God's Grocers - Chapters 5 - 8

God’s Grocers Chapters 5 to 8 The Story Of The Grocery Stores Operated By The Summer Institute of Linguistics

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By Charles Micheals

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God’s Grocers Chapters 5 - 8

The Story Of The Grocery Stores Operated By The Summer Institute of Linguistics

Winter Park, Florida

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© 2012 Charles J. Micheals Published by the Aiyura Valley Historical Society

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: Pending

First Printing 2012 (Not for Sale) Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

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Dedication To the men and women who served in the Summer Institute of Linguistics’ grocery stores which supplied the staff working in Bible translation.

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God’s Grocers Chapters 5 - 8

The Story Of The Grocery Stores Operated By The Summer Institute of Linguistics This SIL Mission Store booklet is dedicated to Gware and Arina Nanong for their faithful service to the work of Bible translation in Papua New Guinea and for their service at the mission store at Ukarumpa.

Their service to the Papua New Guinea branch of the Summer Institute of Linguistics will never be forgotten. Their hard work, commitment and efforts for the glory of God are a lasting legacy and example for future citizens of Papua New Guinea of what it means to wholeheartedly serve the Lord Jesus Christ!

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Chapter 5 The New Store Begins Operation “Sympathy is no substitute for action.� ~ David Livingstone, missionary to Africa THE SECOND STORE OFFICIALLY BEGINS It was obvious that the store would become a large operation requiring much finance and personnel so approaches were made in the late 1960s to three commercial companies to take over and operate the store, but this did not materialize. This was just the first of many attempts to have commercial companies take over the store over the next thirty years that never happened.

Lex Collier with a Calf Dozer Breaks the First Ground for the New Store in 1967 (Photo Courtesy of Cedric Grace)

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As membership numbers grew and demand on the store increased additions were made to the building. Eventually this increasing demand necessitated, for efficiencies sake, a proposal for SIL to build a new large steel-framed, concrete-floored building.

New Store Construction Begins In 1967 the branch made a decision to build a much larger and more permanent building. The building was designed by Jack Ruth who had come to Ukarumpa several years before after having left a successful construction career in the USA. Jim Eckhardt, his wife Nell and their three daughters arrived on center from Kansas in mid-1967 just at the right time as Jim was assigned to the Building Department at Ukarumpa as supervisor. One of Jim’s first projects was the oversight of the new store building.

While Jim oversaw the building project Cedric Grace helped lay the concrete at the store and Wal Blackwell and Hap Skinner along with a large crew of national co-workers also helped with construction.

One of the important parts of the structure was the structural engineering, which has allowed the building to withstand earthquakes (which is has done numerous times over the past 40 plus years). It was also built so that the back of the store could be easily expanded.

Hap and Glad Skinner Jack Ruth (Photo Courtesy Charles Micheals and Wycliffe Bible Translators Archives)

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Wal and Win (Ma) Blackwell

Cedric and Margaret Grace (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

In late 1967 work began on bulldozing the hill to prepare the pad for the new store. However, Jim ran into a real dilemma. SIL only had one bulldozer, a D-2 Caterpillar and it was out in the bush hauling logs for the saw mill. Jack approached Lex Collier and asked him to arrange for the Cat to be brought into the center to prepare the pad. However, it was the rainy season and the roads were too bad to truck the Cat back to center.

Time quickly passed with one week turning into two and after waiting a month or so, Jack Ruth decided to try bulldozing with the tiny, Drawbar 22 horsepower Oliver OC-3 Calf Dozer or crawler tractor. Jack had been bulldozing for several days, being bucked up and down like a rag doll or a rodeo rider on a crazed bronco and then it happen! The Oliver Calf Dozer bucked Jack completely off the back end, throwing him to the ground, breaking Jack’s collar bone. To keep the project on track, several inexperienced dozer drivers including Darrell Lancaster filled in for Jack until Lex was able to bring the Cat back to the center and quickly finish the pad.

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Cedric Grace in 1967 preparing the pad for the new store (Photo Courtesy of Cedric Grace)

Darrell Lancaster preparing land (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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Darrell Lancaster preparing land (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Construction on the new store began in the welding shop sometime in late 1967. Jack Ruth and Hap Skinner designed the trusses; carefully calculating what size metal would be needed to withstand the valley winds and earthquake hazards.

When all the trusses were completed, Hap and his crew delivered them to the building sight. But, even with correct calculations, when Hap and Jack began erecting the first steel truss, it quickly buckled under its own weight.

After a few minutes of discussion they quickly determined that it wasn’t a defective truss, but realized they needed to add more ropes to the truss while hoisting them into place, so the trusses weight would be evenly distributed over the whole truss, rather than in just the couple or three spots they used in their first attempt. The damaged truss was quickly repaired and soon all trusses were erected without further mishaps.

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New Guinea welder Kuri welding trusses (Photo Courtesy of Cedric Grace)

Welding the trusses (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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Cement flooring for the store (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Corrugated iron roofing being installed 1967 (Photo Courtesy Cedric Grace)

Erecting the steel frame (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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Store construction (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

1969 - Preschool being built with the store in the background (Photo Courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators Archives)

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1968 - Jim Eckhardt grading the road and store parking lot (Photo Courtesy Cedric Grace)

1968 - Jim Eckhardt grading the road and store parking lot (Photo Courtesy Cedric Grace)

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1968 – The Store (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Aerial view of the store (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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The first merchandise sold in the new store took place in late 1968, even before there were internal walls, shelving and the second floor didn’t exist yet. While on a buying trips to Lae, Darrell Lancaster learned about a government auction taking place that week. They were selling off merchandise that companies had imported, but for some reason had never picked up from the wharf within the allotted days. After a time, all unclaimed goods were transferred from the wharf to one of the public storage company sheds.

The rightful owners of the goods could still pick them up, by simply paying the transfer fees, plus storage costs. However, after being left in storage for several months, the total cost amounted to more than the goods were worth, so importers just let them go. After one year in public storage, the government scheduled an auction to sell all unclaimed goods and the proceeds from the sale were paid to the storage companies as compensation. All types and sizes of unclaimed merchandise were sold at these auctions, including automobiles, airplanes, boats, lots of new tires, cases of groceries, bales of new bath towels and sewing materials and personal effects. Almost anything was likely to be sold at one of these auctions.

Since this was Darrell’s first time to attend a government surplus auction, he allowed several lots of goods to be sold before attempting to bid. However, when Darrell realized how low many of the goods were selling for, he began bidding on lots of items, such as large bales of new sewing material, towels, toilet paper, hardware and food items. After the sale, he arranged for the auctioned items to be shipped to Ukarumpa center on one supply trucks.

Since the old store was so small, Darrell decided to have the truck deliver the complete shipment directly into the new store. After pricing everything, Darrell opened the new store to members and national workers for a couple of days to sell just the auction items.

The sale was successful and a sizable profit was made for the store, at prices still much lower than for similar items bought through normal channels. An example was the sewing materials that had cost the store just a few cents per yard and even with a hefty mark-up was sold at a fraction of its worth. Members and national workers got great deals and it helped pay some of the construction cost for the new store.

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First sale in the new store (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

First sale in the new store (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Darrell Lancaster selling fabric (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Alda Lancaster operating the checkout (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

In early January 1969 Darrell Lancaster’s family moved to Lae to manage the Lae buying and shipping facility for two years. Darrell’s experience working in the store for two years enhanced his ability to assist the store manager, Cedric Grace and other store buyers when they needed store supplies from Lae wholesalers. Now it was time to get ready for the grand opening of the new store!

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Chapter 6 The Grand Opening of the New Ukarumpa Store “God's work, done in God's way will never lack God's supply.� ~ Hudson Taylor

The Grand Opening

Grand Opening (Photo Courtesy Ken Lowe)

The grand opening of the new store took place in April of 1969. It was a great day as the Ukarumpa center residents flocked to the store to see what was available. They were greeted with wide aisles, new checkout lanes, a wider selection of items and even store trolleys to shop with!

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THE NEW STORE BEGINS TO SERVE THE UKARUMPA CENTER The new store carried a larger selection of grocery goods, hardware and haberdashery (clothing). In addition to a large increased general line of groceries, hardware items such as roofing iron, plywood, nails, cement, nuts and bolts, etc. were also sold. These items were shipped initially in from Sydney, Australia through an agent Geoffrey Hughes Pty. Ltd. who purchased goods directly from the grocery and hardware manufacturers.

As the population of the Ukarumpa center increased, it was necessary to have a store big enough to handle needs not only for the individual missionary staff and their families, but also for the children’s homes that were increasing in number as more translation teams with children in high school lived in the center in these homes. As various departments on center increased, so did their need for office supplies and other cleaning supply goods. Since the space in the news tore had increased significantly over the old store, it became possible for the store to being to stock fabric and a wide range of sewing supplies, stationary, kitchenware, gifts and a small range of toys.

Kath McNeil and Pita Kasito - Store staff serve Jean Smith (Photo Courtesy Cedric Grace)

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Early days at the new store (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Early days at the new store (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

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Early days at the new store (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Early days at the new store (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

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Dawn Cox with children Diane and Greg (Photos Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Early days at the new store

Early days at the new store’s Hardware department (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

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Early days at the new store (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Early days at the new store (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Early days at the new store (Photos Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

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Louise Bass shopping in the new store

Early days at the new store’s Fancy department (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Early days at the new store’s Fancy department (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

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Early days at the new store (Photos Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Joan Hainsworth shops at the new store

Rose Smith and Joan Dickey - The early days at the new store (Photos Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Eventually the store began importing grocery goods from the USA through the agent, Mark Ross and Sons, Inc. who purchased goods from the Market Wholesale grocery warehouse. As the Territory of Papua and New Guinea began to grow business houses, the coastal town of Lae began to grow small hardware and grocery wholesale businesses which would help supply the store with goods.

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Gware Nanong – Served first as Hardware Manager, then Assistant Store Manager (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Gware Nanong (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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Larry Seibel and Gware Nanong (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

Hardware Department (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

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Rebecca Yalibu – First worked at the store, then served as Post Office Manager (Photo courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Eugenie Schulz– Support worker on loan from Lutheran Bible Translators Canada (Photo courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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Bev Entz in first store aisle (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

First store aisle (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

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New store shelves stocked with goods (Photo Courtesy Darrell Lancaster)

Susan Boush (Translators with her husband Al for the Tifalmin people)

The store checkout lanes when it was built. Later in the 1970s the store expanded to a 3rd cash register and eventually either in the late 1970s of the early 1980s a 4th checkout lane was added initially had two.

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Sally Dye at checkout lane (Photo Courtesy Darrell Lancaster)

Betty Baptista, Jane Wall and Joan Bieler shopping – “No more having to drive to Kainantu!”

(Left Photo Courtesy of Gail May - Other Two Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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1969 – The store (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

1969 – The store (Photo Courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators Archives)

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Store with Ukarumpa market in foreground (Photo Courtesy of Wycliffe Bible Translators Archives)

Gware Nanong (standing) with new motorcycle (Photos Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

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NEW STAFF BEGIN WORK IN THE STORE

Some Store Staff Back Row: (L to R) Darrell Lancaster, Cedric Grace, unknown, Front Row: (L to R) Simon, Pita Kasito ,others unknown (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

Over the years the Lord blessed the center with more and more personnel to take on support rolls in running our large Branch. Many came after years of professional training and experience in different fields of endeavor. The following are examples of a few members who played an important part in the stores’ history, as well as their contributions to speed translation and literacy work.

Jack and Charlotte (Chic) Ruth both played key roles in the establishment and operation of the new store. Prior to coming to New Guinea Jack trained to be an architectural engineer and was the City Engineer in San Diego, CA supervising the constructions of the new San Diego Opera House in the early 1960’s. After arriving in Ukarumpa in 1967, Jack worked closely with the Building Department. He helped design the new store, assisted in bulldozing the pad for the building site and supervised the building’s construction. Jack also had major roles in the design and building of the Translation

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Center/Library, High School, Teen Centre and many of other buildings at Ukarumpa, in villages and our outlying Translation centers. Jack also built the only square and round house at Ukarumpa.

Chic Ruth worked part time in the old store and took over management of the clothing and notions department in the new store. With the added space, she enlarged the selection of clothing, shoes, sewing items etc.. Chic often traveled to Lae to purchase stocks of blankets, clothing, sewing notions and materials from local Asian wholesale merchants.

Soon arrangements were made for travelling salesmen from Hong Kong and other places to come directly to the store to sell their wares. This continued for many, many years. Once or twice a year these travelling salesmen brought with them numerous oversized suit cases and trunks full of sample clothing, sewing materials, footwear, umbrellas, raincoats, socks, blankets, sheets, towels and giftware. Chic worked with these salesmen for hours, sorting through hundreds of samples and at the end, each salesman left with sizable orders! When the new items arrived from Hong Kong in a couple of months, Chic quickly made sure everything was displayed just right, so merchandise in her area always sold extremely well. Chic’s positive enthusiasm and hard work made her department really hum!

As the new store took shape, it became necessary for others living at Ukarumpa to help at the store as sales increased and new members continued to arrive. A Bible translator, Jerry Allen, worked in the store for six months from about December 1968 through May 69 and was put in charge of receiving stock. Cedric Grace continued on as store manager until late 1970 when his wife Margaret’s health issues forced their family to return to Australia. That is when Jim Eckhardt, who had continued his work in the Building Department at Ukarumpa as supervisor, moved from the Building department to run the store.

In January 1971 Darrell Lancaster and his family returned to Ukarumpa from their two year assignment in Lae assuming Darrell would return to work in the store. However, because the Lancaster’s only had six months before heading back to the States for furlough and the Building Department needed someone to help fill the large gap left when Jim Eckhardt became store manager, Darrell was assigned to the Building Department for his last six months before furlough.

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In March of 1971, Jim and wife Nell and their two children returned to the States for furlough. That meant Darrell was tapped to take

over

store

management

until

his

scheduled furlough in June 1971.

After Darrell left for furlough, Betty Schanely helped operate the store until Ken Davis arrived in January 1972. Ken had just finished serving as the Director for Wycliffe New Zealand he was expecting to be the assistant to the Branch Director, but John Abernathy (Associate Director for Support Affairs) was desperate for someone to manage the store.

At first Ken did not want to do take on the store job because he was taking on another position in the Branch, so he turned down the 1972 - L-R – Ken Davis, Milton Lund, Denese Grace, Betty Schanely (Photo Courtesy of the SIL PNG Branch Archives)

offer. However, in his Wycliffe orientation he remembered how important it was to support the work of his leaders and so after being asked a second time he agreed to help out at the store too.

Ken operated the store with Betty’s help. Betty handled the purchasing of the “fancy” or “soft” goods and Ken handled the ordering and supervised the stocking of the food items. Together they formed a great team.

Help soon arrived from Australia as Milton Lund began to serve as the store bookkeeper. Maurice and Denese Grace, also from Australia, came as literacy workers, but helped out at the store for six months from October 1971 – April 1972 before beginning work with the Bena Bena people. Maurice served as the Hardware Buyer and Denese served as the secretary in the office.

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To help with the shortage of support workers to run the store long term, Darrell and his family decided to take a shortened ten month furlough. Darrell and his family return to Ukarumpa late in the afternoon of Monday April 3, 1972 on board the SIL Piper Aztec aircraft. The Aztec was then taken out of service for its scheduled 5,000 hour maintenance inspection.

Store Staff - Kath McNeil- She later died in crash of Aztec in May 1972 (Photo Courtesy Of Cedric Grace)

Then on Friday, April 7, 1972 the Aztec flew again for the last time, ultimately crashing late that afternoon in Lae, taking the lives of chief pilot Douglas Hunt, Lae buyer Kathleen McNeil, translation helpers Beb and Nore, translators Darlene Bee and Oren and Francine Claassen (See The Hand Of God book for details of the crash - http://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs/hand_of_god). Kathleen left her work in Lae and worked in the store for a number of months after it first opened before heading to furlough in 1970.

Upon Darrell’s return to the store in April 1972, he was able to relieve Ken Davis. Ken quickly gave the store leadership over to Darrell because Ken had been simultaneously managing the store and working as an assistant to the branch director.

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After resettling into the store, Darrell began flying in the SIL aircraft or driving to Lae once a month in the store pickup to fill in out-of-stock items. These trips gave Darrell the opportunity to search for newly introduced products. On one such buying trip he found a brand new revolutionary electronic calculator at the outstanding price of only K49.00, whereas a regular electric adding machine at that time cost K250.00 and was difficult to use. On a later trip to Lae Darrell found an even more powerful calculator at the unbelievable price of only K19.00 from the same wholesaler. These trips proved invaluable for keeping Ukarumpa connected with the latest technology advances of that time.

Sometimes while shopping in Lae, Darrell located and purchase American grocery items such as Tang, Jell-O, Whip-n-Chill and a few other goodies which the American and the Canadian

members

especially

loved getting. However, these items were often in small quantities and infrequently available. This meant that translation teams working in villages often missed out on these special treats because they were all sold out before they even knew of they were available.

Therefore, Darrell met with management of Burns Philp Co. in Lae, the wholesaler who imported the American food items, and encouraged them to increase their imports of Darrell Lancaster (Photo Courtesy Darrell Lancaster)

such items. The store agreed to purchase a sizable portion of each of their shipments. However, after a year of failing to convince them, the store decided to begin importing some of these goods directly from the USA themselves.

One of the first problems however that they ran into was that they soon discovered there were no direct shipments from the USA to New Guinea. All shipments from the USA were first shipped to the

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Ukarumpa center and the Ukarumpa store in 1968 (Photo Courtesy of Max Mabry)

port of Hong Kong, where the goods were off loaded onto floating barges and the barges remained on the ocean near the harbor until the next tramp steamer heading to New Guinea picked the cargo up.

Only a few small ships were heading to New Guinea and when one was found, it still took months to travel from Hong Kong to Lae. Most of these ships off-loaded cargo at each of dozens of ports along the way and took on additional cargo at most ports. This meant that the store never knew exactly how long a shipment would take from the day we mailed our order to San Francisco and when the goods arrived in Ukarumpa.

The store soon found out that it took between five and nine months to shop goods this way. Therefore, in order to keep a constant supply of these goods on hand, the store ordered fairly large shipments and sometimes placed a second order before the first order arrived. This method continued for many, many years until around 1973 when direct container shipping began between San Francisco and Lae.

During the time of shipping goods via Hong Kong, it came to the store’s attention that several members were interested in purchasing new pianos. Darrell contacted an American piano company and soon received literature and very attractive prices; so he ordered two pianos as a test shipment. Soon the store received invoices and export documentation, but after waiting four to five months without any further notification, the store sent out tracers to attempt to locate the pianos. Unfortunately the store never found the pianos, so they concluded that someone along the way decided they needed pianos in their own homes. After about nine months the insurance company paid the store for the lost pianos.

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A short time later, Darrell was in Lae on one of his buying trips and ran across an Asian merchant who had three great quality new pianos for sale. After some negotiation, they gladly sold the store all three pianos at a very attractive price.

In the early 1970’s a wonderful thing happened. The age of 20’ container shipping began, offering the store direct shipments from the USA to Lae. Sometimes these shipments arrived within 60 days of placing the order. This allowed the store to safely order and ship goods every couple of months.

Due to the favorable exchange rates between the USA dollar and the PNG Kina, the store was able to sell many of the American goods in the store at prices lower than the retail price printed on some of the goods. As a bonus, the store expanded the selection of American goods and were able sell them at lower prices than similar products from Australian. Australians, New Zealander and the British members all learned to enjoy the American food items just as Americans had grown to love the Australian products.

Darrell Lancaster (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

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Darrell Lancaster (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

Darrell Lancaster (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

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1972 – The store (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Store Housewares/Haberdashery section (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

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In the early 1970s the store also began ordering lots of good from New Zealand. Their wholesale prices for dry milk powder, cookies, biscuits and breakfast cereals were very inexpensive and the wide selection of new products made these products also a favorite of the members.

The store in the 1970s continued to grow and as it grew so did the need for more staff to work in the store. Soon the store tapped on the shoulders of Len and Amy Chipping to help. Amy (Skinner) Chipping arrived in New Guinea 1965 to work as a translator. Len arrived a few years later in 1969 and he too came prepared to do translation work. However, because of a lack of support workers, many translators ended up helping in the store. Such was the case first with Amy and then with Len.

Amy was asked to work in the old store for three months in 1965 between completing her Jungle Camp and the opening of Ukarumpa High School as a teaching facility (before that the secondary age students studied using correspondence courses). Amy served as a store assistant, bookkeeper, and kept the shelves stocked. She also ordered goods and distributed the twice weekly bread and meat flown up from Lae. She worked alongside Mac Lowcock, Heather Woods and Oren Claassen who also worked at the store.

Amy had lots of fun at the store. On one occasion she almost had heart failure when a whole bull was brought in for the store to sell! Several strong men were called on and soon arrived. Using their axes they vigorously cut up the whole carcass. While this handled that bull, there were many occasions where the meat arrived late and very smelly, having been offloaded and left for some hours in the heat of the day down in the Lowlands enroute to Ukarumpa. That was always a tough way to end a long day.

Towards the end of January 1966 Amy left work at the store, having added to her general knowledge not only the names of all our New Guinea members, but also of every joint and steak the store could supply! In due course Amy did begin translation work among the Mountain Arapesh (Bukiyip) people in the Sepik area with Ruth Pitt from Australia.

While on her first furlough she met Len who had been assigned to also work as a Bible translator in New Guinea. They became engaged before he sailed to New Guinea from the United Kingdom. After arriving in New Guinea Len spent time at Jungle Camp, receiving necessary orientation and training. In January 44 | P a g e

1970 they were married at Ukarumpa and because of a Branch rule for newlyweds having to stay at Ukarumpa for six months, they could not go out to the village together. That was when Len was asked to work at the store.

He was assigned to work in the store accounting office for six months, but that worked stretched into another six months because of a shortage of financial personnel. Eventually, Margaret Vaughan from the United Kingdom arrived to work in the store’s accounting office and the Chippings eventually ended up doing Bible translation work with the Menya people. Margaret Vaughan had come to New Guinea to be involved in literacy work, but worked at the store until Len Creagh and his family arrived.

After doing translation work for a number of years, Len and Amy came back to Ukarumpa to work in October 1977. Len returned to the store and again worked as the Store Accountant until he and Amy returned to the United Kingdom in August 1979.

Len Chipping (left) (Photo Courtesy of SIL-PNG Branch Archives)

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New Store Manager Arrives – Len Creagh Len and Mavis Creagh and their young family (Judi, Phil, Sue, Heather, Robyn) arrived at Ukarumpa in 1973 and Len was assigned as the Store Bookkeeping and Accountant. He was a great helping hand in all aspects of the store’s operation. When Darrell Lancaster’s family left for furlough in June 1976, Len was the perfect candidate to become the Store Manager.

It was a job he enjoyed and spent much time at. During this time, the Ukarumpa center was in the midst of large expansion as the number of new Bible translation projects started increased significantly.

As these projects expanded, so did the number of children in the school at Ukarumpa along with a growing number of missionary support personnel needed to sustain the Bible translation projects.

Having an accountant at the helm of the store was a great help to the overall smooth operations of the Ukarumpa center.

Len and Mavis Creagh and family in Bine village with Bible translator Lillian Fleischmann (Photo Courtesy of Lillian Fleischmann)

While the job was challenging at times, Len help steer the store not only though the stages of growth, but also through the uncertain times during which the Papua and New Guinea territories became the independent nation of Papua New Guinea. While looking back in time showed a peaceful transition to 46 | P a g e

Len Creagh at the store office – Photo of wife Mavis in the background (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Len Creagh at the store office (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

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independence, yet, the time in 1975 was ripe with fears about how such a transition would be received by both the newly elected national leaders and the government of Australia which had overseen the territories for many years.

Len and the other store staff were happy to learn that the concerns were unfounded and the nation had a very successful transition to independence. There were great celebrations throughout the country, including celebrations at Ukarumpa and at the nearby town of Kainantu on Independence Day, September 16, 1975.

During and after this time, there were no disruptions to the flow of goods to the store by sea, air or land. Such a successful transition meant that the center could continue its Bible translation and other linguistic work uninterrupted and needed supplies for workshops and national men and women who travelled to Ukarumpa for training in Bible translation work would be in stock.

1975 - Independence Day celebrations in front of the Linguistic Center at Ukarumpa

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1975 - Independence Day Kainantu (Photo Courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

1975 - Independence Day Kainantu (Photo Courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

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1975 - Jan Booij from KSST at Independence Day in Kainantu (Photo Courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

1975 - Independence Day in Kainantu (Photo Courtesy of Ivan Schindler)

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Len Creagh training Matthew Waram (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

Len Creagh charging out store goods (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

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Roger and Dawn McIvor and family (Photo Courtesy of Roger McIvor)

In 1975 additional help for the store arrived. Roger and Dawn McIvor and their two children came from Australia. Roger took up the work as Assistant Manager and Dawn worked at the Ukarumpa Post Office.

Stan and Carolyn Neher also arrived from the USA. Stan worked as the store Floor Manager, from 1975 to March of 1978 and he oversaw the staff, the stocking of the store shelves and organized the displays.

Stan was the Assistant Manager too for a short period of time. However, Stan and Carolyn’s main job was looking after one of the Children’s boarding homes (Dean Home) at Ukarumpa.

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The store continued it service of providing of good for translators in remote village allocations. All food orders came to the store either by radio message or by mail. Once the orders were made up they were sent off to the airstrip for delivery by helicopter or the Cessna 206 aircraft that SIL operated. Smaller items of food were sent through the Post office for those who had access to mail delivery.

Roger’s work as Assistant Manager supervised ordering the store goods. Grocery items came from suppliers in New Zealand, Australia and the USA. Hardware came from suppliers in Australia and sewing supplies, clothing and household goods came from Hong Kong. Roger also made frequent trips to the coastal town of Lae by road, to purchase items in between shipments. However, the freight rates from San Francisco, CA were cheaper per ton than out of Sydney and so many good came from the USA.

On a couple of occasions Roger tried ordering eggs from New Zealand, but each time the eggs came scrambled!!! Eventually, the Evangelical Swiss Mission, working in the area supplied eggs to the store.

SIL Members’ Store in 1976 (Drawing Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Roger McIvor and Len Creagh reviewing orders in 1976 (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Over the years the store tried a variety of companies to supply them with fresh bread and rolls.

However, while the supply was constant, over the years ‘surprises’ were found inside the bread, such as chewing-gum and plastic wrappers! Not every supplier had these problems, but from time to time the store had to change suppliers to make sure that all customers bought were bread products.

One such incident during Roger’s time happened when a translator came into see him and said he had found a pencil in his unsliced white loaf of bread. Roger apologized, replaced the bread and contacted the bakery in Goroka (a small town further in the Highlands and two hours away). They too were very apologetic. However, when the next delivery of bread arrived from the bakery the same translator purchased a loaf of bread again.

He came back a few hours later and showed Roger that he had found in his loaf of bread, a notebook!

Roger told him to keep the notebook, but not to tell anyone about it as everyone would want the same bonus!!!

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Stan Neher in the office at the store (Photo Courtesy of Bruce Neher)

During the time Roger worked at the store he wanted to open up the store to make more room on the sales floor. Roger checked with Jack Ruth in the Building Department to see if what was possible and they found out they could move the wall at the end of the retail area some 15-20 feet back. This allowed not only for more sales areas, but also for an office to be built with easy access to the sales area. The previous office was on the second floor of the store. The new office had a two way glass window and with access to both the sales floor and the back storage area and allowed for more items to be stocked for the Ukarumpa residents

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Stan Neher with Pita Kasito and another store employee at morning devotions (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

August 1977 - Stan Neher and Bayuna packing tribal orders (Photo Courtesy of Bruce Neher)

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Appliance sales at the store (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Due to the increased demand for appliances and with the extra room in the new store, the store began to order and display a wide variety of appliances. The store began importing Pope wringer washing machines from Australia as well as stocking LP gas ranges, refrigerators, kerosene space heaters, and other appliance at special wholesale discounts from WR Carpenters in Lae. This meant that customers could purchase these appliances in the store at lower prices than they would pay in Lae, saving them the additional cost of a trip to Lae and the cost of shipping the appliance to Ukarumpa!

On September 16, 1975 the Territory of Papua and New Guinea became a united country with the name, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Mr. Michael Somare became the first Prime Minister of the free and independent country. This resulted in many positive changes as well as some that required additional work by the store.

As part of a plan by the government to nationalize of the work force from largely expatriate workers to PNG citizens, the government embarked on an eight point plan for development. One of the eight points involved the training of the national work force. While training had always been a part of the store’s 57 | P a g e

operation, this new government plan required the store to provide more significant training. As part of the plan, certain job required the turning over of the work position to a national citizen when the missionary went on furlough.

Roger and other store staff worked diligently to train the store staff in all areas of operation. Soon the need for expatriate missionaries to operate the store lessened significantly. Before Roger left PNG he was able to train Timothy Lalo to be the Assistant Manager. When Timothy left the store, Gware Nanong took over as Assistant Manager.

Len Creagh also worked with many of the store staff and he started them on correspondence courses. Len and his wife Mavis helped with the course supervision. Eventually the courses became so popular the store needed to get help from other SIL members. A high school teacher, Pat Lillie offered to help with supervising these courses.

L-R - Timothy Lalo, Gware Nanong, Tom Inato (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

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Len Creagh teaching store staff (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

Eventually Len Chipping returned to work at the store in 1977 after God directed the Chippings away from their work in Menya (which Carl and Pat Whitehead from Canada picked up) and to Finance work in the Wycliffe office in the United Kingdom. When the Chipping eventually returned to Ukarumpa, Len was again called up on to help out with finances. Initially Len served in the Branch Finance Office as a bookkeeper/account and then as the Finance Manager for a short time.

With the heavy rain fall experienced at Ukarumpa, the teenage boys on center desired to become wantto-be Boy Scouts, but soon discovered it was difficult to camp out without getting drenched. However, when the new store was completed, with a large covered loading dock (Dry Dock), it became a fairly common sight to see several teenage boys in their sleeping bags, camped out on the Dry Dock, while a cloud burst was soaking the surrounding valley.

As the sales in the store began to grow work began in 1981 on an addition a second floor grocery storage area. Leon Shanely supervised construction of this project as well as the addition to storage sheds on the back of the store to house hardware items and bed mattresses.

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There were many reasons why the store was so well liked and assisted the members in so many ways. The following story illustrates one of the side benefits of the new store building!

1985 - Store Loading Dry Dock (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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1976 - Store loading at the dry dock (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

1975 – The store (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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Store Staff in 1976 - Expats L-R- Darrell Lancaster, Len Creagh, Roger McIvor and Patty. New Guineans - Middle Row L-R – Gware Nanong (3rd f/left), Tom Inato (next to Gware), Sorak Bani (Pink shirt), Bayuna (next), then Timothy Lalo (next to Roger), and th Enoch Aranka. Front Row L-R- Mick, Hensen Mafisim, Mathew Waram (5 f/ left). (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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New Store Manager Arrives – Larry Seibel In July of 1976, Larry and Doreen Seibel, with their children Dove and Dean arrived from Canada. Larry's first assignment was to serve as store accountant. Len Creagh, the previous accountant had moved to the position of store manager when Darrel Lancaster returned to the USA. Since Len had no one to replace him in the accounting, he had kept all accounting information in manila file folders for each month. During this period of time there were two year endings with complete physical inventory stock sheets. However, no Profit and Loss Statements or Balance Sheet had been prepared, so along with training store staff it took Larry four months to get everything caught up.

Larry and Doreen Seibel Prayer Card (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

When the Creagh family returned to Australia for their furlough in 1977, Larry was appointed as the Store Manager. Len Chipping took over the role of the Store Accountant.

During Larry’s first year as manager, Roger and Dawn McIvor (Assistant Manager) returned to Australia.

Gil and Agnes Shepherd arrived from the USA and Gil was assigned to the store as the Assistant

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Manager, a role he remained in for almost a year.Gil and Agnes Shepherd were then assigned to the coastal town of Lae where there was a SIL office. Fred and Carol Williams, also from the USA, moved to Ukarumpa from Lae. Fred was assigned to the store as Assistant Store Manager. Some months later the Williams moved into the area of literacy and Fred and Ginnie Jessup arrived at Ukarumpa and Fred Jessup assumed the Assistant Store Manager role. During all this time, Stan Neher served as the Floor Manager even though Stan and his wife Caroline's primary role was to serve as Children Home Parents.

Mathew Waram worked as the Grocery Buyer at the store (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel

The store valued having timely and accurate monthly financial statements and progress was made in reducing dead stock, improving stock turn-overs and having regular and dependable stock levels. Larry was even able to convince some of the Hong Kong sales representatives to a “consignment� arrangement. It seemed quite a foreign concept to the sales representatives, but they agreed to try it. It was a wonderful arrangement to pay the supplier for merchandise only after it had been sold. This worked especially well on items such as shoes, Tonka toys, two wheel bikes and other items that normally had a slower turn-over rate. However, the majority of stock sold in the store continued to

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1976 - Lomat – Store Secretary (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

come from suppliers in Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada with some goods also coming from Hong Kong, Great Britain and some even from as far away as Italy.

So, during this time and as with other managers, Larry continued the work of training the national staff in all areas of store work.

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Larry with Yatu, the Store Pricer (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

Larry Seibel and Henry Heriso reviewing orders (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

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Larry Seibel and Enoch Aranka – Produce/Scaling Clerk at the store (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

Getting ready to paint the store floor (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

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1976 – Store Staff Front Row (L-R) – Pita Kasito, Hansen, Unknown, Enoch Aranka, Matthew Waram, Keuti, Gabriel, three Unknown, Simon, Back Row (L-R) Unknown, Yatu, Unknown, Sorak Bani, Len Chipping, Merrip, Unknown, Gware Nanong, Jerry, Larry Seibel (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

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1976 - New store sign and landscaping (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

Larry was able to develop the entrance of the store with a store sign with a nice garden area.

While the sign to the casual observer might give the impression the store was an ‘exclusive club’ for the mission staff working at Ukarumpa. However, it should be noted that the contract which SIL has had with the country of Papua New Guinea called for the support services to serve the needs of the mission staff of SIL and was not designed to make a profit or compete with area village ‘trade stores’ which were being developed in almost every Papua New Guinea village.

These trade stores in the villages carried the basic food items and a few other items such as lanterns, batteries, bush knives for garden work and sleeping blankets. In order to allow other people living in the valley to use the store and still allow SIL to stay within their government contract work restrictions, eventually a card system was implemented which while allowing others to use the store if necessary also provided an incentive for the local villagers to support their local trade store economy which was being developed as a means for the Papua New Guineans to build a sustainable village economy.

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While local trade stores could support the needs of the local New Guinea citizens, the SIL Members’ Store was an essential part of supporting the growing Bible translation work of which a large portion of the work was supported by the mission center at Ukarumpa. Over the years, the store played a vital role in allowing the large number of translation and support personnel to stay focused on their work by providing the grocery, hardware and household needs to support what eventually would be a community of over 1,000 workers living and working at Ukarumpa!

Doreen Seibel originally was assigned to serve as secretary in the Technical Studies Office. However, it wasn’t long before Doreen was assigned to manage the Fancy or haberdashery department for the store. This husband and wife team idea worked well, especially when Larry went down to Lae on store business. On these trips Doreen would often go along to purchase items for the Fancy department.

Doreen Seibel (Fancy Department Manager) with Jerry, Fancy Clerk (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

This Fancy department stocked a range of clothing, sewing goods, school supplies and a range of toys for the children at Ukarumpa. Special care had to be given to purchasing just the right amount of fabric since the store was the only place in the highlands of the country to stock fabric and many women at 70 | P a g e

Ukarumpa sewed much of their family clothing, bedding and drapery for the homes and few women want to wear a dress made of the same fabric as the other women. Therefore, all the Fancy department managers quickly learned to purchase only enough fabric to be used for two or three dresses and to have a good selection of various styles, prints and colors! On occasion when greater amounts of fabric were purchased, one print could show up on one girl’s dress and on curtains in another girl’s bedroom!

Aaron Hoffman, the Associate Director for Support Affairs, was encouraged by efforts of Larry and the other store staff in keeping the store in a positive financial position, in monitoring stock levels and turnover rates and bringing new efficiencies to the store. Soon Larry was asked by Aaron to assist the other departments at Ukarumpa in these areas while still supervising the store.

Larry Seibel and Gware Nanong – Assistant Manager and former Hardware Manager at the store (Photo Courtesy of Larry Seibel)

The newly created Director’s Assistant for Finance was developed to help standardize and coordinate all financial matters in the various SIL departments at Ukarumpa and in the regions in the country. This required setting up of standardized basic accounting records in all SIL departments at Ukarumpa. To set up this new system and have oversight of it, Larry passed more of his store management duties to Fred 71 | P a g e

Jessup and with Len Creagh who had just returned from furlough. Len was assigned to work as Larry’s assistant when Larry agreed to take on this second assignment. For six month Larry wore the two hats, but it became clear that Larry needed to pay more attention to this new role as assisting with center wide finances. Fred Jessup agreed to take over as store manager and the store employee Gware Nanong was moved from managing the hardware department to the role of Assistant Store Manager.

Larry continued on as Director’s Assistant for Finance until his family returned to Canada for their furlough in 1980. They were then reassigned to the Wycliffe Bible Translator USA home office located at that time in Huntington Beach, California. As the Operations Manager for Finance there Larry was responsible for the department which handled the accounting for the USA home office as well as the world wide ministries. Doreen served in the receipting department.

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New Store Manager Arrives – Fred Jessup In 1977 Fred and Ginnie Jessup arrived from Lindsay, California and Fred was assigned to work in the store and Ginnie to assisting in the primary school. Initially Fred served as the Assistant Store Manager, until Larry was assigned to Director’s Assistant For Finance. At that time Fred became the Store Manager.

Fred and Ginnie were newlyweds when they arrived in Papua New Guinea, having both lost their spouses a few years earlier. Each had four adult girls which made their marriage an instant ‘Brady Bunch’ type of family!

Fred and his first wife Rachel joined Wycliffe in 1971 and served with Wycliffe in Colombia where Fred was the buyer in Bogota. Before that, Fred had been a retail merchant, owning several variety stores in the USA from 1953 to 1969 and after selling those stores, owning a variety store in Australia for several years. Fred’s wife Rachel developed terminal cancer while in Colombia and so they returned to their home in Lindsay, California where Rachel died in 1975.

A year later Fred met Ginnie Nicholson and they were soon married. Ginnie was a school psychologist and there were positions open at Ukarumpa for Fred’s abilities in retail and Ginnie’s abilities in the school.

The Ukarumpa store was a natural place for Fred to work. He not only had a business head, but also a heart for the national men and women who worked at the store. One of Fred’s passions was making sure each store staff member knew the story of Jesus and had had been given a clear presentation of the Gospel. He freely shared the Gospel message each day at the store devotions and when yearly reviews were conducted with store staff, each one was presented with the plan of salvation and the free offer of the Gospel.

Fred & Ginnie Jessup (Photo Courtesy of Fred & Ginnie Jessup)

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Fred had one of the most unique jobs in the entire world. In the late 1970s the government of Papua New Guinea started a retirement fund called the National Providence Fund (NPF). The store was required to contribute a certain percentage of a Papua New Guinea employee’s wages toward this fund which would then be given to each worker upon retirement. The NPF required each store employee to have a birthday.

This presented quite a problem because few records of any kind were kept in the years preceding the 1950s when the Australians discovered the people of the Highlands. So, Fred had an opportunity to sit down with each store employees and try and discern when they were born. Most dates were determined by how many years after the big war (World War II) happened. However, in most cases it was only a guess as to the year and the exact month could only be determined by the wet or dry season.

The exact day was anyone’s guess.

Fred compiled a list of months and days and as he met with each store staff who didn’t have an accurate birth record, he spread the birthdays out equally throughout the year so as to not bunch them up all at one, since retirement happened on the anniversary of the birthday.

Fred continued the good work of helping a variety of store men and women to receive the training needed to be successful merchants and store owners in the newly developing country. Some of the training involved sending staff members to the Uni Tech University in Lae for courses in business and accounting. Umuna Bonabate and Bob Joseph were two men who attended these courses in Lae.

Umuna Bonabate (Photo Courtesy Charles Micheals)

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Bob Joseph (Photo Courtesy Len Creagh)

July 13, 1983 - Fred and Ginnie featured in local newspaper for selling Lindsay Olives at the store at Ukarumpa - Lindsay, California Gazette (Photo Courtesy of Fred Jessup)

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A New Store Manager Arrives – Chuck Micheals In 1985 Chuck and Barb Micheals arrived at Ukarumpa. Chuck came to run the store after Fred Jessup retired and with his wife Ginnie moved back to the United States. Chuck had a number of years of experience in the grocery business in the United States both working in the various store departments, but also managing stores.

1985 - Chuck Micheals in the store (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Chuck quickly took up the work of learning the operations of the store. After a number of months in the store Chuck realized that in order to make room for anticipated growth of the center, he would have to take out the Fancy buying office that protruded into the store retail area. Soon after finishing that project which allowed shoppers to and opened the store so that you could walk from side to side in the store without having to maneuver around the office, Chuck added a fourth aisle to the grocery side of the store. This allowed the store chest freezers to be moved to the middle of the store in front of the checkout lanes to make it easier for shoppers to access the frozen meat in the freezers. It also opened a new wall for merchandising.

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Early orders for store goods were transmitted to overseas agents using “Cablegrams” and “Telex” orders. These orders where first written down on paper and then delivered to the Telex office at Ukarumpa who would then convert the text to a “Cablegram” or “Telex”. Replies would generally come back within a week or two and shipments would generally arrive within two to three months from Australia and three to four months from the USA.

Chuck Working on a grocery order (Photo Courtesy of Wycliffe USA Archives)

As the center grew, so did the store. In 1985 the store was doing around K 500,000 per year (roughly US$ 500,000). A few years later the store sales grew to over K 1,000,000 per year and eventually grew to around K 4,000,000 per year (roughly US$ 1,250,000). Eventually the center residents lovingly referred to the store as, "Chuck’s Pretty Good Grocer”.

The store began a wholesale business in 1993. Discounts of 5% were given on case orders, which was an additional discount to the 15% discount given at the cash register for SIL Members, employees of SIL and the Bible Translation Association, Pioneer Bible Translators and Lutheran Bible Translators. Other mission agencies received a 5% discount at the cash register and commercial business and local citizens

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not associated with SIL paid full price. This rate structure was put into place so that the store did not compete with local trade stores and other for profit businesses set up in the country.

With the 15% discount, the store was between 7% - 30% cheaper on grocery goods than other stores in this country. This saved SIL members and employees a total of around US $ 350,000 per year. However, those who only received a 5% discount or no discount paid a price on good higher than area trade stores and grocery stores in Kainantu and Lae.

As the numbers of Bible translation projects grew, so did the number of people at Ukarumpa. Sales grew in the 1980s from K 500,000 per annum to over K 4,000,000 in the late 1990s when Ukarumpa was at its peak. While the store staff in 1985 was less than 20, by 2000 store staff had grown to 35 employees. By 2000, the store was handling around 25 20’ containers each year from overseas and another 40 containers from local companies located in Papua New Guinea.

As the store grew, space became very limited. A majority of the electrical inventory was moved to the Electrical department in the late 1980s as the majority of the hardware goods moved to the Construction department where they opened up a retail store. The store began to expand its line of and Houseware items taking on a larger variety of goods and services.

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STORE HOUSEWARE (FANCY) STAFF The store soon realized that with the growing number of homes on center, there was an ongoing need to see both refrigerators and stoves. The store carried a good line of both for many years.

As the center grew, so did the demand for goods beside hardware and groceries. Fabric and sewing products were added as well as a small variety of toys. Initially toys were ordered from USA catalogue companies, but eventually toy companies from Australia began making regular stops at the store for orders and suppliers in Asia also stopped in to sell products.

Eventually, the Fancy department carried school supplies, clothing as well as greeting cards and books about Papua New Guinea and other best-selling Christian books. In the mid-1990s, the store began a video rental service to supply families with wholesome VHS videos since TV has yet to this day come to the Highlands at Ukarumpa.

The Fancy buyers office was initially located on the ground floor under the stairs with a window looking out overlooking the checkout lanes. Harriet Annis was the Fancy manager in the early 1980s followed

by Libby Hopper, Robin Miller, Luci Tumas, Sandy Bradford and others. Eventually in the early 1990s the management of the Fancy department was turned over to a national woman and renamed the Houseware Department. Noria Tapo has operated this department for almost 20 years and has done an outstanding job of buying from wholesales as well as managing the pricing, stocking and displaying of goods in addition to supervising a Fancy staff of three other workers.

Gware Nanong Selling Hardware (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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Gware Nanong Selling Garden Seeds

Rebecca Yalibu (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Sorok Bani (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Brenda Pakma, Colleen Schultz and Corrie Bootsma (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Libby Hooper Bill Groot (Houseware Supervisor) (Employment Manager) (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Josiah Dayui (Hardware Manager)

Staff (Houseware Staff)

1985 Barb and Jenny Micheals in the Fancy Department (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Gware Nanong, Fred Jessup, Harriet Annis (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Josiah Dayui, Chuck Micheals and Gware Nanong

1991 - Luci Tumas - Houseware Manager (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Chuck Micheals, Rose Tepi (Clerk), Tessie Kilina (Clerk), Ekofa Kereka (Clerk), Noria Tapo (Houseware Mgr) Isia (Clerk) (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Gware Nanong (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals) from the Fancy Department looking into the Store

Noria Tapo - Houseware Manager (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Brenda Pakma- Houseware Clerk) and Mary Majors (Teacher)

1996 - Greeting Cards and Books for Sale (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Clothing in Fancy Section (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Houseware products (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Noria Tapo – Houseware Manager

Many large tickets items such as refrigerators, stoves, washing machines, TVs and radios were supplied by the Brian Bell Pty. Ltd. Company. The Goroka store supplied both goods and services to these items.

Brian Bell was very accommodating in their supply of these large ticket items by allowing 90 days for payment and providing excellent service if needed.

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Brian Bell –Wholesaler Who Sold Goods to the Store (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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FRESH MEAT DEPARTMENT ADDED In the mid-1990s, the store added a small fresh meat department and sent Steven Bebeno to New Zealand for butchery training. Once the fresh meat case was installed, it was an instant hit!

To acquire the meat case the store partnered with Paul Mishler, owner of Mishler Meats of Shipshewana, Indiana in the USA. Paul was the grandfather of Josh Mishler, the son-in-law of Charles Micheals. Josh’s parents, Steve and Lynn Mishler worked in Papua New Guinea and Josh was introduced to the Micheals’ daughter Maria during high school. Since Charles has meat butchery experience, he and Paul quickly became friends.

Barb Micheals at the New Meat Counter (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

The Micheals went on furlough to the U>S.A. in 1992 and during this time Charles worked with Paul to secure a variety of meat machines, including a mince (Hamburg) grinder, luncheon meat slicer, meat band saw, cutting tables and an eight foot long meat display case. These items were shipped to the store in 1993 and that year the store made application to the New Zealand government to train a meat

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butcher. Steven Bebeno from Ukarumpa village was selected to take part in a training scheme which paid for him to travel to Auckland, NZ to undergo a six month long butchery training program.

The New Zealand government paid for the training at the meat cutting school, paid a fortnightly wage in addition to covering all room and board costs.

The SIL Members’ Store sponsored his visa, paid his

travel to Port Moresby and back and covered his store wages while he was gone (which was paid to his family who remained in PNG). Upon arrival back to the store, Steven was a trained butcher and had a complete set of meat knives.

The purchase of the meat case in the U.S.A. that was eventually shipped to Ukarumpa was an interesting adventure and one that only God could orchestrate. The timing of events was quite incredible and how things all worked together demonstrated God’s supply for this work.

Paul Mishler (with cap) with Used Meat Case for Sale (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

The desire of the store at Ukarumpa to put in a fresh meat case happened at the same time Paul Mishler was looking to put in a small retail section to his current wholesale meat business. Paul was looking for a 12 foot meat case and Charles was looking for an 8 foot meat case. Neither man wanted to purchase 87 | P a g e

a new meat case due to the high ticket price of a new unit.

So, when the two men got together in

Indiana they set off to find two meat cases.

To their astonishment a 20 foot used meat case came up for sale in a meat store that had recently closed. The meat case had two sections, a 12 foot piece and a 8 foot piece and could be bought in its entirely for $ 100.00!!! Ideal except if the meat cases were taken apart one case would need a right end cap and the other case would need a left end cap. The possibility of finding both a right and left end cap for a model this old seemed impossible. However, after looking at a few used refrigerator parts stores the hunt for the end caps had almost been given up when Paul spotted a right end cap at the very end of a row of various meat end caps! After digging through the end caps Paul discovered that there was not only a right end cap, but a left hand one as well.

Soon, the meat case was on its way to a shop that separated the pieces and installed the end caps!

Once the end caps were painted to match the meat case color, the meat cases made their way to Mishler Meats in Shipshewana, Indiana and the store at Ukarumpa, each with the exact size needed!

Steven began to butcher meat, make a daily grind of mince and ordered luncheon meats. The meat counter was and still is a huge success and when it opened it employed an additional four store staff.

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Barb Micheals at the New Meat Counter with Fellow SIL Member Sue Kovach.and Meat Clerk Tinqkui Joel (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Chuck Micheals (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Ruth Apari, Carol Safarita, Amasa Tiyampa

SIL Member Karen Wood shops at new fresh meat market.

(Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Meat Manager Steven Bebeno (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

New meat case added in the early 2008 (Photo Courtesy of Scott Nightingale)

Meat Clerks Nuzi Noafe and Mare Seseko

As a result of our ability to sell fresh meat, several attempts were made to start a local chicken business which would supply local, freshly killed chickens to the store. At first, an attempt was made to purchase one old day old chickens from the local Swiss Mission along with all the feed needed to grow the chicken to the perfect 3.0 – 3.5 kg size.

The arrangement was made that the store would purchase the chickens at a certain price, provided they were of the right size. However, that did not work out as the chicken feed was often given out to ‘wantoks’ and chickens came in under weight. A second attempt was made with the store purchasing the day old chickens and the villagers buying their own feed with a lesser price offered by the store.

However that too was unsuccessful as jealously between clans in the valley caused strained relations 90 | P a g e

and so the project was stopped. The store began to purchase fresh chicken from Niguini Tablebirds Pty. Ltd. located in Lae, which were then shipped up to the store.

New meat case added in the early 2008 (Photo Courtesy of Scott Nightingale)

STORE BREAD DELIVERIES In the 1970s, the Kainantu Bakery, operated by Jan Booij opened up and began to supply the store with fresh bread. It was during this time that the store went from unsliced bread to sliced bread from the bakery in Kainantu, a great step forward!

The Kainantu Bakery continued to supply the store until the mid-1990s when bread began to be supplied from Goroka and the quality of the Kainantu bakery products went down.

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Henson (pictured left) unloading bread from Ramu Bakery in Kainantu (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Henry Heriso (Grocery Manager) and Chuck Micheals (Store Director) Stocking Bread Daily (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Bread from Morobe Bakery – Goroka (Mon, Tue, Thur, Friday) Bread from Ramu Bakery – Kainantu (Wed)

DAIRY AND FROZEN PRODUCTS In the mid-1980s, the Christian Leaders’ Training College (CLTC) in Mt. Hagen began to supply the store with eggs and fresh milk. That continued until the late 1980s when the Highlands Highway became increasingly dangerous in terms of both road condition and road hold ups. It was after CLTC stopped delivery that the Yonki Evangelical Brotherhood Church (Swiss Mission) began to supply the store with fresh eggs. The eggs came from the Swiss Mission farm in Yauna (nearby Yonki Dam) and were delivered by one of the most delightful and helpful missionary men the store knew, Willy Moser.

Goods were also more available in country and so refrigerated goods continued to be expanded in the store. The store purchased several upright dairy cases for cheese and other products and chest freezers for frozen meats, frozen vegetables and a limited supply of ice cream treats.

For a number of years, the store carried a wide variety of fresh frozen reef fish flown in on the SIL aircraft from translation allocations near the ocean. Barramundi, Lemon fish, White fish and mackerel among other reef fish were always a quick sale when available. On occasion the store also carried fresh frozen crocodile tails.

In the early 1980s a pre-fab freezer unit was added to the store and in the early 1990s that freezer section was expanded to close in part of the store loading dock. A larger cooler was built to also handle the increased demand for chilled products.

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First Store Freezer expansion in the 1970s (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Goodlet) Creagh)

Chuck with Jim Moufa (Dairy Manager) (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Pupunawa Waropi (Dairy Clerk)

(Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Eventually in the late 1990s, the store purchased a number of modern upright retail freezer and dairy coolers. Until then, the store mainly used chest type freezers for frozen goods.

The increase in frozen goods was largely due to the expansion of the grocery business operated by Goroka businessman Sir Daniel Leahy.

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Daniel was a nephew of the famous Leahy brothers who

explored the highlands of New Guinea in the late 1930s and discovered more and 1.5 million people living in stone-age culture. Daniel started several businesses as a young man and he eventually grew those businesses to become the largest single private employer in the country.

His vast estates

included hotels, car dealerships, shipping and transportation companies and also several retail grocery chains and grocery and frozen/dairy warehouses.

Those freezer warehouses and frozen transportation trucks made it possible for the store to significantly increase the amount of chilled and frozen product. Chuck Micheals flew from Port Moresby to Goroka and sat next to Sir Daniel Leahy and he was a very nice man who spent the first 15 minutes of preboarding helping various Papua New Guineans store their luggage on the plane. He had never visited Ukarumpa and was invited, but never took the time to come.

Several years before meeting Sir Daniel, Chuck had the opportunity to attend the grand opening of his large freezer warehouse in Lae. When complementing Sir Daniel on the warehouse, he exclaimed that his only regret was that he had built it too small.

He had only built it with his A$ 3.0 million dollar

available cash and that proved too little of an expenditure. A few years later he expanded the complex significantly.

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2000 - Store Layout (Drawing Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

By 1997, the store started a salesman positions whereby the Houseware clerks began to visit various departments and the SIL Primary School, located near the Aiyura Airstrip to take orders. This service was to try and better serve the departments and teachers and to lessen the flow of traffic into the store which at times became very congested. At peak periods all four checkout lanes were fully running for more than three hours straight. This pushed store deliveries some nights to as late as 7:00 pm. The store added several store delivery helpers on these days and on occasion rented a delivery truck from the SIL Auto shop to help with deliveries.

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IMPORTING GROCERY GOODS As Papua New Guinea began to emerge into the world of nations, government regulations began to grow as did the costs associated with it. National efforts were underway to grow the local economy and so certain products were banned from importation such as sugar, when the Ramu Sugar company began operations in the 1980s. From the very start of the store, most goods sold in the store were produced outside of the country.

GROCERY SUPPLIES COMING FROM THE USA – Mark Ross Goods imported from the USA came from Market Wholesale, a wholesaler grocery warehouse in the USA. JAARS, an arm of SIL International had a warehouse and office in Riverside, California that worked with our export agent in San Francisco, California, Mark Ross & Company (started 60 years ago by James Connell) to handle the shipment of goods to the store. Mark Ross consolidated the orders from Market Wholesale and paid the warehouse and invoice Wycliffe USA for these charges. Wycliffe USA’s Finance office paid Mark Ross before the goods were shipped and then billed the SIL-PNG Branch who then charged the store account.

Mark Ross normally charged a 5% fee for handling these orders. However, that did not include trucking charges and sea freight charges (normally around US$ 3,500 per 20’ sea freight container to ship from San Francisco, CA to Lae, Papua New Guinea) which were added on.

These costs too were paid my

Mark Ross and then invoiced to Wycliffe USA and charged to the SIL-PNG Branch.

Grocery Orders Our member’s store at Ukarumpa wanted to try buying groceries from a new supplier. We were asked to look in the Riverside CA. area and see what could be done. I found a local grocery wholesaler and checked prices. With our office doing the buying and shipping it appeared as though we could do it at a savings. We had enough food on the orders we received from our member's store to fill two 20’ sea containers. The wholesaler started loading one morning at three AM. I went in to observe and make sure all was going well. As they were pulling the orders they quickly filled the first container.

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They finished pulling the order and the second container was only half full. They were out of many items we ordered. I could not call the store for instructions or direction because of the time difference.

This was before the age of fast communication. What should I do?

I can’t send a half full container. We would lose all our savings. We had to finish the container and get it delivered to the port in Long Beach. We were running out of time. The foreman wanted to fill the rest of the container with dog food and gave instructions to his men to do just that. I demanded that he stop.

All I would have to do is send a half of container of dog food to PNG! I had to do something and I had to do it now! The Lord gave me the idea of just going back to the beginning of the order and duplication each item with two additional cases of each item until the container was full. We did that and the container was delivered on time. Because of staffing we decided that we would not buy wholesale groceries again.

GROCERY GOODS COMING FROM AUSTRALIA Goods imported from Australia were handled initially through the export agent, Geoffrey Hughes Pty. Limited. They purchased good directly from manufactures and for a fee consolidated the goods into containers for shipment to Papua New Guinea. Several of the products purchased directly from manufactures included these companies.

The major supplier of grocery goods from Australia was David’s Holding Pty. Ltd. located in Brisbane, Australia. Graham Gibson, brother of Gwen Gibson, was an Australia grocer and assisted the store in dealing with David’s Holdings. Chuck Micheals and Graham Gibson visited the Brisbane dealer in the early 1990s, which resulted in a larger range of good being shipped to the store at warehouse pricing.

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(Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

While the volume of store goods was never officially tracked the sales of the store rose from approximately US$ 400,000 in 1985 to around US$ 3,000,000 in 2000. From time to time in the mid1990s, Chuck Micheals, the store director took various surveys of the store’s impact and found out that consistently the store goods were priced on average between 7% - 30% cheaper (after the SIL 15% discount) than good purchased locally anywhere in the country. It was estimated that the savings to members amounted to more than a million dollars in savings per year for the members of the SIL PNG branch. Those savings did not include the savings from not having to travel to other cities to purchase goods.

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GROCERY GOODS COMING FROM NEW ZEALAND Goods from New Zealand were handled by export agent Crosby Exports Ltd. They too shipped goods for the store by consolidating containers for a fee. The main products the store imported from New Zealand were Anchor Milk Power (tinned and bulk), tinned butter and Griffin Biscuits.

LODGING GOVERNMENT REQUIRED PAPERWORK FOR OVERSEAS SHIPMENTS Over the years, the amount of paperwork required for import of groceries increased. In the early years, goods were imported with little advanced lodging of paperwork.

However, in the 1990s the PNG

government instituted strict quarantine requirements which required filing of paperwork with the PNG Quarantine Office in Port Moresby and Lae which listed all the goods that contained meat, cheese, other dairy products, eggs and noodles.

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In order to import these goods special permission had to be sought and to receive permission goods from certain countries of import were required to have health certificates from the factory of origin certifying how the products had been cared for and processed.

The most challenging of these quarantine requirements was one that required all wood coming into the country to be fumigated when it arrived in the country a certificate of fumigation had to be presented to the Quarantine Office in Lae.

The very first time this fumigation requirement was put into place the requirements for compliance was less than 30 days from the store receiving the notice. Since store shipments normally took two months once they left San Francisco, CA to reach the port city of Lae, this meant that store shipments were already on the water and in transit. This meant a significant challenge for the three store containers on the ships since all the grocery goods were stacked on wooden pallets inside the containers.

When the Lae Quarantine Office was told of our containers on the water and that we had not received notice of the new requirements in time they informed the store that we would have to return all three containers to the USA since the wooden pallets would come without being fumigated and without a certificate.

Needless to say, that would have cost the store over US $ 25,000 to reship the three containers back to USA, have them repacked and reloaded. So, Chuck Micheals flew down to Port Moresby and requested a meeting with the Chief Quarantine Office there. Our SIL – PNG Port Moresby Director of Government Relations, Randy Karcher helped me organize the meeting and then stayed with Chuck while he met with the Chief Quarantine Officer.

After just a short meeting, the store was granted a one-time

exemption and was allowed to import the goods without the fumigation or certificate.

This changed the way the store loaded grocery goods in containers. While more goods could be loaded in a container without wooden pallets, the hand stacking costs for loading the containers in the USA and unloading the containers did add to cost of shipping. It also increased the breakage of goods as product could not be shrink-wrapped on pallets.

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Corrugated Cartons For many years we shipped to Papua New Guinea via sea freight. We would make crates out of plywood with a pallet bottom so we could pick them up with a forklift. The cost for a crate 4 foot wide by 4 foot deep and 4 foot high was about $200.00. We were proud of the crates, they were strong and protected our cargo well. Over the years with all the rough handling there was little damage. I was concerned about the cost but could not see a better method.

When Peggy and I first moved to California to serve at the Pacific Shipping Office we met a young man who became a very very close friend. We would tease each other about the crates we made with plywood. He earned his engineering degree and is a corrugation engineer. He designs anything out of cardboard -boxes, displays, etc. at his work near San Diego.

Forrest Watson is his name. We call him Forrie. One day I called Forrie and asked him what he thought about making a big 4’x4’x4’ cardboard box for shipping. Would it be strong enough? Would it be cost effective? Did he think something could be made? Forrie worked on several ideas he had and was able to come up with one he thought would work. He made one box and sent it up to us to be used on a trial.

It worked great. I started to order large quantities of the boxes. They were built to fit snuggly into an 8x8x20 foot sea freight cargo container. To this day JAARS is using these corrugated containers. The cost of the box was $50.00. This was a savings of $150.00 over plywood. A saving of thousands of dollars a year We are Blessed!

The new quarantine requirements also increased the amount of time it took to clear goods through customs as containers that used to be cleared without being opened now required all containers to be opened, unloaded on the shipping dock for personal inspection for items not declared on the original quarantine forms. This increased the pilferage of goods while the products were out of the containers and added to the length of time containers sat on the wharf which added to the storage fees incurred on the wharf.

PRICING OF OVERSEAS GOODS Pricing of good for many years was a labor intensive system. In 1985 the store used a manual system of pricing which used both the weight and size of the cases of product to determine total cost since sea 103 | P a g e

fright is charged as a percentage of space used and local delivery of good from for the city of Lae were charged by the kilo. The volume of each case was determined against the total volume of space used in the containers so that larger bulkier items would be charged a higher percentage of the sea freight costs. Weight taken would mean that heavier items would pay a higher percentage of the overall local freight weight.

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Containers of goods at the Port Of Lae - Maha Bati, SIL custom’s agent and Barb Micheals (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

In addition to determining cost of transportation, many other factors needed to be included in the total cost of shipping goods from overseas to Ukarumpa. These costs included the charges the wholesaler would add to the product to cover their “picking” or ‘sourcing” products.

Many overseas freight

consolidators or export agents charged a fee of between 5% – 7% of the products costs. Additional

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costs also included the expenses of moving the freight from the warehouse overseas to the sea port, the country of departure’s cost of wharfage and loading fees, the cost of sea freight, the Papua New Guinea fees for wharfage and storage in the port city of Lae, the costs of the customs agent to lodge the documents to clear the goods from the wharf, the Customs Agency who collected duty rates, the Papua New Guinea Agricultural Quarantine Office to clear good through screening for health purposes, the loading and transportation fees to get the product from the port in Lae to the local transportation company and then the transportation fees for trucking to good from Lae to Ukarumpa.

In addition to these costs, usually charges would be in at least two and sometimes three different currencies if good transshipped from the USA through Australia on its way to Papua New Guinea.

Therefore, careful attention needed to be given to currency fluctuations. This proved very important in the mid-1990s when the PNG Kina was devalued and was slipping in value at times more than 10% a month against the US or Australia dollar. Several times, the goods on the shelves needed to be completely re-priced so that the money collected in Kina from the shelf prices would cover the cost of new goods coming from countries outside the USA.

In 1985, it normally took four days to unload, price and restock into the store warehouse a container of goods. To speed up this process, in 1986 began to computerize its inventory and embarked on a project with the help of the SIL Computer Department at Ukarumpa to create a software package to handle pricing and inventory control. Until this time, stock levels were maintained using manual stock control sheets and required a very labor intensive system of weekly counting of stock case levels for re-ordering purposes.

(Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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The initial computer software was produced mostly through the efforts of David Huffman who headed up with project by the SIL PNG Computer Department. Initial computer entry work was done by Barb Micheals, Becky Lenart (SIL Guest Helper) and store employees Joel Iyano, Mare Seseko, Remis Luke, Chuck Micheals and several other volunteers.

Eventually in mid-1990s, the store upgraded the

inventory program and purchased bar code readers and a box label printer.

(Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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DUTY RATES In 1985, most imported goods had a duty rate of between 7.5% and 13% with a large number of goods being free from duty charges. In order to encourage local industry, duty rates began to climb in the 1990s and by the late 1990s, almost every food item had a duty rate of 50% or higher.

1976 Darrell Lancaster (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

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Coffee and Cereal aisle (1985) (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

1970s Bread and Soap aisle (1970s) (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

1970s Health And Beauty Aids aisle

1985 Chuck Micheals (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

1986 Nathan Bani, Nuzi Noafe stocking 4 aisle

nd

1990s Joel Iyano – Stocking 2 aisle (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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th

1986 Ron & Judy Avery - UFM Hostel Parents

1990s Nathan Bani, Nuzi Noafe and Chuck Micheals (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Fiyiman Marike (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

First Store aisle (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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1990s Daisio Bonabate

Fiyiman Marike

Chuck Micheals and Nuzi Noafa

Chuck Micheals and Sylvia Grosh (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Jonathan Marike

Second aisle (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Chuck Micheals, Anselm Kuloi and Daisio Bonabate

Fourth aisle (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Josiah Dayui

Buck Tusomoka, Chuck Micheals

Pita Kasito, Chuck Micheals, Anselm Kuloi Augustine Penot

Divas Wamaneso Maron Yari (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Henry Heriso

COUNTRY ORDER ROOM During the early years of the new store, it became apparent that the store needed to assist members in packing and delivering store good to the aviation department.

The store created a “Country Order�

room where goods would be properly packed according to aviation rules with flammable items properly packed and marked, refrigerated and frozen goods labeled accordingly and grocery dry goods packed in priority order.

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(Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Aseah Panoma (Stocker/Country Order Clerk) (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Jim Moufa (Dairy Manager/Country Order Clerk)

Initial Country Order Delivery Door Added in the 1970s (Photo Courtesy of Mavis (Goodlet) Creagh)

The Country Order Room was more than a packing service.

However, if a translation team had a

support team, the support team would take the orders by short wave radio and shop for the items.

After purchasing them, the support team would leave the groceries in the Country Order Room for packing. However, if special supplies were needed or if a translation team had no support team to buy things for them, the store manager would purchase the items and charge the translation teams account.

The Country Order Room staff would then pack the order according to instruction left by the team purchasing the goods. Some goods were packed in Priority # 1 boxes, while other goods were packed in Priority # 2 or # 3 boxes. Essentials were packed in Priority # 1 boxes due to weight restrictions on the SIL aircraft where sometime lower priority boxes had to be left. Toilet paper and the like was always packed in Priority # 1 boxes!

Grocery goods were packed with large white shipping labels, refrigerated goods with blue labels and frozen goods with red labels. Refrigerated and frozen goods were kept in a small freezer at the store

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until each day around 1 pm the SIL Aviation bus picked it up along with all of the other boxes and delivered them to the Aviation department (which also had a freezer).

By the mid-1990s, the store was handling over 50 orders per month for translation teams via the Country Order Room system.

STORE WAREHOUSE BACKROOM The store had enough supplies on hand to normally handle the food needs of the Ukarumpa community for six weeks to two months thanks to a large backroom area. Since overseas supplies and local deliveries were often delayed due to road conditions, civil unrest and shipping and trucking problems, it was necessary to ensure a large supply of goods on hand at all times. In the past as stock levels were required to be low, the store would run out of items and when overseas shipment there would be a run on the goods which would create almost instant outages for months.

Store Warehouse (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Members in the village would often have little opportunity to buy these items and overzealous shopping made ordering difficult. Having a well-stocked store not only helped with purchasing decisions, but also saved the member time and money often used to travel to Kainantu or often Lae to get needed supplies. While stock levels remained adequate, care was given to not overstock items since an oversupply resulted in flour, rice and cereals such as rolled oats resulted in ‘binatangs’ (bugs!) in the bags or boxes.

Due to the large amount of shipping done at the store, the backroom had a very heavy duty shipping scale that went up to over 2,000 lbs.

Store Backroom (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Darrell Lancaster in Warehouse (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Fred Jessup (Note Store Backstock) (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Break Time (Note Houseware Office Underneath Stairs) (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Kelby Noampa and Anselm Kuloi (All Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Second Floor Warehouse

Shipment Of Groceries From The United States (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

The 1990s also saw the retail of the store expand and warehousing in the back room improved as new warehousing racks were purchased to handle the increased inventory required.

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STORE FORKLIFTS Over the years the store had several forklifts. The first forklift was purchased in the late 1970s and was a low floor model that operated by cell batteries. Over the years many friends and family members of Wycliffe came to Ukarumpa to see firsthand the work going on at Ukarumpa. One such visitor was a man who stopped by the new store to take a look at the operations. One of the store staff took him for a quick tour of the warehouse and the visitor’s eyes immediately drifted to the rusty old Clark Forklift that spewed out tons of pollutants into the store every time it was used. The visitor asked the store staff a series of questions and then inquired if the store would be interested in a new battery powers Clark Forklift. Well, within a few months a brand new battery powered Clark Forklift complete with battery charger was delivered to Ukarumpa! The visitor was a Clark Forklift dealer or salesman and he graciously gave the store this wonderful gift!

Store Forklift (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

In the late 1970s the store invested in a forklift that used a driver. That too was operated by batteries. In the early 1980s the store invested in a Caterpillar forklift from a company in the USA. It used propane gas. In the late 1990s a special project request for a new forklift was created for a forklift 118 | P a g e

that would reach higher levels, have tires that would allow it to be used on gravel roads and have a better safety seat system. JAARS Inc. picked up the request and found a donor who fully funded the forklift which was purchased from a vendor in Australia. It too used propane gas.

(All Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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STORE BUYING TRIPS TO LAE AND PORT MORESBY For many years the store took regular buying trips to Lae to visit suppliers, government officials and trucking companies. Normally these trips happened by flying on the SIL aircraft early one morning and either returning late that afternoon to Ukarumpa or the next day. SIL not only had and still has a Guest House in Lae, but also rental cars and staff to greet the store staff at the Lae airport.

However, after the Lae airstrip closed in the early 1990s and Nadzab airfield was opened, it became more difficult to easily travel to Lae. Trips were taken by road, but at times road hold ups made some trips dangerous.

Chuck with store staff in Port Moresby with the Parliament House in the background

At the same time, suppliers in the capital city of Port Moresby began to hold trade fairs and large wholesalers sprung up.

Therefore, each year the store took at least one trip to Port Moresby to

purchase good, meet government officials and visit trade shows featuring suppliers from Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

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These trips gave the Store director and his wife an opportunity to provide for the national Assistant Store Managers or Grocery Manager and the national Fancy department manager (now known as the Houseware department) training in dealing with foreign business people, help in learning how to purchase goods wholesale and how to interact with government officials. These trips proved to be very popular with national store leadership.

STORE PACKAGING ROOM The store has maintained for many years a packaging room where local produce sold in the store which came in bulk was packaged into retails packs. Potatoes, Onions and powdered milk (which came in 25 kg bags from New Zealand) were all portioned into small retails packages. Eggs that came in bulk from the Swiss Mission near Yonki were also placed into egg cartons supplied by the mission. In addition, items needing repackaging due to breakage was also handled in this room. Freshly baked scones that were delivered by local bakeries were also packaged for retail.

Sorak Bani (Packaging Clerk) Chuck with Enoch Aranka (Scaling Clerk) and Kelly Noempa (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

For many years, Sorak Bani and Enoch Aranka were the main worker in this area. As a result of their work, thousands of dollars were saved each year as items bought in bulk to save money were made available to the member in family size packages.

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STORE TROLLEYS AND BASKETS/DELIVERY BOXES Initially customers used local Papua New Guinea for purchases. However, soon a small supply of store trolleys (shopping carts) and wire baskets were introduced. In the early 1990s as store sales began to climb, new shopping trolleys were purchased with SIL Members’ Store identification included on the handles along with new plastic baskets.

Linda Snyder (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Due to the fact that many members do not have personal vehicles, the store delivers groceries. The assist in the delivery the store has available to SIL Members and SIL employees wooden store boxes in which they pack their groceries and other store goods (the store does not provide grocery bag boys).

Once the box is loaded the member put a delivery slip on each box and stores the box in the store delivery room near the front door. The store starts daily delivery at 1:00 pm each day.

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Jenny Micheals (far left) and other Ukarumpa High School students help with store cleaning.

(Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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DELIVERIES OF GOOD TO MEMBER AND EMPLOYEE HOUSING When the store opened, the customers had to carry their own groceries to their own homes. Sometime in the early 1980s the store began to offer a service of delivering grocery items to homes because few SIL Members owned cars. Before this time, members had to carry their own groceries to their homes.

Photo Courtesy of the SIL PNG Branch Archives SIL Members or national co-workers would shop for their grocery items and pack them in wooden store boxes. The wooden boxes would be labeled by the member with the home owners address and stored in the delivery room which was added to the front of the store in the early 1980s. The store truck began the rounds of delivering the store boxes to the homes starting at 1:30 pm in the afternoon. The store only delivered goods to homes on the Ukarumpa centre.

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The small room with shelves holds customers groceries in the boxes above and delivered in the Store truck to member homes.

Current store truck customer grocery loading area.

(Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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TRAINING PAPUA NEW GUINEANS As the store began to expand, so did the training.

Many of the young men who came to work had

limited education. Initially many only had primary school level education.

Therefore, Len Creagh

started many of them on correspondence courses (which I think were sent by a RAFE or something like that). Len and his wife Mavis helped with course supervision. Eventually the courses became so popular the store needed to get help from other SIL members. A high school teacher, Pat Lillie offered to help with supervising these courses.

Len Creagh assisting store employee Umuna Bonabate. (Photo Courtesy of Mavis(Creagh) Goodlet)

As the years rolled on, the Papua New Guinea government required a training program to be developed.

This training program was part of the PNG government’s requirements for work permits to be issued for the store. Each year the store had to develop a training manual and submit it to the PNG Government’s Immigration office which described the type and duration of training the store would provide. At the end of the year, the store had to lodge a report with the Immigration office giving details of what type of

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training was offered, who attended and what the outcomes were.

As you can imagine, this added

greatly to the work of the store.

An average more than a 1,000 hours of training was given to store employees. Some of this training was formal courses employees would attend at training institutes in the country and other training was provided by store staff. Some of the training was also informal. The formal training offered by business houses in PNG included work safety seminars, proper handling of chemicals, fire safety and food merchandising. The store provided training in sales, merchandising, advertisement, marketing, finances, food safety, forklift training and a required reading of grocery magazines for supervisory staff.

Store employee Umuna Bonabate at Lae Technical University. (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

In the mid-1980s, store began to sponsor several store employees working in the Finance office of the store to attend college at the Lae Technical College to acquire more education. Bob Joseph and Umuna Bonabate attended several semesters of college.

Starting in the mid-1990s, the store also began annual trips to Lae with the entire store staff. The purpose of the trips was the build a sense of team with the store employees and to expose them to the world of manufacturing. Many annual trips took them to the Colgate/Palmolive soap plant, the Morobean Biscuit company, Laga Industries (manufactures of ice cream products), Besta Mackerel Company, Pacific Foam (manufacturers of foam mattresses and pillows), Coca Cola Bottling, Associated

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Mills (packers of flour), Trukai Rice Industries, Seuto Kui (supplier of grocery and dairy products) Associated Warehouse and KSST Transportation.

Store staff on field trip to Lae to visit manufacturing plants (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Store staff on field trip to Lae to visit manufacturing plants (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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SERVING SAFE FOOD SEMINAR As part of the training program the store carried out, the store in 1996, offered a “Serving Safe Food” seminar to all its employees. Chuck presented several days of training in all areas of food safety, food handling, food sanitation, food storage and food preparation. Upon completion store staff each received a “Serving Safe Food” certificate.

Chuck Micheals teaching store staff at the Serving Safe Food Seminar (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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STORE UNIFORMS The store added store uniforms in the early 1990s as a way to add to the pride in their work. Light blue shirts and dark blue pants where ordered for the men and light blue blouses and dark blue skirts were ordered for the women. Each staff person was issued three store uniforms and they were expected to keep them clean and pressed.

The store added a washing machine to aid in the care of the uniforms. Individual store lockers were also introduced in the 1990s so that staff could keep additional uniforms at work along with their personal belongings being protected.

Name tags for all staff were started at this time.

Š Charles J. Micheals Collection, 1985

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Store Employees Involved in Bible Translation A number of store employees over the year participated directly in Bible translation projects for the people of their own language community. Sorak Bani helped translate the Urii Indani New Testament and Anselm Kuloi is helping in the Maring New Testament project.

Sorak Bani (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Anselm Kuloi (right)

MUSIC IN THE STORE Over the years, the store maintained an intercom and music system so that shoppers could enjoy music while they shopped. For many years, a reel to reel tape system was used. Eventually that was replaced by a cassette recorder. However, every thirty minutes the cassette tape needed to be reversed, which created a lot of work for store staff. Eventually the store invested in a five disc CD changer that rotated automatically.

Generally, soft shooting music was played, but during various holiday seasons music

reflected the season.

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ANNUAL CHRISTMAS SALE STARTS

Lining up for the annual store Christmas sale (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

One of the highlights started in the early 1990s was the annual Christmas sale. This annual sale was held on the first Saturday in December just before the school semester was done and the children home children returned to the village.

The store sale started out small at first and expanded each

year. While the sale was not essential, it did lift the spirits of the missionary staff and was a ‘touch of home’ for those a long way from family!

Preparation for this sale started around June. Special attention had to be given to shipping schedules to assure goods would arrive from either the USA or Australia, clear customs and be trucked up in time for this sale. A special word of thanks goes to the SIL Lae office staff and the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office in San Jacinto, CA who helped with shipping details and with special purchases.

During the months of October and November the store received the Christmas gifts and stored them in the store backroom warehouse. A week before the Christmas sale, the store displayed most of the

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Store Christmas nativity scene (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

goods in the backroom of the store. However, they were not available for purchased until the day of the sale.

Gift "wish list" sheets were handed out to customers the week before the sale. Customers visited the backroom of the store and listed on the “wish lists” the gifts they wanted to receive. Since they could not purchase the gifts until the day of the sale, they would give the completed “wish list” to their friends or family or leave them at the store to be picked up on the day of the sale.

The store was open on Saturday for the sale from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm. The first two hours only women and girls were allowed in. The next two hours only the men and boys were allowed in. Those hours switched every other year.

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Usually the store had a line of people starting at 7 am waiting to get in. As customers came into the store they were greeted by the PNG Nativity scene. Once in the store, they were welcomed by smiling faces and hot coffee, fresh baked cinnamon rolls and holiday punch! Barb Micheals and her kids baked most of these cinnamon rolls the night before. Eventually as the store sale grew in size, the store ordered cinnamon rolls from the Goroka Bakery store.

The store baked treats for customers at the store Christmas sale. (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

A week before the sale, the whole store took on a festive look, complete with a Christmas tree. On the day of the sale, the store handed out free Christmas candy. In the early years, the store ordered Christmas gifts from various catalogues and carried Care Bears and Cabbage Patch Animals for Christmas. Eventually the Parker Brothers toy companies from Australia began to visit Ukarumpa in the early fall and the store began to sell their products such as board games and other gift items at the store sale.

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The store at Christmas time. (All Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Normally, one would not think of the store as a place of spiritual battle, but one day Chuck Micheals received a letter from Parker Brothers which was signed by the salesman with the complimentary close of “Yours In Satan�. After reading the letter and seeing the complimentary closing, Chuck dropped the letter and proceeded to contact the company in Australia to complain. Obviously, even the store work, which served Bible translation, was part of the spiritual battle!

A week later, after an investigation by Parker Brothers, the salesman called and informed the store what happened. He told Chuck that he had signed the letter without the complimentary closing and that the complimentary close had been added later. He told Chuck that a disgruntled employee at Parker Brothers had added the complimentary closing after he signed the letter. He told Chuck to get a ruler and put it on the left edge on the letter and notice that the complimentary closing was slightly off from the rest of the letter. The disgruntled employee had put the letter back in the typewriter to add the complimentary close. That was the last time the company sold items to the store.

Maria Micheals, Mindy Eckerle and Autumn House (All Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Isaac Micheals waiting for customers to enter sale

The Christmas sale was mostly staffed by high school students. They ran the cash registers, helped in the Houseware department, stocked groceries, clerked at the meat counter and helped at the free gift wrapping room which was held in the Country Order Room. Some national store staff also worked at the sale and provided mostly crowd control and keeping an eye on potential shoplifters.

Store Christmas sale (All Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Store Christmas sale (All Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Eventually the high school Jazz Band started playing Christmas tunes during the sale from the second floor of the back room during the sale. Thanks goes to the high school music director, Marlene Schutter and the many jazz band students! For their services, each received a five Kina store gift certificate (gift certificates were added at the store in the mid-1990s).

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High School Jazz Band in store warehouse for store Christmas sale (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Many of the sale items were items normally purchased by customers throughout the year. However, many special items were brought in for this sale. Brian Bell, a local appliance wholesaler, gave the store very generous terms for this sale and special pricing. The store had 90 days to pay the invoice from Brian Bell for these items, rather than the normal 30 days and they took back all items that did not sell. Thanks Sir Brian!!!

Rachel, Jenny, Maria and Isaac Micheals with Care Bears (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Store Christmas gingerbread house

One year the store decided to build a Gingerbread House. Store master craftsman, Bayaba Yantaki helped build the frame, while Norm and Cathy Beasley and their children decorated the Gingerbread House from candy and cookies given by the store. The store even managed to find small miniature furniture and a light to put in the house.

The store carried Christmas goodies from around the world. One time the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office helped the store get over 100 cases of Dr. Pepper soda drinks for this sale! Specials attention was also given to purchasing gifts for children!

In the early years of the Christmas sale, the store built a PNG Chip Haus. Eventually, the store built a Candy Cane House. However, the store was still selling these candy canes in June the following year!

Store Christmas celebrations (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Store Christmas celebrations with Chuck Micheals, Ardythe Ouwinga and Noria Tapo (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Each year, staff from the store took a trip to Port Moresby to purchase fabric and these charms and to Lae to purchase special gifts from Brian Bell. The best sellers were the PNG charms which the store purchased wholesale from Kara Jewellers ( http://www.kara-jewellers.com/).

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Store Christmas Celebrations (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

The items purchased were not only sold at the Christmas sale, but over the following months. A special thanks is given to the Port Moresby and Lae staff for helping make these trips possible.

At the Christmas sale, who can forget the store Receiving Office turned into a small jewelry store. Another special item for sale were Casio Watches. Thanks to everyone who made these sales so special.

The store handed out Christmas wish lists to families who could then go into the backroom of the store and write down items they wished to get for Christmas. Then on the Saturday Christmas sale the other family members would take their children’s, spouse or friends wish list and purchase the items.

The Christmas sale was only held for four hours. For the first two hours, only men and boys were allowed in the store. Then the next two hours only women and girls were allowed in the store. Every other year the gender of who went first switched. Fresh baked warm cinnamon rolls were given away free, as well as fresh coffee and Christmas candy. The Ukarumpa Jazz band played Christmas music 141 | P a g e

from the back of the store while shoppers rushed home with their presents. The store normally had sales the morning of the event equivalent of an entire week.

Often the store ordered special Australian fruit cakes as well as traditional Christmas candy Canes. One year, the store built a special candy cane house. On other occasions the store built a PNG bush house inside the store. Many of the items that were sold at the Christmas were items that were normally sold throughout the year, but were saved for this event. However, from time to time special items were purchased for this event such as special food items of household supplies. One year, the store carried Dr. Pepper soft drinks from the USA and kids two wheeled bicycles

Each year has its own special products such as Corelle dishes. An always sought after jewelry item were Papua New Guinea charms from Kara Jewelry.

The store continues the Christmas sale tradition with its latest Christmas sale each year.

142 | P a g e Š Charles J. Micheals Collection, 1985

PRICING WAREHOUSE GOODS In 1986, computers began to be used on the Ukarumpa centre. One of the earlier adaptors of this technology was the store. The store began to received, price and label goods that previously had been done by hand. Unloading, pricing and stocking in the warehouse for a 20 foot container in the mid1980s use to take 4 – 5 days. However, with ever improving technology eventually it became possible to unload, price and stock in the warehouse a 20 foot container in less than five hours.

Unloading store goods (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Unloading store goods (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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NEWLY TRANSLATED BIBLE ARE DELIVERIED TO THE STORE One of the great items that were shipped to the store were the recently published New Testaments.

Loads of newly printed Scriptures often arrived in anticipation of the upcoming Bible Dedication.

Chuck with container loads of newly printed New Testaments in the local languages. (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

The store unloaded and stored the Bible and when necessary arranged for this precious cargo to be shipped to the Aiyura airfield where the SIL aircraft would fly them to the remote villages for the Bible dedications and distribution.

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STORE BREAK AND TEA TIMES For many years the store employees took their break in the scaling room in the back of the store. If the weather was good (and often times it was raining in the afternoon) break time would be on the store delivery dock.

Store employees on morning tea break on the store loading dock (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

In an effort to give the growing number of store employees more inside room for break, a kunai tea room with a simple dirt floor with benches was built in the back of the store. However, the tea room was set on fire during the middle of the night soon after it was completed. It was likely the result of a dispute between a store staff member and local villager, but while the fire was ruled to be arson no one was ever arrest or charged with the crime.

In the place of the kunai tea room, a fully metal tea room was constructed complete with tiled floor, tables and cushioned chairs, a refrigerator, microwave, phone, intercom system, personal lockers and 145 | P a g e

sink. The tea room was named “Charlie’s Haus Kai”. The dedication for the opening of the Haus Kai was led by SIL’s goodwill ambassador, William Edoni.

Old Haus Kai

New Hau Kai (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Dedication time (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

William Edoni and store staff at Haus Kai dedication (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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STORE PRODUCT PROMOTIONS From time to time the store had several special promotions. One promotion was free Coca Cola yo-yos.

The store shipped several boxes out to the remote Akoye language community where Henry and Ginny Whitney worked. Having not seen a yo-yo before, the village people really enjoyed this promotion!

Akoye villagers with Coca-Cola yo-yos from the store (Photo Courtesy of Henry Whitney)

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STORE CELEBRATIONS On various occasions the store celebrated various special events such as staff member’s employment anniversaries, staff farewells, special appreciation meals and mums to celebrate new arrivals.

Fred Jessup and John Annis at the store hamburger night. - For Store staff At the Teen Center (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Harriet Annis and Ginnie Jessup

Pupunawa Waropi, Bon Joseph, Henry Heriso (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Pita Kaito (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Anselm Kuloi, Mare Seseko

(Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Store Mumu Celebrations

Store Mumus (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Store Mumus (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Store Mumus (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Gware Nanong, Fred Jessup, Harreit Annis (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Finishing store service –Anselm Kuloi and Pita Kasito (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Josiah Dayui, Papa Undama, Divis Wamaneso, Gware Nanong

Anselm Kuloi, Chuck Micheals, Pita Kasito

Sorak Bani, Jean Peters, Pita Kasito

Ukarumpa Primary School contest at the store (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Store cookout

Diasio Buwame and Chuck Micheals at Micheals’ farewell (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

The Sorak Bani family at Micheals’ farewell

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Chuck and Barb Micheals and family at the store farewell (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Chuck and Barb Micheals and family at the store farewell (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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STORE SECURITY In the early 1970s, David Colvin, a former NASA electrical engineer, who previously designed control systems for early US satellite rockets arrived at Ukarumpa. Besides his regular duties in JAARS radio department, he designed, build and installed a very sophisticated security system to protect all Ukarumpa departmental facilities from fire and burglary. The system was built in conjunction with our new telephone system, so when something triggers a burglary sensor or a fire started in any of the departments, the alarm system instantly engages the telephone system. And immediately phones began ringing in every departmental manager’s home throughout the base. The ring was a long constant ring, which couldn’t be mistaken for the normal ring. Anyone hearing that ring quickly knew there was some kind of emergency!

When those phone receivers were picked up, a pre-recorded message began playing into everyone’s ears at the same time. The message went like this, “Burglar Hanger, Burglar Hanger, Burglar Hangar,” or “Fire High School,” or “Burglar Print Shop,” several times and then the phone line switched in conference call mode so all managers were on the line together to discuss what strategy should be taken to tackle the specific problem at hand.

Of course like any new technology there were glitches, like the time all of the managers got into their cars and quickly raced to the airport hangar only to encounter a stray cat whose tail was just the right length to break the invisible beam of light projected across the wide open hangar door. Another time, some of the managers raced down the airstrip runway at top speed and others went the back way past the Aiyura Primary School. When they all converged in front of the airport hangar and shone their headlights into the open hangar, they encountered two very sheepish looking local lads who had simply escaped inside the hangar during a down pour to wait for the deluge to subside.

That wasn’t the last of the late night false alarms managers dutifully rushed out of bed to answer. After a year or so of only false alarms, they began to thinking, “What’s the use of even going this time” and the number of managers showing up for an alarm at a particular department began to dwindle, so that only 2 or 3 were showing up.

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But, after returning home one evening from an enjoyable musical at the Meeting House, Darrell Lancaster went to bed. Then at 2:00am the phone rang again. The long distinctive ring came from his telephone. He sleepily dragged himself out of bed and raced to the kitchen, picked up the receiver and heard just the last refrain from the recorded message, “Burglar Store.” Darrell was still half asleep and didn’t speak a word, but he heard Ralph Todd, manager of the Print Shop say to Jeff Bailey Engineering Manager, “Apparently Darrell isn’t at home, so let’s go on down and see what’s going on at the store.”

The phone line went silent without Darrell speaking a word, but he quickly dressed and drove his car down to the store.

As he drove up beside the room where aviation drivers assembled orders for shipment to village teams, Jeff came running up. Darrell jumped out of his car and the two of them quickly surveyed the crime scene, observing the wide open window with all the glass removed and noticing the security Arc mesh normally covering the outside of the glass had also been removed. Just to the right of the open window were numerous sleeping bags, which they presumed belonged to SIL teenage boys camped out under the eaves of the store. They further presumed that during the night the boys had become hungry and decided to get a late night snack.

At that moment Ralph ran up and they quickly assigned himself the duty of guarding the rear door from any escape. Jeff guarded the side door and the open window by pressing the sheet of Arc mess over the opening to keep the teenagers from escape until they could call their parents. Darrell quickly drove his car and placed the car bumper up against the front door of the store. The men all began yelling for additional help and Darrell honked his horn.

From inside the store they could hear loud sounds coming from upstairs, of boys running around in the dark and falling over boxes. These sounds continued for maybe five minutes before Darrell heard Jeff struggling with someone trying to get out of the window by lunging against the Arc mesh Jeff was pressing against. Upon hearing the commotion Darrell ran the 10 or 15 meters toward Jeff, reaching the area just as the person over-power Jeff and quickly ran away. Thankfully, Darrell arrived precisely at that moment and was able to tackle the local Papua New Guinea man and place an arm lock around his neck for several moments until Ralph arrived and jumped on his legs to help Darrell holding him down.

About that time Dr. Stan Crossley and several other SIL members arrived on scene to assist. Then the

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police arrived and they loaded the man into the back of my vehicle and transported him to the Kainantu jail.

What they originally concluded as being sleeping bags next to the store, turned out to be 10 large duffle bags full of merchandise from the store. Among the treasures they sought to steal were several glass containers of whisky shaped bottles of American made Log Cabin Syrup. Later, the men all laughed at the thought of the thieves great disappointment had they been successful in carrying out the robbery, when they attempted to celebrate with a drink of that whisky.

The teenage pranksters they originally expected to confront turned out to be four well-armed, long sought after criminals who had been robbing stores over a wide area of the Eastern Highlands. Jeff was slightly injured by the axe the burglar was swinging in his attempt to break out of the store. Soon after they caught the one local man, they found a 10� long Pig Sticker on the ground near the spot where Darrell tacked him. The local man was so angry with his three fellow burglars, who run away without warning him that he quickly gave police their names which resulted in all four getting several years in prison for the botched robbery.

It was fortunate they apprehend that specific burglar, because in his pocket the police found a full set of keys to the store, including keys to the safe. He had found the keys while ransacking the store upstair offices.

While the noted incident recorded above is one story of security, security at the store has always been a concern. In the mid-1980s a burglar alarm was installed at the store. In the early 1990s the system was improved and motions sensors were added due to several break ins at night.

One evening in the early 1989 Store Manager, Tim Lueders received notice that the store alarm had been triggered. He and a number of other men went to the store to investigate. Tim confronted the thief who pulled out a flare gun and pulled the trigger. firing and the thief was apprehended.

However, the Lord prevented the gun from

It was a SIL employee who had broken into the store several

times. Some years later, he came to apologize for the incident and repay back all he had taken and tell about his conversion to Christ. He also had a time to meet with Tim and speak of his changed life.

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Over the years at other times, the store alarm went off many times at night and the store managers had to go down and check things out. That was always a scary time as the store had a large backroom and lots of places to hide. Fortunately, there were no thieves found in the store since these two incidents.

In the late 1990s, law and order began to become an issue at Ukarumpa. In addition to the introduction of a security service with over 50 guards and dogs for the center, the store added a security fence to be a deterrent for hold ups, riots and other assaults from both the front and back of the store.

In addition to the concerns for armed hold ups and burglary, the security concerns also centered on the open market held three days a week across from the store. On several occasions local tensions arose and resulted in violence at market time. Therefore, when the fence went up around the store in the mid-1990s, a guard station was added at the entrance to the store so that if needed the contracted security company Guard Dog, could place a security officer with a dog for extra security.

Store fence construction (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Eventually a riot gate was installed at the front of the store where the large roll up door was located due to continued valley unrest and riots in the Kainantu area. This allowed the store at times of local unrest 156 | P a g e

to have ventilation as well as having an arch-wired fence that could be quickly installed and locked to prevent looting should it occur from the nearby market or valley area.

During the time of the fence construction of the store, concern continued for not only the water storage for center residents, but also the increased risk of arson at the store.

At this time the water system inside the store was

enhanced with two large water tanks located near the store with the ability for the Ukarumpa fire department to reach the second floor of the store with water hoses. Improvements were also made to the electrical systems in the store as well as the fire extinguishers and on several occasions the fire department gave fire safety seminars to store employees.

Store Fence and water tanks (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

SIL Ukarumpa fire truck.

Local villagers sold fresh produce and artifacts here and on several occasions violence erupted in the market between local villagers and as land tensions grew in the valley so did the number of axes and bush knives carried by local villagers to the market place. On one occasion in the mid-1990s, the store received a threat of an armed hold-up. Although nothing materialized, an armed man was seen walking by the store late that same day.

As a result of these concerns, in the late 1990s, Charles Micheals, the Store Director, requested the administration to move the market to an area in front of the Ukarumpa police station. While the move took several years, by the early 2000s the market had been moved to a location away from the store.

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On another occasion in the mid-1990s, Chuck Micheals, was assaulted in his office by a store employee which resulted in him needing medical attention. Over the years the store also had many situations where local citizens, store employees, other SIL employees and SIL members’ children were caught shoplifting. The store policy on shoplifting was that anyone 18 years and younger were turned over to parental authority while those older were turned over to the local police.

SIL Store fencing and guard station (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Š Charles J. Micheals Collection, 1985

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RECENT STORE ADDITIONS In early 2002, the store added a Kai Bar, offering shoppers fresh cooked hamburgers, chips (french fries) and ice cream cones. The store was also reset to flow in the opposite direction to make way for a new storage area of store delivery boxes. The store floor was tiled and the bathrooms moved from upstairs to downstairs. The fresh meat case was moved and a larger meat cutting area was developed.

Store Kai Bar (food bar) (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Chapter 7 Getting Goods to the Ukarumpa Store by Land or Air When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."

GETTING GOODS TO THE FIRST STORE In

the early days of the store at Ukarumpa, most of the store supplies were flown up to

Ukarumpa. When doing so the store needed to make sure all SIL planes departing Lae airport heading for Aiyura were fully loaded to capacity. The Store and the SIL Aviation department worked out an agreement, whereby the store warehoused in SIL Lae hangar a supply of non-urgently needed items such as cases of fish and bags of rice. Thus, any time a SIL plane was only partially full, the loading staff quickly and easily added a few bags of rice or cases of fish to help subsidize the cost of the flight back to Aiyura. Normally SIL Aviation charged 1½ or 2 cents per pound for cargo transported from Lae to Ukarumpa, but because of their agreement with the Store, these dedicated supplies stored at the Lae hangar were delivered to the store for just ž of a cent per pound. All other store cargo such as meat/produce, eggs and badly needed items were charged at their higher rate.

Sometimes DC3s and Bristol Freighters were chartered to freight supplies into Kainantu, a small town about seven miles away from Ukarumpa. DC3 airplanes carried four ton, Bristol airplanes five ton.

However, as the road improved, land transportation companies began to develop. However, the roads at first were difficult to operate vehicles on. Despite the challenges, goods were trucked up the only road leading up to the Highlands, the Highlands Highway. This involved the transport of goods over hot, dry, dusty and sometime wet portion of the highway that led through the Markham Valley. The daylong 120 mile drive from Lae to Ukarumpa often also involved the steep and rugged highways that passed over the 1500 meter or almost 5,000 foot Kassam Pass, which was often wet and closed due to 160 | P a g e

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Kassam Pass – Road to Ukarumpa (Photo Courtesy of Ski-Epic.com )

landslides. In early 1960s, in the wet seasons, it sometimes took three weeks to get loads from Lae to Ukarumpa as many rivers had to be forded!!!

Until around 1968 the store purchased nearly all their groceries and much of their hardware supplies from Australia with once a month shipments. Several trucking companies were used initially, including Hilliard and Rice (Lae contractors) at three pence a pound. Other trucking companies initially included

Seller’s Trucking Company, A.T.A. and later the Christian Leaders Training College

trucks. These trucking companies collected the goods from the port city of Lae after they were cleared through New Guinea Customs and transported by road via the Highlands Highway to Ukarumpa.

When supplies became low in between shipments, small orders were sent by radio to the SIL Lae Office buying staff. They purchased the needed goods from local wholesalers, such as Burns Philp LTD, Steamships Trading and W.R. Carpenters and shipped them to center on the next scheduled truck or if

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http://www.ski-epic.com/papua_new_guinea_1972/60_best_pictures_for_show/index.html

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necessary on a SIL aviation flight for those critically needed items. In addition, in the early years about once a month Cedric or Darrell took turns traveling to Lae to pick up odds and ends of food, hardware, building supplies, etc. These trips also gave them opportunity to search out new products.

Red Hill Publishing

Collecting supplies from Lae and crossing the Leron River (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Ken Lowe and Semi truck in the Markhum Valley (Photos Courtesy of Bruce Hooley)

Ken Lowe and Semi truck in the Markhum Valley (Photos Courtesy of Bruce Hooley)

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Crossing the Umi Bridge on the way to Ukarumpa (Photos Courtesy of Bruce Hooley)

1961, Goods coming to the store via the Umi River Ken Lowe is standing next to the vehicle (Photo Courtesy of Ken Lowe)

1961, Goods coming to the store via the Kassam Pass (Photo Courtesy of Ken Lowe)

1967, Cedric on store buying trip to Lae Toyota Stout Pickup (Photo Courtesy of Ken Lowe)

Cedric crossing the Leron River to get supplies from Lae before a bridge was built (Photo Courtesy of Ken Lowe)

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1964, 62 bags of mail arriving at the store (Photo Courtesy of Cedric Grace)

Deliveries headed to the Highlands from Lae (Photo Courtesy of Cedric Grace)

Eventually delivery trucks brought most of the store supplies up from Lae. For the first store, these trucks crossed the bridge, turned right in front of the Saw Mill, then left at the first street, heading up the hill past the High School and turned left onto a short road, located just behind the original Administration building and Meeting House and continue a short block to arrive in front of the Hardware section and at the back door of the Grocery building.

Unloading sheets of housing fibro cement board (Photo Courtesy of Cedric Grace)

Clearing a landslide on the Kassam Pass road to Ukarumpa (Photo Courtesy of Cedric Grace)

In the first store, the store off loaded the largest cargo items, such as 55 gallon drums of kerosene, 8’ long sheets of Hardie cement board siding and long sheets of roofing, right onto the gravel road dividing the two sections of the store. The drums of kerosene were too heavy to be lifted off the truck, so store staff placed several large old truck tires on the ground beside the truck and simply rolled each drum off the truck, hoping they didn’t spring a leak from the force of the fall.

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Doug Parrington, Lae Buyer readies shipment of goods to Ukarumpa (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

GETTING GOODS TO THE NEW STORE As local roads improved, almost all goods were carried to the center by truck. However, on occasion, the store used the service of the SIL aircraft to bring supplies in to Ukarumpa due to civil unrest or problems with the Highlands Highway such as bridges being out or landslides on the Kassam Pass. Aircraft was used to often to backload planes flying to the coast or highlands regions as a way of helping recover flight expenses and providing the store with a good supply of various items. The store had a regular supply of fish flown in from Kikori on the Gulf of Papua near allocations where translators were working. On occasion, the world renowned Garaina tea was flown in on SIL aircraft when SIL aircraft flew out to another translation area.

Most of the time this local shipping was done through PNG operated transportation companies, but for several years in the mid-1990s SIL-PNG invested in a truck and warehouse in Lae and handled the shipping of all goods themselves due to a large amount of stealing that happened using local trucking 165 | P a g e

companies and at times service that didn’t work well for the Ukarumpa center. However, after several years of using Ukarumpa trucks and their own warehouse in Lae, they went back to using local PNG trucking businesses.

For many years the Kainantu Service Station Trucking (KSST) trucks operated by Kainantu businessman Jan Booij (but located in the port city of Lae) delivered goods to the center. The trucks started off being 8 ton trucks due to the limits of the bridge coming into Ukarumpa. However, as the bridge was strengthened KSST began sending 12 tons trucks into the center. These trucks were mostly flatbed trucks with rails and vinyl coverings.

The store not only received goods for the store, but for most of the years of the store’s existence, it also has been the receiving warehouse for all other goods coming into the center. The backroom of the store was often filled with car tires, lumber, glass for windows, aviation aircraft parts, kerosene barrels and a host of goods needed by the various other departments at Ukarumpa. The store also handled all the inbound and outbound personnel effect crates and barrels shipped to and from Ukarumpa.

The goods for other departments we unloaded at the store, weighed with the various departments charged out for shipping costs billed by the transportation companies to the store, but the store also delivered most other goods to the various departments or member’s homes. This was done using the store pick-up truck (which was used in the afternoon for delivery of groceries to member’s homes).

In the 1980s the cost of shipping goods from Lae to Ukarumpa was 0.35 toea per Kilo. Therefore, every item had to be weighed up to determine what the local freight charge was.

One day, KSST sent a 16 ton truck over the bridge and the bridge collapsed. Therefore, a new bridge was constructed that would hold larger 20 ton trucks which were capable of handling a sealed (padlocked and spot welded shut) 20 foot container which were being used more in the country due to increased road holdups.

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Entrance to the Ukarumpa Center – 1950s (Photo Courtesy of SIL PNG Branch Archives)

Entrance to the Ukarumpa Center 2000 (Photo Courtesy of Craig Campbell)

Stan Neher receiving store goods with store staff in 1973 (Photos Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

(Photos Courtesy of Mavis (Creagh) Goodlet)

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First Loading Dock (Photos Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

(Photos Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Hensen Mafisim on truck,with Bayuna in orange shirt

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Hensen Mafisim on the Left (Photos Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

1985 - Shipments from Lae on the Kainantu Service Station (KSS) Transportation 8 Ton Truck (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

(Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

(Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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1986 - Chuck Micheals at store loading dock. (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

KSST trucks at the store loading dock (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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2000 – Store loading dock (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

KSST trucks at the store loading dock (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Chapter 8 It Takes a Team –The Men and Women Made of Steel “Many hands make light work.” ~ John Heywood, English Playwright and Poet

JAARS USA SHIPPING OFFICE HISTORY The JAARS Miami Shipping Office was established in 1966 and at first interfaced with the DC3 as it made periodic trips between Miami and Latin America. It quickly became the shipping center for many South American countries, the location being a natural jumping off point from the U. S. to Latin America. The Miami office was operated under the jurisdiction of the Wycliffe U.S. A. home division.

The JAARS Waxhaw, North Carolina Shipping office was established in 1965 by Bud and Ruth Crawford.

Bud joined Wycliffe as a radio technician and became the buyer for the radio department in 1964. In 1965 a separate metal building was built beside the hangar. All buying for the JAARS Center operation was moved to this building under the management of Bud and Ruth Crawford. They interfaced with the Miami office with goods and personal effects going to South America. The Waxhaw office also made some direct ocean shipments from Norfolk, Va. and Wilmington, N. C. for Nepal, Cameroon and South America. The location at the JAARS center made it a natural because of the planes, radios, and personnel being prepared for field service. The Waxhaw office was operated under the jurisdiction of JAARS.

Both Miami and Waxhaw forwarded occasional shipments to shipping agents on the West coast to be shipped to the South Pacific countries of Papua New Guinea, Australia and the Philippines. This was less than satisfactory in providing the needs for these branches. Ocean shipping in these years from the East coast to the South Pacific was nearly non-existent.

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In 1973 after some discussion by the U. S. home division and JAARS it was thought to be inefficient for Wycliffe to be operating two purchasing and shipping departments. The decision was made to close the JAARS Waxhaw Shipping office and move all overseas purchasing and shipping to Miami.

Problems arose immediately from three areas:

1. Ocean shipments that were being made ready at the JAARS Waxhaw center by departments and individuals for Latin America could be shipped from Charleston, S. C. less than 200 miles away vs. being hauled to Miami 700 miles away. The ocean freight cost being nearly the same at both ports.

Thus shipping continued unofficially for the next seven years at JAARS Waxhaw.

2. It was economically prohibitive to transport shipments to Miami that were intended for the South Pacific ... for example ... an off-set printing press located in Minneapolis, MN was acquired by PNG. Under the then present situation, the press was transported to Miami, crated, and then transported to Los Angeles for shipment to PNG. The overland mileage charges were 2 ½ times what it would have been if shipped direct to Los Angeles from Minnesota. Needless to say the SIL PNG Branch complained about the shipping cost.

3. Overhead cost, the cost-of-living in Miami and the increasing crime rate was making it difficult to get families to want to live there and staff the office.

The option of hiring employees made the

shipping rates out of the question.

In 1975 by request from the South Pacific branches, the Wycliffe U.S.A. home division set up a purchasing and shipping office in Santa Ana, California operated by Bud and Ruth Crawford. Some envisioned a one family operation which would work out of their garage. However, with the growing needs of the SIL branches in Asia and the Pacific, goods and supplies arrived by the truckload. A forklift was needed, also an area big enough for lumber and tools for building crates. Office space was more than a home could accommodate. An office warehouse complex was needed.

Rent in Santa Ana was high and some paid employees were used to staff the west coast office. When a request was made to the SIL South Pacific branches to help fund the west coast shipping office, they declined.

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By 1979 the Wycliffe U.S.A. home division felt frustrated with both the west coast and Miami offices due to the high cost of operation, staffing and discontent from the field branches. Purchasing and shipping was not included in the home division’s main stream of operation and began to be felt as an unwanted stepchild. Consequently the Santa Ana office was closed and disbanded in 1979.

However, staff at JAARS began to feel the growing problems being experienced in the area of purchasing and shipping in the USA and so started considering becoming actively involved. Field branches welcomed this move.

In 1980 provisions were made to start a JAARS operated purchasing and shipping department at Waxhaw, North Carolina and the west coast. Bud and Ruth Crawford were asked to find a suitable warehouse and office complex in a reasonable rent area on the west coast.

Ruth Crawford (Photo Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

Bob Martin, a retired Ford Motor Company manager and JAARS volunteer, helped set up and direct the JAARS Purchasing and Shipping Department in Waxhaw, NC at about the same time.

Around 1981 at a Wycliffe Associates banquet in Riverside, CA Mr. Walter Koning, a local business man and farmer learned about the desire by JAARS to find a location on the west coast. Mr. Koning invited JAARS to move in to one of his six warehouses (which also had a small office) at a reduced rental rate.

JAARS accepted the offer and stayed in that facility for a number of years.

At this same time 1980 JAARS accepted control of the Miami purchasing and shipping office. Due to the growing problems there, such as cost of living, crime and overhead, that office was closed in 1982. Host personnel and equipment were moved to Waxhaw, NC.

This west coast office was responsible for the shipping of both personal effects and the departmental needs of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) branches and other entities located along the Pacific 174 | P a g e

Rim. This included making arrangements for the transportation of crated cargo from the JAARS warehouse to the port at San Francisco, CA and San Pedro, CA.

The cargo they helped ship ranged from ‘Bobby's baseball bat’ to ‘fixed wing aircraft and parts’, from ‘Susie's dolls to electronic office equipment’, from ‘Mom's dishes to a complete dental office, drill bits included’ and from ‘Dad's tools to educational materials for SIL schools’.

After the goods were delivered by sea in 20 or 40 foot containers, the cargo arrived in country. The containers were unpacked and then SIL workers in country would ship the goods onward to various SIL locations in the Pacific. Some cargo, when it arrived in places like Papua New Guinea, were delivered up windy, muddy rivers by dugout canoe (sometimes two canoes tied together to handle large crates) to reach remote translation teams. However, the more common mode of transportation once these goods arrived in country was by truck or an SIL plane.

While the main job at the shipping office was to handle goods leaving the U.S.A., the office also served Wycliffe colleagues with their inbound imports into the USA. Returning missionaries sent their cargo and received assistance with the clearing of U.S. Customs by the shipping office. The shipping office then arranged for the shipping of these goods to the homes of missionaries.

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NEW JAARS STAFF ARRIVE In 1986, Dick and Peggy Blauser and family joined Bud and Ruth Crawford at the west coast office because of Bud's ailing health. Dick assumed the responsibility of west coast office manager position after Bud's death around a year later.

Dick and Peggy Blauser

Dick Blauser at the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office (Photos Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

Dick, Peggy and Glenn Blauser continued to serve from the Riverside location until the shipping office moved in May of 1993 from Riverside, CA to a location forty miles to the east in the city of San Jacinto, CA. The move became necessary due to the high cost of living in Riverside, CA as well as the need to relocate into a larger warehouse facility since the office was handling an average of 24 cubic meters of cargo per month.

PREPARING THE NEW P ACIFIC SHIPPING WAREHOUSE Volunteers from the First Baptist Church in Hemet, California and the Faith Builders Sunday School class helped to make the warehouse and office area ready by cleaning, dry walling, painting and when finished by helping move in the needed furniture. The JAARS staff on the west coast was very thankful for the many volunteers who helped make the move happen. At that time, the shipping office changed their official name from JAARS, Riverside to JAARS, Inc., Pacific Shipping Office.

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Volunteers from the First Baptist Church (Photos Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

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THE JAARS PACIFIC SHIPPING OFFICE OPENS IN SAN JACINTO, CA!!!

JAARS Pacific Shipping New Office (Photo Courtesy of Glenn Blauser)

A gala celebration was held on September 24, 1993 for the opening of the new San Jacinto, CA facility.

From this new JAARS Pacific Shipping office facility they could better coordinated the land transportation and warehousing and shipping to get goods from California to Papua New Guinea.

Without the aid of this new facility the coordination of the stuffing of food containers, the handling of necessary shipping documents, the handling of payments to the grocery warehouses and other companies plus the coordination of other associated items related to the shipping of personal effects of Wycliffe missionaries would have been hindered. Due to this facility, the store at Ukarumpa would be also able to operate effectively and efficiently.

(Photo Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

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Dick and Peggy Blauser planned the celebration with the help of other staff, the JAARS Center in Waxhaw, NC and Wycliffe Bible Translators. The presidents of JAARS, Wycliffe, Wycliffe Associates and the Wycliffe regional offices attended, as did area pastors and special invited guests.

After the welcome remarks, a history of the shipping office was given after which a song of praise to the Lord was sung and the Rev. Richard Christen of the First Baptist Church in Hemet, CA gave the message.

Refreshments were served afterwards and tours of the office were offered.

(Photo Courtesy of The Hemet News, September 18, 1993)

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(Documents Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

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(Documents Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

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THE DEDICATED WORKERS AT THE JAARS PACIFIC SHIPPING OFFICE In 1998 Linda Haabak joined the team as did other temporary volunteer staff. She was a special blessing as she was able to take charge of the office during Dick's recovery from cancer surgery. Her computer skills were also an added blessing as she upgraded the shipping software program.

There were many interesting stories about the work and staff of the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office as they helped purchase goods for the store. condensed story is found below.

(Documents Courtesy of Dick and Glenn Blauser)

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Some were funny, but some involved danger!

One

THE ROAD HOLD UP Each year in early fall the manager of the SIL store at Ukarumpa, Chuck Micheals, would ask the JAARS Warehouse manager, Dick Blauser and his wife Peggy to go to the area outlet centers in the San Jacinto, CA area and purchase household goods for reselling in the store at Ukarumpa at Christmas time. Chuck provided a list of specific goods and they would try their best to purchase the items or something close to it. Peggy would always accompany Dick to give her input on the purchases they were to make since many of the items required a woman’s touch to buy. Dick and Peggy made a game at watching the stores for special prices and keeping up with the weekend specials and also found that work to be a very enjoyable assignment. They felt blessed knowing they were able to serve their co-workers in PNG who were a long way from home with a few special items at Christmas time that could fill missionaries Christmas tree with kid’s toys or special items for the kitchen or the yard that they couldn’t get in the country.

One Friday, on a buying trip, was not so enjoyable though. They were just returning from a shopping trip in Los Angeles and Peggy asked if Dick would stop at a restaurant and get a Vanilla Coke. She learned to love that drink as a young girl in Western Pennsylvania and it was hard to find in California, but they knew one restaurant along the freeway that had them.

As they pulled into the parking lot they parked near another car. As Peggy got out she almost bumped into a young man who was also getting out of his car. She went ahead to get them a seat and while Dick was still in the parking lot the young man came over to Dick and pulled out a pistol. He pushed it into Dick’s stomach and demanded his money. Dick had $300.00 in $ 20 dollars bills on him, since they did all their shopping with cash.

The robber didn’t know that so Dick reached into his pocket and took out a folded $ 20 dollar bill and gave it to him. The robber said, “No. I want all your money!” Dick reached into his pocket again and pulled out a second $ 20 dollar bill.

Again the robber pushed the pistol into Dick’s stomach a little

harder and said he wanted all the money!

Dick got the message and gave all of it to him. Peggy was all the way to the restaurant and looked back and saw he was still at the car. The young man had just left and soon Dick was calling 911 on his cell phone. After the police report and an explanation of everything that just happened Peggy asked Dick if 183 | P a g e

they could now go in and get their Vanilla Coke. Dick replied that the robber took all their money and they were broke!

Dick and Peggy praise the Lord for His protection and when they look back and think about how things could have turned out for Dick for not giving the robber all the money at first. However, God’s hand was on Dick and Peggy and so while the robber thought he could have done anything to Dick God had other work for Dick and Peggy to do and saved them.

When Dick and Peggy’s supporting churches and a few friends heard their story they more than doubled the loss with love gifts. God was indeed blessing their work.

1989 - Dick Blauser Visits Ukarumpa and Meets with Tim Lueders (Photo Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

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THE JAARS PACIFIC SHIPPING OFFICE WAREHOUSE IN ACTION

Goods Ready for Shipment to Papua New Guinea (Photos Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

Personnel Effects for the Missionaries in Papua New Guinea (Photos Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

Warehousing Goods (Photos Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

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JAARS TRUCKING HISTORY – CRATING – WAREHOUSING - TRANSPORTING Missionary Transport has four goals!

1. To minister on a personal basis to missionaries who are getting ready to serve, usually when personal stress levels are high.

2. Saving missionary’s money with moving/shipping costs! This allows them to go where God has called them to serve sooner, because they are not raising the funds at commercial rates.

3. Storage of missionary’s personal effects at a greatly reduced rate.

4. To use our gift of helps to the glory of our Lord Jesus.

In the early 1960s, Cameron Townsend, “Uncle Cam,” cofounder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, saw the need to have modern technical equipment for the many translation centers located in remote jungle areas throughout South America. However, it wasn’t until 1970 when the Lord laid this burden on Tony and Nargis Trowbridge that that desire took shape.

Tony had several years of experience in transporting and warehousing supplies while working in the family owned farm supply business, but was asked that year by Uncle Cam to take over the transportation aspect of Wycliffe’s work. Tony replied that if there was extra room available on his truck during a trip that it he would make it available to individual Wycliffe members. Soon, Tony was shipping a growing number of things for Wycliffe members and purchased a second truck. Eventually a trailer was acquired to pull behind one of the trucks.

Trucks of All Shapes and Sizes Move Crates of All Shapes and Sizes (Photo Courtesy of John Marx)

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By 1975 the work grew to a point where a decision was made to purchase the first tractor trailer semitruck and incorporate under the name of Missionary Transport Inc. or MTI, a non-profit corporation recognized by the IRS code 501c3. As soon as the business was organized MTI began to receive calls from other mission organizations and their members for their services. Again the need for services expanded!

In 1985, JAARS approached MTI about bringing the transportation service under their umbrella. MTI agreed and gave JAARS the trucks and equipment. By this time, the fleet had grown to seven tractors trailers and smaller trucks. The same staff and drivers continued to manage and operate the service.

MTI continued their storage facility for mission related items, five miles from JAARS in Lancaster, SC. MTI also continued as a holding company for ship containers used by evangelical missions and missionaries who want to maintain ownership of their container at its destination.

JAARS Material Transportation Services (MTS) managed the trucks and shipping and over the next twenty five years they shipped millions of pounds of personal effects, food items and all types of products used to support Bible translation from coast to coast. This effective shipping service allowed goods to be shipped not only on a timely basis, but also at a cost savings that could not be matched even by missionaries shipping their own goods on their own!!! As a result, the work of Bible translation grew rapidly.

John Marx - JAARS Trucking Director (Photo Courtesy of John Marx)

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JAARS Trucking Unloading Goods at a Home In Michigan (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Tony and Nargis Trowbridge spent many months on the road each year as did John Marx and a host of other drivers. Steve and Dawn Honecker were the JAARS West Coast Material Transportation Services (MTS) drivers who used both a pickup truck and a semi-truck rig to collect goods for the warehouse.

From the warehouse, other JAARS semi-truck drivers would pick up and deliver loads to other parts of the USA.

Warehouse men and women also devoted themselves to building crates, loading and unloading millions of pounds of cargo and then loading goods into crates for shipping. Others contributed to processing needed paperwork for government agencies and shipping companies and other needed office work.

Time tables that seemed impossible to meet where all met by the hard work, dedication and sacrifice of all the men and women of JAARS Material Transportation Services and other JAARS support services.

1986 – John Marx With Crates Going Down to the USA Port (Photos Courtesy of John Marx)

Ken Zell W/Two Sons Loading Household Goods

When the JAARS trucks rolled up for delivery, customers were always greeted with a friendly face, helpful hands and a spirit of cooperation. The role of the people who rolled up their sleeves to operate these essential services cannot be overstated.

Although rarely in the limelight, yet for the Bible

translators and other support staff who had a helicopter to fly in, food to eat, supplies needed for

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literacy work and a home to live in all know the value as do the millions who now have access to God’s Word in their language!

A load getting ready to go down to the port to be exported to PNG (Photo Courtesy of John Marx)

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John Marx at the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office Loading Dock (Photo Courtesy of John Marx)

John Marx (forklift) and Wes Syverson (assisting) - (Wes was a Wycliffe missionary in South America, but working Tech Serve International and helping JAARS get phone systems, electricity products and water systems to the SIL centers) (Photo Courtesy of John Marx)

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A JAARS TRUCKING STORY It was a Friday morning, and John Marx was making the usual phone calls: checking in with missionaries, making sure people and belongings were ready for his arrival the next day. He was on a tractor-trailer trip for JAARS, traveling from North Carolina to a Great Lakes state and back to transport missionaries’ household goods.

John dialed the number of a young woman and when she picked up she immediately asked if she could switch phones. John waited a moment and the woman came back on the line.

“I don’t know what to do?” she said. “My father told me last night that if you come and get my belongings, he’ll disown me!”

John asked the woman how long she had been preparing for missionary work.

“Eight years.” she replied.

The two chatted a bit longer, and John learned that she lived on a farm with her parents. The family would be traveling to town the next morning when John would be arriving in the area. Since the crate of her belongings was already packed and in the garage he could come pick it up while everyone was gone.

And so the two of them arranged a plan to pick up the crate. The young woman agreed to leave a garage key under the front door mat and John assured her he would pick up the crate the next morning.

When he arrived the next day, the plan looked more difficult than John had imagined. A large tree was growing near the driveway, so close he couldn’t pull the tractor trailer anywhere near the garage. In addition, the driveway was covered with freshly poured pea-sized gravel.

John walked to the front door and retrieved the key, then found the crate in the garage. He positioned the crate – which weighed more than 700 pounds – onto his refrigerator dolly, and started to wheel it down the driveway.

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But it didn’t take long for the dolly to get stuck in the gravel.

Determined, John returned to his truck and pulled out two sheets of plywood. He laid them on the driveway, one at a time, and wheeled the crate across.

When he finally made it to the truck, he promptly filled out his paperwork and thanked the Lord for giving him the wisdom and strength to load the woman’s crate.

Four years later, John received a phone call from the young woman. She was at the Los Angeles airport and had just arrived home from Papua New Guinea.

John asked how her work as a translator was progressing, and she replied, “I am reporting to you, my spiritual father, that I am all done with the book of John, half-way done with the book of Romans and the Lord has blessed me with one convert.”

They continued to talk and John found out that the young woman had not heard from her parents since she’d left for Papua New Guinea four years earlier. She was returning home, but she didn’t know if her parents would accept her in again.

“It sounds like you decided to go after I got your crate,” John remarked.

“Yes.” the woman replied. “When I got back from town with my parents, I saw how much trouble you had getting the crate and then I realized that if it was that important for you to get the crate, I had to go.”

Not only had this event helped this young translator head to the field to declare God’s glory to the nations, but it also helped keep John in his job. His wife and two small girls were struggling financially at the time and the Lord used this conversation to cement into place that what John was doing was important enough, to keep going.

John to this day (2012) is still involved in serving the mission community by providing for the transportation of missionary goods around the country.

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John Marx and Wes Syverson Loading a Helicopter Bound for Papua New Guinea – JAARS Center - Waxhaw, NC (Photo Courtesy of John Marx)

In early 2009, JAARS made an initial decision to discontinued their long distance Materials Transportation Service and disposed of the trucks and equipment shortly afterwards. However, by the summer JAARS announced that they wanted to see the Materials Transportation service continue and so the fleet moved back into the hands of Missionary Transport Inc. (MTI). That same year John Marx retired from Wycliffe in order to continue this service as Vice President of transportation with MTI. The role of missionary trucking now continues under their direction.

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LODGING GOVERNMENT REQUIRED PAPERWORK FOR OVERSEAS SHIPMENTS Over the years, the amount of paperwork required for import of groceries increased. In the early years, goods were imported with little advanced lodging of paperwork.

However, in the 1990s the PNG

government instituted strict quarantine requirements which required filing of paperwork with the PNG Quarantine Office in Port Moresby and Lae which listed all the goods that contained meat, cheese, other dairy products, eggs and noodles.

In order to import these goods special permission had to be sought and to receive permission goods from certain countries of import were required to have health certificates from the factory of origin certifying how the products had been cared for and processed.

These quarantine requirements impacted the way food goods were hand carried into country or shipped in personal effect crates from the USA to PNG. Due to these new requirements, no food items of any kind could be brought into the country by any means unless quarantine paperwork was lodged before the goods were shipped. Due to special permitting requirements, most Wycliffe members could not comply with the requirements. However, the store could!

The most challenging of these quarantine requirements was one that required all wood coming into the country to be fumigated when it arrived in the country a certificate of fumigation had to be presented to the Quarantine Office in Lae.

The very first time this fumigation requirement was put into place the requirement for compliance was less than 30 days from the store receiving the notice. Since store shipments normally took two months once they left San Francisco, CA to reach the port city of Lae, so this meant that store shipments were already on the water and in transit. This meant a significant challenge for the three store containers on the ships since all the grocery goods were stacked on wooden pallets inside the containers.

When the Lae Quarantine Office was told of our containers on the water and that we had not received notice of the new requirements in time they informed the store that we would have to return all three containers to the USA since the wooden pallets would come without being fumigated and without a certificate.

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Needless to say, that would have cost the store over US $ 25,000 to reship the three containers back to USA, have them repacked and reloaded. So, Chuck Micheals flew down to Port Moresby and requested a meeting with the Chief Quarantine Office there. Our SIL – PNG Port Moresby Director of Government Relations, Randy Karcher helped Chuck organize the meeting and then stayed with Chuck while he met with the Chief Quarantine Officer.

After just a short meeting, the store was granted a one-time

exemption and was allowed to import the goods without the fumigation or certificate.

This changed the way the store loaded grocery goods in containers. While more goods could be loaded in a container without wooden pallets, the hand stacking costs for loading the containers in the USA and unloading the containers would add to cost of shipping. It also would increase the breakage of goods as product could not be shrink-wrapped on pallets. Because there was little that could be done to secure fumigation certificates for wooden pallets for food shipments, all store food items were therefore hand stacked into containers.

The new quarantine requirements increased the amount of time it took to clear goods through customs as containers that used to be cleared without being opened now required all containers to be opened, unloaded on the shipping dock for personal inspection for items not declared on the original quarantine forms. This increased the pilferage of goods while the products were out of the containers and added to the length of time containers sat on the wharf which added to the storage fees incurred on the wharf.

However, making the country of Papua New Guinea safe from unwanted pests and diseases was a desire off all of the store staff and so these were requirements were diligently and happily adhered to.

THE ROLE OF THE JAARS PACIFIC SHIPPING OFFICE IN ADHERENCE TO THE LAWS OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA For many years the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office shipped household goods to Papua New Guinea via sea freight. They would make crates out of plywood with a pallet bottom so they could pick them up with a forklift. The cost for a crate 4 foot wide by 4 foot deep and 4 foot high was about $200.00. They were proud of the crates and rightly so. They were strong and protected our cargo well. Over the years with all the rough handling there was little damage. There was always the concerned about the cost, but there was not a better method.

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When Dick and Peggy first moved to California to serve at the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office they met a young man, Forrest (Forrie) Watson, who became a very close friend. about the crates Dick and the JAARS team made with plywood.

They would tease each other

The friend earned an engineering

degree and was a corrugation engineer. He designed anything out of cardboard including boxes, displays, etc. at his work near San Diego.

One day after finding out about the new fumigation requirements for wooden pallets and wanting to cut costs, Dick called Forrie and asked him what he thought about making a big 4’x4’x4’ cardboard box for shipping.

Would it be strong enough? Would it be cost effective?

Did he think something could be made? Forrie worked on several ideas he had and was able to come up with one he thought would work. He made one box and it was filled and sent to Papua New Guinea as a trial. It worked great and lessons were learned with the first st

1 Cardboard Box Shipped to PNG (Photo Courtesy of Dick Blauser)

shipment for improvements. From that point onward, Dick started to order and used large quantities of the boxes because there were no fumigation requirements for cardboard boxes.

The cardboard boxes were built to fit snuggly into an 8x8x20 foot sea freight cargo container. The cost of the box was $50.00. This was a savings of $150.00 per crate over plywood costs or a savings of thousands of dollars a year. God again met the need and the work continued.

Due to the rapid implementation of the Quarantine requirements, the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office had to not only inform all missionaries thinking of shipping food supplies overseas to stop shipping food goods to PNG, but it required the shipping office to open prebuilt crates and take out any food that might have been land shipped to JAARS. This involved removing the food items, repacking the crates and getting instructions for disposition of the food. Christmas time was always a hard time to do this.

Often times, grandparents would send a food box to the grandkids and the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office 196 | P a g e

had to open the box and remove the candy, cookies, and potato chips gifts. The shipping office noted that it was so hard to do that. In fact, Peggy Blauser actually cried several times when this happened.

However, this diligence by the shipping office meant that all PNG government requirements were followed to the letter of the law.

The PNG Chief Quarantine office had previously told the store that any breaking of the law by importing any food by any means from any SIL members without properly lodging permits and securing approval would result in the stopping of ALL shipments of ALL food items for SIL into the country, regardless of how the store complied with the law. This was no idle threat! While the store followed all quarantine requirements and secured all needed permits, the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office also kept the store in business!

JAARS PACIFIC SHIPPING OFFICE CLOSES DOWN Some years later in the early 2000s a decision was made to close the JAARS Pacific Shipping Office and supply the needs of the store from the JAARS Waxhaw, NC location as shipping costs were roughly the same for goods being shipped from the east or west coasts. By that time, Dick and Peggy had accepted a new assignment at Wycliffe's North East Regional Office in Pennsylvania and Glenn became the warehouse manager in the Purchasing and Shipping Department at JAARS in Waxhaw, NC. Linda Haabak remained to manage the shipping office and took charge of the closing.

Dick and Peggy Blauser, Glenn Blauser, the Crawfords and Linda Haabak all stated that it was their joy to be able to remove some of the strain of shipping from the shoulders of our co-laborers overseas. They also expressed feeling honored to be able to serve their Lord and Savior by becoming involved in the task of getting God's Word to every Tongue, Tribe and Nation.

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THE ROLE OF THE LAE, PAPUA NEW GUINEA OFFICE The SIL office in Lae has provided not only a wonderful place for SIL members serving in the country to rest on a vacation or holiday, but also provided value services to translation teams working in Morobe Province. However, for the store, the Lae office provided essential services to keep the flow of goods into Ukarumpa.

The Lae office manager helped coordinate local purchases as necessary as well as providing oversight of the clearing of goods coming from JAARS and other companies through the port.

The Lae office for

many years handled all the lodging of customs and quarantine documents, the payment of custom duty and the arrangement of shipment of goods to Ukarumpa.

Lae Coastal shipping vessels and wharf (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

The SIL office in Lae also looked after a small Guest House, which served the translation teams in Morobe Province, provided accommodations for store staff on their buying trips and provided the SIL members a great warm vacation spot away from the coolness of the Highlands region where Ukarumpa was situated.

Over the years, many managers ran the office, among which were Bob and Linda Keizer (USA), John and Anne Shaw (Australia) and Art and Dot Jackson (USA) among others. The Lae office for many years did the clearing of goods through Lae Customs.

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Lae Managers Flat and Offices (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Lae Managers Flat and Offices (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Lae Office - Charles Micheals, Barb Micheals and John Shaw – Lae Center Manager (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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John Shaw - Lae Center Manager, Chuck Micheals and Mahabati (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

SIL Lae Guesthouse (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

SIL Lae Guesthouse (Photo Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

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Lae Guest House Pool and Playground (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

CLEARING OF CUSTOM GOODS FOR THE STORE Mahabati for many years was the SIL customs official and Yama worked in the office and typed up much of the paperwork. In the early 1990s, Mare Seseko, who had been serving as the Store Assistant Manager, moved to Lae with his family and took over as the SIL customs agent after Mahabati went to work in his own clearing agency. Two other national staff, Luke and Aaron, joined the team later on.

Mahabati Yama (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Luke and Aaron

The SIL office staff filled out the customs forms and lodged them with the Customs office. They handled all the payment of duties, storage fees and the cost of shipping goods from the wharf to the Lae shipping companies who transported the goods up to Ukarumpa.

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Mahabati for many years was the SIL customs official and Yama worked in the office and typed up much of the paperwork.

In the early 1990s, Mare Seseko took over as the SIL customs agent after Mahabati

went to work in his own clearing agency.

Mare Seseko (Photo Courtesy Charles Micheals)

The SIL office staff filled out the customs forms and lodged them with the Customs office. They handled all the payment of duties, storage fees and the cost of shipping goods from the wharf to the Lae shipping companies who transported the goods up to Ukarumpa.

Later on, due to an armed hold up of the Lae office, the clearing of goods through customs was handled by an independent business customs clearing company in Lae.

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SHIPPING PERSONAL EFFECTS

The store not only served as the depot for many years for all goods coming into the centre, but also handled all the exporting of personal effects for members back to their home countries. Personal effects shipments from the store were handled by the Papua New Guinean Assistant Store Manager.

This work included all the shipping paperwork and customs forms, handling all quarantine paperwork as required as well as organizing all the shipping vessels and coordinating the transshipments through various ports to get the members goods back to many home countries around the world.

In the early days, members shipped most of their goods in 44 gallon steel drums with lids spot-welded shut and lock with a padlock. However, since sea freight shipments get charged by cubic meters or feet, this is the most expensive method of shipping. However, they were easy to handle if need be by a person and provided translators setting up home in a village with rat proof containers. However, as shipping cost rose, members eventually mostly moved to shipping goods by crates.

Store Receiving Foreman, Anselm Kuloi Inspecting Cargo with Bill Baker and Charles Micheals (Photos Courtesy of Charles Micheals)

Once a year, the store organized a complete 20’ container of personal effects to be shipped to the USA. While the store handled the paperwork, a USA Member had to be willing to handle the logistics of getting all the crates assembled at the right time and in the right dimensions. On more than one occasion, the crates arrived slightly bigger than expected and created huge headaches during loading time. While it did save the members a large amount of money, it did require a person with a hearty personality to head up the project.

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When goods were shipped back to the USA, they were handled by the JAARS Riverside or San Jacinto, California office. They arranged for many years for JAARS Trucking to ship goods to the Wycliffe member’s homes.

Farewell To SIL Staff From time to time, SIL members who have come to serve at the store have returned to their home countries. When they have left Ukarumpa, it has been a tradition for the store staff to go the Aiyura airstrip and send the staff off with prayer, singing and many handshakes and best wishes.

Store staff saying farewells at the SIL Aiyura airstrip (Photo Courtesy of Darrell Lancaster)

Regardless of whether it has been SIL expat members or local Papua New Guineas who have served in the store, it has been the pleasure of store staff to serve the people involved in Bible translation. Our prayer is that every product bought and sold continues to be used for the Glory of God!

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About The Author

Charles

Micheals is a native of Michigan and lived the first thirty years of his life there, eventually

working in the grocery industry. In 1985 his wife Barbara and their four small children joined Wycliffe Bible Translators and moved to the country of Papua New Guinea (PNG) where they worked with the internationally known non-profit linguistic organization, SIL International (formerly the Summer Institute of Linguistics). Charles served in a variety of administrative roles in PNG, including several years as the Chairman of the SIL PNG Job Evaluation and Wage Review Committee and on the SIL PNG Executive Committee.

During their 15 years of service in PNG, Bible translation work was completed in 67 languages and over 100 additional Bible translation projects were started. Today, almost 180 language communities, representing 1.8 million people in PNG have access to the Scriptures in their own languages.

In 2000, Charles and Barbara moved back to the USA and Charles served for several years as the Regional Director for Recruitment for Wycliffe, living in the Chicago, Illinois area. In 2004 they moved to Orlando, Florida where Charles served for six and one half years as the Vice President for Recruitment Ministries for Wycliffe. He currently heads up Wycliffe’s Management Recruitment Department and speaks at various mission conferences and colleges each year. Barbara coordinates several Wycliffe short term mission trips each year.

Charles holds a BS degree in Food Distribution from Western Michigan University and a MA degree in Organization Management from Dallas Baptist University. He served on the Board of Directors for The Finishers Project, a non-profit mission dedicated to helping people in the second half of life find places to serve in missions. He has also been involved in helping create and develop Mission Teach, a ministry dedicated to helping place teachers in MK (Missionary Kid) mission schools around the world and 205 | P a g e

Military Believer, a growing ministry dedicated to helping military personnel who are leaving the military, find opportunities for service in global missions.

Charles has also authored a number of articles about the work of SIL in PNG and other historical articles about life in the Aiyura Valley in PNG. (http://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs)

Both Charles and Barbara are members of Saint Andrew’s church in Sanford, FL and are involved in a variety of church activities there. Charles serves as an elder at the church.

However, they are still

members of Second Christian Reformed Church, in Kalamazoo, Michigan which is the church that commissioned them for their work with Wycliffe.

All four of their children are actively supporting

missions and church ministry work. Three of their four children are serving with Wycliffe around the world.

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