Tree Days!

We own a book called, "You Know You're an MK When ... " by Andy and Deborah Kerr, for

instance you know you're an MK when ... 'You watch National Geographic specials and recognize someone'. Well here in PNG you know you are an MK when ... you get 3 days off from school because they are cutting down a tree close to the school house

and you want to be sure the children are safe from a tree or limb coming through the school house. And such was the case this past week here at Kudjip. Cutting down the tree was quite a feat.

In Ohio, as kids growing up, every winter we would look forward, with great hope and anticipation, to "Snow days." Well, when you live in a tropical climate snow days just don't happen! So you get the monthly "Teacher Shopping Day." No school because the teacher must go once a month to shop so they don't starve to death. And then every great once in a while you get something like "Tree Days!"

The story behind the taking down of this beautiful and majestic tree is a sad one. My guess (and only a guess) is that this tree was probably close to 80 years old, it was big. It was close to 80 feet long, the stump at it's widest was 50 inches and one of the limbs measured about 15 inches in diameter. About 3 years ago our maintenance crew was taking down another tree close to this one, it was smaller but deadly. One of our maintenance guys was in the tree (that was just taken down) when this other tree or a limb came down and knock him out of the tree. He lived for about 5 / 6 hours and passed away. Months later the College of Nursing girls dorm was being dismantled and was going to be rebuilt. The construction crew that was hired to come in and build the new dorm ringed the tree. That is they stripped the bark off of the tree all the away around it about 6 to 8 feet in height, in order to kill the tree. They did this for two reasons. First to limit the amount of leaves and debris from building up in the gutters. We rely on the rain from the roof to fill our water tanks. This water is then pumped into our homes and the college of nursing dorms.

But the sad part of this story is the second reason. They felt that Jakaba's spirit (the man who fell out of the tree and died) was in the tree. Initially, there was a great attempt to save the tree as we are very protective of our trees on the compound. But when a large limb, still with leaves fell out of the tree 3 weeks ago it was felt that the tree was not going to make it and in fact was dieing slowly. As Paul Harvey was famous for saying, "And now the rest of the story." The limb that fell out of the tree came down just 5 minutes after our school kids had been in that area playing and getting in line to reenter the school. Had it fallen and struck a child it is highly possible it would have killed them. We serve a mighty God who looks out for us and our kids and we thank Him for His hand of protection on our kids and teachers!

It was quite a site to see the tree coming down limb by limb. There are some things that you almost always see a Papua New Guinean with, a Bush Knife/Tomahawk or a spade. And they can work wonders with any of them. There was a team of 4 who came in to take down the tree. One guy named David was the tree climber and chopper. That 15 inch limb I mentioned earlier, he chopped off with his axe! In fact the only time he used a chainsaw was at the base of the 50 inch trunk when it was time to cut it down. These guys didn't use bucket truck or anything else fancy. David just climbed from limb to limb cutting each one off and moving to the next. He was in the tree for 5 to 6 hours straight. Aside from 2 limbs that we needed to use a rope on to drop them in a better location, he dropped the limbs right where he wanted.

There were a couple of things that I thought were cute or on the interesting side. At one point David was in the tree and wanting to go up higher. I am assuming that he didn't like his options for going higher, so he tied a short piece of a small limb to a rope, sat

on it like a swing, while the 4 of us down below pulled him up to the next spot he wanted to be at. It still brings a chuckle when I think about it. One of the last limbs to come down, if chopped off as is would come down on the MK School, so we got a rope and 15 guys and tied the rope to the limb and we went to our pulling position. After the limb came down I decided that we should have had 17 guys because a small limb coming off of the big limb just caught the edge of the MK School porch roof and grazed the spouting enough to put a slight dent in. We also had one limb that we roped and pulled, however, should of had another 3 or 4 guys instead of the 4 we did have. This limb came down and clipped the overhang/eves of the MK School and sheared it off along with the electrical box, which by the way was disconnected. The actual school structure was not damaged. We thank the Lord for only these minor damages!

The second morning I showed up and they were cleaning up a little getting ready for another day of cutting. I had thought that I would pray with them before we got started but as I was coming back towards the tree they were on the other side praying for Gods hand of protection upon them before David started up the tree for another day's cutting. I was told that 3 of the 4 tree choppers were Christians but that David the man in the most dangerous position was not. Please remember him in your prayers that God would get a hold on his life.

Although our kids don't get "Snow Days" here in PNG, "Tree Days" work just as good, especially if your a kid looking for a day off from school!

In the first picture on the right you can see the MK School porch, roof and water tank and in the picture on the left you can see the College of Nursing girls dorm.