VL part 5 {The Lessons}

I’m not going to lie...there were some really hard days during our village stay. Though space doesn’t allow, God was teaching us, molding us, changing us...I truly pray all for His ultimate glory. 

(Admittedly, I always don’t like how He goes about bringing this change, but...He’s in control and thankfully, I am not!)

I didn’t bring too many “extra” things to the village but I made sure I had my Bible and “Jesus Calling” devotional by Sarah Young. Every day seemed to challenge me, but it was the April 17th devotional that hit me square in the face:

“TRUST ME, and don’t be afraid. Many things feel out of control. Your routines are not running smoothly. You tend to feel more secure when your life is predictable. Let me lead you to the rock that is higher than you and your circumstances. Take refuge in the shelter of my wings, where you are abundantly secure. 

When you are shaken out of your comfortable routines, grip My hand tightly and look for growth opportunities. Instead of bemoaning the loss of your comfort, accept the challenge of something new. I lead you on from glory to glory, making you fit for My kingdom. Say yes to the ways I work in your life. Trust me, and don’t be afraid.”

And everyday there are verses associated with the devotion. The one that threw me in to tears on this day was Psalms 61:2-4 

“From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I for you have been my refuge...”

I clung to this verse on the hard days praying, hoping that the Lord would hear my heart even though I had inadequate words. Of course, He heard and answered those prayers...maybe not how I thought He would, but He did it in a way that we would be able to see Him at work even more. 

Were these lessons just a waste? I truly believe the answer is no. God never wastes our time (or His!) growing, teaching and stretching us. There’s a purpose and His plan behind it all...I just have to wait and see what He wants to do next.

VL part 4 {Random Pictures}

So in no particular order, random pictures that I just had to share!

Papaya tree outside our window at orientation.
I just love seeing all of this "new to me" vegetation...everywhere!
(Just wait til I post pics from our yard here!)

Here piggy piggy! We had LOTS of pigs in our village.
And they were loud...and dirty...and fought with the dogs in the middle of the night...
and I might give up bacon for awhile after living so close to them.

D went to school on day with Gerry!

Jason walking down the road with our language teacher at orientation.
He made me laugh...once I understood him!

Jason sliding down a waterfall on one of our hikes.
(Yes, I did it too!)
The water was FREEZING!!!!

FOUND! 4 perfect sand dollars during one of our weekly swim times at orientation.

I know, I know...someone pictured above probably won't approve of me posting this pic,
but.... I have to show how involved we got during our village time :)
We were invited to another village for one afternoon and they greeted us so warmly!
We took part in a traditional singsing and,
as you can tell,  even dressed the part!
The women gave me the grass skirt at the end of our day there.

Not everyone was so thrilled about the face paint that comes from the inside of a flower pod.

Jason learning how coconut oil is made.
Here our waspapa is scraping the inside of a coconut.

This is what happens when you teach a 7 year old how to take self portraits
 of himself with your camera!
 One of many I now have of Gerry :)

Jason learning how to make a mat out of a coconut leave.
(We brought the mats to Uka with us!)

Mal with her coconut leave bag. So cute!

Typical mode of transportation.
A hino truck with benches...imagine sitting next to 30 of your closest friends!
It was crowded but got the job done. 

VL part 3 {Food}

I will be the first to admit that my experience of cooking in the great outdoors is, well, how do you say it...limited? My idea of ‘fun’ was cooking hot dogs and smore's out at the lake house. I had never planned, prepped and cooked full, semi-healthy meals until orientation. Thankfully, during our haus kuk weekends we learned how to do this very thing plus adapt to having no refrigeration (i.e. no leftovers) in preparation for 5 weeks of village living. We survived and ate fairly well although probably not exactly under the guidelines of the US food pyramid.  

We also learned how food is gathered, prepped and eaten in a village. On the coast, coconuts and bananas, hundreds of different varieties, are grown and easily accessible. Most families have gardens that are located quite far from their homes. These gardens aren’t what you and I think of as gardens. They are huge, usually several acres of land, sometimes located on the sides of mountains, full of banana trees, starches, greens and sometimes even sugar cane-our girls favorite!

I went to the garden one day with one of Jimmy’s sisters, Regina, and Vincent’s wife, Rose. We walked about an hour to this huge segment of land that mostly sloped down a mountain. We gathered weeds into a burn pile. I was able to plant starches like taro and yam (not like American yams). They asked me to cut down a banana tree that was ready for harvesting. We gathered fire wood from other trees that were dead. The whole process took several hours and then...the rain came! We took shelter in a small house that Jimmy’s brother in law, Joe, had built further up the road, just for occasions like this. Regina quickly made a fire and threw some cook bananas on top and we waited til the peel was charred and we ate using huge, green banana leaves for mats. 

What happens after you work your garden? You have to get all this food home! The traditional way women carry things here is on their heads with a bilum or string bag. I was loaded up with starches, bananas and fire wood and the bag placed gingerly on top of my head.

I’m not gonna lie...it was HEAVY. 

(And no, I was not that brave to carry bananas on my head like this!) 

Once you get your kai kai (food!) home...it’s time to eat! I had a whole lesson one morning on how to cook the PNG way! 

The copious amounts of coconut are used every day in so many ways. The young coconuts are full of coconut water. The “dry” are scraped with special benches (see below) Then you take the fresh flaked coconut, add water and s-q-u-e-e-z-e the coconut til you basically have fresh coconut milk. This milk is boiled with all the various food you’ve picked from the garden. PLUS...and this was our favorite...add the milk to rice and you get delicious coconut rice!

(Coconut shells are GREAT for fires as well!)

Jason went hunting for kindam-fresh water fish-late one night (the only time they come out!) and they are delish boiled or fried.

I used the many, many bananas we had to make banana cake which was a huge favorite with all the kids. We also found that we really like the cook bananas over the fire. Jason actually had that as his “last meal” the last morning of our stay, he liked them that much! We also loved them fried as they taste almost like a french fry.

Protein is a real treat as it is expensive and hard to come by, but since we were special guests, we had chicken. And when I mean chicken, I mean...the whole chicken. 

And guess who had the honor of ushering the bird into our bowls??

Yep. The chicken came under the fateful hands of Mr. Brewer...a man who’s never killed anything bigger than a roach. I was torn between feeling bad for the chicken and laughing at the whole scene going down in front of me! Poor Mo couldn’t bare the scene and ran upstairs, but of course her siblings were right in on the action. 

After watching the entire chicken "process" happen, you should know I will never ever take a bag of frozen chicken breasts for granted again.

VL part 2 {Places & Faces}

A little tour of the places and a few faces we met during a our village stay. 

This house belongs to our waspapa, Jimmy. 

He let us live in his two bedroom house during our time. 

No electricity, no running water. 

85% of the country still occupy villages, not towns, so this is the norm.

 The lower left was the covered "kitchen" where we made our meals. 

The fire was on the ground and we had a "counter" where we could prep. 

All of this made out of bamboo and different wood found in the jungle. 

We actually had a metal roof which was nice. 

Most homes have marota roofs which are made out of sago palm leaves.

Here is our lik lik haus...or the bathroom. 

We actually brought a "toilet seat" from POC. 

Basically a plastic rim on a wooden frame. 

Typically it's just a hole in the ground, 

but with 2 girls and 5 weeks...we needed a seat!

This is Jimmy, our waspapa and cocoa farmer.

Jason learned the ins and outs of cocoa harvesting and went to the "block" 

with Jimmy several times to gather cocoa. 

The process is time consuming and heavy 

as they had to haul all the beans back to the house to be dried. 

Jimmy built a fermentry at his house and this is where the cocoa dried

 before it was bagged and then taken to market to sell.

This is Benedict...and he's just CUTE!! 

He was one of Jimmy's nephews that lived nearby.

Benedict is about 2 or 2 1/2. Many people don't know when their birthday is or how old they are, 

so we took our best guess. Needless to say, he and Mal act very similar :)

This is D with Gerry (our is guess around 7 or 8) and is Jimmy's nephew who lives with him. He basically became like an adopted son to us over the course of 5 weeks. He would help start fires, help cook dinner (although many times he asked what it was we were cooking!) 

Gerry had an infectious laugh and was such a good friend to D and helper to the girls. 

They picked on each other a fair share and took to him like a brother! 

We miss him!

Mal and her friend Georgina preparing food one day. These two were practically inseparable, when Georgina wasn't at school. Georgina is about 13 and would carry Mal down the muddy hill to where we bathed each day, carry her back up and then hang out with her and Mo until bedtime. She was such a fun girl, loved cooking and had a mischievous side as well!

Speaking of bathing...here is where we bathed every day. 

There was a huge tree that fell down which made for a great jumping spot for the kids. 

We usually had a huge group of kids go with us to the water. 

I also had to wash our laundry in the river then hang it out to dry. 

Trust me, I will never ever take a washer or dryer for granted ever again! 

This is Jimmy's sister Roslynn with her kids, Benedict (in Roslynn's arms), 

Naomi (next to Mo), Sherryn (in yellow-she walks 2 hours one way to get to school every day!) Geraldine (behind Sherryn) and Georgina. 

Another family we got to know very well. This is Vincent, Rose and their kids. He is the doctor at the Aid Post. Our kids and their kids became good friends. Vincent loved geography and asked many questions about the U.S. and our life there. They were such a blessing and such a sweet family.

That's just a glimpse of some of the people we met and got to know in the village. 

Part 3...let's talk about the food...PNG style!

VL part 1

I promise I'm working on a post about village living, but it's wild right now. We've been cRaZy busy with orientation and *attempting* to unpack. (I guess it's only been a week since we arrived, but I'm anxious to get things in a place and keep them for awhile!) Oh and not to mention adjusting my cooking to high altitude and dodging the rain so my laundry can dry!

In the meantime...

We were driving to our village and one of the schools we passed was on recess. They started chasing our truck and I couldn't help getting a shot of their beautiful faces!

This guy ditched his razor for 5 weeks! Someone suggested he shave his eyebrows too...so glad he didn't!!

Here he is at the end! Not bad if I do say so myself, but I'm a little biased!

POC Highlights

“For everything there is a season…”

We spent 14 weeks in the coastal city of Madang on Nobnob Hill immersed in language study, learning Melanesian culture and adapting to a completely different country and lifestyle than we are accustomed to. 14 weeks was just enough time to learn just enough to feel prepared to go into PNG, continue the learning process, and begin building relationships with the Papua New Guineans we come in contact with.

I will say it was some of the most challenging 14 weeks we’ve had thus far as a family but probably some of the most beneficial. I’m so proud of our kids, what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown in the language and are adapting to their new surroundings. We have seen God’s grace poured out on them during this season of huge transition in their lives.

Our room…the two older kids had bunk beds on the other side of the wall...

Our language learning group with Tok Pisin teacher, Tisa Bat...

The adults and school age kids had weekly hikes and swims preparing us for the physical aspects of living here. Here D and Jason in the bush...

While at Nobnob we were assigned a local family that we met with for 6 weeks. They took us under their wing and helped us with language and cultural learning. Our two families hit it off right away --we miss Miani, Judy and their kids so much already...

There was haus kuk weekend where we spent 5 weekends learning how to live without refrigeration (there are no such things as leftovers!) and cooking more than just smore's and hotdogs over an open fire! This preparation would be critical for our 5 weeks of village living towards the end of the course.

Here’s Jason putting the final touches on our haus kuk that he built from wood, bamboo, string and a tarp. I think if the pilot thing doesn’t work out for him, he’d make a great engineer!

I made tortillas one afternoon to eat for dinner. A double batch took about 2 hours total time, but the kids will tell you it was worth the wait!

Jason waiting on our bread to bake in the large pot oven…

One low light of our time was Mal and her bout with impetigo. When we first arrived in country, she had a horrible time with heat rash, which turned into impetigo because of all the scratching—with her very dirty hands! The girls and I had to stay behind during the village overnight, so they snuggled underneath our ‘creature net’  (it's just not for mosquitos anymore!) and watched a movie.

We had to take a pair of D’s new socks we brought, cut out the toes and wrap them around her arms so the medicine would stay and so she wouldn’t scratch! Thankfully, Mal is doing better and we’re now trying to keep her out of the dirt, but this is a challenge if you know anything about our MalPal!

Last, but certainly not least, the best highlight of our time at POC…Mo accepting Jesus into her heart on February 13^th! Here she is with her teacher Mrs. M...

A glimpse of our five weeks of village living coming soon! 

I'm Back!

Wow!

Is anyone still checking this?!?!? :)

I can't tell you how excited I am to be blogging again! SO much has happened...5 weeks of village living, wrapping up our time at POC and now we're in Ukarumpa settling in surrounded by assorted boxes and a giant mess...but we are doing well! We have remained relatively healthy and are so grateful for all of your many prayers for our family over the last few months...THANK YOU!! The Lord has been watching and protecting us each step of the way. Know that He is hearing your prayers!

I hope to write in a little more detail about our time the last few months, what we did and of course, post pictures...I have LOTS of them!

For now, proof that we are intact and alive and well :) We rode the truck to Ukarumpa on Tuesday and stopped along the way. The Ramu Valley is the backdrop. Such a gorgeous country!