 March 15  (a copy)
Dear Pastor Dave and Janine,
We want to thank you both for your part, and having First English choose us as their missionaries. I know you’d rather hear from Al, but it seems when he sits down to write letters in his office so many people come and interrupt, and then he’s off on another trip so you will just have to put up with me.
It was also very kind of you to invite my mother to tell a little of our life and work here, at least, I hope she confined it to that.

We are beginning to feel more and more at home here, though, we do miss our families and friends, and do look forward to our trip back to the states even though it is a long ways off. The children don’t realize of course that there is any other home. They are very much at home and enjoy their New Guinea, playmates and their way of playing a lot. The children do a lot to break the ice between the new missionary and the people.

We found that the honeymoon is over and as we know the language better we can understand the problems a little better so now we have to try for solutions. As long as we are, just now, they didn’t expect the answers, but now they feel we should be old hands and have the answers. It really is funny to try and be leaders to people you can’t understand and can’t communicate with. God has certainly been with us, and always seems to come to the rescue when we really down and out. We were getting awfully depressed about the time the letter came from the mission board, informing us of First English’s interest in part sponsorship. Things just seem to go from bad to worse as they can only in New Guinea, but it was funny, as our spirits rose, the troubles seem to disappear.
We found that one way to eliminate, or at least reduce frustration is never tried to be efficient and never count on anything. If it works out well, I’m good, but if it doesn’t, well, no sweat or ‘musky’ as all of the New Guinea say- meaning it really doesn’t matter. Their attitude is good for New Guinea, but rather frustrating to work with-- “weeell if you can’t do it today, maybe tomorrow or next week or next month will do just as well. “ Trying to get school to open and all of the 50 villages at the same time so they can get the required number of days in so they can get school supplies is really a job. Some of our teachers begin to think about going back to the village they are supposed to be teaching on the day they should be there, so it is several weeks before they can gather their things and move the family to the proper village – little things like that.

I suppose you might wonder what a mission station is. We have our house and a laundry house. All of our water is boiled in a boiler outside. The girls that help us are so messy and we’d never get the floor dry in the house and we don’t have any basement so they build a small shelter to do the laundry in. Then we have a house for our two house girls, a house for our work boy who looks after the cows, gets the water pumped into a tank for our bathroom, and keeps our road in passable condition. The road leads from the beach to our house and is a mile long and ascends 500 feet. We have a small mountain climbing vehicle that we use for carrying all our supplies up the mountain. We are getting rid of it shortly however because we can’t get parts to fix it and Al has to spend so much time to repair it. In reading the letter over again I guess I got sidetracked.
A little boy from way down the coast, at least eight hour walk, was carried up here for a treatment. He had a huge infection in his groin and has lost an awful lot of weight. I’ll have to give him lots of antibiotics and vitamins, and possibly lancet if I can get the infection to a head.
To continue about the station: we have a school here and three teachers living at Malalo. We have about 80 boys who live here. All of the girls stay in nearby villages so they could be looked after. Adultery is the sin in New Guinea.

Our boat captain (Metegemeng) lives here with his family and our church secretary (Gideon) with his four kids. We have a Carpenter –Mark- that has been working on the new church which has been in the process of construction for four years and his family of six. Our pastor also has a house here with about six kids and we did have a Dr boy that worked in our dispensary until he ran away about a month ago. People don’t say they want to quit or that they are going to quit they just disappear. We hope to be getting two native nurses to replace him from our mission hospital in Madang, Yagaum. It is the best in the territory, even the government people go flocking to Yaguam even though there is a number of government hospitals.

So we do have a little village here. They come from quite a few different villages, and everyone has their own “talk place “– nearly every village has their own language. Nine are represented in our school so they all have to learn Jabem. The “church “language that we conduct all the church services in.

Your trip sounded wonderful, so many people it seems made it to the Worlds Fair. It must’ve been quite an experience.

Goodbye again, Ina

Mark the carpenter and his wife and one of his children

…… I’ve been depressed, and not very nice to my family.

1963 March (a copy)

Dear Dorothy and George, (Ina’s aunt and uncle – Dorothy is sister to mother Estelle)

Though you’d never know it by my letters, I’ve really long to sit down and have a conversation with you. I enjoy your chat so much and do look forward to your newsy letters a lot. You have much a homey way of writing. We do appreciate your prayers also.

I know missionaries are supposed to be so faithful with Bible study and prayers, but do you know that I’ve had been so negligent, that I’ve been depressed, and not very nice to my family. It is through these lean times that we appreciate the prayers of our faithful family and friends. This afternoon I spent a little while in Colossians. It was so good to be assured of God‘s love. Reading John 15 reminded me again of the importance of drawing strength each day from God‘s mighty powerline. I promise that whatever we ask and faith believing he will grant it to us was so good to read again.

We have enjoyed the records that Marion sent. Paula gets such a bang out of the little “Goil sinning “— the little girl singing. She always talks about the girls and boys sinning instead of singing. We get to appreciate our kids more each day. They have been so good and feel so at home. They keep their parents entertained with constant new words and actions. Tommy is constantly trying to charm his way out of trouble. It works too often, I really have to get tough to get around him. Paula can help me set the table now. If the girls are gone for the afternoon, she will get the plates and silverware out. She figures the numbers by getting one for each of us as she names us. Tom is always near with his ‘elp-oo, elp-oo’.
This afternoon it has been reasonably comfortable. We actually had rain last night after months of drought. It has been so hot. We would gladly have given you a few degrees of warmth for a few degrees of cold. I hope some of the native gardens can be revived, so they will be able to get a little food out of them. Many of them have really been in a bad way. It has been nip and tuck, trying to keep our school going with 116 pupils to feed on little or nothing. Each week and we send them home to get food from their parents gardens. They don’t get much there either, but enough to get by with. It is really unusual for New Guinea to be short of food because it grows so easily most everywhere. But with the hot sun and no rain, it would be a desert in no time at all.

Al will be off to the mountains again for a couple of weeks. If our short term teacher weren’t here I would be going with him. We can’t leave her on the station alone and she needs to help with school so she can’t leave and come with. I think it is so funny because the mission policy is never to leave a short term teacher alone on the station, but we missionary wives can stay alone for weeks on, and end and they don’t seem to make, any difference to anyone.
I am so sorry to hear that Frank just can’t come around. It really is too bad that he just can’t except responsibility, he has to miss home life that he really wants. I hope Bette can find some happiness. It will be hard with the two little ones, until they get a little older, but they will be such a good companions.

Our light plant is on the blink again so we are running around with our kerosene lamps and candles. I’d rather enjoy them. They are so relaxing. Tommy keeps begging for me to turn on the lights. I have to try the switches before he is satisfied.

If it isn’t raining, and if my house girls are able to carry the children we are hoping to go to church in one of the villages. But one of them has a sore foot and doesn’t feel like walking. Say nothing of carrying one of the kids. Phyllis and the children will walk to a village three hours walk from here to meet and go to church. We are hoping our boat the Victor will bring us back. We’ll have to take our dinner with us, so I guess we will eat light.

Busameng village where we would sometimes walk to church as Ina is mentining here. About a 2 hour walk.

What does Katie Larsen‘s husband do and what is his name. I do hope that she is happy with him and didn’t just marry him to have a father for her son. All of these poor girls seem to be getting into more trouble. It makes me kind of afraid to raise my own. But I guess we will have to leave them in God‘s hands. He can do a quite adequate job. We hope both of you are feeling better. And I hope spring is near. I think that we might have a houseful for Easter. Which would be a very nice thing to have to learn from Inez how to make a cross cake. Last year I was going to make an Easter bunny out of two chocolate cakes and Paula and Tommy got into them in the meantime and had chocolate cake all over a clean kitchen floor and the kitty was lapping up the crumb beside them. Such as life with kids.
God‘s blessings to you both

Love, Ina

Coastal village maybe south of Malalo near Fransico river. Tom and Paula. Alvin and house girl nearby

They have started to take a collection every Sunday if someone remembers to do it.

1963 March 9 (a copy)
Dear Erva and Herbert, (Ina’s aunt)

Thank you for your letter and Christmas letter. We do enjoy hearing from you and about you even if my communication is slow. I’m sure you’re change was a little difficult as all changes are but we trust you are happy in your new location. I’m sure Rose misses having you near at hand. I think it was wonderful for you to take her under your wing and to give her the Christian support that she was so badly needed at that time. She was such a girl and wanted so desperately to be good. I do hope the fellow she is going with now will not disappoint her. She seems set on getting married later on.

We did have a lovely holiday season. We had a lot of company and a new family had just arrived from the states. They were having quite a time getting adjusted in a new country. The wife was in her late 40s so found adjusting quite difficult. I do think they are settling in better now as they find their way around and find where they are really needed. They have three children which livended up the house. They enjoyed the New Guinea Christmas pageant. It was the first I’d seen as last year we were at another location and had a very sick boy that I was taking care of Christmas Eve. Al went to it and really enjoyed it. This year it was quite a good one. It was well done, and the people had worked hard on it. It seems strange hearing the good news proclaimed in another tongue instead of the familiar way. We’ve always heard.
We are still bogged down, trying to learn the language. Until we can communicate adequately, there is just mission work to be done. We feel the people really need to grow in depth. Al wants to work real hard with Bible studies with the pastors, teachers and representatives of the youth groups. There’s so much busy work and trying to keep things running like the generator for electricity so we can have lights for  school in the evening and our water system pump so we can have water during the dry season as well as the wet. Al had never studied mechanics so he has to work so hard and long to get everything running. There’s no hardware store to run to for extra parts, either most of the time we have to wait several weeks or months for those parts if we get them at all. So he has decided to just forget all about modern conveniences and try to get some mission work done.

It really isn’t as bad as all of that but it would help a lot if we knew something about carpentry, mechanics, animals, farming, and a few other professions. Gradually and slowly, but surely the New Guineans are being trained in these capacities. Many of them are unreliable as of yet, but we do hope with time, patients and education, they will be able to work quite well in various capacities. We have a native nurse that has been helping me with the medical work. She has proved very faithful and quite competent. I’ve been really surprised how well she has worked out.

Tommy is lending an assisting hand at typing. He likes to have me show him where to punch the keys and then let him do it.

Both the kids are growing up fast. It hardly seems they were both infants when we left the states. The pictures of Willa‘s kids -they have changed so much. It will really be young ladies before we get back. Beryl’s little Danny seems to be progressing so well. I hope he doesn’t have to go through too much discomfort while in the hospital.
Today we have had quite a day in the clinic. Two babies have convulsions. They had malaria of the brain. We have to give them some anti-malarial pills and give them a bath in cold water. They usually have very high temperature. If we can get their temperature to calm down again, they will be OK. I was just ready to go to church, so I was glad that I hadn’t left yet.

Our church is about half a mile down the hill from our house. It is really easy to go down to church, but I seem to be getting old– I’m getting gray hair, I kid you not – but hard getting back up in the hot sun at noon. Our house girls are so nice. They are so used to climbing that they can run up it like nothing and be hardly out of breath. They get glasses of lemonade, ready to drink when we get to the top.

They haven’t always taken a collection in the church, but now they are trying to learn to pay their own way, so they have started to take a collection every Sunday if someone remembers to do it. I gave Paula (2½) a pence – that is the same value as our penny– but is as big as a 50 cent piece to put it in the collection plate – a tin enamel dish, painted bright, red and blue. I said that she could give it to the man. So quicker than I could catch her, she darted out into the aisle and headed down to the front. She didn’t know which man to give it to so she handed it to the first man sitting down on the benches that she came to. He gave it back to her and told her to put it in the plate, so she still didn’t see it, so handed it to another man a little further in the front. Finally, when the man passing the plate walked by her as he didn’t see her. Someone finally stopped him so she could drop her pence into the plate. I got the giggles just like a little girl and had such a time controlling myself. She came back and sat down as unconcerned, as if that was the proper thing to do. I hope I catch her next time.

Yesterday morning I went into the kids closet, it was a walk-in closet, and it just happened to close the door. When I was ready to go out again, I couldn’t open the door. I called Phyllis the teacher living with us. She came and tried to open the door, tried to see if it was locked. The key seem to turn all right, but the door handle just wouldn’t turn. We called our work boy to come, and he took the knob off and put grease on it and put it back together but it still won’t work. Finally, they got our carpenter that is working on a new church to come up and see what he could do. He finally took the door off its hinges. Then he took the whole part with the knob, lock and fastener out of the door. It was all broken so we will have to get a new one. Tommy was so worried and was crying before I got out and I spent about an hour in there I believe.

Al is off on another trip (the Buangs –I believe). The airstrip in the mountain area that I mentioned before is now completed so after Easter, if God is willing, Phyllis and the children and I will fly back as far as we can, and then walk in about five hours, and spend some time with the mountain people. I look after the sick, Phyllis will inspect the schools and see what she can do to help the teachers and Al will work with the pastors and teachers and elders with their problems and Bible study. I’m really looking forward to it and hope no one gets sick.

God‘s blessings to you as you serve and trust him. Isn’t it wonderful to know that he loves us no matter what we do and that it was while we were at sinners that he died for each of us. He is constantly calling us to come to him and cast all our burdens on him.

Love to you, Ina

Paula Phyllis and Tom at Malalo 1962/63

I’m beginning to have more and more respect for doctors.

1963 March 16  (a copy)

Dear Beryl and Bruce,
We were surely happy to hear that Dr. Hall could be so reassuring about Danny after such a rough time at the Shriners. I’m sure it is for the best as you know Dr. Hall and know that his work is very careful with good results. I remember him as being a little gruff in surgery, but very nice otherwise.

I’m beginning to have more and more respect for doctors. It is one thing when you need only to follow orders and quite another when you must take responsibility for those orders. Thursday after the Victor had gone to Lae, some people brought up a 10-year-old boy, who had been climb a tree, and as he swung down, landed on a sharp stick that someone had left against the tree and ran it up his leg, about 3 inches from the groin . At least that’s where it went in I pressed and pressed around and could find a lot of edema for a diameter of about 7 inches. It crackled under my fingers. I could not find that there was anything left in it, so I sewed up the 2 inch gash. Then the father told me that the Dr boy at the village that they had come from, and told him that the wood was still in there. I had not been able to find it, but took off my gloves again, and searched again, and sure enough I found a long slim sliver about three or 4 inches long, not bigger than a needle on the inner aspect of the thigh. His abdomen was becoming increasingly distended and hard and painful. Well, I didn’t dare remove it because in case it was in the abdomen and I could lose him to a hemorrhage that I wouldn’t be able to stop. I noticed some liquid draining from the original wound that wasn’t blood and I couldn’t figure out just where it was coming from. It really made me sick as we didn’t have a boat and I couldn’t get out on our radio. Naturally, I asked for God‘s guidance, I loaded him with antibiotics and gave him strict orders that he wasn’t to move to do anything to that piece of wood. The Victor would be coming back the next day and I could send them in then. I watched them all the next day, and the Victor didn’t come. His temp went up to 101, but no higher and started to go down in the afternoon. I had just decided I couldn’t leave it any longer as it was getting too painful when the Victor came back and took him to Lae. I haven’t heard how he turned out.
I was caring for a lady who wanted to have me look at her. She was pregnant I could not tell by how much. Our Dr boy ran away because the people weren’t giving him enough food so I wouldn’t take care of anything but emergencies so that they would learn to appreciate the dispensary and be willing to support their own workers. We were supposed to be getting two native nurses from our mission hospital, but in the meantime, I refused to open the dispensary, except for what I thought wasn’t emergency. I had tried to get a group of responsible people together, so they could be a board of directors for the dispensary and then, if anything went wrong, they could deal with it. Well, I was in Al’s office trying to get this all squared away when the husband of this pregnant woman came and said that the woman had gone into labor and couId I  please give her a pill. As a matter of fact, he said she was having it. I went tearing down to the dispensary and here the woman had gone back into the bush as she didn’t want to be where people could see her and was sitting on the ground pushing away. I brought her back to the dispensary and put her on my examining table and the membranes were bulging way out about 6 inches. I scrubbed her off and sent someone for newspaper, my “sterile, underpad “ and gathered together the supplies. Her contractions instead of picking up -stopped. I gave her five grains of quinine and then watched her for a while, and then decided to give her, IM Pitocin as the heart tones didn’t improve and her contractions just wouldn’t do anything. I gave her one minim. I examined her rectally and she was dilated in the inner about 2 to 4 cm depending if you stretched it or not with cervix posterior. I couldn’t feel any cord and the head was coming down only not at a good angle. I couldn’t feel any limbs coming down with it. But it just wasn’t engaged well. With a few more contractions, I could see that it was ramming against the pelvic wall, not coming straight after all. I got sicker. I checked heart tones again and they were much improved about 140 regular and stayed that way. Her contractions didn’t pick up but I most certainly didn’t give her any more Pitocin. The Victor came after about six hours of fooling around so I sent her and the boy with the bad leg to Lae. It was such a relief to get rid of them. I don’t have too much confidence in my diagnosing anymore.

This morning I’ve gone into the kids closet for a few moments. It is a walk in closet and a place where I’m not disturbed which is a hard place to find. When I went to go outside again, I couldn’t open the door. I called Phyllis and she tried checking to see that it wasn’t locked. I just couldn’t turn the handle and neither could she. After about an hour of trying, our Carpenter came and took the door off. The knob was broken on the inside. Tommy was so happy when I came out again.

If you want to send money for the work here, you can send it by international money order directly to us. You can get it at the post office. If you want to contribute to our salary, you can send it to the mission office. We get enough personally so you don’t need to send any for us. It was very kind of you to inquire and we do appreciate it a lot even if it is a bit ironic. By the way, did you get a check for the hundred dollars I sent directly from here? If not you better check at the post office. I didn’t have it registered as I wasn’t in, but we’d better stop payment on it if you didn’t get it. I think I had the right address on it.

All is well here. Al is, of course, in the mountains again, maybe next time we can join him. It is still so terribly hot here. It just never seems to cool off.

Love Ina

from FB page of I use to live PNG