Today is Sunday
Today I woke up to hearing the sounds of my children playing a game in our back yard. The best I can tell it was a sort of a "hide the treat" and guess who has it type of game. The part that was interesting is no english was spoken and I understood everything that was going on and it took me a second to realize it wasn't English ( I was still sleepy). I keep a tape in my video camera for these moments and started taping. Unfortunately most of it involved being quiet and closing eyes. But I was able to give you a small glimpse of what my children's days are like outside of school and chores.
I had been thinking for a while that the kids needed a swing, and so today as a family we went outside, after church, and the kids picked the tree. We smacked some weatherproofing on a scrap piece of wood, and tied some rope in place. I weight tested it and viola... tree swing. It really is nice that they have plenty of room to run around outside and play and that they have made and continue to make many national friends as well as ex-patriot friends.
God has blessed us continually through watching our children here. Never once do they stop to think about how incredible it is they are playing games with children from a different birth place, speaking a different language, eating foreign "biscuits" in a backyard once owned by Bible Translators. But we do.
Yesterday I spent the day (saturday) helping a friend dig some really big holes to put up his antenna. T.V. antenna you ask? No, his amateur radio antenna. With it he can very rarely communicate with portions of the midwest United States. He is hoping to converse with his dad more frequently with the improved antenna. Radio is a big form of communication around here, and I am trying to learn more about it since I seem to be in the perfect place to learn.
The work of a support missionary here is very diverse. Almost everyone has multiple jobs, all of which are key. Beside that though, my wife and I have a commitment to helping others as often as we can and having the needs of others take priority over some things that may seem important to us, and yet in the long run are not. Part of our heart towards support is lending help wherever we can. Yesterday for me that meant digging 33 inch square holes all day instead of repairing things around our house. Why? Because I heard someone who was going to do it and thought, it be better for their daily job if they weren't sore and exhausted on Monday by doing it alone.
I tell you, I heard a sermon from a man in Alotau, a pastor there, born in Papua New Guinea, and he preached on being a cheerful giver. I can honestly say that having a cheerful heart of giving has come from God through many of you. Being supported by you has touched us in a profound way and has taught me the meaning of cheerful giving. Through your example, I was able to dig holes without once complaining inside my own head about how hard the work was, or how I'd rather be doing other things.
For me, that is a lot of personal growth (-; I'm seeing that I'm not the man I used to be in many ways. I've really stopped grumbling to myself about things. WOW, did I have life easy before, why was I complaining? And now, I see all around me that I could have it a LOT tougher... so why complain now?
God has blessed us too often in so many ways for us to not be thankful no matter what comes our way.
Right now, we are settling back in. I've been back from Alotau for 3 work days, and a weekend, and now it's time to really get some major projects at work begun. We have a lot of improvements that we are able to do, and judging from the new missionaries coming in through POC the computer services department is going to have more work to do.
Five years ago, email wasn't used as often here, one of ten missionaries brought a laptop to POC with them. Last month at the orientation training, not one single member was without a laptop. Everyone knew what high speed internet was. The next generation of computer users have arrived with their MacOSX and their Vista and their high speed expectations, and so we at CTS will have our work cut out for us.
Meanwhile Kendal has begun teaching English as a second language, and this next week will begin sessions with the kids one on one! She's pretty excited.
So things are moving along and we're beginning to feel a lot less like students still learning the ropes and more like helpers starting to pull our weight.
