Tupela Morobe Meri

This is Mama Grace and Mama Jen, two teachers at our school. They are such beautiful women, who have hearts full of passion, dedication, thankfulness and love for God. Here they are dressed in their provincial colours all day for the Meri Bung - women's bible conference. These women are very close to my heart!

Anna-Rita

This little poppet is Anna-Rita. She's a precious little girl who is part of our congregation. Her mum and dad have studied at the Bible College in Port Moresby and are now back in Lae, living in Biwat - one of the settlements. She was very little when she was born but 6 months on she looks reasonably healthy, is happy and interacts well with others. Praise God! She has a few sisters and is part of the largest extended family in our church. Our prayer is that she grows up free of the sickness and disease that is so prevalent here. Settlement life is tough, so we pray too that she can grow to know God and His love even in the difficult circumstances of life. Here's some photos for you all xxx

Yumi go raun raun lik lik lo taun

I drive in and out of Lae city quite regularly at the moment because I'm doing a lot more with our school in town. The drive used to be around about 40 minutes due to the state of the roads - gravel, potholes galore, ditches and traffic going all over the place - attempting to avoid the potholes! Lae is affectionately known as pothole city but since the road crews have been working on the highway the trip into town has been cut down to 20 minutes - on a good traffic day! It's rather marvellous!

There's a few sections of road that are really beautiful, especially when you look up above street level. Here's a few examples of some of my favourite parts of driving in Lae.

I love the trees here - a little tunnel of greenery. So pretty.

Coconut palms against a sunset sky. Doesn't get much more beautiful out you really think about it! It was hard to capture the colours on this shot but you get the idea!

By the way -  yumi go raun raun lik lik lo taun means let's go around town a bit

Changes changes

As many of you know, our small RM compound is positioned within the broader Lae City Mission plantation. It's a beautiful plantation, full of tropical plants, flowers, coconut palms and lots of other gorgeous greenery. Driving in through the gates has always been a favourite experience of mine because you see the lush, green gardens and it feels like you're driving into an oasis (after having been out on the rough, dusty, dirty, people filled roads). Both sides of the driveway are full of trees and other plants, and you feel like you're driving through a tunnel of trees... that is, until a few weeks ago....! 

LCM is currently working on a project to build a children's orphanage on the property. Their current orphanage is in quite a rough area of town, so to keep the children as safe as possible, they are going to move it out here to 11 Mile. The first stage of the project was to mark out the area, so we started noticing caution tape around the place, marking out where the building would be placed. Then, a few big trees were cut down. No biggie. But then a few more.... and more.... and more.... until about 15 had been cut down! This was happening about 100m from my house - where I live and work - and every time I heard a tree being felled, a little piece of my heart broke! All those beautiful trees!!!! Cut down in seconds..... (Stu, you would have had a great time with the boys here, getting that done. Plenty of whooping, cheering and excitement when a tree felled in the right direction :) )

After about a week of felling, roughly 15 trees were removed, but a lot of the trees along the edge and the little plants and bushes were left. That was great, I thought, because at least their would be some garden around so the building wouldn't look like it was plonked in the middle of nowhere.  But then.... the boys started chopping down everything that grew and lighting fires madly. I reckon there were about 20 fires going on in the small area of space the boys had created. One fire for each guy! 

Last Saturday when I went for a walk, I noticed more work going on. By this stage I had given up hope that any greenery would be left... and by the time I got back, this is what I saw....

A cleared patch of land....

With barely any growth left....

To make way for progress. A part of me is very sad to see the beauty disappear, even though I know it's for a good reason! 

I though that was the end of it all, but no... this whole week, they've continued cutting, trimming and clearing and now there's nothing left. An empty patch of land. Waiting for the building to begin and for the children to arrive! The day the kids arrive will be a great day. It will make all of this destruction worth it :)

Jungle Pathway

Here's a little glimpse into what the surrounds are like here. Here you can see that this pathway leads into the jungle. It's quite something to have a jungle right behind the fence! So pretty isn't it :)

Paul

This is Paul. He's one of the workers at the school property. At the moment he's doing upgrades on the toilet block (making it into a toilet and shower block - it's made an incredible difference!), building drains and generally doing renovations around the property. This year he and Greg have also built an extra classroom and when the land ownership debates are resolved, in God's timing, they will start building the school on the property next door.

Paul has been working very hard this year – he’s worked some very long hours to get the building projects done and has not taken any time off. He's a really strong man and doesn't seem to be affected by the various sicknesses going around. Usually that is!

Last week he was very sick! He told me he felt weak, achy and had a headache but just assumed it was from working so hard. After a few days the pains got worse so he rested over the weekend, still thinking he had been working too hard. Monday brought a very different story! He woke up with fever and chills - typical signs of malaria - so he took the day off to go to the doctor. 

The doctor did the malaria check and found out that Paul had 360 parasites in his body. Yes, 360!!!!! That is off-the-charts high and it’s unfathomable that he had been working with that going on in his system! Anything over 10 is high and Paul had 360!! Apparently one of the doctors said, “Yu strongpela man tru!! Klostu bai yu kamap ded man!!” which means, “You are an unbelievably strong man, you’re nearly dead!” The nurses were horrified and couldn’t believe that Paul was even managing to walk by himself, let alone work. Most people would have been laid up in bed for days already. That just confirms how tough Paul really is!! He took the week off work, but it was a struggle for him to do that. When I popped in one afternoon he was there painting. I promptly told him to go and rest! He told me he realised that his body was too weak for working, but he was so sick of laying down that he thought he’d do a little bit J On Sunday he told me that he only stayed for about an hour because he got too tired. No wonder!!

It is very common that people get malaria here. There are a lot of mosquitoes and with the wet season upon us, there are even more. Many of these mozzies carry the malaria virus. Most people from PNG tend to have malaria in their system, which can stay dormant for many months before flaring up when they are a bit run down. I would say it’s as common as a cold/flu in Australia. We get colds, they get malaria. The people here also are not as ‘afraid’ of malaria as we white skins tend to be. Medication is available and you can get it relatively easily – and once you’ve taken the treatment, you feel significantly better – until it flares up again that is……

I’m praying that Paul’s vicious malaria will improve and that it won’t come back again. He did tell me he will go back to the doctor or hospital and get checked out again after he has finished the antibiotics, just to make sure he is better. With the severity of his malaria it’s possible one course of antibiotics isn’t enough. I’m very thankful he’s being wise. May God heal his body! 

A few cool people

I'm going through my photos from my phone camera at the moment. My phone is breaking.... the screen is slowly blacking out due to having received too many hard knocks in it's lifetime... and a few days ago my dear phone, that's been with me for 4 years, got treated pretty badly..... which didn't make my phone happy. Since then, it's been dying a slow, black death. Jono says it's got phone cancer. Whatever it is, it isn't going so well. Currently I can barely read messages and I certainly can't use it for browsing on the Internet BUT I can still receive and send calls and texts, so that's a great thing!!

As a result of all of this sickness, I downloaded all of the data on my phone. While browsing I came across this photo of Bob, Mum and me.

Bob is the General Manager of Lae City Mission. He and his wife Ann live at the top of the giant hill behind our houses. He's a great guy and such a blessing to all of the boys here - and us too of course!

Here we are looking hot and sweaty after walking up the big hill in the heat :) 

And now for my next trick.... truck driving!

Monday last week was an interesting day! I spent 95% of the day driving - first, two laps to the airport (which is a round trip of roughly 1 hour, depending on the road - more on that later), and then I took our ute into the repair centre in town before picking up our truck. Yes, truck. And to answer your question, no, I haven't driven a truck before. To answer your second question, yes, I do have a licence to drive a truck in PNG (because apparently my Aussie driver's licence allowed me to convert to a class 6 PNG licence which allows me to drive trucks). Suddenly, I can drive the truck. With no prior experience. In the rain. Through the most giant potholes I've ever seen - and believe me, I've seen some big ones!

It was a rather interesting experience to say the least! The guy at the repair centre was rather stunned to see that it was me - a white girl - coming to pick up said vehicle. He asked me a LOT of questions before, somewhat reluctantly I think, handing me the keys. With a prayer and a few deep breaths, I jumped in and started the vehicle. The first challenge was reversing the truck - which some of my co-workers have previously said is rather difficult. I managed fine, and headed to the exit, which brought me to the world's most massive pothole - well, maybe not the world's, but a HUGE one never the less.

With nowhere else to go, I drove in. The ENTIRE truck fit in the hole, so my next challenge was to get this giant vehicle out in one piece. I managed and that's when the looks started! Other drivers started to notice that I was driving. Three things were clearly shocking them:
1. A girl was driving the truck
2. This girl was white
3. This white girl was alone

Now, many people in PNG sit in the back of ute trays, usually in groups of at least ten people. I was driving at peak hour in the afternoon so you can just imagine how many looks I got. All the way home - 18km - I attracted a lot of looks, people craning their heads to see and others tapping their mates to turn around and check out the truck with the white girl in it. It was a very interesting drive!

I was pretty happy to see the driveway when I arrived home :) The security guys at the gate were as stunned to see me in the truck, if not more so, that all of the people on the road. When I got to our compound gates, a pile of the LCM boys stopped what they were doing just to watch me go through our gates. I think they were seriously doubting I'd be able to maneuver the corners! Since I had made it that far, I figured I'd give myself one extra challenge, just for the fun of it - to reverse into the parking space which has posts on either side. I managed :) and was pretty happy with that!

God looked after me on the road that day, there's no doubt. I am so very thankful that He was with me, all the way, protecting me from any possible dangers and getting me home safely. Praise Him for His goodness!

The sky crying with me as I drove home from the airport after dropping Mum off. I often feel like the weather can anticipate my feelings and then goes out in sympathy. I like to think so anyway. 

Here is vehicle number 1 for the day - the Landcruiser

Vehicle number 2 - the Mazda BT50

It was actually very amazing that I made it to the repair centre in this car. All of the way to town, the suspension was shuddering terribly and considering the condition of the road and the rainy weather, it wasn't a smooth trip! 

Vehicle number 3 - the Mazda Titan truck

The security guys at the gate must have been wondering what I was doing, going in and out of the driveway so many times in one day - and driving every one of our cars! It must've looked pretty funny. The other funny part was that every time I got to the gate the security guy who opens and closes the gate had changed his shirt! It was definitely the same guy - he started with neon pink (my personal favourite), went to blue, then a darker blue and in the afternoon it was green. Maybe his shirt kept getting wet in the rain? Or he wanted to mix it up for his 'clients'?

This is my, 'Can I even do this?' face, which had been my 'crying at the airport for all to see'  face a few hours earlier.... hence the not-so-glamorous appearance

My view from the driver's seat and the most giant steering wheel I've ever been in control of 

Parked. Safe. In one piece.

When I arrived home, I sent my Dad a picture message showing him my new ride. He liked that. I told him he can just call me superwoman :)

Whoop whoop! I love it when I manage a new (somewhat challenging) task without any hitches. I must be honest and tell you that I did do a fist pump when I popped the handbrake on because I was so stoked! 

The look of relief that I had made it home without any troubles - just lots of stories :)

Dessert Night

I'm slowly catching up on blogging. It's been a rather busy time lately and blogging has been left by the wayside. Today I'm selecting photos and preparing for a blogging overload in the next week :) Let's see how I go!!

A few months ago (yes.... months....) Shannel took Art class. This Art class was art with a twist - kitchen art :) The three oldest kids each chose a dessert, found a recipe, collected ingredients for it - even going on a whirlwhird trip to town while I babysat Anna (finding out that ignoring her while she plays is the best policy for keeping her happy) - and actually baking it. These kids have spent time in the kitchen before, but this was a little different. These recipes were a lot more challenging and did test their skills a little. They passed the test with flying colours though and prepared a lovely evening for all of us on the compound!

Three happy bakers, with their treats 

 

Jono and his pavlova

Karlyn and her choc peanut butter slice

 

Sami and her melting moments

Caleb gives it all a thumbs up!

Louisa, almost too busy enjoying the treats to look at the camera

 

The head chef, cutting the cake!

It was a really fun night and everyone enjoyed the extra treats after dinner. Thank you Shannel, Jono, Karlyn and Sami for your huge effort! We all went away fat and happy :)

Some encouragement

It's Saturday. I'm just poking around the house. I love days like this! And right now I'm on the couch writing emails and doing randomly googling, which can be a waste of time but can sometimes lead you to cool stuff. I came across a few things that I thought I'd pop up here for you to enjoy too!

Now listen to that Sarah!!

Oh boy. Too true! A little pressure there.....!

A reflection on some verses from Psalm 107

Today I wrote a devotion for the PD session I'm going to present at Living Water Christian School next week. Every week (at the moment) I go in and run a session for about 3 hours. We begin the session with a time of singing, prayer and then I share a devotion. At the moment I'm looking at Psalm 107 with the teachers. I wrote the devotion today - which I like to do a few days early as it always takes me a bit of time to work through in my head. I thought I'd share it here with you, hoping that it will encourage and bless you too! 

I've literally copied and pasted it from the document it's been written in, so excuse the notes I've made for myself. No editing has been done at all.  I figured I wouldn't adapt it, as that means you can see what I do which, I'm hoping, is interesting for at least some of you :)

Discuss the hunger and thirst aspect of last week and how this ties beautifully into the name and theme of our school – Living Water Christian School. If we don’t go to the living water to refresh our thirsty souls, how will our thirst ever be truly quenched?

Read 107:9 again, then read verse 1-15 again. This time focus on Psalm 107:4,5

‘Some wandered in the desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in, hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble.’

Ask the teachers to read this verse in the different versions of the Bible that they have, to compare and contrast the text and see if we can draw any conclusions ourselves from hearing it read in different translations.  Discuss this a bit.

The verse that we’re focusing on doesn’t sound like an easy time. Clearly, there was a lot of suffering. It sounds like the psalmist is referring to the time the Israelites walked in the desert. The Israelites were hungry, thirsty, lost and desperate. It was a difficult time that lasted for years and years and years. I imagine it would have felt like it was never-ending. Which is the same for us when we are suffering or experiencing difficult times. We feel so trapped in our suffering, we’re so consumed by it, that we feel like it has taken over our life. We feel that the pain will never go away. But we need to look beyond! Look up! And not dwell in the trouble.

I once read a book that was called ‘Beyond the Clouds’. It was a fiction book, but one of the main themes in the story was that, no matter how much rain there is and how many black clouds there are in the sky, there is always, always, always sunshine beyond all of that.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed that when you’ve been on a plane? Last year, when I was flying out of my home town of Launceston to go to Canberra, it was a very rainy, dark, cloudy day. When the plane took off, it was quite bumpy because the weather wasn’t good. I wondered to myself whether the whole flight would be as rough as the take off. The pilot led us up into the sky, through the rain, into the clouds and when we passed through the clouds, there was brilliant sunshine! It was almost blinding because we’d come from such gloomy darkness (actually it was grey, but don’t get too caught up in those details okay!). What an amazing picture of our life in Christ.

When we are facing a difficult time in life, it is so incredibly easy to be overcome by it. It can be so all encompassing and it’s really hard to think of anything else beyond the trouble. But if we have God, we can look beyond the trouble, look to Him and see the sunshine. We know that God is always good, especially in the troubles of life, and if we look beyond this life, towards our eternal one, we can see sunshine, we can find joy and we can live in peace, with ‘bel isi’, knowing that nothing that we suffer on this earth can take away our joy, that we will find so completely in eternity.

Another picture that reminds me of our life on this earth is the city of Lae itself. When you look at the city of Lae and its streets, settlements, suburbs, rivers and areas of vacant land, it looks quite dirty. There is often a lot of rubbish lying around, we see buai spit painting the road side red, the areas of town are filled with lots of people, yelling, getting angry and pushing each other around, the water ways are muddy and often have a lot of rubbish along their edges and the roads are filled with pot holes and crazy PMV drivers. But when you look up, even just a little bit, you see beautiful, lush, green gardens, bright, colourful flowers, strong, towering coconut trees and the most spectacular mountain ranges I’ve ever seen on this side of the Equator. Lae, and the country of PNG is so magnificently stunning. There is no doubt about that! 

Again, this reminds me of our Great God and the way that He lifts us from this life of sin, into His presence. If we simply focus on our lives here on earth, we’re just like Lae, rubbished by sin, covered in the blood of our sin (like that red buai spit), yelling, angry and violent, filled with dirty-ness and living lives that are ruined by deep potholes of grief, all the while being torn down and distracted by those people around us who are just like the PMV drivers – getting in our way and telling us all about their problems too, which adds to our grief. But God brings us through this! He delivers us from our distress, as we’re reminded of in verse 5, and He comforts us in our troubles. The mountains, that stand strong, tall, unmoving and unshakable are just like our Almighty Father. Nothing can move Him and nothing can thwart His plan. He is a God of the here and now, but even more wonderfully, He’s a God of grace, who has given us all we need to live in eternal rest with Him, all because of His precious Son.

These pictures I’ve painted can explain a lot, but there’s more that I can add to the story. It’s easy to get caught up in this life, allowing ourselves to become so spiritually starved that we barely even notice it’s happened until it’s too late. We become like those Israelites – wandering in the (spiritual) desert, looking for a good place to live, while we suffer hunger, are parched with thirst and are absolutely exhausted. And when you’re at that point, you don’t have enough strength to truly focus - your mind wanders, it plays tricks and you can’t concentrate. And things just seems to get worse. Everything spirals out of control and you’re always left wanting. You can try to ignore the hunger, that ache in your stomachs, that deep-seated thirst that doesn’t go away and do everything in your power to try and dull the pain, to avoid facing reality. But the traps of this earth, the ‘relief’ that we can convince ourselves we’re finding, which are packaged so beautifully, will never truly fulfil us. (Insert your own traps for yourself! You know you have them and you know what they are! And don’t lie to yourself!)

We need to face up to our spiritual hunger and thirst and go to our life source. Everyday. Without fail. Again and again and again. For it is there that we will find true peace and rest. True joy. And the energy to keep on getting up to do it again. It’s hard, it takes a lot of self-discipline and we will continue to fall, but doing it all through the strength of the Spirit Jesus left with us, we can press on, towards our heavenly home, that will be so much more glorious and magnificent than we could ever imagine. For we are mere men, who do not have the mind of God. May that Glorious Day come quickly!!

Fun times with Stanley

Earlier this year one of my teaching friends from Tassie sent me a Flat Stanley. I assume all of you early years teacher friends of mine know what a Flat Stanley is? If not, I am mortified on your behalf. You should know! For those of you who are not teachers, I will explain. Flat Stanley is a little fictional boy who was squashed and then sent to his friend. The idea is that a class sends Flat Stanleys around the word and use it as a platform to study other cultures. There are many other curriculum links that apply, but I won't bore you all with details. You non-teachers will zone out and you teachers have enough sense and training to figure it out for yourself. Here's some deets, in case you are interested (like my Mum most likely is):

The Flat Stanley Project is an educational project that was started in 1995 by Dale Hubert, a third grade schoolteacher in London, Ontario, Canada. The project featurespaper cut-outs based on the title character of the 1964 children's book Flat Stanley.The project was designed to facilitate the improvement of the reading and writing skills of elementary school students, while also promoting an interest in learning about different people and places. In 2001 Hubert was presented the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence, an annual award issued by the Prime Minister of Canada to honour outstanding and innovative elementary and secondary school teachers.

In an interview with CNN in 2005, Hubert explained: "In the book, by Jeff Brown, Stanley gets squashed flat by a falling bulletin board. Stanley's parents rolled him up, put him in an envelope and mailed him to his friend in California. And that just seemed like a way of communicating that grade-three students might enjoy."

Students involved in The Flat Stanley Project are read the story of Flat Stanley and are subsequently given black-and-white cut-outs of him for them to color.The students are also asked to write a story about him, including details such as where he is from, his daily routine and his interests, then they mail their Stanley to someone, such as a friend or relative in another country, or a student at another school participating in the program. The person receiving the Flat Stanley is asked to take a picture with the cut-out doll and to send a letter back, either via email or regular mail, to the student recounting Flat Stanley's adventures along with the accompanying photo. The student then shares the photo and letter with their class.

By then end of its first year there were 13 classrooms participating in the project across the province of Ontario. Classrooms in the United States were short to follow suit and by 2006 the program had grown to 6,000 classes in 47 nations. By 2011 it was reported that at least 88 countries were participating in the program annually.

Here's one of the first Flat Stanley's that was sent from Canada. 

So my little project was to take this Flat Stanley and show him around PNG, giving him a taste of the what PNG is like. Along with showing him around, the idea is that Stanley has his picture taken and then writes a (longish) letter about all of the things that he has learnt about the country he has visited. I thought I'd share some of the photos with all of you.

Flat Stanley in my classroom (appropriately wearing PNG colours)

Flat Stanley hiding in my bilum (PNG bag) 

Flat Stanley learning to read the Pidgin Bible. He's making progress!

Flat Stanley learnt to play Settlers of Catan. He's played a LOT of games and is becoming quite the strategist

Hanging out near the empty coconuts

Watch out Stanley, I will eat you!

Flat Stanley enjoying the view and dying in the humidity....

Flat Stanley wondering if he can escape out of the gates

Flat Stanley watching the pineapples grow. He's been there a while......

Flat Stanley hanging out in the PNG haus kuk (kitchen)

Flat Stanley going down the slide

Flat Stanleys LOVES bananas. He especially loves it when the LCM boys bring a banana rope from one of their trees and hang it in our compound :)

Flat Stanley admiring the PNG flowers

and the beautiful leaves on some of our hedges

Considering if he can drive the truck. He's learnt that Jesus is the Way. Him Only! 

Yep, Stanley is a truck driver too!!!

He's had quite the adventure in PNG and now he's winging his way back to Tasmania, so he's probably somewhere in the air between us right now. Goodbye Stanley, it was fun hanging out!! I hope you enjoyed your stay in PNG!