Use the menus along the top to navigate our site, or browse the links below:

Quick Links:

Photo Gallery

Our Guestbook

For easy browsing, view our Site Map

Subscribe to be informed when our site is updated with new articles, photos and newsletters!

Unsubscribe from our mailouts.

You are here: Home -> Current Fields -> Papua New Guinea -> AIM Apartment Renovation

AIM Apartment Overhaul

Major work had to be done to the AIM Apartment to get it ready for Sis Sheila

17-31 January, 2006

By Richard Carver Jnr

There are more pictures than what you see here! Be sure to:

View photo album

View slideshow

View movies

Papua New Guinea is a land of needs. Nothing else creates more awareness of this than a visit to this lovely country.

We left our homes in Lismore to travel once again to Papua New Guinea. Once again, our mission was a very ‘practical’ need. That was the renovation of the AIM Apartment underneath the Mission House, in preparation of the arrival of Sis Sheila Waddle and the start of Bible School in PNG.

I was travelling with my Dad, once again just us two men, leaving families behind for two weeks to hit the work hard and get it done. We didn't have much time; our visit was only for two weeks, and there was a massive amount to get done in that time. We flew straight from Lismore to Cairns, then on to Port Moresby, the gateway to PNG.

All getting involved to get the job done

We had a relaxing night in Port Moresby, and enjoyed the tropical rain downpour which fell most of the night. We felt confident that this trip would go smoothly, free from the troubles which had been part and parcel of our previous renovation efforts. Because we were so short of time during this visit, we knew that each day was precious and we wanted to make it count.

The next morning we were to catch the plane from Port Moresby to the highlands town of Goroka, where the Headquarters of the United Pentecostal Assemblies is. When we got to the airport that morning, however, we were met with the news that the flight was delayed because of “technical difficulties”. As we sat and waited, we watched the other flights to other destinations all board and take off, while our flight to Goroka kept getting postponed.

Clouds slowly built up, and as the afternoon wore on, we knew that the tropical afternoon rain was coming. We saw our flight sitting on the tarmac, engineers working on it, while the black clouds built up over the mountains in the distance, and our hopes started to sink. Goroka airport has no radar, so planes can’t land in poor visibility.

Against all odds, our plane departed for Goroka. And amazingly we found out that Goroka had bad weather in the morning, and cleared up for our landing in the afternoon!

The whole bathroom had to be completely rebuilt, as it had completely rotted out

The day after arriving, we got straight into the work. Our mission was to renovate the apartment where visiting ministry could stay while in PNG. The apartment had been unutilised for many years, and during our previous renovation trips we had found electrical problems and rats’ nests galore throughout the apartment.

There was a greater sense of urgency, because in two weeks Sis Sheila Waddle would be arriving to teach in the Bible School. During the renovation, Bro Carver and Bro Gration would often have to break to interview Bible School students who were enrolling for the start of the School Year. There was much excitement in the air because Bible School was beginning again after a period of four years with no school.

We had a lovely group of enrolee’s for the Bible School. You can read more about it in Bro Gration’s report. We also went to one of the churches in Goroka and had a very upifting service. You can read more about it here.

We worked steadily from morning till 6:00pm, when Sis Gration would call us upstairs for one of her superb dinners. We appreciate Kerry-Sue and Nathaniel for giving us a bedroom to sleep in while they bunked together. Not only was the work important, but so was the fellowship time with the Grations, discussing plans and future direction of the work.

We just managed to get the tiling finished the night before leaving PNG

My main job was to tile the bathroom area, which had rotted out completely. First Bro Matthias and Koko replaced the timbers in the walls, and I installed the Seratone shower walls. Then I tiled the shower base and bathroom floor. It was a challenge to find tiles; all three hardware stores in town were out of ceramic tiles. One however had 4 boxes left (about 44 tiles). This was not quite as much as I hoped for, but it would just cover the area with careful planning. So we emptied their stock of tiles. We did get it finished... with no tiles to spare!

Bro Carver’s main job was to find the electrical problems and fix them. He discovered more rat-eaten wires, removed bad wiring circuits, and relocated switches for the new layout of the apartment.

Bro Gration got to work on replacing the kitchen cupboard, stripping out the rotten plywood, and doing the prep-work for painting. He then got to work on tiling and grouting the kitchen area with some leftover tiles we had. We also tiled the third office in the Headquarters hall, which we had not been able to finish during our previous visit with Bro Nigel.

Bro Matthias replacing the walls

By the end of the second week, with only three days to go before we left PNG, things were starting to really look good. Bro Matthias had worked hard to replace the walls with new plywood, and Bro Koko had spackled it ready for painting. However, next morning, Bro & Sis Gration reported hearing a electrical fusing noise during the night in the floorboards under their bedroom. This was the area which we had just completed.

Convinced that we must have nailed through a wire, we removed most of the wall plywood which Bro Matthias installed, looking for a nail which had penetrated a wire. But no such nail was found. However, we did see bright white flashes coming from between two bearers. After removing more timberwork, we discovered the cause of the problem. A wire had been totally eaten away by rats, and an old rat’s nest was directly above it. Obviously with the banging we did on the walls, particles of dust and rat’s nest were falling onto the live wire and causing a short circuit. The wire was fusing and huge flashes resulted. To make matters worse, the wire was a dead-end circuit, and so the whole circuit could break down and not throw a fuse.


Rat-eaten wires: it's a miracle that the house didn't burn down years ago	Photo of the shorting electrical wires that could have burnt down the Headquarters

It was an old rat’s nest, and so it is a miracle that the whole timber house didn’t burn down previously in years gone past. This was the FOURTH location we found blackened timberwork and wires and timberwork.

Finding and fixing this problem had set us back a day’s work. And with only two days until we were due to fly home, we were seriously behind schedule. Knowing this, Bro Koko worked overnight 24 hours without a break in preparing the apartment for painting. He then slept for a couple of hours, then was back at it the next day! Largely because of this, we caught up to schedule again.

By Friday night, the only job unfinished was my bathroom tiling. The edging was very fiddly, and the uneven floor meant a lot of effort had to go into the laying of the tiles. But by 9pm that night, we laid the last tile.

The finished apartment, looking very homely, ready for visiting Bible School teachers and guests

We flew out on Saturday morning, very weary but very satisfied. In the days after we left, Bro Gration laid the carpet tiles and created some cupboards and the apartment was finally completed.

It was an important effort, as the apartment means free accommodation for visiting preachers and Bible School teachers. This will be a great blessing to PNG, as it allows people to stay for longer with reduced cost, which in turn blesses the church in New Guinea with more input and teaching. So once again, a very ‘practical’ project has turned into a valuable blessing for the wonderful church in Papua New Guinea.

- Richard J. Carver

There are many more pictures of the renovation work. Be sure to view the photo album, slideshow or movies.

Visit Richard & Andreas web pages