I’m Paula Bergs and I spent much of my childhood in Papua New Guinea before it became independent in 1973 so it was actually New Guinea at the time. We left New Guinea almost a week before they became independent in 1973. I was born May of 1960 in Wisconsin. My parents decided to become missionaries and spent some time moving around right around the time I was born so my dad could complete internship in Wisconsin and seminary training in the Twin Cities and linguistic training in Grand Forks, ND the summer of 1961. My mom was a nurse. While my dad was in Seminary in the Twin Cities he met Fred Scherle during his senior year. Fred Scherle was a missionary in New Guinea and convinced my dad and 3 of his classmates to go to New Guinea. This blog records their letters from New Guinea to mostly their families in Minnesota and Montana. A few letters published are written while they are still in the USA before leaving for New Guinea. My mother’s mother, Estelle was a very disciplined person that had made a lifelong habit of keeping letters, newspaper clippings, and any other interesting things for a scrapbooks. So the combination of my parents, mostly my mother, writing letters and Estelle’s commitment to keeping them safe, we have an interesting collection documenting a unique piece of history -missionary life in New Guinea during the 1960’s. I have finally pulled them out of the boxes from my attic and begin the process of dictating these almost 60 year old letters, now in 2021. Most of them are handwritten on aerograms which have a limited space. So my mother would write small trying to squeeze as much as she could in the space allotted to her. Many words are very difficult to decipher and sometimes impossible. Many times she would come to a rather abrupt end as she had run out of space.

My parents Alvin Erickson and Ina Titus Erickson born in the mid 1930’s and arrived in New Guinea in their mid twenties on September 27th 1961 bringing with them their two children, an infant Tom born July 1961, and an almost toddler, myself born May 1960. They had 2 more children born in New Guinea and another one after they resigned and were living back in the USA in 1974.

Ina sent regular letters to her parents Durward and Estelle Titus, her sister Willa and family and sister Beryl and family. They grew up in Carlos, Minnesota near Alexandria. Alvin’s parents were Alvin Sr and Louise Erickson and his sister Betty and family and sister Helen and family. They grew up in Glendive, Montana. Ina often refers to her very close cousin Bette whom she grew up with like a sister.