Our Pacific Orientation Course is finally over!! Our family not only survived, but thrived here in Madang.
The first week in the village, Amelie loved chasing the chickens around the village. There was one hen family in particular she “adopted” as her own and followed them everywhere… until mama hen had had enough. She suddenly turned on Ami and chased HER all over the village. Amelie let out a piercing scream that was probably heard in Madang 30 km away. Everyone in the village came running to see what had happened to her, then laughed when they saw her running from a mother hen. Elisa adopted a kitten from the village which was starving for affection (and food). It came to our hut several times daily and always seemed to arrive at meal time. The morning we left, “Bengel” showed up and laid down on Eli’s bilum bag and never moved until we left. We had to check to make sure we didn’t have a stow-away..
To collect drinking water, we had to hike through the village, down a hill and into the river, wade across, then down the bank and back into the river... you get the picture. After 15 minutes, we'd come to a small mountain stream fed from a spring. The stream funnels into a metal tube where we'd collect about 4-5 gallons at a time. We made this trek almost daily.
We taught the kids in our village and surrounding villages how to play games like Red light Green light, kick-the-can, and capture-the-flag. Whenever our village had a meeting and the kids all showed up it was game-on!!
Elisa wanted to make a "broom" from coconut leaves and several people from the village came out to help us strip the leaves and trim the spines to make a broom.
Our was-papa (the man in charge of us) made a living by collecting cocoa beans. He would dry them over a huge fire-fed drier. Both Amelie and Elisa would climb up to help him bag the dried beans to ship to a company.
The hut we stayed in had two rooms, one for Jenny and I and the other for the girls. After a couple weeks, we just combined all the mosquito nets into one giant "fort" which the girls swooned over making bedtime the funnest time of the day. We rolled up the inside edges to make it one almost bug-proof room.
Somehow, the cockroaches still managed to find a way in. On occasion I would awake to something crawling over me and turn on a lamp to discover a 1-2" cockroach crawling over me. Even when I chopped them in half with a bush knife, the head-side would still try to crawl away... that is until the ants got them. The ants would swarm over injured or crushed cockroaches in an attempt to haul them away which then attracted the chickens. They would then start devouring the ants. If allowed, I would have killed the chickens, putting me at the top of the local food chain! We did find a way to kill the cockroaches. If enough oil was left in our frying pan overnight, the roaches would drown in the oil. Die roaches... die!!
Church was a 1 hour hike away, uphill on the way there, and downhill coming "home". We couldn't go the third Sunday in the village because the rains were just too heavy, and we missed the fourth week because I sprained my achilles tendon the day before playing volleyball at a nearby village. I wouldn't let Jenny and the girls hike the hour without me... too much love to justify such a risk!
My little pyromaniac (Amelie) loved starting the fire for meals, but if it didn't start quickly, it was Elisa who wouldn't give up until the fire was roaring. She's so much like her dad... Amelie was taught how to prepare local vegetables from our was-mama and she did this exceedingly well! Good food Ami!!
For Jenny's 42nd birthday, we hiked the 1 hour out to a village called Amron where we caught a PMV (taxi) to a beach resort called Jais Aben. We had good relationships with the families in our village at that time, and they let us take a couple boys with us. Those kids were fearless and scared me to death! There's good swimming there with a giant tree and a couple ropes to swing over the ocean for a good splash. Ami swung off the ropes, but the boys would climb to the top of the tree and jump. No thank you...
But most importantly, there was ICE CREAM at Jais Aben!!! After over three weeks with nothing cold to eat or drink, I'm tempted to say that ice cream just may have saved my life!!
We found another blue starfish and Amelie and I balanced it on our heads together. Not wanting to be out done by a girl, one of the boys just had to show that he could do it too, which he did! His name.. Sweden the brave. I've come a long way from not letting people get too close to me, huh?!
I'm sure it's alright with all you supporters, we bought those boys some ice cream too. That went over about as well as taking a little girl to the American Girl store in Atlanta and letting her choose whatever she wanted. That means they loved it!!
Was the ice cream good?? I'll say this much, and I've never seen this before, nor can I explain it. If you spilled any on the ground (a jailable offense here), the ants would avoid it like poison. What does that say about the ice cream?! None-the-less, when you've gone almost 4 weeks without anything cold, you don't waste a drop.
Did I mention she's so much like her daddy?! Gosh this is beautiful country... you are awesome Jesus for such amazing creation.
The week before we left, our was-papa found and killed a rat in his house, then found a nest with babies. Both girls took to the babies and had a hard time understanding that there was no hope for them without a mama rat. Amelie (being so much older) learned the lesson faster and fed hers to Bengel! Elisa feared the same thing would happen to her baby, so she hid it and never told me what she did with it.
Escaping the heat in the river kept us from losing our cool. I know... that was a bad one.
Then the experience was over and it was time to go. I lost about 20 pounds during our POC experience, Jenny lost about 1 pound. Yes, she still looks awesome!!
Once we get back to Ukarumpa, I'll post another blog telling some more serious stories, but posts like that must be checked first, so those stories will have to wait a few more days.
On to one more topic that I so dislike bringing up. Upon our return to the POC campus and back to internet access, we were saddened to see that our financial support continues to drop off. Our supporting church (Lifeway Community Church) even withheld taking out our tithe before sending the funds on to Wycliffe. Lifeway, please take out the funds. We simply cannot afford not to tithe. I fell before the Lord in prayer. His response was that I am not here to serve the expatriates, nor even the Nationals. I am here to serve Him. As long as I keep my focus and service on Him, I have nothing to worry about. He's got this. Amelie could tell something was troubling me and asked what was wrong. When I told her that more people had stopped sending their support, she asked the question that struck me deep in my heart. "Are they forgetting about us?" she asked. How am I to respond? I told her to simply trust in God, "He sent us here, and He will keep us here as long as we serve Him. Just trust in Him and He'll keep us here until He's ready to use us someplace else."
I do not like bring up such serious matters, but I can easily recall how upset I got at Monique and Lewis Clay when I found out they were using up their savings while serving God in Camaroon, Africa because they hadn't bothered to tell us (their support team) that they weren't getting enough money sent in for them. So I'm not wanting to repeat their mistake. It is not my desire that those who give, give more. It is my desire that those who pledged and gave us their word will resume supporting us, or start giving. These people here in PNG were made in God's image. In many ways, they are not less important than our supporters, but more important. Without help, they have no hope.
We're doing our best to change their future, but we cannot do that without your help! We are not here on vacation (despite the appearance in the photos), it's very hot and we're going without the basic necessities that are taken for granted where we came from. We are serving God as best we can. CMTI classes taught me that the best leaders lead by serving.
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