Pastor Ruth and her children...

A while back Kathy Radcliffe asked me if I would be willing to help her teach the Children's Church for Immanuel Church of the Nazarene (on station) with her once a month.  I agreed, mostly because I thought my kids would enjoy helping with me and it would force me to REALLY work on my Pidgin.

We were a bit surprised at our first lesson based on Acts 6:1-7 where the Apostles appoint 7 men to help distribute food to the widows.  This is not necessarily a lesson that I have ever taught to kids before, but it is what we were given so we jumped in with the songs, the story, special items (where my kids made me proud by standing up and sharing some of their memory verses!), a little skit, a memory verse, a game and a coloring page that went with the story.  It wasn't perfect, but we made it through and we were pleased with a good start.

A week later Kathy called me again and asked if I would consider going with them to a church near Minj (about 15-20 minutes away) and doing our children's church lesson for a church there that has quite a few aids orphans.  We don't often go out to bush churches because they can be quite a distance away over pretty horrible roads (we have discovered that 2 of our children are prone to car sickness in PNG) and the services can sometimes last hours.  Anyway, since this was a kids lesson and it was close by everyone in the family was agreeable to go.

Kathy making introductions to Pastor Ruth

I don't know if it was interest in this "orphan" church or the close proximity to station, but we ended up taking a group of about 18 missionaries & volunteers in 2 cars.  We had a bit of trouble finding the place, but when we arrived we were greeted by Pastor Ruth and Stephen Tikgne.  They led us down to where the congregation was meeting under a ripped blue tarp sitting on mats or logs laid out as benches.  Of course they had set up the nice benches on the sides for the honored missionary guests to sit on.  There were about 40 kids and 20 adults when we arrived and  the service started with some of the men leading us in song.  After this some of the local NYI (young people) sang a special song let by a blind young man playing the guitar.  Then they turned the service over to us.  We did greetings, Jim Radcliffe shared and played his trumpet, and then we started the "kid" part of the morning off with a little puppet show to some recorded kids music (iPod are a great evangelistic tool!)  From there we did the rest of our lesson and then added a presentation of how to tell the Good News using the PNG flag.  It was a great service.  

The NYI Special Song

The Goossens girls share some memory verses.

The Puppet Show was a big hit!

Learning how to use the PNG flag to tell others of the Good News!

Afterwards we were taken on a tour of the housing and cookhouse for the orphans, the HIV/AIDS training center and the new church building they are working on.  We also heard her story and about the work she is doing at this location near Minj.


Ruth runs a Care Center where people infected with HIV can come and learn about living with HIV, where to get medicines and how to take them. We met this young lady who is staying there right now after having just had her baby at Kudjip.  She was praising the Lord because her baby is not HIV+.

The HIV/AIDS Care Center Housing and a the new mama

They have also been caring for AIDS orphans in the area. Ruth says that she has cared for almost 150 orphans since she started this ministry. She has been able to get over 100 placed back in the community or with their lain (tribe) and currently has around 46 children that she and her volunteers care for.  She has over 40 volunteers who rotate through, with 6 needed at a time to meet the needs of the children.  The ministry is supported by the Minj Circuit Nazarene Churches, the salary from her husband Stephen's job as plumber & carpenter for the nearby government high school and food from their gardens. 

Emma and some new friends

The Headmaster of the nearby Minj Ti school is very supportive of Ruth and her ministry to the orphans, on the first day of school he came and escorted the 17 school children to their classes. 

The Headmaster, Ruth & Stephen

What an amazing ministry by two average people willing to let God use them to show love to others in an extraordinary way!  After hearing about their ministry, the lesson of appointing respectable men to help in feeding the widows (and I am guessing orphans too!) made a lot more sense.  Funny how God has a way of orchestrating these things!

"Yumi mas tingting long ol pikinini, papamama bilong ol i dai pinis, na yumi mas helpim ol long karim ol hevi bilong ol." Jems 1:27

New Friend...

Being at home with the kids and working in the Melanesian Field Office with other (English speaking) missionaries has made it a challenge to make new friends among our PNG national neighbors.  One of our first new friends was Meti.  She has been involved with our (stunted) language studies and coming to our house once a week to help with the household & the kids.  She is such a wonderful woman with a heart full of love.  She is on station with a missionary family every day of the week and is involved in her local church and NMI (Nazarene Missions International).

Last week we found out Meti was in the hospital due to a severe allergic reaction.  Randy and the kids had gone to visit her on Monday and on Tuesday he called me at the office to see if I wanted to come along and bring lunch to Meti.  (Each patient at the hospital here has to have a person to bring them food and help take care of them during their stay.) When we got there we found out that someone in her village had died so no one had been able to come to her and her son had to go to his school to pick something up.  Judy had brought her coffee and breakfast before she left for town, but Meti didn't think anyone would be able to bring her any lunch.  She was so excited when we came to her, "Randy, you heard the Spirit of God talk to you. Thank you!"

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs." Matthew 6:31-32 (NLT)

Some Family Fun

 In the valley behind our house there is a river.  It is a source of sustenance for the local people, providing drinking water, washing water, bathing water....and plenty of entertainment.  One of the popular activities for the teenagers, visitors & guys on station is to float the river on an inner-tube.  My kids are very jealous of all the times Randy has been tubing, but often the river is either moving too fast or too shallow and rocky for it to be safe for the kids.  When we went down to play at the river a little while ago we noticed that the local villagers had created a nice tubing channel on one side of the river so the next day we went back with some tubes and had some great family fun.  Here are the pictures:

Daddy & Lexi

Daddy and Ethan (Look!  They match!)

Daddy & Emma (Notice he still got to go more often than anyone else!  How does he do that?)

Mommy even got a turn! (have you ever tried tubing in a skirt?)

The kids got to go solo in the wading area right next to the tubing run.

Emma's just chillin!

As much fun as our family had playing in the river, I think there might have been even more fun had by all the people watching us...and laughing.  We talked about it on the way home, how they were laughing because we are so much different than what they are used to and how we provided some entertainment and laughter in their day.  Emma decided, "I would be happy to provide them with this kind of entertainment any time!"

Count Your Blessings...

I have had the song Count Your Blessings in my mind lately, so here I go:

1.  We have been adjusting to life in a new culture and climate with minimal stress.  Thank you Lord!

2.  Randy's current work project requires him to run all over the station (about 1km from end to end).  More than once he commented how much easier it would be to do this on a bike instead of walking...our church family heard of this and took a special bike offering.  He now has a great bike that helps him speed all over the station.  Thank you Lord!

3.  We didn't know where the funds for Emma's schooling at the MK school would come from, but they are coming in from unexpected gifts.  Thank you Lord!

4.  We got to get off-station for a trip to Goroka last weekend while Randy attended a Mission Technology Conference.  A great time of learning, sharing & connecting for Randy and a great time of exploring and new experiences for all.  Thank you Lord!

5.  I had the opportunity to go to a Woman's gathering in the Ming district.  What an amazing experience.  Hearing the messages that God had given to Gail Dooley and Kathy Radcliffe to share was great.  Hearing the testimonies of the women who shared the ride home with us was awe inspiring.  Thank you Lord!

6.  We have had some chilly evenings/mornings so I was trying to figure out how to get some extra blankets for the kids.  A gentleman that was here with a Work & Witness team from Missouri sent me an email telling me that he and his wife had made and sent some fleece blankets for the kids.  Thank you Lord!

7.  Randy and I are doing a parenting class with 2 national couples.  It has been a great time to get to know these people and get away for one evening a week.  Three visiting college students took turns watching our kids each week for the past couple of months so we could do this.  Thank you Lord!

8.  The other two missionary families that have kids around the same ages as mine are heading back to the states in December for 4 months of Home Assignment.  I didn't want our first Christmas away from Port Orchard to be lonely for the kids, with no friends or family to celebrate with.  Nana & Papa are arriving on December 18th for a 6 week stay.  Thank you Lord!

9.  We live next to the Guest House on station and we have had a stream of neighbors to get to know and kids for mine to play with.  There are some great people serving in all kinds of different ways here in PNG. Thank you Lord!

10.  God has been true to His promise to meet all of our needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.  THANK YOU LORD!!!!

There is nothing special about 10, but those came to mind this morning...I could keep going for quite a while but I have to go to town for groceries (thank you Lord for your provision!).  I would encourage you to take a few moments to review and write down some of the blessings in your own life.  It is too easy to miss them.... don't let them slip by with out thanking the One that all good and perfect things come from!

Visit to a Bush Church...

So last week Jim & Kathy Radcliffe invited us to go to a bush church with them on Sunday morning.  This is something that a lot of the missionaries and visitors at Kudjip do on a regular basis and there are plenty in the surrounding area to choose from.  The key is that if you visit a bush church you are expected to share something, if not deliver the morning sermon.  It had been a busy Saturday with Lexi's birthday party at the Highlander Hotel in Mt. Hagen (about an hour away) and the kids were off kilter from lack of naps and excess sugar & sunshine, but we decided that since the Radcliffes and the Deuels were going there would be enough kid backup help.

On Sunday morning we met at 8:30 to head to Banz, about 20-30 minutes away.  Kathy led us in practicing "At Calvary" the song that we would be singing in Pidgin as a group special and asked which of us were going to be sharing a testimony.  Karla Deuel and Joani were the volunteers and we learned that we would share during the sermon that Jim Radcliffe would be bringing.  All the arrangements had been made in time for us to focus on finding the driveway past the EBC church that had a wooden bridge.  Lest you imagine a carefully engineered structure built to withstand 200 times the weight it would ever be called upon to hold...in reality there were two logs across the ditch with half-split logs laying across them.  We made it up the driveway and arrived only a few minutes late to the meeting at the house church of Mr. Baru and his wife Sr. Christina.

Mr. Baru is the Health Administrator at the hospital and Sr. Christina is a nursing supervisor.  They had been feeling the call to start a home church for quite some time and 10 weeks ago it was launched.  The church has already grown to around 60 and has been seeing many people come into the Kingdom.  They are reaching people from drug lifestyles and broken homes and introducing them to life in Christ. 

The service went well.  It was a morning of "God-Incidences" with the songs and message and testimonies flowing together seamlessly.  I had to give Jim a bad time because he used all of the verses I had in my testimony in his sermon!  The kids were a little restless, but the Spirit was sweet and when Jim closed with an alter call some 10 people went forward.  We were basking in the beautiful morning sun, visiting with the church members and gathering at the van when we were asked if some of us would be willing to pray with some people.  They also let us know that they had some fruit and vegetables from their gardens that they wanted to give us so we loaded up heaps of oranges, tangerines, guava, passion fruit, cucumbers, peppers, pineapple, bananas, papaya & even a watermelon.  Everyone had a snack and before long we were on our way. 

Once we were in the car we heard the rest of the story from Jim..."we had a private time of special prayer and counseling for two couples who had come from Catholic background who wanted to really turn their lives and families over to God. They had wanted to pray but did not feel comfortable with coming forward in the evangelical tradition. It was a special time as they prayed to receive Christ into their hearts as Lord and Savior."  WOO-HOOO!  There is a party going on in Heaven tonight! 

I was tired, the kids were tired, there was screaming and complaining and whining and crying, but knowing that 4 lives were forever changed made it all worth while!  This was most definitely a blog worthy day.  Thank you all...for making this adventure possible.

The Choir!

It is actually an "under" house church!

A Beautiful Morning...

It is a beautiful morning here at Kudjip Station.  The sun is up but I cannot see it for the blanket of clouds and mist that is heavy in the sky.  The birds are singing a happy melody from their perches in nearby trees.  My children and husband are sleeping in a little later than usual and I am able to just sit and be.  This does not happen often as life here is constant activity of one kind or another.

Our days are filled with Randy and I juggling who has work that needs to be done and who will stay home and take care of the home-front.  There are meals to prepare, arguments to referee, dishes to wash, laundry to do, walks around station, dishes to wash, trips to the river, floors to sweep, playtime with friends, dishes to wash, owies to kiss, neighbors to greet, and lots of fun and laughter.

The norm is that there is always something different.  This week for example we are going to Barnabas House to have dinner with a visiting Work & Witness team from Missouri on Friday night and we are hosting Jordan and Rachel Thompson for dinner on Saturday as they pack up and prepare to leave PNG for a time.  Yesterday Scot Dooley and Randy took our combined 6 kids down to the river for an afternoon of fun in the sun and water. 

Our work "normal" has changed here as well.  I work at the Melanesia/South Pacific Field Office as the Field Treasurer for these two fields.  I had learned in Port Orchard that as the kids got older it was too difficult to try to do my work at home so when it is my turn to work I walk down the road past 3 or 4 houses to get to the office.  The accounting system we use is on-line which may not seem unusual to the average American, but it has significant implications here in PNG.  Here the power is very unstable and when the national power goes out and the station generator has to kick in, it knocks out the internet everywhere on station except the Field office that has a back-up power supply.  Then there is the internet itself which is brought to us via Satellite, but is the equivalent of dial-up service.  Again, not so bad until you learn that there are some 30 registered users that must all share this service.  You can see how all this complicates trying to do all the accounting on-line!

This is where Randy's job comes in!  His main project right now is fixing the existing station networking and internet infrastructure so that the lower end of the station doesn't end up without any internet for months at at time anymore.  Then he is working on trying to upgrade the service and manage the use of what we do have so that critical processes like e-mail and the online accounting and Facebook (probably not REALLY critical, but when it allows you to keep in touch with the folks back home it sure does seem that way) can happen at all times and things like YouTube, streaming video and uploading massive amounts of pictures has to wait until there is extra bandwidth available.  The most common comment is that the internet is screaming fast at 2 am!

Well, the rest of the family has joined me, and while they are watching Dora instead of enjoying the quiet beauty of the morning, I think I will sign off and spend some time snuggling!

The Kids...

I get a lot of questions about how the kids are adjusting to life at Kudjip Station.  In two words my answer has been, "Very well!"  I will now take the opportunity to expand on that and give everyone (especially the grandparents and cousins!) a glimpse into the new normal for Emma, Lexi and Ethan.

First of all is school.  Emma has gone from 1st grade at Mullenix Elementary School to 1st grade at MK school.  It has been a little bit of adjustment as there are fewer kids and different curriculum, but Emma has been handling like a champ! She has really enjoyed having prayer time and Bible study as part of her school day and she LOVES getting out at noon on Fridays.  I, on the other hand, am not used to this change in schedule and am often met with, "Mom, why are you making my lunch?  It's Friday!"

Emma at her desk

Good-bye party for one of the Tutors from the Swiss Mission

Each afternoon the students have a different focus.  On Monday it is RI (religious instruction) Tuesdays are PE, Wednesdays are Music, Thursdays are Art and Fridays as I mentioned earlier are and early release day.  Here is a picture of the girls in music and Aunt Kathy (the music teacher) singing a song for English lotu (the monthly English church service)

Aunt Kathy and the music class

For Easter the MK school had a little party to celebrate the incredible gift of salvation and the unfathomable grace of God.  Of course there was an egg hunt as well, but this being PNG the kids used bilams instead of baskets.  After the egg hunt the kids delivered eggs filled with gifts to the children staying at the hospital.

Emma passing out Easter eggs at the Hospital

Ethan looking for eggs to put in his bilam

 Lexi has really come into her own here, with several new friends around her age that give us opportunities for play dates and the chance to spread her wings without always having big sister around.  She has to run to the window or door to say "hi" to everyone who walks past our house and often invites people over for dinner without checking with us first!  She has really enjoyed being able to visit Uncle Bill's garden across the drive to have her fill of cherry tomatoes & berries.  She also has taken full advantage of the Cherry Guava tree next to the house.  If we can't find Lexi, chances are she is high up in the tree in our front yard pretending she is a monkey!

Rain Bugs! (Olivia and Lexi)

 A favorite activity that doesn't require any special transportation is a trip to the river in the valley behind our house.  On this particular day it was a full-fledged event with the Dooleys and the Kerr girls, poor Randy and Ethan were severely outnumbered!

Girl Power!

this girl has had mud on at least one part of her body since we arrived!!!

A feat of engineering...building a dam to create a swimming hole in the river

 

The boy has always loved water!

Ethan...we aren't quite sure what has happened to Ethan!  It may have been the radiation from all the security checkpoints along our journey or possibly something in the water, but our little boy has become quite a different little boy.   The rather quiet, somewhat shy little guy that has been known to lay down on the floor and cover up his face so that you can't see him anymore can now be found shaking hands with every stranger he meets, chattering non-stop at people who can't understand him or running down the road yelling what sounds like war cries at the top of his lungs!  Mom & Dad's favorite change of all, hands down, is that he is FINALLY potty trained.  He is still getting used to all the walking we do around the station and in the beginning  when he had had enough he would squat down in the road and say, "I'm too short!"

Here is a picture of Ethan and one of his new friends in the Maintenance department.  Apa was supposed to be mowing the grass in the park down the road, but my kids were a little bit of a distraction!

One afternoon the Dooley girls were up for a visit so they decided to build a fort under the guava tree.  Lucky for them Randy was clearing out the banana grove so there was plenty of available building materials.

Banana leaf fort under the guava tree. 

Emma has been a very popular name for girls around Emma's age and younger in the states.  Little did we know it was a common name here at Kudjip too...

The 3 Kudjip Emmas

One benefit of living at a mission hospital station (besides the obvious of being surrounded by doctors) is that there is a constant stream of visiting doctors and medical students.  One medical student who made a big impression with my kids was Uncle Jordan.  I am thinking that he might have enjoyed them almost as much...we miss you Uncle Jordan!

Emma, Lexi, Uncle Jordan & Ethan

We were told that the neighbors were complaining that it was too quiet after the Riggins family with their 3 small boys moved out, have no fear neighbors...the Goossens Kids are here!  For better or worse the neighborhood will never be the same :)