Josh's Excellent Adventure

The Yetfa is a language group that was discovered for the first time by the industrialized world in the early 90s.   This people group lives in a remote lowland region on the Island of Papua, Indonesia.  Fast forward to today: a friend of mine along with his family have begun the work of translating the Bible into this new language.  There are many villages and pockets of Yetfa people in their region, but my friend chose to build a house in one village named Bias.  This village is about 90 miles from the northern coast and is completely surrounded by rolling hills, swamps, and jungle.  The Yetfa can reach the outside world by hiking through the jungle to the river, which takes up to about three days, or by a small airplane that is capable of landing on the 1,200ft long clearing that was cut out of the jungle, which is a comfortable 45 minutes.

I grew up as a son of a general house contractor and have seen what it takes to build a house in the state of Washington.  It is hard work and I always thought that the logistics of running water and electricity were a challenge on some of the wooded plots where my dad would typically build.  Building a house in Washington relied on a steady stream of cement mixers, lumber trucks, pallets of sheetrock, roofing material, and all the other materials that are readily available from your local building supply stores.   Bias is a different story when it comes to building a house.  Your local supply store is the jungle around the village which is full of Iron wood trees- perfect wood for building in a tropical climate.  The natural oils in the iron wood preserve the wood much like pressure treated lumber in the States, and the oils keep the termites and ants from turning the rafters and foundation to dust.  Without a portable saw mill, all the wood is typically cut out of the tree using nothing more than a chain saw.  I went out with Chase last March in order to help him place all the foundation posts in the ground.  Since then Chase has been able to get the roof and the floor on the house.  This December I went  another week  to help him.  

One of the village leaders allowed Chase to cut down a couple Iron wood trees about a mile from where his house is located.   Even though the frame of the house was completed, he still needed about 6 cubic meters of wood to complete the siding and some interior walls.  Every piece of iron wood needed to be carried out of the woods through a swamp and up to the site of his future house.  The village leader was able to motivate some of the men in Bias to carry the wood for the new house.  

 

Things got dirty. We were able to dig out the septic tank for their village house.  When I first arrived, I thought there was no way that Chase could get me in that hole and build the septic tank.  I peeked over the sides and spotted spiders the size of my hand in the murky water waiting for me to climb in and get to work.  Chase figured that my mud skills are a bit better than my carpentry skills, so it didn't take long before me, Chase, and the rest of the spider’s gang were all in the mud digging out the rest of the septic tank and reinforcing the walls.  I told Chase that I would gladly help him dig out a new septic tank, but I would never clean it out after they start using it!



 

In construction projects there are some jobs that are more rewarding than others. Nothing is quite as memorable as taking my shoes off and wondering what just touched my toes as they squished through the soft clay. 

 



Chase and his family hope to move into their home soon.