Engineer ends his mission in Papua

In 1998, water engineer Jeff Kite travelled with Uniting Church Overseas Aid (UCOA) to assist Papua New Guinea’s drought relief program for four weeks.

It was the beginning of a ten-year journey.

He would go on take up residence and work in Milne Bay for five years, meet his wife Hilary and oversee development work in various locations in the Pacific.

On May 9 this year, Jeff (pictured right) retired. He told Insights he believed God did not so much nudge him as to get behind and “shove” him to work with UCOA in PNG.

It started when he heard about the disastrous effects of Papua New Guinea’s drought in 1997-98.

“I remember opening the newspaper at home in Perth on Saturday morning and reading that 14 infants had died,” Jeff said. “They had suffered from diarrhoea through drinking polluted water, then dehydration.”

He was horrified that people were dying from easily-preventable diseases “so close to Australia”.

Jeff called Uniting International Mission’s Associate Director, the Rev. Laurie Fitzgerald, who heads up UCOA. He said he was a civil engineer shocked by what he read.

By coincidence, Mr Fitzgerald was travelling to Papua New Guinea in the next few days to assess the need for aid for the United Church in PNG.

In 1999, Jeff took seven months off his “comfortable Government job” in Western Australia to work with UCOA on the drought relief program. He noticed that there was always a great need for clean water in Milne Bay’s isolated rural villages.

Upon returning to Australia, he resigned from his job and relocated to Salamo on Fergusson Island, Milne Bay Province, for a three-year appointment as a mission co-worker. He described his stay as “very difficult at times”, as he had to adapt to local culture while being part of a dwindling population of dim dim (white) expatriates.

It wasn’t all unpleasant. At a cross-cultural training course held in Adelaide Jeff met his future wife Hilary, who was planning a trip as a Uniting Church volunteer in mission to India, where she would work as a nurse and midwife.

Hilary would later join Jeff on a holiday to Fergusson Island, where he proposed.

After their marriage, the two relocated to Alotau, where they would stay until late 2004, with Hilary promoting water-related health awareness in villages and schools.

From 2005 to this year, Jeff worked part-time as a project officer, making several trips to Papua New Guinea and, more recently, to the Solomon Islands.

Working abroad has brought many difficulties for Jeff.

He contracted malaria three times. After one bad case of dysentery, his weight dropped to below 50 kilograms.

The time he has spent away from home has been difficult for him and his family. But he did “feel that the Lord was caring for me all along the way, and particularly in those difficult times”.

But Jeff said it had all been worth it. “A lot of people would say this was the first development that has ever happened in their village when we installed running water or wells,” he said. “It has been an incredibly rewarding experience.”

Jeff told Insights there remained a great need for help in the Milne Bay area. In particular, he observed that United Church health centres and schools in the region needed trained staff and that Australians who were doctors, nurses, teachers, managers and accountants could help out.

“There are not many Uniting Church people going to Papua New Guinea for longer term appointments and it’s always a struggle for UCOA to fund these positions.”

Uniting Church Overseas Aid has a long history of providing clean water to those who need it most — in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. For more information about helping provide “The Water of Life”, visit http://www.uim.uca.org.au/.