PNG Fact of the Day (5)

One big question we get asked a lot is, "Will you have electricity in the tribe?" And, thank the Lord, the answer is yes. Ok, call me a wimp or worldly or very American or whatever you'd like, but I really, really like electricity. Of course, I could live without it, but it would definitely make life a lot more difficult.

Now that we've established the fact that we will have electricity, a good followup question would be, how will we get that electricity? Because, honestly, there is no stinking way that anyone in their right mind would ever string up electrical wires in the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea. Just sayin'.

Since it's so tropical in PNG, we'll mostly rely on the sun for our electricity, using solar panels and large batteries to store the power. As you can see in the picture below, these missionaries have their solar panels on the roof of their house near the peak to get the most sunlight possible.

On days that are rainy or whenever we might need some extra power, we'll be using a generator, probably similar to this one.

It's generally recommended to not use any heat producing appliances, such as a microwave, toaster, or dryer, since these take up a lot of electricity.

Here are a few things that we will be powering using electricity:

Twin tub washing machine

• Lights - most likely, we'll use small LED lights since they only use a few watts of power
• Small Fans - to help with the heat and humidity
• Computers - for all of our language learning data and developing Bible lessons
• A chest fridge or freezer - any food that needs to be kept cold will go in here
• A twin tub washing machine - we won't have a dryer, but we'll still be able to wash clothes! Twin tub washers are incredibly efficient, and takes less than 10 minutes to wash a load! Here's a picture in case you haven't seen one of these before

Electricity is a modern comfort that we often take for granted, but I'm sure grateful that God has given us ways to have it when we're overseas!