Outdoor Education

Outdoor Education, generally held at the end of January, marks the most looked-forward-to event of the year. Its on-paper purpose is to expose high school students to various parts of Papua, provide a small taste of anthropological and linguistic study, and to serve and appreciate the indigenous people.

However, students soon find that the hypothetical purpose of O.E. doesn’t come out the way it seems. During the two weeks they are overwhelmed with spiritual life-building sessions, community development projects, hikes, field trips, and teaching kids’ clubs. It stretches, stresses, and strengthens them, but at the same time brings amazing people and renewal into their lives that would not have come any other way.

Every year a committee of high school teachers chooses a language group in Papua, one that has had long-term contact with a linguist, anthropologist, or community development worker from one of the school's sponsoring organizations. Generally the areas are remote, accessible only by plane, boat, or hiking. During the first semester teachers plan work and study projects and activities for the kids. At the beginning of the second semester, the high school is officially told where they will go, who will be speaking (spiritual emphasis), what they will be doing, and how they will be split up. The split groups then meet together to discuss the kids’ club lesson(s) they will do, and to practice skits and prepare songs or games.

If the location is in the interior of the province, all the local small plane services (MAF, YAJASI, SDA, and TARIKU) provide transportation. Flying in these small planes means that students must pack light, generally around ten kilos. When the location is on the coast, large inter-island ships are used to transport the large group of students and teachers.

In 2006, O.E. was held a day’s boat-ride away, just outside the town of Nabire and in the nearby mountains. While on the coast, students helped a church build small bridges and a fence, taught English at a nearby school, panned for gold, and went on a sight-seeing tour to tofu and coffee factories. Interior—in the mountains—they dug a ditch for a water pipe running from a spring to the center of a village a couple of miles away. They also visited the famous salt well, a pool of salty water whose water drains from the side of a mountain and is collected in a large pool. The local people submerge porous plant stalks in the water for a couple days until the stalk is completely saturated. Then they heat the stalk to drain the water and retain the salt.

The students were blessed by the pastor of a village church there, who prayed over them when they got sick and encouraged them to constantly pray for the village, as he would for them.