Volunteers and materials for an orphanage playground project were about to make the 4-hour road trip from Goroka to Mount Hagen – on the only road link between the two towns. But due to tribal fighting, the plans were almost cancelled.
Story by Tajs Jespersen
“I am really happy. It’s a lot of fun,” said Lilly Alos, who lives at Bible Faith Orphanage (BFO) in Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea, and attends 11th grade at Kui Wamp Secondary School.
After an intense weekend of hard work done by a group of teenagers from Numonohi Christian Academy (NCA) in Goroka, the orphanage now has a playground, a soccer field, a volleyball field, new walking paths, a freshly painted dining hall and classroom. In addition, massive maintenance work has been carried out on the existing facilities.
But only a few days prior, the team was inches away from cancelling the plans for good.
“We were going to drive, but there were fights on the road,” said Rachel Paas, one of the teens helping to build the playground.
With only a few days left before the event in Hagen, Aartje Paas reached out to me to explore the possibility of arranging flights.
The group who built the playground consisted of teenagers living in locations all over PNG. It would not have been feasible to rearrange their travel to Mount Hagen at another time.
When it seemed like they would have to give up their plans, quick action from the MAF bookings team provided a new way. Three flights were quickly arranged to transport not only the playground materials, but also the 18 people who were going to construct it.
“With only a few days left before the event in Hagen, Aartje reached out to me to explore the possibility of arranging flights.
“Understanding the urgency, I immediately checked aircraft availability, flight schedules, and passenger capacity. After coordinating with the operations team, we secured a flight to transport the children from Goroka to Mount Hagen. Despite the short notice, everything fell into place perfectly—God truly made a way,” said Nancy.
Robyn is forever grateful for the ‘above and beyond’ work that allowed the junior class to bring the project to its completion, especially as the flights were not budgeted in their project costs.
“MAF offered to fly our team and the playground materials to Hagen at below operational costs so that we would not have to cancel the trip,” said Robyn.
Such flights are made possible due to worldwide donations from generous givers who support the work of MAF.
Enoch Kapi is the Deputy Director of Education at BFO. He works to home-school the youngest kids at the orphanage so they can start in public school from grade 5. He has seen how the work impacts the lives of the children living at the orphanage.
“Before, there were no playing structures at BFO. Now I see them playing and they don’t want to stop again,” said Enoch.
“Our team consisted of grade 11 students from the school. They are a mixture of MAF and NTM students. It also includes some of our teens whose families live in remote villages as church planters with NTM,” said Robyn.
The teens have been fundraising for this project since August 2024. The playground was then prefabricated in Goroka before being transported to Mount Hagen.
The project could not have been completed without generous donations from both Australia and the Netherlands and the fundraising efforts of the junior class.