Postcards from PNG

VBS comes to a close

2008-01-23T16:35:00.000-08:00

Well, the week got away from me and I haven't blogged the last two days of VBS...yet.

Thursday and Friday went well with around 360 children present. It was amazing to watch all of these kids listening (most of them attentive) as our VBS leader told the Bible story of the day. It was incredible to hear them all singing about how they need to choose to road that leads to Jesus, not the road that leads to death (in Tok Pisin, of course).
The topics covered during the week were:
Will if be afraid or will I trust in God?
Will I be jealous or will I thank God for the thinks He's given me?
Will I be lazy or work hard for God?
Will I be angry or have self-control?
Will I keep on commiting sin or ask God for forgiveness?

Please pray for these chilren. Pray that the things they have heard this week will stick. Many of these children do not attend church regularly and this may have been the first time they have heard of God's love for them.

Please pray also for the many Papua New Guinean women who helped with this VBS and continue to work with these children in their villages. Pray that God would strengthen them and he would provide resources for them. Many of these women have no resources for teaching these children except a Bible and God's guidance (thankfully, these are the most important things to have.)

Thanks for the prayers.

Now that VBS is over, I am gearing up for school to start up again. This week, I've been buried in lesson planning. It is my new goal to start blogging at least once a week so that you all can get a bit more of my perspective on life here in PNG.

VBS day three

2008-01-15T18:40:00.001-08:00

Today was day three of our week long VBS.

Attendance today was about the same as yesterday, 383 children.

I along with some of the other leaders are beginning to fell a bit tired. Please pray for energy so that we can finish the week strong.

Pray also for the children that they will open up and share with their leaders.

Today the topic for the lesson was regarding anger and how anger can open the door and let Satan in.

Thanks for your prayers.

VBS Day Two

2008-01-15T03:14:00.000-08:00

Today was day two of a week long Tok Pisin VBS. We had about 385 kids come today. Thank God for good weather and all of the people involved in this minstry. It's amazing to see so many kids engaged in listening to the word of God! Please pray that the children will open up during our discussion time. This is the time when we can share with them one-on-one. Papua New Guinean children are very good at sitting and listening, but it is often hard to get them to open up and talk to an adult.

On another note: A long-time translator here in PNG collapsed and died in the village today. WE don't have a lot of details yet, but she and here husband have served her in PNG for many years. (I believe they are currently working on their third translation project if that gives you any idea how long they have been here.) Please pray for her husband, family, the Ukarumpa community, and the people that they have ministered to here in PNG. Many are shocked, saddened, and hurting by this news.

VBS Day one

2008-01-14T00:50:00.000-08:00

Chad mentioned in his blog that I am helping with a Vacation Bible School this week. The VBS is geared mainly toward Papua New Guinean children, although some "whiteskin" children are attending as well.

I am excited about helping out with this minstry for a number of reasons.

First, it's a great way to minister to the children who live here on center as well as in the neighboring villages.

Second, sometimes living here seems a bit like living in a bubble. For the most part, our neighbors are all other missionaries or Papua New Guinean believers who live and work here on center. This VBS is a great chance to reach out to the greater community here in the Eastern Highlands Province. Not only do I get to talk to kids about Jesus, but I'm working alongside many Papua New Guinean women too.

Third, it's a very "hands-on" way to do what we came here to do, give the word of God to the
people of PNG.

Lastly, and probably least important, it gives me a chance to practice my Tok Pisin. I've been trying hard to learn the language and in the 10 months we've been here I feel like I've learned a lot, but I still have a lot to learn.

The last time this VBS was held (2 years ago) there were close to 100 children who came. THis year we were hoping for even more.... God answered that prayer by sending close to 350 children on our first day! Wow!!!

Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of 350 children (from aged 2 to 14 or 15), I think of chaos. Believe it or not, it was an incredibly smooth morning. God really
came through made it an incredible morning!

Please pray for the rest of the week that we can really communicate God's love to these children. Pray that God would work in the lives of these children. Pray that this week will be the start of life changes for some of these children as they give their lives to Jesus Christ.

A mouse in the house

2007-10-04T03:35:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, Chad is in Alotau, PNG on a "business trip" helping out for a few days at the regional center there . (If you look at a map of PNG, Alotau is on the very tip of the big penninsula.) So, the kids and I are on our own for a few days.

Tonight, the kids and I were sitting in the living room, minding our own business, watching a movie when out of the corner of my eye I see something scurry across the floor. At first I think it's a big cockroach so I grab Chad's big boot to squish it with. Upon closer inspection, I see that it is not a cockroach, but a mouse.

So, I turn on a couple of lights, grab the broom, open the front door, tell the kids to get on the couch and stay there, and I chase the thing around the room. First, it hides under the couch. Next, it goes behind the TV and into to box that holds the X-box controllers. Then, behind the wood stove, around behind the smaller couch, and finally it runs right out the front door.

The kids, of course, wanted me to catch it so they could keep it as a pet. I was proud of myself that I didn't freak out. I actually remained rather calm. Afterward, I called my friend Molly (I had to tell someone what happened) and the first thing she said was, "You didn't kill it? It's gonna come back. You need to get a cat." Well, we all know I'm not getting a cat!
Thanks a lot Molly! Now I'll have to be on constant lookout for mice in the house! I'm not naive enough to think there will never be mice in our house, but I'm perfectly content to never see them.

It's funny, though, I was actually a bit relieved that it was a mouse and not a cockroach. The cockroaches are disgusting. I don't like those anywhere. Mice, on the other hand, can be kinda cute, just not when they are scurrying around my house.

More Fresh Meat

2007-07-06T16:48:00.001-07:00

Next week there is a week long conference happening where many directors from our organization come from around different parts of the world (about 35 people in all). A friend and I have been asked to cater lunches each day next week for the conference.

Keep in mind that most everything you cook here is from scratch. Making pizza involves making your own pizza dough, your own Italian sausage, etc. Making hamburgers involves homemade buns. Having tacos requires homemade tortillas (actually we buy these from a Papua New Guinean woman who makes them each week.) You get the idea, right?

Well, my friend and I sat down planned out the menu, made our shopping list, and off we went to the store to buy a whole lot of food. Our menu for the week includes tacos, sloppy joes, and hamburgers, all of which require ground beef (or mince as it is called here). Well, we encountered one large problem... the store is out of mince. It has been ordered, but the store truck is currently out of commission and there is no way to go pick up the order. Well, we explain to the store manager, we're making lunches for the DIRECTOR'S conference next week and we need a whole lot of mince. What can we do? The store manager assures us he will try his hardest to find a solution for us. So, we thank him and wait. A while later we are told that, since they were unable to get a truck to go pick up the meat order, they have decided to to buy a local cow and slaughter it themselves. How is that for service? I guess when you mention the directors you have a bit of pull around here. Something tells me that if I wanted a bit of mince to make burgers for my family they wouldn't have killed a cow for me!

Warm Chickens delivered to your door

2007-07-06T16:02:00.000-07:00

Raising chickens is one source of cash income for many of the Papua New Guineans. We can and do sometimes buy previously frozen chicken from our store here, but another popular and often preferred way to get chicken is to buy from one of the Papua New Guineans. Often times these chickens are much more tasty and tender than the ones from the store. When purchasing one of these chickens, there is usually an option to purchase a live chicken (that you can kill and clean yourself) or you can pay a bit extra to have this part done for you. I opt for letting someone else do this part for me. (The extra cost amounts to less than 1 US dollar. Well worth it if you ask me!)

So, you let someone know how many chickens you'd like and the next day, you get a nice warm chicken delivered to your door. I think I'll add this to the growing list of things I never expected to be normal everyday life.

What's New

2007-06-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

OK, so I know it's been a while since I've posted. I have no good excuse, so I won't try one.
Today we spent the morning out at aviation saying goodbye to friends who are going home on furlough. We are so thankful that we had friends here to greet us when we arrived and to help us get settled here. Now we say goodbye to them for about 6 months. We've send them on their way with extra hugs for friends and family back home.

It is term break right now, so the kids are out of school. They are enjoying the break from school and spend most of their day playing in the yard with their many Papua New Guinean friends.

I have committed to teaching ESL at the primary school next year. So, I will be working four morning a week working with small groups of students who need extra help with their English. This job will stretch me a bit, but I'm excited about the challenge. I'll have about 18 kids to work with from all over the world (PNG, Korea, Germany, Finland, Japan) I'm excited about getting back into teaching. Please pray for our family as we all adjust to Mom going back to work.

Testing....

2007-06-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

A Birthday party PNG style

2007-05-05T03:15:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrated our son's 6th birthday, PNG style.

We had about 10 kids (including our 2) over to celebrate. I wanted to keep it fairly simple and not too bid, 10 seemed to be a good number.

Decorations: I went to our store here to see what they had in the way of decorations. There were several rolls of crepe paper, all green, so I got too. He likes green, this is good. then I went to see if they had any balloons... they had 4. They were a dark silvery color and were printed with I love (insert a heart here) Papua New Guinea. Chad and I laughed a bit about these because usually you have "I love..." or "I (heart)..." We're not used to seeing, "I love (heart) ..." Just a funny translation thing. So that was pretty much the extent of the decorations, green streamers and 4 balloons. It worked, I spent less that 2 kina on it, that is equivalent to less than $1 in American money.

The Cake: I made a chocolate cake (from scratch) with chocolate frosting (also from scratch). Believe it or not we can get boxed cake mix here and sometimes frosting, but making it from scratch is cheaper and (I think) tastier. The question on my mind was how do I decorate this cake? Well, since we just got our cargo and now have a printer, I printed out on a piece of paper "Happy 6th Birthday" cut it out and set it on top of the cake. Then I found, at the store, some colored sprinkles and candles. There you go, simple, but colorful and fun. The kids loved it.

Goodie bags: It was very refreshing to see that the children at this party were perfectly happy with a ziplock bag (which I brought from the States) filled with 3 hershey kisses, 1 caramel candy, 1 lollipop, and one ballon rocket as their treat bag.

The Party agenda: As the guests arrived, we had some sidewalk chalk
(thanks Grandma) and toys out for them to play with. After about 1/2 an hour we began a treasure hunt around the yard. Ultimately the treasure hunt led them to find their goodie bags (hidden in the sandbox). This was great fun. I've never seen a group of kids so well behaved and cooperative as these. They worked together to find and read the clues, waited for one another before moving on the the next clue, etc. After the treasure hunt we served cake and then the kids played around the yard. Chad pulled out his banjo and they sang some songs, played freeze dance, and seemed to have a great time. Simple, yet fun.

The day ended with my son giving me a big thank you for a GREAT party.

Haus Meri

2007-05-05T02:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first day that our haus meri came and worked for us. Here in PNG it is kind of expected the expatriates will a hire national woman as a haus meri (house help). I waited a while to hire one because I just didn't feel ready, but I finally decided it was time. Yesterday was her first day. It's going to take a bit of getting used to, but it's great to have the help around the house. The housework has always been my job and it feels strange having someone else do it for me, especially when I am home and when I consider the rate of pay that is expected for work such as this. Most American's would be appalled at how little these women are paid. My tendency is to want to pay her more, but I have to respect the economy here and paying her more would upset the balance. So, often we find other ways to supplement their income like throwing in a bag of rice with her pay.

The people of this country are rich by some standards. Most have land and gardens that produce enough to feed their family and sell some at market, but what they often don't have is much cash income. The biggest need for cash comes when their children enter school and school fees must be paid. Some of they ways that we are able to help them with this is by buying their goods at market and by hiring them as house and yard help.

One of the best things about having a haus meri (and yard meris) is that it gives me a relationship with a national. It gives me a window into the PNG culture and a chance to make a wontok (friend). My prayer is that through my relationships with our hired help, we can encourage one another in our walk with the Lord.

PukPuk

2007-04-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

Lest you think that all of my cooking here has been learning to make familiar dishes with the resources on hand, I wanted to let you know about one of my latest culinary adventures.

Last weekend my family enjoyed a wonderful stir-fry meal with rice, noodles, various veggies, and PukPuk. (PukPuk is the Tok Pisin word for Crocodile tail). It was quite delicious. I wasn't too sure about it myself before cooking it, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised at the flavor.

I guess that goes toward the top of my list of most exotic things I've cooked and eaten. Maybe later on, I'll get more adventurous, but for now I'm feeling proud of this accomplishment.

Rambutan

2007-04-11T20:23:00.000-07:00

This place is full of foods that I’ve never in my life seen or heard of. Going to market is a great cultural experience. I have enjoyed several new foods since arriving in PNG. Today I tried something called Rambutan. This is possibly the most bizarre fruit I have ever seen or tasted! I thought passion fruit was interesting, this definitely tops that! It is a small oval shaped fruit (smaller than a kiwi, but bigger than a grape) the skin bright red and has what looks like thick black hairs coming out of it. (Sounds appetizing I know!) To eat it, you cut open the skin (thankfully you don’t eat the skin) and inside is what looks like a white eyeball. It’s roughly the texture of a firm grape. You eat the flesh (the white eyeball part) and the spit out the seed that’s in the middle. I’m sure after this description most of you are thinking, why would you even want to eat that? Honestly, I don’t know what inspired me. I was prepared to spit it out and never try one again, but I was quite pleasantly surprised! It was pretty tasty. I fact I think I’ll go pop open another!

Making bread

2007-04-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

One of the things I was most nervous about before coming to PNG was baking my own bread. I was given a breadmaker by my aunt, but since our shipment hasn’t arrived yet, I’ve been making it by hand. I’ve come to the conclusion that making bread here in PNG is easier than making bread in the USA. I have had quite a few failed attempts at bread baking in the US. I never can seem to get it to rise well. Surprisingly, here in PNG I’ve had much better success. It may seem like a small victory, but I feel a sense of accomplishment every time my family bites into a sandwich or piece of toast made with my homemade bread.
One thing I have learned, though, is that not all bread products are created equal. After a couple of successful batched of bread, I decided to try my hand at making hamburger buns. Well, I tried… and failed miserably! Who knew that making homemade hamburger buns could be so much harder than baking a loaf of bread? Thankfully, my family is very understanding and puts up with my culinary failures!

Happy Easter

2007-04-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

I realize that for most of you Easter is today, but for us it was yesterday.

Easter has always been a big family celebration for us, so as we prepared for our first holiday overseas (there was my birthday, but that doesn't really count) we were really hoping to spend the day with other people. We were so happy to be invited to Easter with our friends the Russells. We shared a lovely meal and time visiting together.

We began our Easter morning with the traditional family photo before church. There were no new Easter outfits this year, but we tried to dress a little nicer than normal. This is a VERY casual place. Dressing up does not happen often. Yesterday was the first day I wore something besides sandals on my feet.

We followed the photo with a short walk to church. There are two services each week the Tok Pisin service and the English service. Because we want to get familiar with the language, we have been attending the Tok Pisin service. It requires a great deal of concentration and I find that I miss a lot of what is being said, but it's a way to connect with the nationals and communicate to them my desire to get to know their culture. Hopefully, in the process, I will begin to learn more Tok Pisin.

After church we came home and had an Easter egg hunt for Sydney and Calvin. We had another family over on Saturday to dye eggs with us, so we hid those and a dozen plastic eggs which I brought with us. The kids enjoyed that.

After the hunt, we went to our friends house and enjoyed an Easter meal together and spent some time visiting and enjoying the beautiful day.

There is something really peaceful about this place. As I sit here I'm humbled by thoughts of God's incredible love for me. He created such places of beauty that we can enjoy. Most important, though, he sent his son to die for our mistakes. Wow!

We've gone Bananas!

2007-04-02T01:54:00.000-07:00

We have about 50 ripe bananas at our house right now and about 100 more ripening.

This seems to beg the question... "What am I going to do with all those bananas?"

My answer... I have no idea! I mean really how can I use them all?

I enjoy bananas, but I'm sure you will agree that this is an excessive amount. Sharing with the neighbors might be an option if they didn't all have their own banana trees.

Here are a few ideas I came up with...
Just eat them, of course
banana bread
banana pancakes
banana cookies
banana smoothies
banana muffins

I researched some banana recipes and came up with one for banana fritters... turns out that one is not a family favorite!

So, if you've got any ideas about what I can do with all these bananas... let me know!

(Please understand I'm not complaining about having fresh ripe bananas from our own banana trees. I'm just looking for creative suggestions.)

Yard Meris

2007-04-01T02:49:00.000-07:00

Thank goodness for our yard meris!

The house we are living in here has quite a large, beautifully landscaped yard. While I enjoy the beauty of the yard, I know nothing about yardwork and caring for plants. Thankfully, one of the ways we serve the nationals is by hiring them as house help and yard help. Each Thursday we have two women (sisters) who come to the house and work in the yard (yard meris). They rake, pull weeds, pick ripe fruit, etc. I'm sure that without them our yard would be dead in a matter of weeks! We are blessed that our yard meris are Christian women. They live here on the center and the children on one of the women have become good friends with Sydney and Calvin.

Part of my job as the person hiring them is to feed them a snack at break time and serve them lunch. It also gives me a chance to sit and talk with them a bit. I'm hoping that this will be one way I begin to learn tok pisin (pidgin).

Pizza Dinner

2007-04-01T02:37:00.000-07:00

In keeping with family tradition, we spent our Sunday evening with a pizza dinner and a movie. Gone are the days where we call up the pizza delivery and we have hot, fresh pizza in 45 minutes.

It was about a 2 hour process and took some teamwork, but we made our first homemade pizza here in PNG. We began with making the pizza dough. I mixed the dough, Chad did the kneading and shaping on the dough. Next came the sauce, thankfully we can get some canned foods at the store here, so we opened up a can of tomatoes and a can of tomato sauce, added some spices and other things and made a lovely pizza sauce. Now for the toppings... we can get mozzarella and parmesan cheese here at the store so we used that to make the kids a cheese pizza. For the grown up pizza, we chopped up some meat sticks they sell here as a snack item (it's the closest we could find to pepperoni), sliced some olives (from a can), and chopped up some pineapple (fresh from our garden).

The overall consensus... delicious. So, while it's no pizza delivery, we felt pretty good about it. I am constantly amazed at the resources we have here in the food department.

To Market, To Market ...

2007-03-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

I felt it was time to give some insight into PNG from a female perspective. So here is my blog. I hope you enjoy it!

We've been in country for about a week and a half now. I'm learning a ton about how things are done here. One of the things I get to do a couple of times a week is go to market.

Imagine with me a farmer's market, except with fruits and vegetables you have never heard of, with people who speak a language you don't know, and with money that is unfamiliar to you. It's quite and adventure! I'm beginning to get the idea of how market works, but I still walk around looking at some of the items and wonder what I'm looking at. Is it a fruit or a vegetable? Sometimes I don't know. Thankfully there are familiar things are well. Here is what I purchased today...
2 heads of lettuce (1 kina each)
1 papaya (2 kina)
5 potatoes (2 kina)
a dozen carrots (1 kina)
2 tomatoes (50 toea each =1 kina)
1 avocado (50 toea)
1 zucchini (1 kina)
some day maybe I'll get brave enough to try some of the more
exotic items, but for now I'll stick with what I know.

We'll have a yummy salad with dinner tonight.

One important distinction here is that we have market (for fruits and veggies) and then we have the store. The store is where we go to get everything else. I have been pleasantly surprised by the good selection the store has. I've been warned, though, that if you see it and you think you might want it, buy it. The store often runs out of things and may take quite some time to get it back in stock. Oh, and the store is not open on the weekends and closes at 4 PM every day. Planning ahead for meals is VERY important. One of my favorite features of the store is the grocery delivery. Since many people here on center don't have vehicles (us included) you can go to the store, purchase you items and then have them delivered to your house. It brings me back to the great days of Webvan!