Belle is 5!
Belle turned 5 on Sunday. Five seems like a big birthday to me. No longer a baby, toddler, or even a preschooler anymore! We are about to embark on the new world of school aged kids! I’m not sure I’m ready for that. It sure is going fast. Belle was born on mothers day and this year, for the first time since she was born, her birthday fell on mothers day again. We decided to make the day all about Belle, though, and wait to celebrate me next week. Considering...
Church in PNG Part II
As we spend time with nationals in Papua New Guinea and with missionaries who have been engaged in the discipleship process for decades, we see the consequences of not completing the task that Jesus gave to his own disciples. We see the results of groups coming to Papua New Guinea as missionaries, but not making disciples. There may be many factors that contribute to this failure, but a few are obvious and easy to identify.
Church in PNG
After watching Hoax’s story, Sharon Jacobs, asked this:
“I thought Christianity was a new teaching where you are? Hoax said that both he and his parents went to church…people are exposed to Christianity there?”
This is a good question and one that I though could use some explanation.
Bible Stories with Hoax VI
Want to start at the beginning? Click here. Here’s what we covered: Jesus’ Actions – I read Hoax a number of passages to demonstrate the following things about Jesus: He taught with authority. He cast out demons. He healed the sick. He forgave sins. He had power over the natural world. Jesus’ Teaching – I read a number of passages to demonstrate the following things about what Jesus taught: He preached repentance. He raised the standard of the...
Buk Baibel
The Buk Baibel is PNG’s pidgin translation of the Bible. For those of you who know what a Bible snob I am, you’ll understand what I mean when I say it is less than adequate–mostly because of the inadequacy of pidgin, a trade language with a very limited vocabulary. Nonetheless, for many people here in PNG, it is the only Bible available. The standard version is the green one in the picture above. I bought the black one recently because I thought it would...
Bible Stories with Hoax Part V
Want to start at the beginning? Click here. It had been a while since Hoax and I were able to sit down and talk about the Bible because he spent two weeks in the hospital with Ginalyn waiting for blood to arrive. They left the hospital after these two weeks without a blood transfusion and were told to check back in another two weeks to see if the equipment had arrived so that Hoax and his brothers could donate blood for Ginalyn. When Hoax and I finally sat down...
My Red Fleece
My red fleece is one of my favorite things to wear, but unfortunately it’s only cold enough here to necessitate its snuggly warmth before 6am. Despite this fact, it is still getting a fair amount of...
Camp Out
This week the girls and I spent a night in our (2-man) tent. Despite the fact that it was crowded, all three of us made it through the night. Before “lights-out” we spent some time reading books together. Lucy actually said, “This is a fun night” at one point which, of course, made the hassle worth it. The girls wiggled and giggled for quite a while after their official bed time, but were asleep by 8:30 and they didn’t wake up until...
Up a Popo Tree
In front of our house we have a popo tree (pronounced poe-poe meaning papaya) which is about eleven or twelve feet tall. When I want, I can get a popo off of it with my bush knife pretty easily. In Mibu, however, there were some popo trees in front of our house that were closer to twenty-five or thirty feet tall. Popo trees only have branches at the very top and they are not very big around so I was curious how one might get a popo from one of those trees. One day I...
Locations, Locations, Locations
The map above is from SIL and shows the coverage area for different cellular providers here in PNG. j/k. There is only one cellular provider and their coverage map looks like Verizon’s coverage of eastern Montana. The map above actually shows the area and location of all the different languages in PNG. The colors group the languages into “families,” but each shape is a distinct language. So right now we are trying to figure out which of these language...
Mouse Trap
As a pet, Aurora is only so-so. She can be quite annoying, in fact. However, as a mouse trap, she is fantastic. Our neighbors, the Butlers, recently had a mouse problem and one afternoon, when they caught a glimpse of the mouse, I retrieved Aurora and took her next door. As Josh made a raucous to scare the mouse from behind a cabinet, I held Aurora on the other side. When the mouse emerged about knee-high on a gas line I temporarily lowered Aurora to it like I was...
Ginalyn Update
I took Hoax and Ginalyn to the NTM clinic again this past week. Despite the fact that she had appeared to be improving over the last month, she seemed to take a turn for the worse in the week leading up to this appointment. When we went to the clinic she was very weak and even thinner than before. She had a fever (which is especially bad considering her lupus medicine suppresses her immune system) and needed a blood transfusion. Since they cannot do blood transfusions...
Neighborhood Fun
We have neighbors, but no streets. Can we call that a neighborhood? Regardless, here are some of the things we've done for fun over the last few weeks
Bible Stories with Hoax Part IV
Want to start at the beginning? Click here. I don’t think I’ve made this clear and so I would like to clarify this point: the summaries I’ve been writing have each included the content of two or three separate meetings with Hoax each lasting between 1.5 and 2.5 hours. I’ve tried to be as concise as possible in my writing, but I wanted you all to know that we are spending quite a bit of time on all of this. So here’s what we covered the...
Cook Out
Last weekend Hoax and Margaret had us out to their place for a cook-out. Most of the cooking action actually happened in doors in this part of their house: The process began with Hoax chopping up the chicken we brought into chunks of meat, skin and tendons (at least he took out most of the bones.) Then he mixed in the greens… and ground up the ginger before adding it. In the meantime Elizabeth helped Margaret peel the potatoes. Once the main course was mixed,...
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