Volume 6; No. 11                                                                                   November 1983

Dear Brethren;

Greetings from the land of much water

LAE FLOOD RELIEF
The relief effort continues but at a much slower pace. The initial needs of food and shelter have been met. The response from you'all has been overwhelming to say the least. Those persons who lost their houses have been moved into a tent compound that the Army established. During the initial stages of the relief the Lae relief committee was providing food for over 13,000 people in and outside of Lae. These where the people who lost their gardens and houses in the floods. At present the number still being fed (provided with food) is under 6,000.

REVISED STATS
My statistics were not quite correct in the last report. From the Friday night to Monday morning over 60 inches (5 feet) of rain fell in Lae, 13,000 homeless, 18 dead.

FRESH PRODUCE PROVIDED
After about 10 days the Highlands Highway was reopened with the main bridge being repaired. This meant that the sweet potatoes that we had been airlifting via the Army aircraft could now be trucked down. The DC-3's we were using were only suppose to carry 2 tons but we had been putting as much as 6 tons on each flight. The reason was we thought each bag of produce weighted around 100 lbs but the major weighted a bag & found out they weighted over 170 lbs (my back told me that.) We air freighted over 27 tons before the road opened. In the next 12 days we bought and shipped over 79 tons more by truck. The people had the word: we were buying! In all, up to our last load of produce on Oct 14th we bought over 106 tons of fresh produce. This cost us just under $15,000. By the time the relief committee decided they had enough, we had just about decided ENOUGH ourselves.

The problem we had here was that the villagers had become greedy. We were buying their surplus garden produce and they were seeing M$NEY. When we would send a truck out to buy kaukau the people would literally block the road until we bought THEIR food. We even had them bringing in truck loads to the house after we told them NO MORE! One such truck came and I told them no way could I buy anymore, that night SOMEBODY threw rocks at our house with one rock breaking the glass panel on our solar hot water system. (Wonder who?) Just like little children in so many ways.

With the highway reopened I headed back to Lae for our car. (I should have known better, right! Wrong.) Kathy and I drove Art Ford's van down and Jab drove the Lae church bus full of 6 tons of kaukau (sweet potato). Both vehicles had been stranded in Goroka when the bridge went out. Everything went fine on the trip down. The next morning when we started back the road was closed AGAIN. This time it was only a 6 foot deep mud slide across the road, we only had to wait 3 hours. We finally made it back to Goroka with our car.

LONG TERM ASSISTANCE
With the initial need met in the flood relief effort we are now looking at what we can provide over the next several months to assist the brethren who lost their houses. During the first few weeks the relief committee discouraged groups from helping their own numbers but asked that all help go through the central committee.

Now we have the chance to especially help those of our numbers affected by the flood. According to the Lae brethren 53 Christian families lost their dwellings. This number does not represent a house for every family as some of the families shared a dwelling. We are trying to get the government to allocate land on which we can construct low-cost housing with the funds which you have so graciously provided. We are planning: providing building materials and the builders; asking the government to provide a portion of funds per family and having each family provide some funds as well toward the new housing. Please pray that the Lord grant us wisdom in the distribution of the funds that His work here will be forwarded and not hindered.

IT'S RAINING -ITS POURING
Not only has it been raining in Lae (and still raining) but we have been having more than OUR SHARE of rain here in Goroka. Our rainy season isn't suppose to begin until December. Just this month we have received over 25 inches of H 20. (Jab's duck likes it.)

PRINTING UPDATE
Also this month I did some printing: 71,520 sheets of paper. I haven't been able to do all the printing that needs to be done due to the fact I have very little paper in stock. I do have some on order. I am hoping to be able to begin on the reprinting of the Topical Index and two Bible class curriculums soon.

THAT N' THIS
Many of you will remember that we have raised chickens from time to time. Well, last month we started up the brood again. We are raising broilers for our own eating. Chicken is still over $3.00 per lb..

Kathy informed me to inform you that even though it sounded like she might have turned 35 years young in the last newsletter, she is only 34 years old.

In addition to the coordinating of the relief food this month I have been doing some construction work at Jason's school in consideration of his school fees next year. The International High School has asked me to do some work for them and they are going to supervise Terasa's American correspondence course next year. At present Terasa and Kathy do the book work at home in the mornings and then Terasa goes up to the school for the afternoon sessions of handicrafts and fellowship. This arrangement for next year will allow Kathy a bit more free time to do other things.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF OUR REGULAR MONTHLY WORK AND ESPECIALLY THE FLOOD RELIEF APPEAL

Your servants of the cross,

the Huffs