Update from the Wheelers
Nikki and Scott Wheeler and their family are NZCMS mission partners in Kapuna, Papua New Guinea. Read Nikki’s update here about how life has been going for them recently and their next steps.
Nikki Wheeler with local children outside the piggery which raises money for the Kapuna Life School
We have entered our final months, able to count in weeks now before we leave this place. There is much we will miss; I sit here looking out at all the coconut trees and the sound of people scraping coconuts and chopping firewood to cook their dinner with. There are crickets praising God for the night that is coming and the fruit bats are starting to swoop around. We will miss the peace and the vastness of the jungle. We will not miss the fruit bats. One snuck through a small gap in our window wires the other night to eat our bananas and it made such a racket but there was no way I was leaving the safety of my mosquito net to help it out! Fortunately it was gone by the morning – not sure if it escaped or the cat got him...
We’ve had a lot going on in Kapuna in the last few months as usual and Scott and I have been focussing on our handover strategies. There are many projects continuing – sustainable toilet designs for surrounding villages, house building for new teachers, the Days for Girls project making sanitary packs for girls and ladies is going strongly. There was a distribution of these packs to the Kapuna School kids and to the students training in the Community Health Worker training school as well as to new mothers in the hospital.
An exciting project Scott has managed to get across the line - after 15+ months of planning - for both hospitals (Kikori Hospital is four hours up river from us) is the drilling of a deep well. This will allow the patients and the staff at both hospitals to have access to fresh clean drinking water all year round. There have been predictions of droughts coming to these parts in the coming years.
The well digging was successful in Kikori and people are coming from surrounding villages to get fresh water that is reported to taste amazing. To get this well dug, Scott made an agreement with Baptist Drillers, sourced the funds, arranged transport with a local oil company via river ways and then moved through the mud. The logistics are a nightmare – but Scott enjoys challenges like this!
This tractor was the first wheeled vehicle ever in Kapuna
The excitement was palpable here. The majority of the kids at the hospital have never seen a car before, let alone a tractor! There are no roads in our part of the jungle and canoes and dinghies are the only mode of transport other than your feet. This is the first wheeled vehicle ever in Kapuna!
There have been some challenges/broken parts which have hindered the drilling process but the team are still here working to find water – down 45m at this stage. Click here for a video made by one of our team here on about the arrival of the drilling rig in Kapuna.
Scott was asked by Gulf Christian Services (GCS) to be on their Executive Team about a year ago. His focus has been on addressing the structure of GCS management, policies and accountability, and how they need to adapt their management ‘style’ to run the upgraded hospital and increasing staff.
The GCS Executive team asked Scott and I a while ago to extend our stay here. There are many ways in which we could continue to serve and so it has been a decision long chewed over. Our decision was always to be a ‘Family on Mission’ and although there have been many wonderful things our children have experienced and learnt here that we will always be grateful for, the schooling has always been a challenge and we know it is now time to focus more on supporting their educational needs in preparation for High School.
We will return to NZ at the end of this year as planned but we are working with GCS and NZCMS on how Scott can continue to support Kapuna and Kikori Hospitals to help with their management team’s development, growth and strengthening. We hope he will continue to be able to engage with development partners to continue to invest in this place and the people. The ultimate goal is for GCS to be self-sustainable with local people running all entities and functions, however there is a gap currently where more training is needed. Scott will continue to journey with them over the next year or two until they can release him with confidence in their self management.
There is a Papua New Guinean national from the Sepik Province who I have been training to hand over the shop manager role to. This has been going well overall – he is a young guy with a big role to fill, so please pray for Daniel as he looks after the revenue generating centre of Kapuna which supports the school, hospital and ministry activities.
Scott will continue to need to support via NZCMS to support and work with GCS from NZ and with visits several times a year to work with the Management team. Support can be given via the NZCMS website to the work he is doing and also there is a space to give to the Days for Girls project, local Discipleship Training and the Kapuna Life School.
https://www.nzcms.org.nz/our-people/mission-partners/scott-and-nikki-wheeler/
For more information on GCS and visiting Kapuna, then reaching out to Scott directly is best - via email scott.kapunagcs@gmail.com. The Wheelers will also be at New Wine in Jan 2024 speaking to the youth and available to others to discuss mission.
