Saying 'NO'

I was raised in church ministry. My mom served, my dad served, both me and my two sisters served, for years.

It is my opinion, that people who serve often get asked to do many things because they exhibit a servant's heart. Often times, on the WORK side of church unless servants can learn to say 'no' they can very quickly burn out.

Here in PNG, saying 'YES' to one ministry often means saying 'NO' to others. There really is never the risk of 'I'm not doing enough for God' here. Both Kendal and I are constantly busy doing some ministry. We have our main jobs plus many others.

So when a new opportunity arises you have to seriously consider it, pray, go to God and ask for guidance, because you can very easily end up in a position where you get burned out.

There is SO much work to be done and the workers are diminishing.

Upon arriving here from furlough we have each been confronted with multiple change requests:

-I was asked to step into a leadership position requiring at least 2 months away from my normal computer job

-My wife was asked to become a 5th grade teacher instead of preschool.

-I was asked again to be a leader in a different position

-My wife was asked to be a committee secretary (a huge amount of work).

If we chose to say 'yes' to these things, we would be effectively saying 'no' to many many things in the next 2 years (that's the length of the committment).

And so, we seriously sought God in this matter. Praying hard over it. People don't ask lightly around here, your 'NO' has to be firm, which is why I needed the confidence that God was directing my steps behind me.

After 8 days of prayer and thought, God graced us with a very clear message and we replied 'NO' to these things.

The NEXT day my world got super busy and I realized... had I said 'yes' at this point I possibly could crack. The readjustment to this place has been very time consuming because there has been so many changes and there is so much work to do.

And there has been personal things going on as well, my daughter has begun a Bible study, has a play, etc...

I mention this because I firmly believe that for the sake of longevity that people serving God must learn to say a very firm 'no' in a loving way. You need to learn to deal with the guilt of not taking on a task that God has not called you to, and the guilt of saying 'no' when you see an obvious need.

We need to also learn that when we say 'no' we need to start praying for that hole to be filled by the right person.

Putting the wrong person in a 'slot' can be as harmful as leaving that job undone.

I've seen ministry chew people up and spit them out. And ministry can be a machine. A machine with a heart that does good work, but the ugly side of it requires that people fill roles and jobs.

It may sound dreadful for a missionary to say 'Today I said no to three opportunities to serve.' But that should really be read as 'Today I said 'yes' to doing what God called me here to do, and to do it well, instead of doing it distractedly until I get exhausted and burn out.'.

We're not here to work super hard, then fall apart within a year.
We're here to work hard, work smart, and do what God called us to do, and to do it for the long term.

However, if you're unclear what God is telling you to do, then saying 'yes' to many things may help you to find your niche.

Please don't take this to mean we're not doing enough. I've listed out before all the things we are doing.

Instead this post is to inform you that there is a ton of work that gets left undone sometimes. We prioritize and focus and get the job done. I wanted to express that there is so much work, that as soon as someone returns from furlough/home assignment they are prompted with many new 'opportunities', and you need to learn the discipline of wisely accepting the ones you are capable of doing well.

It's all about maintaining a manageable level of stress and energy in your life so that you can serve over the long term with passion and skill.

On the flip side, I totally intend to arrive in heaven completely used up, beat up, and tired out. I simply don't want to burnout before that time.

the Poor 2

My blog title 'the poor' was not meant to be posted with that photo, I made an edit and forgot to change the title.

The edit I made was to delete my posting about the poor in this country.

But I left the photo.

The question I was posing to myself publicly was how to define 'the poor'.
In a country where you can grow your own food, are people who aren't starving poor?

What if they aren't starving but develop malnutrition when older?
What about AIDS being a huge problem?
No cash money, but a cultural system that helps them provide for each other?

Are they poor yet?

When Christ asks us to tend to the poor, where do we draw the line and once drawn, how do we tend?

We strive to bring the Word of God to people of PNG. We also strive to meet them like Christ met them, caring for their physical needs as well.

It seems like we are surrounded by poverty, but then we wonder if that's simply our perspective...

Anyway... those are the thoughts I deleted and why that picture was entitled 'the poor' accidentally.

When I've processed this more I'll share more. The tug on my heart lately has been to do a little more than we did our first term here... and I have some ideas about how we might achieve that, but it's not really what we're doing.

It's what the Spirit of God wants to do through us that matters.

for that matter, a blog seems almost boastful if you talk about what you're doing.
Although we need to communicate to people what we're doing... but wouldn't it feel like bragging if you say..

"Today I helped a blind man..."

which isn't at all the point of this blog...

the point of this blog is to document life here, our transition and lives as missionaries and to communicate what God is doing.

So I want to be clear here. If I get excited about something we're doing, it is because I'm boasting in the Lord and what He is doing.

I've tried doing things on my own without God's leading or intervention and it doesn't turn out as well as you'd hope. So whenever anything remarkable happens, it is very obviously God working.

So when we work out this question about the POOR, we will let you know what happens.

The Poor

this is a picture of the village area some of our Bible translator friends live in when they are in the village.

Tagged Vlans

Today's challenge:
implement a technology I've never used of using principles I understand.

Mission: make a Dlink wap have multiple SSID's that go to different networks which are disconnected

Approach:
1 - learn how to configure multiple SSID's on a Dlink WAP - completed
2 - learn how to configure WPA2 enterprise on multiple SSID's - completed
3 - learn how to get tagged vlans to traverse a trunk on a cisco switch - completed
4 - move the home network to vlan 10 from default vlan1 because vlan1 is stupid... I mean because vlan1 is a security risk when your CORP network is also vlan1 (still) - IN PROGRESS
5 - reconfigure your switches to disallow anything but the new vlan - completed

Today was one of those days when you say 'I THINK this should work, but I don't know HOW yet'. And you dive into manuals.

And, sure enough, it works.

And at the end of the day I had to battle my training and what I already knew to work, because I simply didn't like the ideas coming at me... but they were valid ideas... and after much trial and error and reading, and testing, I believe we reached success.

I kept my network organized and secure,
They got their product working.
I documented it well.


The problem with changing the 'default' way of equipment is that it becomes harder to replace me in the future.

The problem with keeping 'default' configurations is that they are insecure and quickly become disorganized.

I documented it all today and pretty much wrote a ten page manual with pictures so that the guy behind me could learn it too.

Now I have to go, I'm late for dinner. (-;

Busy Busy

Last night I didn't sleep much. I was considering this decision about leadership I mented a few posts ago. I spent my non-sleep time praying and a peace came over me as I realized that I needed to spend my energies elsewhere.

During my prayer it made a lot of sense and calmed me and I realized.... 'Chad, you need to focus on your core job right now, and let the leadership position go to someone else, it will be a hard year for you.'

So I was calmed by that, wrote out a list of priorities and decided to go about my dad tackling the challenge.

We had a meeting today about the projects we need to do in 2011.
The list was 28 items long.
We have 3 guys.
Each item was a month worth of work... if things go well.

It's a VERY long list.
It is a TON of work.

I am so very thankful to God and to you all for praying for me, that I was able to come to a decision this morning about the leadership thing, and have a confidence that God had something in store for me... and then to come to work and find out WHAT He had in store.

I should list out the project list here, although verbatim it will make no sense, so I'll paraphrase...

PLEASE pray these go well, we'll be busy enough without distractions and failures.

-implement windows home folders for departments
-remove web proxy and replace with websense
-implement exchange 2010
-install and configure traffic shaping
-update policy manuals
-upgrade software inventory control
-hardware inventory
-security policy implementation audit
-connect new training center and dining call to fibre backbone
-reconfigure central network switches
-deploy centre wide wireless with dual SSID's
-virtualize remaining physical servers
-upgrade aviation wireless connection (build a 15meter mast and install it)
-build four new Domain Controllers
..
the list goes on.
upgrades, replacements, etc.

Most of the work is inspired by the Microsoft licensing issue I told you about. We have to shave down, simplify, and otherwise reduce costs.

And we have a year to do it in.. actually, until June. So half a year. Because once June hits, we will lose a few guys and won't have the man power to do the projects for 18 months.

WOW... it's busy here.

I'm so glad I got some energy on furlough, these projects strike me as a lot of fun!

new blog

Adding a new blog to my link list
Beverly in Onobasulu

This isBeverly, she's a translator missionary working with the Onobasulu people. I enjoy her insite on things quite a bit. She has a good send of humor and a great spirit.

I've worked to help her with email, laptop, and radio issues quite a bit over the years.

SALT

What is God doing this week?
Many things, here's one you can pray for:

S.A.L.T.
Scripture use and leadership training course.
This weekend is the one weekend between the tweo week course happening here where we live. I support the network for the teachers of this course but it typically a somewhat low tech course, occasionally laptops are employed with wireless networking. I have setup an infrastructure for such classes that when working properly means things just work.

Which is good. The upside to things breaking is I get to interact more with the people attending the course, but typically things don't break.

About half of the instructors are missionaries and the others are church leaders from the valley.

Please pray for the instructors and the almost 50 participants, as they are in training to be SALT in their churches and villages.

as always you can pray for peace in the valley and for God to have a huge impact.

Church leaders in this area have a tough task as there is almost always conflict between different family lines. (aka tribes). Church leaders are constantly throwing themselves in the middle of violent conflict to bring peace and apply God's Word.

These courses give them skills and tools to employ God's Word among their people to see it change lives.

Friday Night

Wow, I've never been one to celebrate something on the weekend AFTER the date.. I've always thought the date should be sacred itself. But in this instance we decided to celebrate our anniversary last night instead of on Weds.

As a result we sort of got an anniversary week.

Weds morning the kids did their thing
Thurs night our Bible study sang us a song and made us a special dessert.
And last night,
Kendal made a special meal, we sent the kids to friends house and spent a very nice date night at home just the two of us. She made a very tasty chicken pastry dish... and an apple turnover dessert!

We played her gift, which had a toy 'crystal' in it (not new age, it was a game called Forbidden Island... part of my attempt at having more family games to play.

So technically I gifted her the appropriate 15 year gift.

This week at work was busy. But I was honored to have the chance to fix a few issues for a neat lady translator from Australia. She told me her village home was finally eaten by white ants... it took them 10 years, but the house was demolished.

I am often honored by the fact that my skills and talents can be used here to further God's kingdom. Still I desire to do more... I've been praying lately for God to show me more opportunities to expand His kingdom and a few names of nationals have come to mind now.

So I've begun praying for them and trying to get my mind mind around how a man witnesses to a woman in this culture, I'm pretty sure I can't directly so I'm thankful I have a wife who works with me in a team.

Which brings me back around to the 15 years.

When I got married 15 years ago, I knew it was to a wonderful young woman who had such potential, and in 15 years I've seen her mature into an incredible woman. She's in her prime now, confident, able, settled, assured of her skills, still learning, Godly, loving.... an excellent helpmate and teammate.

I am sometimes unsure how she knew 15 years ago I wouldn't turn out to be a jerk, but then it dawns on me that both of us were trusting each other and God to work in us, and who we are now, is not who we would have been without God and without each other working in us for 15 years.

I know I'm a better man for having married her.

I'm thankful to my wife and I'm thankful to God for 15 years of happiness. I have never once felt like marriage was a burden, and have always found my wife to be the kind of person who lightens a burden tremendously.

It's been at good, if quick, 15 years.

But I'm not going to spend too much time reflecting on it, because frankly my goal is 55+

Cairns and Cairo

Cairns, Australia has been hit by a category 5 cyclone. The biggest in it's history. We have friends there, we also have a plane there waiting on repairs. A quick prayer for protection would be appreciated.

Cairo, Egypt has been undergoing some incredible violence through protests. I saw some of the news footage last night and it was incredible. We also have friends there we haven't heard from for a few days as we heard they were evacuating all Americans.

a quick prayer for that would be appreciated too.

Mayas and Bees

Today's lunchtime was a little odd.
I was looking out my window on a nice clear day when suddenly hundreds of bees were swarming. Something had angered them. For months I had been battling the bees before leaving for furlough. There are 3 places they really like to swarm on my property. So I would get all gussied up in my bee uniform:

-denim pants
-denim coat (hot but thick)
-leather hat
-leather gloves
-flywire (screen) over my face, and tied at my neck tightly with a rope. (because if the bees get in... they're stuck in flying around my face.

Then I battle the bees.
And they move on or die or both.
Typically they move on to another place around my house and I find this out in a few days.. and we go again the next weekend I have.

I had all but obliterated them before furlough and today I find out, the hive is bigger than ever. Big enough to be dangerous if we or our kids were caught up in it.

So the fight rages on. Seems like there are a lot of things like that keep popping up right now. I'm tired just thinking of my 'todo' list.

While I was outside, a man Mayas came up to me to 'stori' which means sit around and talk. I didn't know him, and I had to get to work, but culturally it would be rude to run off, so I decided to be a few minutes late to work. After all I'm here to spread the Gospel to people, not punch a clock.

So we talked for a bit, he was very nice, offered to even help me with my bees. We debated over whether or not smoke killed bees or simply put them to sleep. He told me the best way was to make a small fire, put paper on it, and smoke the bees into leaving.

I told him I didn't like fire close to my house, and that the smoke would more or less make them sleepy but not kill them.

Anyway, he asked me if he could take a few garden cuttings, and then said he could trade me for some others, and I told him if he saw something he liked, to come talk to me later... he said he would.

After thinking of the conversation, there was no exchange or askims (favors) which is typical. I think Mayas was networking, making a relationship, offering friendship. Those types of interactions are pleasant to me because you get into a bad habit of waiting for someone to get around to asking you a favor, but he never did... not yet anyway.

So my lunch break was atypical, but enjoyable.

15 years ago on Groundhog's Day

I married my wife.

Each significant milestone has been celebrated differently. And each year I've given my wife the traditional gift (15 is Crystal). However this year I was unable to get the crystal gift I wanted because it wouldn't transport well to here, so I broke tradition. (I hid her gift from the U.S. in my duffle but it wasn't crystal)

Thinking it would be a rather simple anniversary without much pomp... just a quiet home cooked meal.... we woke up to these pictures.
The kids woke up early, dressed, set a beautiful table complete with flowers and linen, made cards, wrapped gifts and cooked up eggs and toast.

Have I mentioned before I LOVE my kids being older! We have loved every year of our married life, and have loved every stage of having kids.

This morning they blessed us big time with a huge surprise, as we came out of the bedroom this morning... BOOM a really gorgeous table setting!

thanks kids!
and thanks Kendal for 15 great years!

p.s. for our 10th and 15th we've been in places where we needed to keep things simple and yet somehow, we have been blessed with remarkable anniversaries. Not remarkable because they are complex or pricey, but remarkable because something special happened that we'll never forget. And what the kids did this morning for us, we'll never forget. IT was well done (they had tried things when they were younger but they were not nearly as well executed as this time).

Calvin did toast rather dapperly

Syd cooked eggs

Kids surprised us

Leadership

this post is more of a personal thinking than informative... for those of you who like to skip such things (-;

All of my life I have been considered for leadership positions.
All of my life this hasn't made sense to me.

I do not say this with false humility, I believe I know what I'm good at and what I'm not good at.

I am not a forward thinker, I am an on-my-feet thinker.

I'm not a visionary, I'm a reactionary with some tendencies to plan ahead so my reactions look even more reactiony. (-;

So then why do people ask me to be in leadership ministries, on comittees, etc.

I am convinced that people like communicators. I may be a communicator. I'm definitely not the best communicator, but I have a head start because people are surprised when computer geeks can speak normally about technology. (-; Frankly I think it's just because I'm not as smart as my super geek friends. What others see as me talking 'normal' I see as me trying to put into words even I can understand (-;

So that leaves the height issue.
I figured it was because I was tall and people figure, if you're tall, you're a leader they can respect. Yet my fellow tall men don't seem to be approached to lead as often as I am.

I look around and see people much smarter than me, much more of a prayer warrior than me, people more politically in touch with events, more decisive, more... all the things a leader should be. I'm completely content to be C3P0, sitting on the side translating and doing chores.

Anyway I bring all this up, not to put the attention on me or ask for encouraging emails.. trust me, my ego is already too high...

I say this because for multiple times now I have been asked to prayerfully consider taking on a leadership position at the branch I'm living at. I feel grossly ill equipped for the job and have repeatedly refused based on those grounds (and on the grounds that if I'm in meetings, who is watching my network?).

So this week I was asked again to consider a nomination, and this time I felt I should honestly seek prayer as to whether or not I should accept the nomination.

So that's what I'm doing until Feb 9.

Pray with me if you will.
I personally think it's a bad fit for me, and that I'd hate the additional responsibility. I also think whoever nominated me did so as a prank on everyone else. But, I will none the less be praying and ask that you pray with me and help God show me what He wants me to do. Who knows, maybe He wants me to submit to this for some reason.

thanks.

Healing

I'm writing this story to entertain, and also to explain what a typical Friday is like living here in PNG. The very first thing you need to know is that there is no such thing as a typical day.

You never know what is going to happen on any given day, but Friday's and Monday's seem to be the LEAST predictable.


FRIDAY:

8am I arrive at work to finish some projects and find I'm the first one in. I begin to do my work, and as others file in I find the news that they will be driving across the country for a week and I'll be left behind to man the department. That's fine, I prefer to stay than to take the drive.

PLEASE pray for their safety and that the job goes well, they'll be attempting to in 4 days: (the pic above is them and some of the equipment they'll be installing)
-install 2 wireless links (putting 2 of our centers on faster internet)
-get VSAT training so we can increase our bandwidth and bring other regional centres online.
-success - it's hard when you have to travel so far and have no access to electronics or tools, they have to plan this down to every last screw and zip tie. It is an ambitious goal, but once done, we will have faster access and have 2 departments online that have not yet been online!!!


it's a LOT to accomplish in 4 days.


at 10am I head over to a department selling a used desk to see if my kids could use a nicely made but affordable desk. I pass on the desk it's too big. But I head home to check.... nope too big.

I head back to work

11am I get the news my truck has a bad solinoid on the fuel injection pump, it'll be out of commission for up to a month.

at noon I get home and realize there isn't much to eat for lunch so I scrounge.

I tell my wife the news about the truck and the desk. I leave for work, nearly forgetting that the water to our house is unexpectedly off because they are trenching a new water line in front of my house... as such I have to practically jump the 1 foot wide trench... it was more of a fall jump, but I made it.


THIS is where the day goes oddly.

I decided since we have a 3 day weekend to treat my kids to a trip to the river, so I go to check it out... there is a new gate there since I last went and it's locked.

I find out I have to go to the industrial department to get the key.

I go.. get the key. I drive to a different dept. to make a copy... they said 'we can't copy that key it's a master.'
I call around.. 'woops that's the wrong key'.
I go back down to industrial, they give me 2 keys 'It might be one of these or 1 other one'
I DRIVE clear over to the river, nope both keys don't work.

On the way back I nearly scrape a van, my fault, but thankfully only the rubber of my fender touched the rubber of his fender. I wasn't driving fast, it was a skinny area and these things happen.

I get back 'hey this is the wrong key' he says, 'okay then it HAS To be the other one... you have to go down to the gravel wash to find the tractor driver, he's got the key.'

I drive over the trenching, passed the gates, and find a big frontloader, I pull along side, they were expecting me, they give me the key but want it back by 5pm.

3pm I take it up to get copied.
4pm I get a message:

'I don't have any blanks for these keys to copy, go over to Dept C and get blanks.'

So I go over to THAT department, buy 2 blanks, and come back.

On the way I see someone with ice cream!!!!

The store hasn't had ice cream in months and my wife could use a cheer-me-up today so I stop by the store, pick up a liter of vanilla, and head home. Still needing to get the keys to copied.

AT home what was going to be a quick drop off of the ice cream turned into a dog story.

Apparently our friend's dog got stuck under our house in pain and wrapped up in wire.
They tried to rescue it but it was biting them, so they asked for help.
The young son accused me of setting a wire trap. I assured the little.... tyke... that were I to set a trap, it would have been a lot more effective than wrapping pig wire around a dog's hind legs and causing it to yelp.

SO.. I go inside, get my squirtgun, chase the dog out of under the house, put my foot on it's neck, and whip out my leatherman's and cut the wire loose.

I'm thanked, but the boy refuses to give me an apology for the trapping comment, his mom tells me to soak him with my water gun. I opt not to.

back on the bike, heading to get keys copied.

Drop the keys off at 4pm.

All the while in between all of this I'm setting up printers, debugging software, fixing stuff, and working with satellites.


It's been a really non-boring, crazy day here, oh hey! someone just put me a bottle of Gummy Vites on my desk for no reason.

I suppose this mystery will be solved when I go home and find my wife had ordered these or something.

I try one.
Not bad... like a gummy bear with a vitaminy after taste.

I read in a book today that 'the gelatin in gummy bears is made from cow bone and pig skin'.

So.. now that I've put that in my body I figure it's a pretty good end to a totally unpredictable day.

Yet it's only 5pm, and I have my kid's choir concert tonight to attend, and anything can happen there too.

WOW.. sometimes life is exciting.

vSphere

So while I was gone, our network room implemented VmWare's vSphere. And then we got a dvd video training us which I'm half way through. WOW this product is awesome!

IT wasn't supposed to happen while I was gone, but it had to because Microsoft decided to eliminate our donated licenses. THAT is a longer more sad story, but as a result this GOOD story happened:

We're half way through virtualizing our server structure, but the implications of this product are huge for us as an organization and for me as an engineer.

Off the top of my head:

-less data loss (I want to say zero but.... any IT folks know you simply don't say certain things out loud (-; )

-less down time
-no more Saturday de-dusting of the physical servers
-less power use
-less cooling requirements
-I no longer have to run up to the server room when the power goes out to shut things down, I can do it remotely, and power them up remotely.
-Emergency contingency (all our servers would fit onto a 200gb external hard drive)
-Quicker recovery from external hacking (oh you hacked me? shoot, well I'll have the server back up in ten minutes)

Man this is simply the coolest product. I've worked with virtualization before but this is the cadillac of virtual systems.

So, for those who wondered 'how will Chad keep his resume up to date and his skills sharp?' Well I now get to play with the latest greatest in virtualization software and will have enough on the job experience with it to become adept. AND there is a possibility that there will be a chance for certification with it.

IF you can't tell, I'm VERY excited about this product and it's capabilities thus far. IT resolves a GREAT many issues for us.

But the best part of it all,
is that we will be better utilizing everything.
Our man power - takes less manpower to handle more servers

Our hardware - we'll get more bang for the buck now

Our electrical consumption - we'll be burning less kilowatt hours as the physical servers are turned off

Our cooling requirements - I've spent countless hours tending to an overheating server room during power outages or air conditioner failures

Our personal time - because we are in a cluster, the 'saturday scheduled downtimes' will become much more rare, enabling me to spend my saturdays doing 'husbandly' and 'fatherly' things.

The entire organization here will profit from this new infrastructure. Most people won't even notice, as people only notice when stuff 'breaks' but the plan is that somehow now, things won't be 'breaking' as often as they once were.

News

Two bits of news today:
-in the local paper there was a writeup about the New Testament Bible Dedication that happened last month!

-the construction team here is working on a new building for our training center. A Dining hall. We will soon have the capacity to host large training courses, feed and house the trainees for the multiple weeks we have them. The training courses often involve inviting Papua New Guinean church leaders or aspiring translators, and train them in how to translate the Bible and how to use the Word of God to communicate to their people. In other words, we do a LOT of training here, we don't simply say 'here's your new Bible'. But we teach them how to use it, how to help translate it, how to apply it.

Think of all the incredible things that this building can be used for!

The Word

The Melting Point of Rubber Bands ...and other disgusting things

So we've gotten into our house, opened the storage closet, and pulled things from it. What we found was interesting to say the least.
Rats and roaches had made their homes inside our clothing.
Mold had grown on everything plastic or leather (shoes).
And dust had found its way INSIDE of cases.

For example, I was surprised to find that dust made it's way into my banjo case and onto my banjo. Although I'm certain a scientist might tell me it was a fungus and not dust, but it looked and felt like dust.

As we walked around people were saying 'so, you cleaning up lots of rat poop?'. THEY KNEW? They didn't tell us.

Sometimes it does feel that this lifestyle has certain rites of passage. Going on furlough is one. Returning from furlough is another. Although we've already passed hopefully 85% of these rites, and the remainder are many years off.

But the most interesting thing....
as we left we removed batteries and then I used rubber bands,made in PNG (the brand is called 'SWALLOW'... so the box says 'Swallow rubber bands', I used the rubber bands to secure the batteries to the device they belonged to so I could use them again when we returned.

The rubber bands melted.
They melted so much that I had forgotten I rubber banded items and was wondering 'what is this colored goop all over my stuff?'

The best I can figure, when left alone the rubber bands do not melt. In the box, they are fine.

I believe that once the initial STRETCH is completed, then at room temperature or slightly above, these rubber bands will melt.

It's the oddest thing. It seems really odd that I should say 'we should import our rubber bands'. But ONLY the ones I've stretched and used, and left alone, have melted.

Anyway, it's all part of life in the tropics. Learning how to cope.

We're glad to be back and settling in again.
People were really excited to see us back, both personally and professionally which always feels good.

Microsoft Licensing

Possibly the single biggest change in the last 6 months is our Microsoft Licensing has been revoked.

I won't get too specific because I don't know how much I should be public about.

We had many donated licenses from Microsoft for windows, office, exchange, etc.
Donated = 100% free.

This year Microsoft asked us to roll out one of their key management servers and we said we simply couldn't do it.

As a result (again generalizing) they decided in our new contract, that all donated licenses were now expired.

Typically Microsoft grandfathers in existing systems that have been on donated licenses.

To me that is unheard of.

I mean you can say 'all future licenses are going to cost you X dollars'.
But to say 'everything we've donated to you in the past is now illegal' is in my opinion ridiculous.

It comes down to a discrepency in the original contract for the program. The catalyst was our refusal to use the key management server, and so suddenly the wording of the contract came into question.

As a result, since we can NOT move to opensource very quickly, (will take 3-5 years to totally migrate because of the remoteness of our user base), we are pretty much forced to comply.

This will cost us $70,000.

$70,000 to legalize what was legal 3 months ago. $70,000 to make legal what should be still legal.

I know that Microsoft tried this in some school districts and the schools took the issue to the press, and Microsoft relented.

I think that with a little pressure they would relent on this issue only it is not within our power or even within our style to cause such pressure.

I don't want to toss any fuel on the fire of these platform holy wars, but I thought it worth mentioning.

The good news is that we are still able to get discounts on Microsoft items, we simple aren't getting them for free any longer.

Personally, I have NEVER worked for an organization so conscious about being properly licensed and legal. In fact this entire debacle occurred because we approached Microsoft with our licensing donation program agreement over the wording of the contract because we felt it was the honest thing to do under their new licensing structure.

I have worked for multi-million dollar companies that were much further out of compliance in Microsoft licensing than we are. I've worked for big companies that have no license management program whatsoever... whereas we keep meticulous records and guard the giving out of licenses closely.


All this to say...
Today I was asked if I wanted to 'purchase a plastic bag'. I had done shopping and they would not give me a bag, they were going to make me buy it. So I refused, and walked off with the stuff in my hands.

What used to be free is no longer free.

I'm thinking in a few years, the freedom that comes in Christ will be the key message preached more than the Love of Christ.

It is a free gift. Those are becoming more and more rare these days.

Translation update

Nehan New Testament dedication this Saturday 15th January.

Also this Saturday is the dedication of the book of Matthew in the Edolo language group.

That's all the information I have right now. I find it amazing that while we're flying into the country, there is a dedication going on, the same as there was when we were flying OUT of the country.

One thing I know, is that God doesn't NEED us to do HIS work, He invites us, and when we accept the invite, while hard work, the blessings are beyond anything we could achieve on our own in this life.

Australian for 'child protection'

Why bother with fancy plastic knob protectors when you can simply raise the knob 14 inches.. sorry, I mean CM how many centimeters is that?

Mental Test

Chad's Mental Acuity test:

1 - travel for 26 hours to a different country
2 - drive a car on the OTHER side of the road and the steering wheel on the other side of the car
3 - drive in the dark
4 - don't get lost.

okay well I got lost but I got us unlost quickly (-;

man am I tired.... what were we thinking getting in a car without a map? Well we found a place to eat dinner and pick up groceries.. so that's a success! Thankfully we had been here once before.

It is funny to drive yourself TO the airport in San Francisco and then around in Australia... it takes a few moments to get your bearings back.

Which still doesn't stop you from turning on the windshield wipers instead of the blinkers from time to time. (-;

We're in Cairns, AUS for a few days waiting to get into PNG. We will all be falling asleep in moments but wanted to thank everyone for their prayers in getting us here!

See You Later

Our furlough is over.
Home Assignment is complete.
We get on a plane in a few short hours.

We're sad to depart, We're excited to arrive.

We have become well versed in saying farewells, and so we don't say 'goodbye' we say 'see you later'. Because one way or another, we'll meet again.

Huge thanks to everyone... here is our stay in a nutshell.


We were in America for:

194 days
10,500 miles of driving
11 church public speaking engagements
a few new ministries
many new friends
3 family baptisms
2 family members passing
1 new family member
1 new church family

We've seen some new technologies while here:

onlive.com - video gaming at the next level
pandora internet radio
hulu.com
netflix streaming movies
iPad
augmented reality
check cashing from your phone
3d Television
HD television is widespread (was infant when we left)
faster and cheaper
VOIP on consumer level caught on (we were early adopter)
Xbox Kinect
Google Video
Skype has gotten MUCH bigger
Tablet pc's and touch screens are very popular now
RFID
Wikileaks

We Enjoyed:
Seeing family and friends
Dining out
Hot showers
Pizza
Internet speeds
Fall colors
playing in the snow
and more...

We were surprised by:
the traffic increase
the cold Winter
how fast time passed


Meanwhile back in PNG:

2 New Testament Bible Dedications
many new people
new things going on at each of our job


OUR ITINERARY for people who enjoy knowing and praying:

Mon 10 Jan
Depart San Francisco 19:45
Arrive Auckland, NZ 12 Jan 05:55
Duration 13:10
----lose a day----

Wed 12 Jan
Depart Auckland, NZ 09:10
Arrive Cairns, AUS 11:25
Duration 5:15

----over night in TREETOPS at CAIRNS for wed,thurs,frid

Sat 15 Jan (friday in USA)
depart Cairns, AUS 6:45
arrive Port Moresby, PNG 8:30

Sat 15 Jan
depart Cairns, AUS 9:41
arrive Aiyura, Ukarumpa PNG 12:00

Travel Sagas

Papua New Guinea is a hard place to travel to. Schedules get changed, planes break and are grounded, etc.

Tonight we had an interesting situation.
Only hours ago we were saying 'wow, we're really ready ahead of time, I wonder what might go wrong to make us scurry at the last moment? Well whatever it is, we're fortunate to be able to have the time to handle it."

Around 2pm we got a bunch of new documents to fill out and as per usual, we didn't procrastinate, we did it immediately. We filled them out and sent them in, and WOW that surprise was easy to handle.

But a few hours later we found all those documents were moot.

A plane in PNG had a mechanical failure and was grounded.

Our flight from Australia to PNG was cancelled.

EVERYONE had to scramble. People in PNG had to scramble to figure out how to get us un-stranded....

appointments were to be changed...
documents changed...
flights booked... etc.

AHA! This is the big surprise! Okay.. so as usual, with slightly elevated calmness we deal with it.
We go online and book a flight.

Only the flight booking doesn't go through. Because our credit card fraud protection stopped us...

So I call in, fix it, rebook
The flight now costs $200 more, because the value of the seats went up.. why? because I booked the same flight a few minutes before but failed. Qantas was unwilling to bend on the refund. ..... moving on.

And... also, because we changed airlines, we're not longer considered as coming from America so our baggage allowance is cut in half

so an extra $450 bucks in luggage fees is added.

So in 15 minutes time, we had to scramble quite a bit and pay more... we thought.

WELL of course our tensions were raised for a bit, and we had to spend a lot of money in a very short time... and of course we're thinking 'man this is wasted money'.

But then we considered it.
We knew something might happen, the possibility with Papua New Guinea is that you have to expect the unexpected... ANYTHING can happen.

So we became suddenly so thankful that we had the wherewithall to bear it. We aren't over stressed. We aren't short on time, we aren't at our limit... we are packed, the documents are signed, sealed and delivered, we're simply prepared and calm...

and thanks to financial partners like you, we had the money to deal with it and the time and encouragement to know that people have our backs. So it was not at all sudden panic.

But here's the coolest part... ready?

If you tally up all the 'extra fees', and costs, etc... because we acted quick we got a much much better rate, AND the new rate was lower than the original flight.

So while we do have to take an extra plane, which is what we were trying to avoid, and spend an extra day travelling which is also what we were trying to avoid,

WE STILL arrive back in PNG, on time, before school starts, and ... ready for it?...

even with all the changes, the total cost to travel the same distance... is STILL the same price (if not a tad bit cheaper)!!!

AMAZING?
have you ever been able to totally scramble and move your family of four in an emergency internationally and NOT have to pay hundreds of extra dollars?

we didn't!!!

it's remarkable to me.

BUT it does mean a bit of extra travel weariness on us.... it's the same path we would have taken before, on a bigger airplane, for the same price, only arriving a day later without changing our departure day... so an extra day in transit is our biggest loss. Not bad?! An extra day in sunny Australia? Could be worse.. right?

it's actually good news.

PLEASE pray for safe travels, and no more hidden surprises.
PLEASE pray for family health as we travel, my kids are both miserable with a cold.

thank you for your prayers.

Weather

You'd think after nearly 6 months of being here in the U.S. that we wouldn't have any more cultural 'surprises'. Today I found another one. I was going to visit my Uncle and he said 'well I checked the weather and it will rain hard tonight, so maybe we should reschedule'.

It dawned on me. I had not been checking the weather here as a way to determine my next day's actions. It's California so you don't need to TOO much. But then it hit me why.

In PNG the weather forecast is always the same. Sunny with a chance of rain. The rain comes almost every day, and there is no way to predict when. It takes only moments to go from very sunny and warm to a torrential downpour.

Because of this often you get caught in the rain without an umbrella and wearing shorts and sandals with a t-shirt.

Sometimes you get a warning, the clouds come in and it sprinkles. To give you an idea of how fast it turns into HEAVY rain:

One day I was outside working, and I felt a sprinkle. I thought to myself 'this means I have anywhere from 15 seconds to a minute before this rain turns serious if it's going to'. So I literally began running for rain cover.

No sooner had I made it under and overhang than WOOSH a flood of rain fell and fell hard. I couldn't believe how fast it had happened.

In PNG you have the occasional days of 'tut tut it looks like rain, I think I'll get my umbrella and hat'... but more than often it's 'tut tut.... I'm soaking wet now'.

So to come to California, land of sunshine, it dawns on me that some people still do depend on weather forecasts to plan their days. Even if I had wanted to in PNG, the weather reports are never accurate... and more often than not they all read the same thing across the country.

One other thing about the weather.
Here the rain is cold and often joined by wind. Going out into the rain is miserable, and brushing against a bush or something that drops water onto you, makes you shudder.

In PNG, if you didn't go out in the rain, you'd rarely go outside. But the water isn't nearly as cold as here, and there is not often accompanying wind.

Simply straight, hard, warmer, rain. You don't mind getting soaked as much because it's not an issue of also being cold. I've said this before when asked about humidity.

Living in PNG, you learn to deal with moisture in every sense of the word. You learn to let your clothing dry while you wear it, to go days on end without ceasing to sweat, to put all leather objects in well ventilated areas to avoid mildew. You simply learn to deal with moisture. But the accompanying heat makes it much more bearable than the accompanying cold that comes with moisture in the U.S.

One Hundred

What is God doing in America?
Well, the Owens family is heading to PNG for our second term on Jan 10.
We have reached 100% of our financial partnership, and are so very thankful that you all have joined us in our next term. Stay tuned to this blog for exciting things to come!

Celebrate with us as we recognize we are at 100% financial support and cleared to return to PNG, the plane tickets are purchased, and the bags are getting packed.

Praise to God we can go into the Christmas week knowing those issues are behind us, but to be truthful we never worried, because we had a peace and a confidence that God still had a call on us to return. We even were patiently expecting it to be January.

It is remarkable to us the encouragement that we have received and we are excited that not only did our 100% pledged support has arrived, but that we also have a new church family joining us! We're especially excited and blessed by that.


WHAT IS GOD DOING IN PNG?
(news as of Dec 17) 10 Bible Dedications in 2010 !!!!

Takuu Dedication - On 24 December the Takuu people of the island out beyond Bougainville will be celebrating the dedication of their New Testament that Abraham Vaeleni and Sue [..edit..] and others translated. Please keep these events in prayer, that the power of God’s word in these languages will penetrate their hearts as they read their scriptures. The other interesting piece of information is that the Kwadima II (the SIL boat based in East Papua) is heading up to Buka so as to be able to take the visitors from Buka to the Mortlock Atoll for the dedication. This will have made 9 NT dedications and 1 revision dedication in 2010. Isn’t God good?????!!

Stuck

the weekend thus far

It's been a surreal weekend.

Woke up Saturday morning, breakfast food was covered in ants, and a huge skunk sprayed our house. In the midst of packing we were cleaning the house for company and cleaning the AIR of skunk. Company wasn't able to make it, so we had bbq'd steak and potatoes just the four of us. It started weird but ended good.

Sunday, we gear up to go to church, I dressed a bit shabby in jeans knowing I was going to help a friend move today.

Found that the rain had sunk the drive in down and our car was completely stuck. After about 40 minutes of trying to get unstuck, called AAA.

I also wrote our pastor and said 'sorry we didn't make it'
he replied 'I was going to introduce you this morning as missionaries'

I thought 'does he know how close we were to going to church covered in mud? I actually thought 'I'm not changing, we can be a bit late no one will notice mud covered jeans.'

PHEW.. dodged that bullet.. 'Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Chad and Kendal, Chad's the one covered in mud as um... a symbol of life in PNG yeah, that's the ticket.'

Three things we're thankful to God for:

1 - the car we bought had a tow hitch, almost totally useless except we got towed out SUPER fast

2 - for giving me the foresite to purchase a AAA membership even though until today we hadn't needed it...

3 - for the fact that with all this weirdness, we weren't bothered in the slightest. Not with company canceling, the skunk or with being towed. I dunno why, but for some reason all this weird stuff that might upset and stress people out,... didn't even phase us.

It's been a great and restful weekend, in an odd missionary kind of way.

Last night for dinner, we put on a virtual fireplace on the computer, looped it, and played some christmas music.. so it was fun.

thinking with my ears

One of the things I've been spending a lot of time thinking about lately is mission strategy as it regards to technology. Frankly, if the Lord is going to tarry until everyone gets a chance to hear, I'm very invested in getting people to hear the Gospel message.

So they why do I work for a Bible translation agency? Because until we have the language, we can't do anything with video or audio. During the process of translating the Bible, we develop the dictionaries and all the written aspects, but we also develop videos and recordings to share with people and partner with other agencies who do it well. We provide the engine that feeds the language understanding into all these other wonderful ways to prove to people the YES GOD KNOWS YOUR LANGUAGE TOO!

The Luasanne congress has occured 3 times in history. The best minds of missions strategy come together. This year in Africa. In my reading through the conference notes, I came across this nugget:

REACHING ORAL LEARNERS a. What is the need? The subject of Orality, or reaching oral learners, is one of the break-­‐through ideas in mission strategy that is just starting to gain momentum. Two-­‐thirds of the people throughout the world are oral learners. That is, they prefer to learn through proverbs, music, poetry and especially stories

Page 9 of 20 As mission leaders, we must rethink how we are delivering our evangelism, discipleship and church planting strategies. We need to follow the pattern of Jesus from Mark 4:33-­‐ 34, which records that ␣he did not say anything to them without using a parable [or a story]␣␣
There are 41,000 denominations throughout the world and 4,700 mission agencies.19 We need to begin training them in how to teach the scriptures using stories from the Bible. When people are trained effectively, they will see every person involved in a Bible study able to repeat the story without error to their family and friends. One of the best ways to build pastors effectively for the millions of house churches will be to teach them how to tell stories from the Scripture. The staggering thing about Orality is that even in media-­‐sophisticated countries, the majority of people want to get their information through oral means: films, radio, television, and the I Fifty-­‐eight percent of high school graduates in the United States say they will never read a book voluntarily after they graduate. Forty-­‐two percent of university graduates say the same thing.20
1) We all need to learn how to share the Gospel through stories.

-

I'm excited about this because this strategy taps into two of my interests:
-technology
-video/audio production

I should share with you the story of my friend Chris, who thinking it may not amount to much, recorded the New Testament in his village's language onto some mp3 players called Megavoice. What happened is that over the coming months the village passed around the mp3 players for story time and gathered around and listed to the Gospel in their own language.

Three little mp3 players, reached a large group of people with the Word of God.
It required:
-the Word be translated
-the Word be spoken and recorded
-the Word be played back

imagine the amount of work gone into producing a device like the Megavoice that could be used in this way? Imagine all the people working to translate the Bible, to record it?

You need skilled people is so many dozens of areas to accomplish it.


GOD will accomplish His work. WE are honored to be along for the ride.

I am very excited about His asking me to use my skills in this area.

I am excited about the missions world understanding audio/video as a strategy and deploying it.

I am very excited about the leaps in technology allowing us to do it more effectively and affordably.

I'm SUPER excited to be bringing back a demonstrated kit I've built of different technologies to show people in PNG about how we can make it ultra portable!

Lunch deal

Relationships

Someone asked us the other day, 'have you been successful in culturing new relationships this visit home?'

What a great question that is.

Our financial support comes mostly from individuals. Individuals who partner with us primarily because we are friends.

Why do you partner with us financially?

We would LOVE to know the answer to that question, seriously. It would help us to know why people in the future may desire to partner.

For some we think it's friendship, for others a common interest or goal. One side effect is a deepened relationship and shared purpose.

Because of that, it is important to us at ALL times, not just when visiting back in the U.S. to have those relationships continue and to grow.

MANY missionaries in the field fail to maintain contact with friends and partners. We hope we do not. If anything we've felt like we've over communicated at times saying things that possibly we shouldn't say. (-;

But our face to face, in person time has been extremely limited. The result is that when we do get face to face time, it's impact is enhanced. It is really good to see people face to face and spend time.

BUT, how do we make new relationships? If our financial partnership needs to grow, then we need to meet new people, find new churches.... how do we do that?

To tell the truth, we had no idea.
We simply asked God, 'please guide us'.

As a result God brought people into our lives and all we had to do was be open to sharing and making new friends. We're thankful for the new friendships we've built and the new relationships we've built.

We've tried to balance our time well between all our responsibilities without losing our family identity or getting the 'must do's ' done. We view our relationships with you all as a responsibility.

So please, email us and answer the question 'why do you support us?' and we will take those answers to heart.

Tonsorial Artist

So today I decided I needed a haircut, but I'm nowhere near my regular barber, and so I go out seeking a new one. I found this little sign above and walked in.

Instantly my senses told me to flee.

But my desire for adventure told me to stay!

The room was as small as a large bathroom. All the furniture and decor was water stained wood, and the smell of cigarette smoke filled my nostrils quickly. Sitting one of the two chairs was an old, balding man by the name of Dennis.

His eyes were large, droopy and red, and I could tell by the smell of alcohol on his breath that he was not completely sober at 11 in the morning. His suspenders barely moved as he turned to look at me. He didn't say anything.

No 'Welcome', no 'Hello'.

So I stood there.
Looking around. Finally I said, "I'm here for a haircut."
Dennis blinks at me, as if to say 'well of course you are, idiot.'

I asked 'how much do you charge?'
"18" was his only response.

Again I thought 'LEAVE NOW' It was too pricey, and this man did not look fit to cut my hair. But part of me said 'this looks to be a very interesting story developing'.

I stayed.

Dennis moved very slowly, got up and walked to the old, but not charmingly antique, more like 1960's torn-up-mistreated-orange-pleather, barber's chair.

He again didn't say anything.
So I stood there.

He said 'well, What are you going to do?'

I replied, "I'm going to stand here until you ask me to sit down in that chair."

"That's sort of like going to a restaurant and asking to eat isn't it?"
I came back quickly, "No it's sort of like going to a restaurant and waiting to be seated."

"Well,..." his eyes indicated I should sit.

I sat, while stating "I don't know about you, but I don't sit in another man's chair unless I'm invited to."

Dennis seemed to respect that. He spun me around and I was facing myself in a large mirror with an engraved nameplate to the right that read:

"Dennis - Tonsorial Artist"

The room was so small, that a claustrophobic man would have gone running. The dust on the old newspaper clippings was thick, and I could barely make out some news about a fire decades ago.

"Well, what can I do for you today?" he said very slowly... I began to think Dennis might be a turtle.

I gave him detailed instructions about my hair and after a long pause he replied,
"So a lot off the sides and a little off the top? Got it"

His hands moved around slowly and I thought 'this is going to be a while'.

Up on a shelf were several carved masks. I couldn't spot where they were from but my guess was south pacific, so I said,

"Do you travel a lot Dennis?"

At this point I should say that between each sentence or response, Dennis was a firm believer in pause. He would wait a good 15 to 30 seconds before beginning a new thought. So what at first seemed like an awkward silence, became more of a contest of wills, I would try NOT to speak, and give him time to respond. I would also NOT react to the things he said so as to let him continue without undue pause. So imagine this conversation taking place in your head. Then replay it in slow motion... that's about the speed we were going.

"I've been around" he replied.

"I see these masks up there on the wall, where are they from?"

"oh here and there."

long pause.

"I would travel for the rest of my life if I could. Have you been anywhere?"

We spoke about Papua New guinea and how I was there for 3 years.

"You mean like in a religious way?" I instantly knew Dennis and I weren't cut from the same cloth here, but I felt an odd connection to him. So I simply told him the easiest version of the truth, which is that I was there helping linguistic work and translation. Every time someone asks me a question about what I do, I battle my desire to either keep it to myself, or to tell them too much. Often times I figure people don't truly care TOO much and so I have developed a quick version that I tell when I think people are simply trying to make small talk. I feel society in general is too disconnected, and so I force myself to be open with people so that we can forge some sort of connection in the limited time we have together. Still, with Dennis I used the short version because I was becoming concerned with how long this haircut might take.

Soon Dennis began to unfold for me stories of his travels to the Philippines.
As he neared me I smelled his breath and was trying to guess which liquid lunch he had had today.

He began to regale me with stories about how a pint of Gin was only 50 cents.

AH GIN! okay,...

Or how he bought a snifter of Whiskey and a steak for a buck fifty.

okay Whiskey? both?

I expected soon Dennis might tell me stories of prostitution and other such dealings... he had that 'vibe' about him and the story was starting to feel like a movie cliche, but before I could head it off.. sure enough he said..

"and the women there.... every ten feet a new woman..."

which is when I cut in, and mentioned my wife and kids.

Dennis caught the hint and dropped it.

He spoke to me of how affordably one can live in Thailand.
I mentioned that air fare to PNG was $10,000. He was shocked.

He then began to tell me how to go as a courier. And told me a slightly dodgy story about how you can go at a discount if you area courier. I inferred he meant something a little more shady but he actually threw a DOT COM reference at me.

I liked Dennis for some reason. This room was an odd place, full of mystery and aromatic puzzles.

So after Dennis finished telling me about these places he had been and the things he had drunk, there was a longer than normal pause.

And I said 'So Tonsorial Artist eh?.. are you going to make me look that word up?'

'Ah.. no.. anyone can be a hairstylist, but you're in a Tonsorial salon right now, it's from the Latin meaning 'Barber' '

And that's when it hit me, why I liked Dennis so much. Why I was willing to put my hair in the trust of a rather odd man in a rather odd place.

He had an unusual way of saying things.

That's it.

He pauses, his slowness in speaking (no doubt brought on by his inebriated state), and his choice of words, all intrigued me enough to sit in that chair and spend time with him.

I doubted I would go back, it was time to go. I stood, took one last look around and as I left I said:

'Dennis, here's a 20, thanks for the stories and the tonsorial care."

It was a perfectly odd 40 minutes. Very rarely can anyone say that they had a perfectly odd yet enjoyable experience. I wouldn't call it an adventure but it sure turned out to be one interesting haircut. The best part is, while my hair isn't exactly how I like it, it actually is a pretty good cut.

December Dedications

In PNG:

On 11/12 December the Malei (Hote) people of Morobe province will be celebrating the dedication of their New Testament that John and Amy Lindstrom, Elisa and many others translated.

On 24 December the Takuu people of the island out beyond Bougainville will be celebrating the dedication of their New Testament that Abraham Vaeleni and Sue Anderson and others translated.

Please keep these events in prayer, that the power of God’s word in these languages will penetrate their hearts as they read their scriptures.

We just got this bit of email news and thought we would share it! What a great December this will be with 2 dedications! A dedication is the celebration and prayer time that celebrates the completion of a New Testament and the delivering of it over to the people whose language it is in. In December 2 new people groups will have the Bible in THEIR heart language for the very first time.

Answering the question 'How can God love me? He doesn't even speak my language?"
YES..He does.

for DADS

While driving up to Portland last week, as is my tradition, I kick off every road trip with a Bible lesson. Typically I ask them if they've heard the story of something in the Bible and then they tell me everything they know, and then I expand on what they know.

This last trip we were talking about God's law. Specifically the moral law. Why God created it, why we follow it, etc.

Well it came time to ask the kids to put things into their own words, and ... this is what hit me.

IN EVERY single one of my daughter's examples, she said "well it'd be like if Daddy ....." in every one of her examples I was the God role in the comparison example she'd use.

It struck me very hard, the reality of what all the books say, that a child's dad is their role model of God's character.

I'm sure she didn't realize she was doing it, but I did.

And I said a little prayer of thanks to God quickly "God thanks for not letting my lose my temper the other day when I wanted to, and if you think about it... please let me be a good example to my daughter."

a LOT is riding on our behavior dads.

I've always known it, but that moment made it very very real for me.

Proud Evesdropping

My kids are having a conversation in the next room that I'm proud to overhear. My pride swells.

Son - "Sydney did you know if you put like 8 million dollars in the bank and left it alone for like 3 years, you'd have another million dollars?"

Daughter - "what? no way! why?"

Son - "because you earn interest."

Daughter - "how much?"

Son - "I don't know but I think it's like 1 percent."

Daughter - "so like if I put a million in I'd get another million?"

Son - "no... "

Daughter - "well what's 1 percent of one million?"

Son - "It's definitely not 1 million."

Daughter - "let's figure out how much it is!"


As a parent I'm told there are two things parents don't talk to their kids about enough. The first is sex. The second is finances. For our children, they don't earn allowances, but they have extra chores they do to earn what we call 'fortnight pay' (as is the custom in PNG). So they have house chores, and then pay chores. During our time in PNG we thought we should begin teaching them about how to be responsible with their finances.

There isn't a LOT of opportunity to SPEND money in PNG on anything... of quality. (but since when has that stopped a kid from buying things?)

Well, it stops my son.

He carefully evaluates quality of an item, verses how long it will last him. And often decides to save his money.

Likewise we've also instituted from each payday (every fortnight/ every second friday) that 10% of it goes into my savings box, and 10% of it goes to the offering at Sunday school.

I used to force it, but now it's at the point where it is voluntary and my son almost always does his savings, and they both always give to the Sunday School.

So, as a father, to realize they DO listen... when I overhear this conversation about savings and interest.... it does my heart good to know that even though they appear to not listen and learn, they are in fact learning much more than I had anticipated.

Oregon

Visiting family up in Oregon.
Today we celebrate Christmas early with them as we may not be seeing them again before we leave for PNG.

Tomorrow we meet some new friends from a nearby church and will have a presentation about our ministry.

Please pray this presentation goes well, as it will be to a missions committee.


Currently funding is at 92% and we have three churches looking at us. We are waiting to hear from them.

Please pray for the rest of the funding to come in and for all three churches to decide to support us. We could really use the encouragement that comes from having churches supporting us.

patience

We're both planners.
We try to plan so that we diminish as much of the unforeseen catastrophes as possible. So the discipline as planners is to find a balance between that desire and the ability to remain flexible to follow God.

Case in point.

In March 2010 we wrote to our aviation department and asked them to schedule a flight for us from Cairns, Aus to Ukarumpa, PNG on January 14th. Knowing that if they opened the flight it would fill up quickly, we'd be the first 4 on, and we'd have the easiest route back to PNG possible.

The wrote back the week we were travelling to the U.S. and said 'okay should we book you?'

We missed the email.
The plane filled up
We weren't on it
We found out 5 days ago.
3 Days ago we started a road trip.

So... 4 days ago we began hustling looking to book air fare. We had half the trip already planned and paid for, and thought we had the second half planned and paid for... but we don't. The hardest second half.

We began looking, calling people, getting a friend to pick us up, planned it all out 2 months in advance which is normal for most folks. For us, we feel that stress if we only have 2 months to plan.

So we found it. The perfect flight.
Instead of one 3 hour plane ride like we had planned in March (or failed to plan).
We would have
one 3 hour plane ride followed by
one 2 hour plane ride followed by
one 2.5 hour car ride

See how nice that first flight was?
So we sat there, a bit wound up and said 'hey let's book it, it is our only plan.'

Then, feeling a bit stressed I stopped and said 'hey babe, pray with me'.
And we prayed... 'God, feeling stressed, we feel silly we know You always work it out, help me to calm down and enjoy this road trip.'

Sure enough, we calmed down, decided not to book it, but let it simmer for 24 hours.
By the time we reached our destination and checked email, there had been a cancellation on that other flight and we were booked!

Praise to God,
and thanks to the hard working people at SIL aviation!
we now have the short 3 hour trip... this will go a HUGE way to all of our energy levels and health. It means no cargo loading and unloading... it is simply a much much better way to return to PNG as it means we'll be more likely to arrive with good attitudes and a healthy energy level.

Inside Scoop

There are, from time to time, some things that missionaries will say that they don't necessarily share with the public. Not because they are bad things to say, but because they don't translate properly without the context of living as an overseas missionary for a number of years.

One of those things is "I don't like furlough".

I understand why folks say that now, after 4 months of it. But it sounds like an awful thing to say.

'don't you love your family and friends?'
'don't you want to speak at churches and tell them about your ministry?'

We of course absolutely love our time of visiting and being with friends and family. We enjoy speaking and exciting others about missions as well.

If I had to put my finger on the downside of furlough it would be that we tend to live with constant stress.

At first it's the stress of paperwork and planning a trip. Then the stress of paying for it, and the stress of traveling (we only have 2 kids, think about small kids, or 7 kids). Then the stress of culture shock. Followed by the stress of finding a place to live and a car to drive. Then life settles a bit.

And you only have the normal daily stress of paying for things.

But soon comes the stress of scheduling each day to it's fullest, visiting here, friends there. Then the stress of road trips and public speaking and fund/support raising.

After a short time you need to begin planning your trip back. So it's the stress of medical exams, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.

Multiply all of it by a deadline, because you need to get on the plane before a certain date and will you have enough money and time to accomplish what you need to before that deadline?

Throw in weekly surprises like 'oh your visa won't be renewed on time' and 'your son has the flu'

Top it all off with the fact that you know you're going to shed tears at the airport departing from family and friends, and it'll rip your heart out again.

And you can see how the memory of a furlough will appear like a whirlwind where you didn't ever truly accomplish the deep sit down and spend time with you, conversations you had wanted to have on your way over.

We're winding down our furlough here. EVERYONE told us that a 6 month furlough for first time was a very difficult task. And it is.

I want to share our hearts very clearly at this point.
Furlough tears our heart in two. We want desperately to be here with friends and family, and we also want to return to Papua New Guinea excited and refreshed ready to go again.

We are very excited to return to PNG. We're sad to begin plans to leave here.
In the middle we've had enough of all the other stuff required to make this visit happen.

When we arrive in PNG in January, it will be a happy time, glad to be back to our ministries, to our normal routine, to friends. But it will be tinged with sadness. Sad to leave family and friends for another long stint. Sadness that their kids and ours will age before we see them again.

Gladness that we prevailed against the mountain of work to get home, tinged with sadness that the huge dose of excitement is now once again at bay.

I've said it before, following God this way is a bit of a rollercoaster.

So.. when life gets as stressful as it has today... and we start to get worked up, one of us grabs the other's hand (me and my wife)... and we sit down and we pray. And the stress melts away just enough.

And we remind ourselves and give thanks for the many things God has blessed us with this trip, and we also petition for the things we have yet to get done.

And so, we won't say 'we don't like furlough'. It is definitely an emotionally tough time, a physically tough time, and a mentally tough time. But it is also a rich time, a blessing time, a time where we get to do things we haven't done in years, see people.. it's a wonderful time.

God has blessed us richly through the experience and through you. We wish we could slow time, and spend quality time with each of you. But we also recognize that we need to return and fill our roles in Papua New Guinea.

And so, as the holidays approach and 'getting things done' opportunities decrease,
please pray for us that we can accomplish the things God needs us to get done... and we can let go of the things we want to get done that don't comply with God's needs for us.

We are not complaining at all. So many of our friends have had horrible experiences with their furloughs. Imagine arriving to the house you're to stay at only to find out you can't move in until you install and pay for new carpet and new paint! No, we recognize how blessed we are, and our hearts are overwhelmingly full with gratitude.

Braggin' on our kids

Yesterday we took the kids on 4 tours in Sacramento. The purpose was to give them some California history as we feel they do not get enough American history while at school in Ukarumpa, PNG. So we took the time to show them:
-The capital building
-the Stanford mansion
-Fort Sutter

(the 4th was a jelly belly factory tour for fun since it was free).

On each tour the kids were well behaved and asked astute questions. For example, when the tour guide of the mansion was talking about the gas lights and how to light them, my daughter asked "how do they light the first one? It would be too dark to see."

the tour guide replied, "I.. well... no one has ever asked me that before... I suppose they had a candle or a kerosene lantern or they lit the before it got dark"

But everyone in the tour group was impressed with the questions our kids were asking.
At the end one lady said

"I'm a teacher of gifted children, and your children are asking questions indicative of higher level thinking"

As we drove in the 3 hour trip I began to explain to them the three branches of government and how they work, and what we were to see, and their level of involvement as citizens and how they can vote, call representatives, and even attend sessions.

Then I asked 'who is the governor of California" and they both answered Jerry Brown.
I was surprised they were almost right... so I talked about the difference between governor and governor elect.

Not to be too proud though, Calvin kept calling the current governor,

"Governor Schwarzen hagger"
which was funny.

Being able to take my kids to places like that and not only not worry about being embarrassed by loud noises or whatnot... but to be impressed with their questions is such a huge blessing for us as a family.

One other thing though... if you're a parent, have you ever been impressed with a moment that said your kids were better than you?

My kids came home from a trip to the store the other day. Each of them snuck in privately to show me what they had bought for christmas gifts.

I was completely floored.

Not only did they think of buying gifts for everybody, all the cousins...
but they bought the best of the best. I mean they spent top-kid-dollar on the GOOD stuff. For example, if my daughter wanted a pet shop thing, my son didn't simply buy her a pet shop thing, he thought and thought and bought the one she might like the best, regardless of cost.

They spent ALL their money.

And so I told my son, "son this is great but I don't want you to be sad if your cousins don't give you any gifts, they may not be thinking like you."

and he replied.... sorry choked up a bit here...

"I know that dad, to me the funnest part is giving something really cool to someone else."

my kids have always had generous hearts. I mean we've always had the problem of them spending their money... on someone else..

When I was a kid, I was never thinking like that... around Christmas? I'd be good if I remembered mom, dad, and the grandparents. And I always figured who to spend the most money on, etc.

But my kids are thinking well beyond that, and spending much more money than I ever would have to get thoughtful nice things.

In the area of generosity, my 9 and 11 year old kids, outdo my 9 and 11 year old self.

And I'm awed and floored by it.

confirmations

You can go through life with a relative amount of confidence in yourself and in your decisions. I would say that is normal. But most people will tell you they have a few regrets about choices they've made. I made a huge career choice early on in my life to not go into television and film audio production and instead pursue computers.

I've never felt regret about that decision.
But I have at times wondered.... 'what might have been'. Or I suppose because I'm very happy with my life more of a 'Would I have been good at it? Would I have enjoyed it?'

Since deciding to become a missionary, or rather since God called me into the mission field and since I submitted to that calling, God has repeatedly confirmed to us that this is the path He wants us on.

And because God is really cool, He has also given us some amazing blessings as if to say 'look you didn't think you'd ever do this thing again, but here you are doing it.'

Case in point.

Last week I was invited to attend an AES convention by a friend of mine. This is a convention full of the leading minds in audio technology.

Nearby the inventor of Dolby walked by. I shook the hand of the inventor of the MP3. I met the man who invented the CD Jewel case.

It was cool!

And then, I was allowed to attend an exclusive event at Mr. Lucas' Skywalker Ranch.

I sat inside the model of perfection in movie theatres, the STAG theatre, and I listened to professionals talk about their latest film and how they accomplished it.

As I sat there in heaven.... I didn't feel regret, I didn't think 'wow that could have been me'... I felt a mixture of excitement because it was technically so amazing and interesting, and confirmation that I was never meant to work in audio.

I do not mean to diminish what these artists were doing... but I had the definite pull on my heart that I did not want that life, I wanted this life.

And it hit me... HOW many people get a chance to answer the 'what if?' question? How many people get to settle all their regrets or see how their life would have gone down another path... and come out of it very happy that they are where they want to be?

God granted me not only a cool night with a friend, He granted me the opportunity of a lifetime... to recognize truly that my life since following His call on my heart is full of remarkable moments! This isn't the first time He's confirmed for us this is what we're meant to do, but it is definitely one of the coolest. (another cool one was the time we went to a Clippers game via Limo... I blogged about that years ago... How many people can say 'well since I became a missionary I've ridden in my first limo, was invited to Skywalker Ranch, ... and who knows what else?)

My life has been completely unpredictable since 2004.
And it has been wonderful.

a practical moment on shoes

one thing we have to consider when returning to our missionary assignment is clothing and footwear. If you've ever found a pair of shoes you like, good luck trying to find the same pair in 3-4 years. Styles change. I typically try to buy shoes that will last 3 years but the dirt and gravel are tough on them, so I buy multiple pairs.

4 years ago I bought this pair of reebok tennis shoes.



I didn't wear it for 2.5 years as I waited for my nicer leather shoes to wear down. So, 2.5 years into our assignment, 'hey look Chad has nice new white shoes!' well, I did, they didn't last long.

But that's not the point. The point is, I didn't realize something about the shoes until AFTER I had bought a replacement pair while here in the U.S.

Last month I bought THESE pair of Nike's.






Why? Well for one they were on sale. And for two, I couldn't find a pair of tennis shoes anywhere that had the the leather all over them and on the sides. These new shoes were more 'breathable' and 'lighter' but didn't have the leather all over them like I wanted. Oh well.

Then came the first 'rain' in California at the end of the summer. These new shoes simply will not do for PNG. Apparently this new material is super absorbant and so when even a single drop of water hits them, it goes right through to my foot.

I mean usually you're used to thinking 'uh oh, shoes got wet, I'm gonna feel that in a minute when it soaks through' But with these shoes, you realize you hit water before looking down. Instant wet foot. The only upside is that they also dry faster.

So today, I realized 'hey these shoes will be useless in PNG where it rains all the time'. So now I'm on the mission to find a better tennis shoe for a good price.

WHY? Do the shoe companies have to always change their products? I mean I don't care if COKE/PEPSI always change their can, but changing the core elements of a shoe can have an impact on a person! (-;

This is why I gave up wearing tennis shoes a long while ago, preferring practical work shoes, but there are times when the tennis shoes grip the dirt and gravel better than a work shoe would and are more comfortable for long walks. Many people opt to learn how to harden their feet and walk around barefoot, but that would take me a very long time, and although I've tried it, where we live is very rocky and even the Papua New Guineans wear flip flops in the really rocky areas.

Special Visitor

Hillary Clinton speaking in PNG on women's empowerment. There has been a large media campaign in the country over the last two years to help curb the huge amount of violence towards women.

They mostly take the shape of music videos, as the message is conveyed in the song 'men, protect our mothers and our sisters. Noken paitim meri' (don't beat women)

I find it odd that a catchy tune is relaying the concept that we shouldn't beat, rape, or kill women. You almost want to sing along, which is the point. But then you recognize this catchy tune, is a very serious message.

Growing up in PNG our kids are used to seeing banners about AIDS, warnings against rape, they've even seen women get beaten in the streets.

Papua New Guinean women aren't seeking empowerment, they simply want to be safe.

One of the ways we get to minister in PNG is by simply being a good husband and wife. Men see how I treat my wife in public, with respect and love. And they recognize that there is value the Word of God for empowering me to behave this way.

One of the changes we see when PNG men become Christians is a lack of violence towards his wife. Even at times, tenderness and caring. It becomes hard for them because of the peer pressure.

One man was determined to stay with his wife while she gave birth, and faced ridicule that he was not out celebrating the birth of a new child by drinking with his friends. But he refused to leave his house while she was there giving birth. It was against his culture, against his habit, but he was determined to be a public example of his new found faith.

In our world, staying with your wife while she gives birth is a given now. We wouldn't want to miss it! Usually dad's are severely disappointed when they do have to miss a child's birth. Can you imagine something as simple as that, being an issue that someone could take a Christian stand over?

It happens. And when it does, we support it, and we are encouraged that people are taking the change in their lives through Christ, seriously.

I hope Hillary is serious about helping change in PNG, but I suspect it's political posturing more than anything.

This kind of posturing, abuses the Papua New Guineans. They are a proud people, with a fierce heritage of warriors. Their women are hard workers and they are very intelligent people. They understand when you ask them to put their feathers and makeup on (bilas) and photograph them, that you are most likely trying to use that photo to your advantage. I've been told 'I don't want you to take my photo because you will use it to make money.'

Maybe I'm a cynic. Let's get real, a white politician from the U.S. will not have near the life changing power as a saving relationship with Jesus Christ does.


(wow politics AND religion in one solitary post... that's sure to be a divisive topic... doh!)