The visit which initiated the task I am going to blog about in these coming months.

Raphael Agome, Leson Woka, Pama Role and Pita Jonaten from FNBC churches in the Kogoraipa group up in the Frigano end of the Yagaria tribe came a couple of weeks ago seeking advice and knowledge.

They have formed the Kogoraipa Community Group to seek to generate money to be used  to support the missionaries they have sent out and plan to send in the future.  At present Jack Agome is in Lae.  He has been there all year without  his family because in Lae living in a settlement it is necessary to buy absolutely EVERYTHNG and the churches haven't felt able to give him enough support for the whole family. :(  Mi no amamas long em i mas stap wanpis.
He has faithfully taught Creation to Christ [or Phase One or Plantim Pos whatever you want to call it]  and has seen a group of folk saved.  Another man I do not personally know is in Faiantina with his family.  Thankfully there in the bush they have access to enough garden food for the whole family to live there.

The KCG have visited an agricultural group in Goroka who teach farmers to grow and market potatoes and onions and perhaps other items.  A rep from the group is going to go out and teach the folks so that they can get started growing potatoes.  Since they do not have reliable road access, they are not going to try to market potatoes.  They will grow seed quality potatoes and sell them to the group.  [I have to find out the name and put it in here so everyone will know who the group is.]  The group will send a buyer up with the truck to collect their well-dried harvest and these potatoes will then be part of the stock of seed available for the other customers.

What they wanted to put to me was the possibility of their buying laptop computers and selling them to the many students who are wanting them for senior high school and for university, or mobile phones with radio and photography capablities to sell to people throughout the tribe.
They had also made enquiries about a bank account with the BSP in Goroka.

I started working with them on the laptop idea.   I suggested notebooks with a 10.1" screen and a 6-cell battery so that they will work off the battery charge for 7and a half hours up to 11 hours depending on the unit bought.  These are  available from many manufacturers now that Asus has led the way.  My reasoning is that in the classroom all the students will want to be set up with their laptops and there just will not be enough power points.  Thus the laptop MUST have a very long life on each charge.  In the afternoon the student can plug into a power point by his/her bed in the dorm and start recharging the battery ready for the next days classes.  

I pointed out that these would have to be bought via the internet from overseas  since they do not seem to be sold by Abel, Daltrol and Datec here in PNG. [I will have to make sure that is absolutely true.]  The U.S. seemed to be where the group would need to search for them because any particular unit is cheaper there than in Australia.

They had opened an account about a year previously.  I got on the phone to BSP using the 180 number I found in the phone directory.  On this you can talk for as long as you like for the cost of a local call.  I talked to a young woman for about 30 minutes.  I found out that the account they had opened as a group is a savings account.  Unfortunately, the bank charges a K3 fee every .  They had deposited or withdrawn during the period since they opened the account.  K18 had gone in fees and then the account was made dormant after 6 months of inactivity.