Food

I enjoy cooking, which is good, because I spend a lot of my time doing it.
We can sometimes get packaged products here, but most of what I cook is
from scratch. Lately, I've been cooking even more things from scratch.
Some things that used to be readily available have been harder to get.
An example of this is canned tomato products. It used to be that you
could almost always get diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, etc
in our store. Lately this is not the case. We have randomly had a small
amount of tomato products, but in the 3 months we've been back from home
assignment, I'd say the times when those shelves are bare have far
outnumbered the times when we've had these things in stock. I don't
think I realized before how much our family consumes tomato products.
Luckily, we have a beautiful fruit and vegetable market 3 mornings a
week here. Knowing that canned tomato products ultimately come from
fresh tomatoes, I decided to teach myself how to make my own tomato
products. As with most things, it's not really all that HARD to make
tomato puree from scratch, it just takes time.
Bread is another thing I often make from scratch. We can get some
sandwich bread from a nearby town. I often buy this for toast and
sandwiches because, frankly, I have a really hard time slicing my bread
in nice even slices like you find in a store bought loaf of bread. The
problem is that it tastes a bit like cardboard, especially once you get
used to eating fresh homemade bread. Nevertheless, the kids don't seem to mind it for their PB&J or grilled cheese. 

Although we do have this option for sandwich bread, whenever we want rolls, bagels, hamburger buns, etc.  They have to be made from scratch.  One thing I've wanted to try to a while is making English Muffins.  As with most things from scratch, they are easier to make than I thought they would be.  In fact, I was pretty pleased with the results. I'll definitely we making these again.  The best part about making English muffins is that I didn't have to turn on the oven.  On a hot day this is a definite plus.  Here are some pictures.  They didn't have all the nooks and crannies you'd find in Thomas' English Muffins, but they were still a hit with the whole family!

Happy Easter

Celebrating Easter here in PNG looks, in many ways, a lot like it would
back in the US. We go to church, we share a nice meal with people we
love, we decorate Easter eggs, and we even have an Easter Egg hunt. The
biggest difference is who we celebrate with. If we were home in the US,
we'd be surrounded by family. Here, we live in a community full of
people who are away from their families. Because of this, we build
relationships here that often feel like family.

We had the pleasure of hosting Easter dinner this year and invited two
other families to join us. Certain food items have been rather scarce
lately, but we managed to pull off an impressive Easter spread complete
with rolls, mashed potatoes, vegetables, salad, and the traditional
Easter Chicken. Sometimes we've been able to get ham here around Easter
time and, although it can be a bit expensive, we've splurged to get
one. This year, however, there was no ham to be had, so chicken it
was. It's not really all about the food, although it WAS really tasty.

We had a lovely afternoon relaxing afternoon with good friends as we
celebrated our Savior's resurrection. We also took the time to take a
couple of family pics as we do every year at Easter. Here are a few
pics form the day...

Easter Eggs

I thought this year the kids wouldn't be interested in the annual Easter
egg dying... after all, they are 11 and almost 10 years old.
Thankfully, I had an extra dozen eggs on hand because our store here is
not open on weekends or holidays. Friday morning (Good Friday is a
public holiday here), Sydney says to me, "Mom, when are we going to
decorate Easter eggs?" and "Can we each invite a friend to dye eggs with
us?"

I have to admit, I was kinda looking forward to not dealing with the
mess of it this year, but without too much complaining, I went and
boiled a dozen eggs while the kids each called a friend. Thankfully,
too, I had the food coloring and vinegar on hand (Which brings me to a
quick rant... Why do we (in the US) spend money on packaged egg dye kits
when all you need is water, vinegar, and food coloring? I will admit
that I didn't know it was so simple until I moved to the land of no
commercial holiday items.)

So, once again, the kids enjoyed the tradition of coloring Easter eggs
with friends. The mess wasn't bad and I can't really blame me daughter,
I am the one in the family who is big on traditions... I guess I've
rubbed off on my daughter a bit... that's not so bad is it?

Missionary Kid moment

Recently we had a team of people come from the US and Australia to hold a 2 week long Vacation Bible School for our kids while we attended our biennial PNG branch conference (translated that means the parents were in all day meetings for 2 weeks and we needed people to look after our kids). We were so thankful for these wonderful people who came to help in this way.  The kids had a blast doing all sorts of games, songs, activities, crafts, etc.

Doing a Vacation Bible School for a large group of missionary kids is an interesting experience, I'm sure.  The typical commercially produced VBS curriculum doesn't work so well with a group like this who often know the Bible stories as well (or sometimes even better) than their VBS leaders. We heard many times from the teachers how smart and well versed the kids here are in their knowledge of the Bible.  As you can imagine, the leaders had to use some creativity to keep this group of MKs interested and engaged... they did a great job!  As we spoke to the kids teachers we heard some great stories of things they did together and the fun they had.

I had to share one such story with you all....
The grade 6 girls were playing a game of Apples to Apples.  Their leader (a really fun college aged young lady) knew that these missionary kids may not "get" some of the things on the cards (this game is heavily tied to US culture). She told the girls, If you don't know the thing on the card, just put it back and take another.  This lead to quite a lot of cards being turned back in.  Finally, after trading in several cards, one of the girls turned over a card that read "Abba" (it was referring to the popular music group, Abba).  The girl excitedly said, "Oh, I know this one!  It's another name for God!"

And there you have it folks...out of the mouths of MKs

Settling In

We've been back in PNG for a week now and we're feeling pretty well
settled.

Some things I've enjoyed as we've begun settling in:

Having a huge group of people to greet us at aviation! We were
obviously missed!
Being back into our home and having my kitchen back.
Trying some new recipes this week
Getting back to a routine... including exercise!
Beginning a new semester at school and getting to know my new
students... they are a great bunch!
Seeing my kids reconnect with their friends and having a house full of
kids after school each day.
Looking out my windows at this beautiful country.
Catching up with my PNG and expat friends here.
Getting back into our weekly Bible study groups.

Of course, we miss friends and family in the US, but God has called us
to this work in PNG and has even blessed us with contentment as we do
it. Life here is not always easy. There is cultural stress. There are
no restaurants. Now 24/7 grocery stores. No places for shopping except
our little store. However, this place feels like home. We have purpose
in our work here. We have good friends. Life is good!

Goodbye Winter... Hello Summer

At the beginning of this week. we were in the US feeling the cold of
winter (Okay, it was only winter in CA, but still, we felt cold). Now
we find ourselves in the heat of summer in Australia. Wow is it hot
and humid!

We're spending a couple of days in Cairns, Australia before we head back
to PNG. The plan is to get over jet lag and have a couple of days rest
before we get to Ukarumpa and hit the ground running. We arrive on
Saturday (Friday US time) and school begins on Wednesday. It will be a
busy few days getting settled and getting ready to start teaching.

The goodbyes were hard, but we are excited to get back to our home in
PNG. The kids are looking forward to seeing their friends, seeing our
dog, having their own rooms again, and even getting back to school
(believe it or not).

We're all enjoying the warm weather and swimming in the pool here. This
is something we don't get to do much in PNG since there are no pools
where we live. I think the kids would live in the pool if they could.

There's lots more floating around in my head, but I suppose it's time to
make breakfast and see what the day holds.

It's Almost time

We just spent our last night in our furlough home (okay, I just spent my
last night here. Everyone else is still sleeping!) What a blessing it
has been to be in Mount Hermon for this home assignment! We've loved
living here. It's a little bit outside of the hustle and bustle of busy
city life. Not so far that we can't easily get there if we need to, but
when you are here you feel a bit removed from the busyness. Because we
are "on the other side of the hill" as people here call it, we've been
blessed to make new friendships, become a part of a GREAT church family,
and spend time with some family members who we otherwise may not have
seen much of. God knew THIS was where we needed to be during THIS
time. We are truly blessed.

Today we get to worship with our church family at Gateway Bible church
one last time and then spend the evening surrounded by family. God is
good. Most of the work is done.

We appreciate your prayers as we begin our journey back to PNG
tomorrow. Here's our itinerary is you are interested:
Monday Jan 10th-- Depart SFO at 7:45 PM Flight time approx 13hours
Wednesday Jan12th 6 AM arrive in Auckland NZ (Tuesday morning US time
-- We skip a day when we cross the international date line)
Layover in Auckland for approx 2 hours
Fly Auckland, NZ to Cairns, AUS Flight time approx 6 hours.
Arrive in Cairns, AUS approx 12 PM on Jan 12th (approx 5 PM Tuesday US time)

Spend a couple of days in Cairns AUS recovering and getting over jet lag

Saturday morning depart Cairns AUS and fly to Port Moresby PNG at 6:45
AM (approx 1 PM Friday US time)
Flight time 2 hours

Finally... Fly From Port Moresby PNG to Ukarumpa arriving approx 12 PM
(approx 6 PM US time)

So, there you have it!

We'd appreciate prayers for safe travels and relief from the colds we've
been fighting.