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 7th 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.
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
