Family Conference, Part One

We have reached the half-year mark of being Papua Residents.  Some days, it feels like we've been here longer than six months.  We've packed a lot of living into our time here, and we have felt very ready for a break.


So it was with great anticipation that we headed off to our first MAF Family Conference in Papua.  I hoped for times of rest, a break from cooking and cleaning, time to get to know our co-workers better, and a break from steamy Sentani.


I was not disappointed.


David flew our family and the Perez family to Pyramid, a village in the Baliem Valley and site of the MAF Family Conference for many years.  This was the first time we've gotten to fly with David since we've been in Papua.  I love flying with D; it never ceases to amaze me how well - in my totally unbiased opinion - he can handle the plane and understand the static-y voices of the ATC controllers.  


The first part of the trip reminded me of Kalimantan jungle - winding rivers cutting through rolling hills dotted with broccoli-like trees.  Then as we approached the bigger mountains it started to look vastly different - craggy mountaintops, sweet potato gardens on the steep slopes, conical honai (traditional Papuan dwelling) clustered around an airstrip.  

Becky Perez holding her cutie-pie twin girls.  I love the bored expression on Ellie's face.  Grace, in the back on the right, enjoyed holding one of the twins for much of the flight.

Three of the MAF planes lined up on the runway at Pyramid.  We took turns doing "pig patrol" to keep pigs from wandering onto the runway while planes were landing and taking off.  Very exciting.

The lodge, where we ate all our meals and had our meetings.  

The honai (traditional Papuan hut) where the youth met.

The kids were anxious to start VBS each morning.

The conference grounds are a bit rustic and run-down, but the setting is beautiful and the weather perfect.  Nice and warm during the day, cool at night.  Mosquito nets helped keep out unwanted critters at night.

The accommodations may have been rustic, but one of the highlights for me - and I know this will sound silly - was the shower.  Our shower at home has low pressure and the hot water lasts about a minute, so we luxuriated in the long, steamy hot showers at conference, made possible by someone lighting fires under water drums twice a day.

A team from New Heights Church in Vancouver, Washington has been coming out for many years to help with the MAF conference.  They brought a group of young adults to help with VBS and the youth, as well as Pastor Matt and his wife Cindy, and their worship leader to lead the adults.


It fed my soul to have a solid week of daily corporate worship and teaching from the Word.  And the kids loved having big people to play with them.

Every evening there were crazy-fun family activities.  The first night we were chosen to sit in the MAF Family Fun Box Seating, where we were given M&M's and served fresh-cooked Spam.  Mmmm-mmm, nothing says camping like Spam.

The New Heights team staged a "Top Gun" game with water guns.  Every one who wanted to play (adults and older kids) received the name of the person they were to shoot.  Eventually the participants whittled each other down until there were just two people left.  Guess who??? Me and my buddy Linda, that's who!  Linda and her family served with ours in Kalimantan.  I don't know how we made it to the Top Gun finals - I wasn't that into the game until I started taking down all these teenagers, and Linda and I formed an alliance and helped each other until it was just us.  Then we had a show-down and her water gun proved to be faster than mine.

The kids enjoyed sliding in the mud, running wild with their buddies, and going for hikes.

We ate really well, with the meals prepared by two couples from other mission organizations who volunteered their time.  They were assisted by a group of Papuans.  They cooked meals for 130 people, all on a wood stove.  Impressive!  This woman in the photo below helped out with the baking; here she is rolling out doughnuts.  The fingers on her left hand have all been chopped off above the middle joint, a custom of some Papuan tribes to show (or perhaps induce) grief after a loved one dies.

One afternoon we all hiked down to a pig pond for a baptism service for two MAF young people.

We were sad - but rather exhausted - when it was time to leave.  It was quite an operation to get everyone packed up and sent out, but it was all organized amazingly well.  Pilot types - you gotta love their efficiency!!!


**Please forgive the varying fonts in this blog post - Blogger and I are not getting along at the moment!!!**

Summer Days

Another week of summer is gone, and it doesn't seem like we're really doing much.  But when I think back over this past week - we've been busy!  Here's a glimpse:
Is there anything better than a fresh home-made bagel?  Well, yes - a store-bought bagel. But seeing as we can't buy bagels, I made a batch this week. It was labor-intensive, but so very worth it.

We can buy some super-fresh eggs from a local ministry.  So fresh they still have lots of yucky chicken poop still on them.  This week's flat of eggs seemed poopier than usual.

Sorry to be gross, but this is just the reality of buying eggs here.  Thankfully I have kids who are looking to earn money this summer, and one of the possibilities for income is to wash the eggs.  Rubber gloves make it possible.

Our garden that we started about two weeks ago started to sprout.  The tomatoes, sunflowers, and okra (pictured below) are taking off.  I am hoping to eat fried okra by August!

We finally got the tires fixed on the kids' bikes, and Zoe, who hasn't been on a bike in a long time - and never on one without training wheels, took right off.

Luke has long been wanting to assemble a catapult, so we spent one afternoon working on that.  We don't really need more weapons lying around, but this one turned out to be pretty innocuous.

One evening we had this lovely family over for dinner.  Gustaf was a class ahead of David at Moody Aviation, and the last time we saw him, he was a single guy.  He's been flying in Papua for over 13 years, and it was fun to reconnect with him and meet his wife and kids.

One of the highlights of the week was getting to meet a living legend of the mission world, Don Richardson, the author of Peace Child and Lords of the Earth. He and his sons have returned to Indonesia to visit the village they first reached out to years ago.  They were staying at the MAF guest house, and even though I handled their reservation for their stay, I didn't realize it was THE Richardsons until they were here.  And it's very timely that we met Don now, because we're reading Peace Child aloud at night with the kids.  When I told Don's son Stephen, who was an infant during the time featured in the book, that we were halfway through the book he said, "Oh you're almost to the part when I fall in the river."  The kids thought that was funny.  

This week in pictures

We finished the puzzle!  The kids helped me put it together, and I must say, it was way more satisfying to put it together without the help of the picture on the box.  So maybe my dad is on to something.

This week we went to the opening day of a Papuan cultural festival taking place on Lake Sentani.  It was very hot, but we managed to see some cool stuff before we succumbed to the heat.  

This guy was dancing up and down on the pier, "calling" to the boats full of warriors waving bows and arrows around.

This colorful parrot was riding on a woman's head as she watched the warriors dance.

There were several artists displaying their handicrafts, including this woman making pottery.

I got to try the local food, called papeda which is made from sago flour and has - according to one friend - the consistency of elephant snot.  I had been warned that to American palates, it's none too tasty, and I admit, it is a bit like eating paste.  It is basically tasteless, but the spicy fish eaten with it makes up for the lack of flavor.  It has been my observation that most cultures have their own version of porridge - in the South it's grits; out west it's cream of wheat; in other parts of Indonesia, there is bubur, a rice porridge.  On their own, these porridges are bland and boring - it's the yummy stuff we add to it that make them delicious (i.e. cheese grits with shrimp).  

Our other big event this week was taking part in another dousing of David, this time for soloing in the Caravan.  

After his shower, David had to do another flight.  Here's a picture of one of his passengers being loaded.

That's it for this week!  Today the kids and I are planning to plant our garden.  We are hoping that our okra seeds will like the tropical climate!

Dad's Rule for Puzzles

We love getting packages around here.  Usually it's comics and candy, or magazines for the kids and dark chocolate for me (it IS for me, right Mom and Dad?).  Sometimes my dad will throw in the random item, like tattoos from Moe's Southwest Grill (oh, how we miss Moe's) or Georgia-shaped silly bands.  Or a jigsaw puzzle without the box.


My dad, and if you know him you know this, is a unique man, with some unique ideas.  Like his idea that it's cheating to put a jigsaw puzzle together while looking at the picture on the box.  He says it's cheating.  The kids and I heartily disagree, and we spent part of our time at Christmas together trying to sneak peeks at the box of the massive jigsaw we were attempting to piece together.


But he's taken his rule for puzzles a step further by mailing us the puzzle, without the picture from the box.  My kids will need some brain stimulation this summer, and this will most definitely provide that.


So I have two questions for you:


1.  What picture do you think will emerge from this puzzle?


And, just to set my dad straight...


2.  Do you think it's cheating to look at the box while assembling a puzzle?

School's Out!

School finished up for Carter and Grace this past Friday at Hillcrest International School, and needless to say, they are happy to have a break!  It was a big adjustment for them to go from homeschooling to a "real" school setting.  For the most part, they have done quite well.  Here are a few pictures from this past semester.

The school truly is international, with students and teachers from the U.S., Canada, Korea, Australia, PNG, and Holland, and probably a few others I don't know about.

                                              

Mount Cyclops looms up behind the school property, which is situated on a hill above the city of Sentani.

Grace and some of her classmates work on a geometry project.

Luke is involved in a homeschool art club that meets weekly, and this is one of his projects.

This has been Zoe's big accomplishment of the semester - reading!  For over a year she's been working at it, and able to read simple books.  But just a few weeks ago something clicked for her and she took off!  Teaching each of the kids to read has been one of the most satisfying things I've done as a mom. (David wants me to point out that this is not Zoe's normal bed  - though she would very much love it to be.  She just happened to be sleeping in our room one night when I took this picture.)

Zoe flies at the Field Day obstacle course.

Luke nailed the bean bag toss.

Grace takes aim at her math teacher in the Dunk Tank.

Grace's sixth-grade class got to participate in a cool project, assisting Bible translators with proofreading over a new translation for printing errors (like ink smudges or blank pages).

There is a long-standing tradition at HIS for the eighth-graders to be whisked away for a day of fun near the end of school for what is known as the "Eighth-Grade Sneak".  It comes as a total surprise to the students - they don't know when it will happen or where they will go.  Carter was very much looking forward to this event.  This year their teacher took them to Base G, one of the local beaches, then to Pizza Hut for dinner, and the school for a movie.

The boys slept in hammocks at school property.  Lookin' pretty cozy, Carter!

Another tradition for the eighth-graders is a banquet to recognize their completion of middle school.  Everyone got dressed up, even us moms and dads, and we were served a lovely meal by the seventh-grade class.  Each of the parents had the opportunity to share some words of wisdom and encouragement to our kids as they look forward to entering a new phase of life - high school!

I can't believe it, really.  One, that I am old enough to be the mother of a high schooler, and two, that said high-schooler is old enough to be in high school.  We are looking forward to our summer with the kids.  No big plans - hopefully just lots of time for trips to the beach, hikes, reading, and hanging out together.

I have some new friends I would like to introduce.  Esther and Wes have been serving in the interior of Papua for many years.  David has flown into their village several times, and recently they spent some time in Sentani at the MAF guest house and we were able to get to know them a bit.

David with Wes and Esther in the village of Mamit

Wes is a bit of a legend around here, as his dad was one of two missionaries who were killed by cannibals in 1968 while trying to reach the remote Yali people.  Their story is told in the book Lords of the Earth by Don Richardson.

Wes (right) and MAF pilot Mike Brown look down the Mamit airstrip

In the village of Mamit, Wes teaches at the Bible school and Esther works with the children of the Bible school students.  They told us of how discouraging their work can be at times.  The older grandma and grandpa generation can read, but many of the younger generation are illiterate.  The education system in the interior regions is inadequate at best, with many schools opening for only a week each semester.  Students *advance* through the school system without having spent much time in the school, and many kids lack a basic knowledge of reading and math.


Esther is trying to at least give the kids of the Bible school students the ability to read.  They also provide basic medical care for the people of their village, and Wes is involved in keeping the hydroelectric generator going. Through it all, they try to live out a faithful Christian witness before the Yali people.  Even though Christianity has been in this area of Papua for a while, Wes says, "The Gospel has to impact each generation."


Wes and Esther live a very simple life. No fridge, no internet, a limited diet.  They eat mostly what the locals eat (yams and greens), supplemented with rice and noodles, and eggs when they can get them.  Esther talks about eggs like they are gold, and she says if they have them, she and Wes will share an egg a day, and that gives them an extra boost for their work.


I am humbled by Wes and Esther.  Their humility, their faith, their sense of humor in the face of daunting living conditions is a testimony to those around them.  After hearing about the situation in Mamit, I was ready to head back with them and join them in their work!  But before I could start packing my bag, David reminded me that we are here in Sentani, to provide support for Wes and Esther.  Without the MAF plane, they would not get the supplies they need, their mail, their eggs, so many things.


After our visit, Esther sent me a sweet letter of encouragement, with pictures of people in their village who have been helped by David and the MAF plane.  She listed some different things that came in via MAF:


*Much needed whiteboard ink so the kids can learn to read
*Asthma medicine for one of the Bible school students
*Glue for cut and paste
*New shirts to replace the rags the children wear
*Bar and laundry soap, so the families can avoid scabies
*Vitamins for women, to keep them alive and families intact

Esther

What a blessing it is to serve people like Wes and Esther!