Hello from Papua New Guinea! Thank you to those of you who have reached out to check on how we are doing since our last update. Things have been a bit up and down and challenging to navigate with COVID-19 since its arrival here in Kapuna. 

We have also had very varied power and internet access of late. This is largely due to the start of the rainy season. 

An amazing solar power system was installed late last year, which has been providing better power than before. This has meant that the hospital has round-the-clock power for vital machines without using the generator and therefore significant fuel savings. 

We feel very blessed to have access to much more power in our house than we thought we’d have. The community is now however navigating what happens to a solar power energy system during its first rainy season where it can rain heavily all...day...long!!! And therefore we don’t get enough sun to charge the batteries for the community’s needs. I understand that the high humidity levels have been problematic for the batteries. 

Scott has fitted into his role here and into the community very well. It is amazing how his assortment of skills - from knowledge of engines to carpentry, to business and funding proposals - are all needed in his day-to-day work life. He is overseeing the worksite and so is working alongside the workshop team with hands and boots dirty on the job while also spending time applying for funding for future projects including the Water Sanitation Project in the projects office. 

Scott visited the other hospital run by Gulf Christian Services, Kikori. It is 5 hours each way on a dingy. He has identified a very long list of remedial work that needs to be done along with an urgent need for solar power. Kikori is currently reliant on fuel donations from the local Minister and Oil Search who are operating in the region, but this donation stream has become very unreliable due to COVID. Scott is preparing an application for Solar Power to the local Minister along with planning the logistics of this which is quite challenging as Kikori is also very remote, though not as remote as Kapuna. 

COVID arrived in Kapuna just before Easter. It was almost the school holidays so we went into ‘lockdown’ but work still needs to go on! I stayed at home doing school work with the kids but Scott had to ‘mask up’ and head out to the site to support whatever was needed. If the power went out, someone needed to get that working again! A sink was leaking in the hospital - Scott was the one to fix it, while the workmen had to remain in their villages. 

We had a ‘sterilization system’ which Scott went through when he came back into the house - as some of you would be able to ‘flash back’ to from our NZ Lockdown in the early days of COVID, if you were or lived with an Essential Worker. 

Fortunately there appeared to be only a few cases of COVID-19 from that initial detention and so lockdown came and went and life got back to normal (except for us cautious Kiwi Wheeler’s - who are used to our ‘Go Fast and Go Hard’ motto and we kept our mask-wearing up)! A few weeks went by and until it reared up again... this time more cases and people a bit more unwell. One of the positive cases was a girl in Isaac’s class, which was quite a close contact. School shut for three days and we put ourselves back into lockdown. 

The kids and I have had a couple of weeks at home working more intensely on our homeschooling which has been good. We are just emerging from that phase again, and so returned to school and we’ll see how things go! 

We appreciate your prayers and all your messages of support. It really means a lot to us. 

We feel like we are in the right place for this time. There are many good things we can get involved in (lots and lots of things!) and are starting to develop friendships with various local people. 

It is very hard though, in this crucial relationship-building time, to have to be cautious of being too close to people, not being able to share a drink together or shake hands. Masks are a physical barrier to seeing a smile and sharing an expression - not to mention, very, very hot! 

The weather has dropped a few degrees from an average of 30-ish degrees to the high 20’s and 23/24 degrees overnight with a humidity rating of roughly 90-100% all the time. It is much more comfortable but impossible to get the washing dry! I think NZ is having similar washing drying problems at the moment, but a lot colder I believe! 

My work as a Physiotherapist in the hospital continues when I can, which is well received and satisfying being able to share good advice with people who otherwise would not have input like this as part of their care. It has been a learning curve for me with the majority of my patients being paralyzed from Tuberculosis of the spine. Most patients with TB stay several months on the TB ward but also occupy many beds in the Adult ward due to the huge numbers of people infected with TB. 

Once their initial treatment is completed then they are often discharged home with 6-7months worth of their medication to continue in the village with the hope that they will remember to complete the course. 

The baby of one of the casual workmen here has been in Kapuna for the last few months having contracted TB from drinking the well water run their village. 

I am helping the community in other ways - learning how the shop runs and helping as needed in the office and am also assisting with house inspections for the maintenance team. We feel called to serve the people of this community in any way they need us, and that makes for varied days! 

Thank you again for all your support and prayers. 

Keep in touch, I enjoy receiving emails - even if I can’t always reply, they do bring a smile to our faces and we appreciate that when we are feeling weary, there is a support network out there praying for God’s strength for us and holding us in your thoughts. 

Many blessings from the Wheelers,
Nikki and Scott, Isaac, Abby and Levi 

(And yes the bugs are still here - I’m making it clear we are not happy about being flatmates, but we have accepted a certain variety of Orb spiders who generally stay out of the way and hopefully help with the mosquitoes. Although I think by getting rid of the large huntsman spiders which scare me - I have gotten rid of the Orbs predator... now the Orb has had many, many offspring and we are getting dangerously outnumbered... There is a lesson in not messing with a balanced ecosystem in there... but the 20cm Huntsmans are still not growing on me...) 

Scott and Nikki Wheeler are Mission Partners with NZCMS.