In Case You Missed It…
If you didn’t watch our video of Everett walking (or if you didn’t see Kelly Keever at Grace on Sunday,) you may not have heard, but Elizabeth is pregnant. Due October 3rd. And in other news… We both had a language evaluation about a week ago and each did well. We are “almost finished” with our formal language study in PNG’s trade language. This doesn’t mean that we are fluent, it just means that we know enough (almost) to function...
Valentine’s Ball
Friday the Junior class of the missionary-kid high school had a Valentine’s dinner (as a fund raiser.) The invitation said families were welcome so we decided to take the whole gang. I guess when you don’t have a dish washer and the restaurant selection in town isn’t that great, an event like this sounds pretty good. Beforehand my excitement level was only medium at best, but then Elizabeth decided we should tell the girls that we would all be going...
Mibu Round Up
Here are some pictures and details we didn’t have a chance to share while we were in Mibu (mostly because of our limited internet access.) Here are a few shots from the day we flew in: This is what an outhouse looks like in the villages. They have three walls and a great view off the side of a cliff. This is one of the two church buildings. These are the Husa’s pets. Here are the girls trying to help Everett walk (despite their efforts, he is...
“Home” Again
I’m back with my family, though I hesitate to say I’m home. (It’s tough to know what to call “home” right now.) Nonetheless, I have returned safely with some valuable house building experience under my belt. Here is what the house looked like when I left along with two of the other guys who had been working on it: Some of the building team remained and some other guys joined as well–there is still lots of work to be done,...
Building Location
Here are a couple of pictures of where I am helping build a house for the next few days. The first picture shows the current missionaries’ house (red) and the location where we are building a little to the...
House Building
Tomorrow morning I leave for a tribal location where a new couple is moving in to join an existing work. I’m going with a group of guys to help build a house. I’ll be gone for four days. Please pray for: Elizabeth who will be staying with the kids here on the base Our kids For the safety of the team (including me) who will be traveling and building Also, while we were in Mibu I set up a make-shift portrait studio in our den and asked people to come in so I...
Quick Update
We just wanted to let everyone know that we are out of Mibu and back at the NTM base. We flew out yesterday (story coming soon.) Then today we found out that all the stuff we shipped over from America had arrived here in Goroka last week. After shipping it last July and having it sit in the port city waiting on the customs officials since October, we are excited to finally have it. So today was a crazy day of unpacking our suitcases from Mibu and our boxes from...
Baby on Board
I’m not sure that I could jump on board with this, but I love how the ladies here put their babies in a bilum (woven bag) and hang them up on a tree or fence or whatever to take a nap. Sometimes you just see a dangling bilum start to move around and cry. The bilum is quite versatile, seeing as they also swing the baby in the bilum to put him to sleep and carry the baby in the bilum on their head, so it serves as a swing and a backpack/baby carrier, as well as a...
Blisties
Monday the people here started work on clearing an area of the bush for an air strip. Having an air strip would greatly decrease the cost of ferrying people and supplies in and out of this tribe because operating a small plane is much cheaper than the helicopter. This would benefit the Husas and the Mibu people who would use flights to take coffee beans and other products to town for sale. However turning the uneven ground of the thick jungle into a flat 600 meter long...
Fruit
Today (Sunday) Geoff and I hiked down to Beng, one of the two nearby villages about forty minutes away, for church. When we got there, we found out that church was happening in the other village, Mibu. I was thankful that we had not brought any children with us today since that meant another twenty minutes of hiking. There isn’t a precise schedule for church, so once we arrived in Mibu we waited and talked for some time before church started. It didn’t conclude...
Some Things
1. Geoff has returned. He didn’t come back until today (Wednesday) because of helicopter availability. He was treated for meningitis and is doing fine now. Thanks to all of you who have been praying. 2. On a less serious medical note, my finger seems to be healing well. I’ll spare you all from a picture. It hasn’t quite sealed up yet, but at least it’s not still bleeding. 3. Elizabeth’s computer stopped working entirely about a week ago....
Wok Meri
One of the perks of being here in Mibu has been having a “wok-meri” (maid) 3 mornings a week. This is a huge blessing! My wok meri, Tasem, worked for the family whose house we are staying in for years when they lived here. She had told Shannon that she would be glad to work for me while we were here, so I was happy to let her! Considering how much extra house work there is here (ie no dishwasher or dryer or convenience food, etc) having house help is such a...
Meningitis
Yesterday our Mibu host, Geoff, was flown out by helicopter to the New Tribes clinic. He had been suffering with a severe headache the day before and had spent some time on the radio with the doctor discussing his symptoms. The doctor feared it might be meningitis. He was right. Geoff is now recovering at the clinic and will be returning Monday. For now we are here in the tribe with his pregnant wife, Shannon, and their three daughters. Please keep us and the Husas in...
Adjustments
Getting groceries here in Mibu is quite different from a trip to BiLo in America. When the helicopter comes in, it costs about $1200 so you can imagine that the Husas try to pack it as full as possible every time they order supplies. This last time (on the trip we came in on) their butter was somehow left off the flight. They have been trying to figure out if it is worth diverting another flight (flown by another mission) to a nearby airstrip for about $200 and then...
In Response to…
As many of you know, while we are living out here in Mibu we can’t surf the web, but we can email. It is a little weird that we can only interact with our website through email (Matt New deserves credit and thanks for posting the emails we send to him onto our website.) Thanks to the inventors of technology, we are automagically receiving emails anytime someone comments on a post. Since we can’t respond to these comments in our normal fashion, this is a post...
Foreign Christmas
There were a couple of things about our Christmas day that made us aware we were in PNG. First, while we were enjoying our Christmas morning breakfast of cinnamon rolls, breakfast casserole, fresh fruit and freshly squeezed OJ (thanks to my house helper…I’ll write more about her soon) a woman showed up at our door to sell us oranges and some other produce. That doesn’t usually happen at the US. Later, as we were finishing up dessert after Christmas...
Merry Christmas!
It was quite a merry Christmas here on the other side of the world! Its weird to think that we are finishing up Christmas day and most of you have not yet begun. I hope it is a great day for all of you! Christmas was a little more low key here, but it was merry none the less! We had a nice time as a family on Christmas Eve eating party food for supper and drinking hot cocoa while Daddy told the Christmas story before bed. Then this morning the girls woke up bright and...
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