Al went to a large baptism, confirmation and communion service yesterday.

The Buangs are in high mountainous region just south of Lae. This is where Al conducted the baptisms and confirmation as stated below.

1962, June 21 to Beryl

Letters from Papua New Guinea.

Letter written by Ina Erickson from the Malalo Mission station to Beryl and Bruce 2314 So 7th St. Minneapolis 6, Minnesota, USA

Dear Beryl and Bruce,

By now I suppose you’re all settled in Crystal. You haven’t told me how big a house or apartment you have. Are your rooms furnished? Dishes? Pots and pans? Will you lease your old apartment? How big is the church? Will Bruce do much preaching? It’s so exciting listening to the first few sermons. I was more nervous than Al was, and that is saying something. He would be up by 5 AM. Thinking, planning, pacing, and then Sunday afternoon it was so good just to relax. What doctor are you going to? Have you quit work? Mother says you are going to work after the baby is born. Right? Really? Delivery room? Are you going to nurse your baby? Practice abdominal breathing. It’s nice you can have your baby at Fairview where they can do a pudendal block. I had it with Paula but not with Tommy. I sure could tell the difference.

Mother was so concerned about our not boiling water. What we get from the spring, we use for flushing the toilet and shower. What we use for drinking and cooking and washing dishes and clothes comes from the big tanks where it catches rain water from the roof. They have a closed mesh screen about 6 inches over where the drain pipe enters the tank. The sun keeps the roof clean enough. The problem was that Paula was drinking some of the bathwater and giving some to Tommy. Since then I’ve been using only the rain water to bathe them in. So their diarrhea/dysentery has cleared up. Tommy walks all over now. He is getting more and more confident. His latest accomplishment is turning around. Paula is such an encourager. She runs and calls me whenever Tommy is walking.

Al went to a large baptism, confirmation and communion service yesterday. There were about 30 baptized and 100 confirmed.

After a breathing spell of several months, we had six earthquakes last weekend. They did some damage in Lae. But, only knocked a few glasses over here at Malalo. A little unnerving but not so scary as it was when we first arrived. We put everything breakable like the kerosene lamps on the floor before we go to sleep. So far we haven’t had anything break.
After the war, there had been so much bombing that when the Scherle’s were here, they had some violent earthquakes, which broke most of their nice dishes.

We hope you will enjoy your summer and feel real good. You must have quit work if you’re living in Crystal. I think will be butchering a bull this afternoon. So I’ll have to get my salt gun ready.
Some natives brought us the biggest fish I have ever seen. Was it a beauty! It was real flat and wide like a giant silver bass[1].

Love
Al, Ina, Paula and Tommy

[1] Perhaps a trevally fish which are very good tasting.      From Wikipedia - The brassy trevally, Caranx papuensis (also known as the brassy kingfish, Papuan trevally, tea-leaf trevally, and green back trevally) is a species of large marine fish classified in the jack family, Carangidae.

’Al tells me that it’s a real insult for the Missy to be chasing after cows, or carry wood etc.’

1962 June 21 to Estelle.

Letter written by Ina Erickson from the Malalo Mission station to Durward and Estelle Titus Box 224 Route1, Carlos MN USA 

Happy summer to you. I hope you had a few warm days by now. My family is back to pretty good health but Al came back from his trip to the Buangs with a fever and a cough. But after a few days, he seems to be on the mend. It was awfully cool this trip and he put in long hours and so it’s always nice to have him home again. While he was gone one of the ladies brought me some shrimp. I’ve never seen live ones before. I was eating my supper and one of my house girls stuck one of these under my nose. They have about four long feelers and some of them have a claw, like a crab. Their beady eyes stick up about a quarter of an inch. Then I recognize the tail and thought they must be shrimp. The girls from the Bula School were over. Barb and Korrine came for Sunday dinner so I fixed the shrimp. Oh -were they ever good. The shrimp are a bluish, blackish brown and turned red when cooked.

Photo from JOURNALS OF KAREN McCANN. Taken in Lae (Ampo) at the guest house. Virgil Brandt, Sue Tuff, Korinne Okland in Chair (from Bula girls School, Bill Lose, Mary Lose (cutting Korines hair)

The boy that milks our cows, cuts our wood, and generally looks after the place was climbing a tree one rainy morning to get some berries and he slipped and fell about 10 feet landing on his arm. It was real muddy so his arm went into the ground about a foot. I was sitting on the biffy, when the girls started screaming’ Missy Missy’. ‘Come come’. I thought maybe a snake had bitten someone, then here came Abolie dripping with mud with the most anguished look on his face. At first I thought it was just sprained. I grabbed a stick of wood and a dish towel to splint it. Then I ran down to the dispensary to get a better splint and a sling. When I got back he was in such pain and it was so swollen and discolored. It’s really hard to see discoloration with their skin color. But I was quite sure it was broken. Our boat had been out of commission so I didn’t know how I’d get him to a hospital. Thank God the boat captain was able to get the Victor fixed and so it was working and we were able to get him to the hospital.

Abolie

The school boys milk the cows now, but tonight, there was no milk. So I inquired and they told me the cows had gone into the bush since they don’t have a fence. And luckily they can’t go too far with the mountains around. So I decided I would go after them myself. They were somewhere down at the beach. I was putting on my shoes when one of the men came and said ‘oh Missy you can’t do that’. Al tells me that it’s a real insult for the Missy to be chasing after cows, or carry wood etc. so someone else went after the cows. My stubbornness was showing.

Then soon after someone had turned on the lights they went out again. The fuel from the generator had run out. We hadn’t had to use kerosene lamps except after 9:30 or 10 since we’ve been at Malalo. We used our radio transceiver to call Lae and asked them to send some fuel with the Victor(our boat). So all in all we had quite a day. We received fuel the next day so we had lights the following night. The milk has been coming pretty regularly. Abolie did not come back yet so I guess the x-ray must’ve shown his arm had been broken.
Tommy is walking by himself pretty well now. Paula likes to help him and he doesn’t especially want help. He is very independent. He has such a waddle, but can really get around.
Thank you for the chess, checkers and dominoes. Thanks for Paula’s peg set. We haven’t given that to her yet. We usually let her open her gifts only one every once in a while. She gets so bored it’s nice to have some surprises for her. That will be something that she will play and play with. Something she can use her imagination with. Without outside entertainment, we enjoy playing games a lot.

We love and miss you, may God’s love be with you both. Please don’t live apart this winter even if it is a long drive.
Love Al, Ina, Paula and Tommy