At the dedication of our newest Kodiak, pictured behind us

Christmas in the Tropics

        What is it like you ask?  Well it is nothing like the Christmases that I have ever spent!  It is downright hot on most days which makes for a lot of sweat!  Makeup just runs off my face or won’t even go on due to the sweat already there right after a shower.  Rather than give you the wrong impression by talking about all the negatives, I will share what is right about Christmas here.  We share it with some pretty amazing people who love our Lord Jesus with all of their heart.  Hearing our old familiar Christmas songs sung from the heart in the Indonesian language warms my heart beyond compare!  I Know that we worship the same Christ child who put off heaven and came to earth to love us and that makes us brothers and sisters.  Who do we want to spend time with during the holidays but our family?  We are doing that!  Yes, we miss our immediate earthly family but we are getting a foretaste of Glory when we shall all sing God’s praises while in His presence for Eternity!  I understand that more over here.  We are not the same color, and there are many different dialects of Indonesian heard all around us, but we love the same God.  There is much work to do in translating God's Word into those many dialects.  They all need to hear the great news that Jesus Christ is born!  
That is why we are here! J

         All that being said, a huge difference between being here and home (or anywhere else on earth) are the “Pondok Natals” Christmas huts as pictured above.  These are huts that are built for the supreme purpose of blaring Christmas Music to everyone in ear shot for at least a mile around.  They are not just wimpy huts, they are stout buildings.  When you have 3 or 4 of these in your neighborhood, they all go off at different times and frequently together.  They are not coordinated at all so to each of them it might be a “joyful Noise” but to those around it is just “Noise”.  I must admit though that hearing Christmas music is delightful to me.  It is my favorite time of the year!  They decide to play them at 2AM or whenever their blessed little hearts please!  Maybe it is a lash back at the muslim mosques that go off regularly and blare their uncoordinated chants.  We can hear 3 or sometimes 4 mosques at any given time.  The first one goes off @ 4AM.  At least we know that one is coming. The Pondok Natals have no schedule. 

The last day of school before Christmas break we had a "Read in", where we wore our PJs to school and the kids brought blankets, pillows stuffed animals etc. and we lounged around the room reading.  The neighboring 3rd grade class joined us.  We opened the adjoining door and the children moved freely between the rooms.  My room turned into tent city!  The blankets were draped around my desk, over desks and tables, and we  used binder clips to hold them in place.  We have reading buddies   with the Kindergarten class every Thursday so they joined us for 30 minutes of the day.  They were overjoyed at being able to read in tents! :)

My 3rd grade partner teacher Sarah Sharp and I 

Half of my class,                                                                        the other half left early for Christmas break.

   

Tent City

 Most of the children I work with have never seen snow except in pictures!  When they sing “White Christmas” they only have seen the idea.  I am amused when I see them put on their jackets on a windy day and say they are cold.  I haven’t been cold once here.  I was a little chilled when we visited Wamena in the highlands but not cold!  I actually put on a sweater in June while we were there.  Most Papuans think that Wamena is cold.  They also believe that wind will make you sick.  If Western people turn on a fan in a restaurant, the Indonesians will move away out of the “Wind”.  A bride and groom will sit for hours greeting guests and sweating rather than turning on a fan to cool themselves off.  Some brides get their younger cousins or siblings to fan them with a handheld fan.  Why that is O.K. and an electric is not O.K. is beyond me!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and pray that you are able to keep “Christ” in Christmas amidst all the noise of the season.

I have much more to share with you that I haven't had time to blog about.  Look for more blog updates between now and Jan 13th.  

Catching up

Wow!  Summer went by quickly and I am feeling badly that I have not kept in touch better.  My last blog update was June 17th, Fathers' Day!  You should have already gotten a newsletter from us telling some of our summer vacation and update on the school year but let me expand on those things here as we cannot begin to share all in our 2 page newsletter.

Summer, Miles spent all of June in Wamena.  I joined him early before family conference so we were able to spend a long weekend together then a week with all of our MAF family from all around Papua.  A team from New Heights church in Vancouver, WA came to support us and put on our conference.  It was a time of growth and refreshment.

The last weekend in July we visited our friends the Paps in Timika.  There is huge copper mine there.  gold is a byproduct of mining.  There is a beautiful town there with a section of "Western" style homes and it has a lovely resort that goes empty during most of the week.  We went to the lovely pool and had it to ourselves all but one day.  We went river rafting but mostly relaxing while the Pap children covered themselves in mud! 

The first of August we moved into our new apartment at the school. It has a great view of the lake and airport!


 

 We are praising God that the new Kodiaks that were delivered in August have finally been cleared.  Bureaucracy is alive and well in Papua! 

School just completed the 7^th week of instruction and Dion is having a great time. 

 

 

We wake up every morning @ 4AM to the Muslim call to worship.  We used to hear a mosque while at the MAF base but here we hear 3 different mosques going off.  We call it the battle of the Emmons since they don’t sing the same prayers.  Dion gets up around 4:30 and Miles gets up around 5AM.  The bats are still out eating their fill of insects before retiring for the day.  We hear revile from the army base at the bottom of our hill around 6am when Dion heads to the school.  She meets with teachers to pray at 7:05 each morning.  School starts @ 7:30 which is also the time Miles starts work @ MAF.  Many mornings we hear Christian music in Indonesian blaring from one of the houses at the base of the hill.  We think it is someone trying to call Christians to worship. 

We both work all day and when we get home we hear many insects singing into the evening.  The mosques go off again around 4PM and again around 7PM.  They go off at different times during the day but we are both busy and don’t notice those times as much.  At different times we can hear Indonesian being spoken over a PA coming maybe from the army base or maybe from another public gathering place.  It is difficult to decipher separate words so it is just another noise.  Airplanes taking off and landing all during the day,  helicopters to and from the army base, and cars and motor cycles coming and going to the school  add a human noise that detracts from the natural noises we hear up here.  The Cicadas are the loudest insects I have ever heard!  When I first heard them I thought there was an electric short somewhere and it was “screaming” for attention!  When I was told that it was an insect I was shocked!!!  Add to them the birds that call to one another and sometimes it is a real cacophony.  Most of the time we hear it and think, “What a symphony God has created!” but sometimes we think what noise pollution we live in. 

 Bugs!  Boy do we have bugs!  Every AM there are bugs dying on the walkways at the school!  Big beetles, moths, butterflies, all victims of some predator who lost them in the dark after the initial attack.  We find them everywhere including in our shoes!

  

      Dying Beetle                                          Huge Praying Mantis

Beetle in Miles shoe!  

 

When Miles gets off @ 4:30 and Dion heads home around the same time it is time to fix some dinner.  We eat @ 6PM and have Indonesian class 2 nights a week, Bible Study 1 night and the school serves dinner with a game on Friday night.  That only leaves us with one school night a week to ourselves and we are about to fill that up with rehearsals for a concert in November. 

We reach out to local Indonesians when we go to the market place and I find many people I meet say they “saw” us somewhere.  It brings to life the old old song, “Do you know dear Christian you’re a sermon in shoes?”.  I thank God that He gives us strength to smile and give a kind word to anyone who greets us.  We feel like celebrities wherever we go.  The Indonesian people think western people, “Orang Barat” are beautiful and sometimes they just stare.  Children like to touch us to make sure that we are real.  The really young ones run away and cry as we must be pretty scary to them as white as we are!  Sometimes the mom wants us to stop and reach out to them and even when we are in a hurry we try to spend those minutes that might bring one more into the Kingdom!

We attend a local Indonesian church every other Sunday.  We understand only about half of what is being preached but we have our “Alkitab” (Indonesian Bible) so we can at least understand the direction the pastor is going.  Several people we work with both at the school and the hangar attend there so we are deepening relationships and learning to worship in this new culture. On Saturday night sometimes Miles goes to the Indonesian church to listen to the songs being practiced for Sunday so that he is more familiar with them.  It is funny for us to try to mouth the words to a song quickly while not even knowing the tune.  Our tongues get tied up quite readily even with words we know and understand let alone the strange words they used to make the rhythm work.

We are usually falling exhausted into bed by 9PM and it is unusual for us to be awake much longer!  When we get invited to visit someone and we are out past 9 we really suffer the next day.  I guess we are getting old! Miles is 56 and Dion turns the double nickel this birthday in December!  What shall we do to celebrate it?!  Sounds like a party to which we will invite all of our friends Indonesian and western alike!

                     
Our youngest grandson was born October 2.  His name is Daniel Christian McClure.  He weighed in at 8lbs 1oz.  Trent and Kristie are the proud parents.  They are living in Milwaukie OR.  We sure wish we could be there to help Kristie and of course to hold the baby!

Well, I've gone on long enough.  We miss you all and pray for you on a regular basis! 
Hopefully now that I am in a school routine our posts will be more frequent!  No promises! :)

Prayer Requests:
Funding for the current school year
Health to stay strong and no more malaria or ?
Language skills to increase to help us become bolder in public
Family that just lost their father, husband in a plane crash last week (not MAF)
Time for building / strengthening relationships

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Break is here

Dear fellow laborers with Christ,

Your labor in prayer support has been felt!  We have had some interesting times during some “Unrest” here in Papua.  Many people put out an urgent request for prayer so that things would not escalate.  These prayers were answered in a mighty way!  All seems quiet right now and we are grateful! 

We and all the “Expats” here are safe!  I do feel the need to remind, or tell for the first time whichever the case may be, that we and MAF are in a neutral position here!  Any public references to MAF or Hillcrest (HIS) in regards to unrest over here could be misunderstood by any number of people.  We ask for your understanding about why we cannot share more details and foryour caution when sharing the prayer requests of many missionaries serving God around the world.    

The decision has been made that we will indeed stay here for another year!  The needs here are great and we feel a huge burden to carry on what God has put before us!  I am excited for my fall assignment in the fourth grade!  I worked closely with the 3^rd graders this last year in computer, art, and many of them are in the ESL program.  There was a collective sigh of relief by the parents when it was announced that the fourth grade has a teacher for the fall.  Some of you have asked what we might need that will fit in an envelope.  I could use some “Ticky Tack”.  It is the only thing that will hold “stuff” on the cement walls here.  Stickers, Pencils, Small Prizes, Note cards, Name plates for student desks, anything like that would be a help!  Ok maybe a large envelope.  On a personal level I miss some of the teas from home.  Specifically the Ginger Bread Spice, or the Sugar Plum Spice flavors and “Constant Comment” are some of my favorites!  Lose the box and just put someof the bags in an envelope.

Miles is in Wamena.  He is doing inspections on 2 206s there.  He was home for the weekend and we went to a very nice restaurant on Sentani Lake to celebrate Father’s day.  God has blessed our children and me with such a good man!  Many “Expats” have gone home for furlough this summer.  The MAF base is over half empty!  With Miles gone sometimes it is pretty lonely and quiet around here.  Thank God He is my constant companion. 

 

Dion and Lea at Yogwa

(restraunt on the lake)

                           Miles at Yogwa





On Memorial Day we went to a beach very close to  the border of Papua New Guinea.  It is called Base G.  Many areas around here have kept the name given them by the armed forces in WWI & WWII.  Both Japanese and American forces have occupied this island.   It was a very lovely beach.  We didn't have to ride a boat to get to the beach so we just went alone. To get to the other beach we went to, we have to get a crowd to share the cost of the boat.   

     

Our June border Lea has been here for 2 weeks now.  Before she moved in we asked her for a confession of faith.  She is Catholic but when I asked, “ what Is your relationship with Jesus Christ?”  she replied, “He is my Lord and savior, and without Him I cannot do anything”.  We pray that this truth is deep in her heart and that we will have many discussions that will be enlightening to all of us.  She is such a help both in the kitchen and in our using Indonesian in our everyday speaking.  She and I will go to visit Miles in Wamena next weekend the 23^rd.  She has never been outside of the Jayapura / Sentani area.  She is very excited to go and visit another area of her country. 

I finally am over my second bout of malaria.  This one took 3 rounds of medication to eradicate!  I am taking as many precautions as I can to limit the number of mosquito bites I get.   I have always been a target for them.   I am so grateful for my general good health as I dread to think of how I would have fared otherwise.  There are no Malaria mosquitos in Wamena!  In July we will go to an area just outside of Wamena called Pyramid for our MAF family camp.  I am grateful that I won’t have to worry about malaria there,

Our tutor is coming over every morning from 9-12 except Wednesdays when I have a group of ladies over for a Bible Study.  By the end of 3hours I feel like my brain will explode!  After lunch Lea comes home and we go to the local pool to cool off and to participate in Water Aerobics classes.  This summer schedule is working well.  I squeeze in some time at school to do an “end of year” inventory of the ESL room, and to start getting familiar with the 4^th grade curriculum. 

Prayer Requests Corner

For Settling the unrest in Papua

For Lea to see Christ here and to feel His love every day

For Deeper more rich times in God’s word daily

For Boldness to speak in Indonesian when in public like at the market

For Boldness to speak of Christ as our language skills improve

For Continued good health

Summer plans

Dearest family and friends,

Our summer just took 2 interesting turns.  First we invited a young Papuan teacher named Lea to live with us for the month of June.  She is the niece of the secretary at HIS.  She teaches English at her school in Jayapura.  She wants to be immersed in English so that her teaching will improve.  We are more than happy to help this young teacher in her teaching.  She will also help us with our Indonesian.  We figure we will spend equal amounts of time speaking English and Indonesian.  It will be a win, win situation.  Also, she has agreed to teach me how to cook Indonesian dishes.  I am very excited about this prospect.  The converse is true that she would like to learn some “Western” dishes! 

Now for the second turn.  Miles just got invited to spend most of the month of June back in Wamena!  It looks like Lea and I will spend most of June just the two of us, then Miles will return home on weekends and Lea and I will visit one weekend.  Indonesian schools are in session Monday – Saturday 7AM-12PM Year round!  Lea will be gone most mornings to do her teaching while I have my language lessons.  We will decide which weekend will work the best for her to join us in Wamena after she moves in. 

In July, a church from Vancouver, New Heights, comes over to help with projects and to help put on our annual family conference. It will be 10 days just outside of Wamena.  I am looking for a place to spend a vacation for a week around our anniversary in August then teachers have to be in school beginning August 20^th.  Whew, school hasn’t even ended this year yet and I feel like summer is over for all the plans in the works! 

School news:

We are blessed to have needs met in grade 1, 4, 6, MS Math, MSLanguage Arts, HS and MS Band, and PE for next year.  These are huge Praise the Lord items! 
We still have need of:
Elementary/Middle School Principal
High School Principal/Guidance Counselor
Dorm Parents
Grade 3
ESL (certified, and experience preferred)
Special Education: ADD/ADHD; Dyslexia;Reading Specialist
IT Network
IT Computer teacher, grades K – 8

It's not too late to comeover if you are willing to come over and help!

We took our first graders to a local farm for a field trip.  They loved petting the goats and there was even a new “Kid” that had been born the day before we got there!  It was pretty exciting.  They also had several, 6 week old puppies, some baby chicks, chickens, and pigeons. 

Micah with "Bloom" from a tree!

Micah with Austin feeding goats

First grade Co teacher Leta

The last weeks since I got back from Wamena and had to get rid of a parasite have been spent getting stronger!  I am better now! J 

Mechanics Corner:

Praise God that He always provides a way!  We found a way to repair the Caravan that had a flat tire and went off the runway and damaged the wing, that the Indonesian Government's form of the FAA has approved, that didn't take 190 days just to get parts.  This was mentionned in our April Newsletter.  The airplane has been put back together, test flown, and is in the process of being prepared for being returned to service. 

Miles is very humbled to be asked to come back to help on another airplane.  They really like him in Wamena.  We like Wamena too!  Maybe after our next year here if we decide to come back we can go to Wamena!  Just thinking out loud! J  We will be home in 2013.  Dates to be set at a later date!

Prayer Corner:
Good Health for both of us
Continued growth in Christ, doing what He wants in our service to Him.
Continued clarity in our communications with each other and others as well.

Our last blog was at Easter.  We told of the great need for us to be here supporting “Front Line” ministries.  We would like to tell you of some of the front line stuff we know about first hand and what we hear about.  For Easter we had several people share our meal including Wes and Esther Dale.  Wes is the son of a pioneering missionary who was killed by cannibals here in Papua in 1968.  His devotion to the people of Papua despite those circumstances is legendary.  (Like Nate and Steve Saint, in Ecuador) Wes and Esther live among the people of Mamit and live a very simple life.  Their diet is the same as the natives of the area, greens and sweet potatoes.  Lest you say, “Yum, sweet potatoes” let me tell you they are pretty dry bland lumps here.   He is teaching at a Bible college in the small village of Mamit.  Esther teaches the children of those students while they are in classes.  She is constantly looking for and making toys for the 70 plus children in her care.  She recently wrote and told me that while they were here in Sentani, they acquired a bike and a trike to help.  The needs of those people are simple and basic to us but life giving for them.  Soap, clothes, vitamins, and glue for Esther’s art projects.  I think I need to share a “paste” recipe with her! J 
Our pilot friend David Holsten tells this story: Had the privilege today of crewing an evacuation flight for a missionary doctor who has been stranded at an interior village plagued by recent unrest. After landing, we shut down the plane, loaded our passengers, and were back in the air about 5 minutes later.   Her tears of appreciation, and subsequent reunion with her husband, were sweet to behold .                                          
                                                                                  Pilot David Holsten, with the Dales and villagers villagers                                                                     in Mamit

 While Miles was working In Wamena he did a ride along for a medical evacuation of a boy who had fallen out of a tree and sliced open his abdomen.  It was 4 days before he got to an area to be picked up.  He was flown to the closest hospital which was in Wamena but that hospital couldn’t care for his intensive wounds.  He was then evacuated to Sentani the next day. 

MAF is here to serve so that lives can be transformed by the Love of Jesus!  We feel blessed to be a small part of it!

Wamena is the largest city in the world accessible only by air.  Everything must be either grown there or flown in by airplane.  We visited there before Miles worked on an airplane for a week and a half.  The MAF staff there was great.  I only stayed for the weekend then had to get back to school.  They fed Miles the entire time he was there.  The team took turns (they call it meal sked - schedule). The weather there was terrific!  It reminded us of summer in the Northwest, warm days and cool nights.   We were told that we would get cold there.  I wish!  It was however very comfortable and we actually sat in the living room of the guest house there.  There are no air conditioners necessary so we didn’t have to stay in our bedroom like we do here in the evenings.  The Harris family guys took us on a hike to a cave while we were there.  The hike was great!  The cave mouth had shifted since their last visit there so we didn’t actually go into the cave.  Here are a few pics from that day.  As usual Dion picked up some kids on the way back.  They seem to flock to her everywhere we go.  They followed us all the way back to the suspension bridge which was quite a ways from their huts.  They giggled when Dion took their pictures and showed them.  They took great delight in returning the “tickles” that Dion gave to them.  We tried to use some of our new limited Indonesian vocabulary with them and they just laughed.  Matt Harris told us that they speak Dani, yet another tribal language.  We work with translators who took part in bringing The Bible in Dani to these special children of God. 

 

 

 

Dion's groupies! :) The tall one is a girl named

Diana. She smiled when I told her my name. (pronounced Diona)     Miles on rickety suspension    

bridge

On Miles' trip back fromWamena they had a live pig that was loaded into the belly pod of the 206 he flew back to Sentani.  Picture.  Can you see the snout right behind the handle of the umbrella?  The Papuans use umbrellas all the time to shield from the hot equator sun as well as the flash rain storms that crop up regularly.

     Dion getting her "Grandma fix" with Jericho.





Live pig trussed up after coming out of 206 belly pod.
Didn't make a sound til they took it out.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

He is Risen!  That is why we are here!  To proclaim the gospel to every one God brings in our path and to support the ones who fly, translate, nurse, and work directly with the nationals here.  We have been asked to extend our “Year” stay for another year.  Many teachers will be on furlough next year and the need is great!  I was told by a fellow teacher that if he can’t have his children educated here, he will have to take his family home.  This is a reality that will be repeated annually if other folks don’t heed the call of Christ!  

Matthew 9:37-38 (NKJV)

³⁷ Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. ³⁸ Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

This is our fervent prayer.  Staffing needs, Key slots include: Elementary/Middle School principal, lower elementary teacher, upper elementary teacher, MS Language Arts, MS Math, ESL grades K – 8, Special Education: reading/learning disabilities/dyslexia, HS Science for 1st semester, HS Bible for 1st semester, HS electives: shop/practical electricity/psychology/foreign language/personal fitness (weight training or aerobic exercise), dorm parents, additional teacher in Wamena.  Please continue to pray and ask the Lord to provide for these needs.

These are just the facts of the needs for staff at HIS for the 2012/13 school year.  I will be able to fill the ESL slot as I am now doing, or I can fill one of the elementary positions, or one of the MS slots.  Since I am here and flexible, all are posted as needs.

In order for us to stay for another year, we need to hear from all of our supporters that they agree to support us for another year or we need new supporters to replace the ones that are unable to continue beyond their original commitment.  This decision must be made by the end of April.  We need to begin the Visa renewal process.  We would not dream of staying without our support team firmly placed underneath us.

If we are to stay for another year a language school will be necessary so that we will be able to share our faith with the average Papuan on the street.  For me, I will be better able to speak with our Pembantu and share with her, as well as better able to share with the folks at the “Pasar” (market) that I have been building a relationship with.  I buy similar things each week from the same merchants.  They help me with language and understand that I don’t do “chit chat” yet.  I want to!  We are better able to understand some conversations and more of the written word. Miles is doing better on the language front as he works daily with nationals so he speaks more than the 3 hours a week of our tutoring which is all I get.  All that said, our tutor has agreed to come daily during the summer to take us over the hump and bring us to fluency.

Speaking of Miles, he is going to Wamena in the next 2 weeks to work on an airplane.  I will join him on the weekend after has worked for a week.  I am looking forward to the cooler weather I hear is there. Wamena is in the mountains.  Everything that is there has been flown in as there are no roads into it.  The cost of living is greater as a result. We look forward to seeing some of the other parts of Papua.

I have a lot of things to share that have happened since I got back from the states.  I will share them as I get caught up.

Everyday life in Sentani

It is hard to believe that it has been over a month since our last post!  Where does all the time go?  I know, it is spent doing the will of Him who sent me (us).  We are here to support those that are on the front lines translating God’s word into the native tongues of the many Papuan dialects, flying airplanes, working on airplanes, doing medical work, teaching Papuans in Indonesian how to prevent AIDS, and a myriad of other tasks including just supporting one another as we try to live in difficult circumstances away form from family that would be more difficult without the school and hangar for repairs that are available here.

Since my accident I have had a chance to go back out to the hospital that I was taken to so that I could get some blood work done.  I was amazed to find goats and dogs lounging in the grass between the wings, people camped out waiting, and even food vendors selling the days offerings of a variety of fried “stuff”.   All the walls had a dirty “Handprint” streak about waist high and the room where they drew the blood was just as dirty with cheechaks (Geckos) crawling along the ceilings. 

Those tests had to be re-done so I went to the only other hospital in the area.  It too was in the same dirty condition but at least it didn’t have the animals or vendors hanging inside the premises.  There were vendors outside selling “Beetlenut”.  It is a mild analgesic not unlike alcohol or marijuana.  It is the substance of choice to ease pain and check out emotionally from all of the pain that their lives have become.  Here are 2 parts that are sold together.  They chew them up and I guess the juice is what they are after.  It does turn whatever teeth they have red, and they spit red “juice” everywhere sort of like chewing tobacco but there are no spittoons around here.  The walkways and roads are dotted all over with red.

I am very busy at school with all of my classes.  We are at the halfway point.  Only 12 more weeks of school!  I am looking forward to the break but not the part of not seeing the kids in my classes!  I enjoy them a lot! J 

Miles will be going to a small village called “Wamena” later this month to do a repair on an airplane by himself.  Everything in Wamena was flown in.  There are absolutely 0 roads in or out of Wamena.  It is high in the Mts.  It gets cold there.  I am going to try to arrange a visit so that I can be cold and to see an outlying village as well.  A family here with MAF has started a school for nationals.  It is called “Harapan” or Hope.  Some young students from there  visited the hangar.  As the students get into high school it turns into a “Tech” school teaching the nationals to work on airplanes among other jobs.  I would dearly love to visit it.  I will look for a day when I have off from school but they do not and do just that.

            Our language studies are going well.  Our tutor asks us to tell him about our day in Indonesian of course! J  It is easier to tell what is happening to yourself than to study a book about people that don’t exist in a book.  Miles and I are increasingly able to express our thoughts and ideas.  Our tutor is pleased with our progress since we don’t use Indonesian in our work lives.  We only use it for 3 hours a week in class, or short bursts while at the market.  When school gets out we will increase our frequency and length of time to cap off our studies.  We should be able to communicate well with most of the people we meet on the streets or have in our home.

            We had a group of nationals for dinner last weekend called “Joshua Team”.  It is an organization that helps to keep teens and older off the street.  They form musical groups that perform @ local churches, and at their weekly meetings on Fridays.  Miles works with one of them, Gasko, at the MAF hangar.  We had a great time sharing experiences and cultures as they helped us with our Indonesian and we helped them with English.  They all have English skills, some more than others but we managed to speak enough Englenisain to communicate and laugh through most of the evening.  Gasko wanted his girlfriend (Not a member of Joshua Team) to experience “Apple Pie”, so he asked if I would show him how to make one.  I made one in advance and after showing the whole group how to make it, we ate it.  I baked the pie for Gasko and he took it to her.  Her father liked it too.  When he asked her who made it, she said, “mother in law”  I guess Gasko sees us like parents.  His are in a small village on a remote island.  I was honored.

            We had a huge rain storm that took out walls, fences, trees and flooded in many homes.  This picture shows how far up to our house our own private lake came.  We did have a little water in our “Gudong” (storage room off the porch and carport) but it was minor.

Updates

Dad with cousin Greg

Well, I’ve been back from Yuma AZ for 2 weeks now.  My visit with him turned out great!  I was expecting to not even be able to say good bye when I left from Sentani.  He loves the Lord and is ready to go home to be with the Lord.  He is ready to be out of pain!

 Both of my brothers and my sister had arrived before me and were expecting to say final good byes.  God is not finished with my dad yet so he did not get called home. 

getting ready for first physical therapy session

My dad rallied and is now working toward getting out of the nursing home.  He will have to be able to walk 50 feet so that when he gets home he can make it into the bathroom even on days that he doesn’t feel like it.  Toward that end he has physical therapy every day.  When I left he was barely able to stand for a Nano second.  Now he is able to take 8 steps, 4 with each foot.

Dad with Ainsley



Brother Jeff, Mom, Brother Scott, Me, Sister Leslie

 Our oldest son Josh and his wife Allyl with thier daughter Ainsley visited over a week before I got there.  I am so grateful for the opportunity to spend time with my siblings in prayer around our father.  I know that the prayers of the saints on our behalf are what have caused this miracle that my dad is still alive.  We continue to pray for strength for our mom to deal with spending long days at the care home and strength for dad to make it home if that is what Gods’ plans are for him. 

Several folks from their church have been coming in to give mom a break.  We are so grateful to them for taking time out of their busy schedules to help out!  Dad gets so lonely when nobody is there.

On another note:  While I was in Yuma, the first day I lost a crown so I crossed over to Mexico to have it put back on.  They charged me $10!  What a deal.  My folks use a dentist there who seems to be well qualified.  It is a much better deal than what is available in The States even with insurance!  I had a root canal and crown put on a year ago by him.

Also the dry air in Arizona dried up my leg so now none of the sores from my accident are “Gooey” anymore! J  They are still pink and tender but healed up!

When I returned on Sunday, after I took a nap, I hit the ground running. We had a teacher in-service on Monday and school started on Tuesday.  I have full schedule including teaching math to first graders, ESL (English as a second Language) to 20 1st through 7^th graders in small groups.  And I also have a 3^rd grade computer class, a 2^nd grade PE and a KG PE class.  It is a very full schedule but I am having a ball. J 

This busy schedule keeps me from seeing our house helper.  She comes after I leave and leaves before I get back.  I am finding creative ways to show Christ’s love. Pray that I don’t get so busy that I lose sight of why we are here!