Pranking

Every year the missionary boys and girls at the high school decide to pull a 'senior' prank.  Most often that prank involves wrapping the main intersection up with video tape.  It's called taping and it's pretty lame and messy.

I have written to the teens before and challenged them to be more witty. I've told them a GOOD prank is one where no one is a victim, no horrible mess is made (that isn't cleaned up) and that everyone can laugh at.

They haven't caught on.

So today, I decided to actually DO a prank.  Let's see how long it takes the community to catch on.

it's 10am now.

These signs are at the intersection that the kids typically TAPE.... all I did was print out a simple word in yellow and black and change the signs.  I figure people who actually SEE it, might chuckle. 

Before

AFTER:


See, NOT a ton of work, not a ton of mess, witty, fun... and enjoyed by all.  Put up with poster putty so easily cleaned up.

I hope they'll learn from this. There are so many more awesome opportunities than TAPING.

Vote

So this month we voted via FAX.
I didn't have time to wait on our internet to set up EFAX or something,
so I used the land line.
It cost us 102.65 Kina ($50 USD approx) to get our votes counted. Normal
telephony dialing internationally costs about $2.50 p/minute

Currently we're at $25 per vote.
So if you read this, and then vote because of it, it drops the overall
price down.

Just letting you know, we may not live in-country, but we care enough to
vote from abroad, because what happens affects us all. I don't like
getting political on my blog because that isn't its purpose, but I'm a
very politically minded person, and so spending some money this way was
important to us.

You can guess why when I see folks not voting, who only have to drive 5
minutes and it's free for them, plus they get a cool sticker we don't
get, and get to live the experience.... well I get a little impatient.
When I see people dying in other countries for the right to vote, and
yet I hear more than 60% of my generation isn't voting?.... I get a
little sad.

How much would you pay for the right to have your voice heard? How much
trouble would you go through?

the Problem from a Newbie

So I'm still a newbie, looking at this thing with newbie eyes, and I'm
sure I don't have a full handle on all the nuance of the thing.. but
here goes.

SOLUTION first: - more people. We need more people with a desire to
serve with audio editing, digital sound, distribution and management.
Audio editors, recordists, video editors, dubbers, technicians, office
managers, project coordinators and funders.

PROBLEM: For the longest time our organization has had 1 single goal...
MAKE BIBLES. A few people in the digital media department a decade ago,
said 'but the people can't read.' Some went to solve this by teaching
literacy. But others went to solve this by making the Bible a spoken
tradition. Which meant recording.

The people in the power of decision didn't catch on quickly to the idea
of audio recordings. So in order to sell the idea, the technicians
decided to make the entire process served up on a silver platter.

-You need to manage the project as it takes months, and carefully track
all the little details.
-You need to apply for copyright
-Apply for funding - and get funding
-Plan the travel, book the flights
-Gather the equipment, test it
-Deploy to the village
-Do the recording
-Do the Post Production
-Create the final media
-Distribute the media

How many geeky techs have you met? If you look at that drastically
oversimplified list, I can tell you, techs are good at maybe 4 of those
things. But, in order to get the idea to take off, they were doing all
of them.

Fast Forward to 10 years later.
The techs are exhausted because they're doing things they're not good
at, and the NEED for audio has finally caught on. So the demand is
going through the roof.

BUT because the techs have handled every bit of the details, PLUS the
fact that they're already near burnout.... guess what... the work load
is piling on FAR too quickly.

Now I get why I was treated like the local hero when I arrived. FINALLY
some hope. Only the truth of the matter is, that the team didn't really
multiply so much as replenish itself. WE NEED MORE PEOPLE.

The situation we have now, is that there is such a demand for my time,
that I could spend several months away from home and in the village
doing recording. Or I could spend several months locked in my office
doing post production and editing.

But I can't do both, and on top of that, who is going to do all the
paper work to enable me to keep being geeky tech?

Some things are going to have to change in order to meet the demand....
otherwise what will soon happen, is that all the work the technicians
put into getting this ministry underway, will die.

The people will start to say 'well YEAH I need this, but that department
takes a year to respond.' (yes we have a year's backlog of work to be
done.)

So I'm blogging this.
Why?

In case there is anyone out there saying 'well I want to be a....
volunteer.... overseas, but all I can do is edit audio. Or all I can do
is manage an office well.'

WE NEED YOU.

if you don't want to come, please pray that God move someone's heart to
come.
In fact, if you don't want to come, could you begin praying that God
raise up someone to go in your stead?

The sexiness of this ministry is starting to wear off, and project
funding is starting to drop out. In order to make this ministry work,
(and it is VERY effective to have audio Scripture in a culture where
spoken word is truth, and stories are how the history is passed on)....
we need to do good work, quickly.

Otherwise, the opportunity will have passed us up. God is the one at
work here, and I'm seeing miraculous things happen... I saw one entire
village experience a complete revival at the idea of recording Luke!

So I figure God will send us what He needs.... I'm just the messenger (-;

thanks

Getting Audio Out

This is a Megavoice player. It's VERY popular (this and the AudiBible which is better) in the villages because you press PLAY and you hear people speaking in your language and reading the Bible.

To get the sound onto the device is a LOT of work. Translate the Bible,  fly to the village, hike, setup in a room, read the Bible, edit out noises and re-takes. Mix it all down, and push it out.  Minus the actual translation, it takes weeks and thousands of dollars.  Once you have a finished .wav file, you have to go through all kinds of programming hoops to get the sound onto the device.  THEN you have to distribute it.  Programming the first one takes days, the subsequent take about 5 minutes.  I'll be doing 30 of these next week. 

Why not use mp3 players?  These devices are specially designed to perform well in village environments.  They take multiple voltages to charge, charge via solar or outlet, are strong enough for a tank to run over, and won't to ANYTHING else, which means they won't get re-purposed and play mp3 songs unless WE want them to.  An mp3 player is far too fragile and far too versatile to effective get the Bible into people's ears.

This is only a small portion of what I'm doing in the digital media department now.  Stay tuned for more.

Halloween Bible Fun Fact

In the original Analytical Greek NT,
2 Corinthians has 13 chapters, and 13 verses in the 13th chapter.
AND.. that 13th verse mentions the Holy Ghost..

oooooh.. spooky... (-;

(I only mention this because I notice it's halloween and I'm here
converting books of the NT into audio .wav files for playback in the
village on the AudiBible)....

this is about as festive as I get on halloween, a holiday I'm all to
glad no one remembers around here.

Puppets

Today I escorted my daughter into town so her puppet ministry team could present to more kids in one place than I've ever seen in my life

another great day

Wow, I dunno if it's fair to have 2 really good days in a row like this.

My dept's NAS device arrived in the mail today, and I got it
configured. Hello 5TB of media storage!
I was able to solve a problem we were having with ios6 and it's wifi,
that's been plaguing the community for a month.
I got a nice email complimenting my work in audio-recording.
I got in touch with my old audio instructor Brad Brock (you can imdb
him, he's an accomplished guy).

It was one of those days when things just work..... and all of that on 5
hours sleep!

I'm loving this level of productivity!

The truth about intestines

This weekend my son and I had a bit of a digestive issue.
The truth about living in a tropical environment is that there are all
number of bacterias that you're exposed to and no matter how long you've
been able to work up your resistance, every now and then a few get through.

Digestive issues are no stranger to this lifestyle. Before coming here
I would NEVER talk to anyone in detail about their bathroom habits...
and now, everyone understands what you mean when you say,

"I have gastro issues."

It means, you can't safely leave any place that doesn't have a toilet
within 50 feet. (50 feet is the average distance you can sprint before
it's too late. (-; ).

So while this may gross some of you out, it's a part of life. While we
show pictures of where we are and what we do, and you think 'wow, that's
green and lush.' We're thinking 'yeah, I bet there are no decent
toilets for miles!'.

The toilet situation in this country is like spinning the wheel of
fortune....

click click click.... Congratulations you won a sea toilet! You and a
guest will be dangling over a cliff hundreds of feet in the air, with
nothing but rotting boards to hold your weight. But wait! There's
more! If you're afraid of heights, and happen to look down, you can
expect dizziness, and a paralyzing fear that will force your gastro
issue to surface even quicker!

click click click..... YAY, you've won an actual flushing toilet....
however this toilet has no walls and no privacy, but you will be planted
firmly on the ground

click click click.... oh, Not good, this is a liklik haus. The ceiling
is 5 foot tall, so you'll have to do contortionist tricks to get in, but
once in, you'll enjoy the visual privacy of grass walls with NONE of the
audial privacy! Congratulations!

and it goes on and on and on.
You may think that in a world where you could have a sudden, prolongued
and intense need for a toilet, that it'd be a place with toilet
technology that exceeds the Japanese.... but you'd be wrong.

I'm going to take a moment now and say a silent prayer for all the
volunteers across the world who have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. ....
Maybe I should write a prayer.

I don't think this will make it on the wall of every house like
'footprints' but It'll be hung in my bathroom that's for sure:


Toilets
Lord you know the pressures within
I pray you provide a proper disposal bin
It may have been something I ate, or something I drank,
I drank it Lord to avoid bringing you shame.
What good would it do to say I am one of yours and then reject the gifts
of food offered me?
I desire not to bring shame upon my hosts, nor you, nor myself and so I ask
Please let me find a suitable toilet.

Lord you have sent me sea toilets, and outhouses.
I have suspended myself precariously over rotted boards and low ceilings.
I have trusted you to spare me from gravity and disgrace.
I have been engulfed by odors reminiscent of an unholy place.
Lord, I trust these times have built my character, and I thank you that
I still live.
Though I am temporarily blinded by my desire to die, and the hatred that
my intestines have for me.
Please bring me to a place where I can find peace and relief.

God, there are people watching me, there are people listening.
I fear I will bring dishonor to you because the noise I am about to
make, is in no way joyful.
I would prefer to be far away from the eyes and ears of other men.
But time is not on my side in this matter.
Lord help me to expel what must be expelled, so that I may return to the
work given me.
And when I return Lord, let there not be laughter nor snickering.
And when I return Lord let there not be a need to leave again quickly.

Lord you know my needs, my future needs and my urgent needs.
And my really really urgent needs.
Lord I am a sinful man, and forgot to pack the paper I need.
I trust that you will provide for me a proper place, a safe place, a
nearby place.
I trust that my footing will be sure, for a muddy path that creates
slippage will most definitely be my ruin.
I read that footprints poem once and thought it was nice.
Can you please carry me now? I don't think I can walk.

Amen.

Just the Right Bible

a friend of mine made this video, he and his family are here now doing
what they were meant to do.

Jesus Film

What is the Jesus Film?
It is an old but good film depicting the life of Jesus.  Dubbing it requires months of work.  First you assemble a team of actors. (Men and women who can speak the heart language of the intended audience)  Then you fit the script to match the time for decent lip sync.  Then you go to the village and setup a clean sound environment and begin the recording (usually a few weeks of work).  Then you edit it all, clean up the sound, sync it a bit and master a DVD.  Then you send the DVD to the copyrighters for permission to use, when they approve, you can distribute and show the DVD.

Who does that work? 
Me and the translator's team.  There are a few of us here who can do the work, and it takes a LOT of planning to make it successful.  You wouldn't believe all the 'behind the scenes' stuff that goes on.

In the end, you show it, and you have something like this.
Where over 600 people sat outside to watch Jesus speak in their language.  It is an emotional, and life changing event.



In January I have the opportunity to travel to a remote village for 3 weeks to do a dubbing of the LUKE video (which is like the Jesus Film only longer, with multiple 'episodes').  It will be my first village dubbing, and it will mean being away from my family for 3 weeks.  But when you weigh that against seeing people changed.... it's a no brainer.

I'm told that in this next village I'm heading to, the idea of being part of the film has boosted literacy such that now 17 men who couldn't read before, can now read well enough to read the script to do the dubbing.  now THAT is motivation!

Excited n Tired

Today I did my first editing of a recording of Luke chapter 20. It was
in the Barupu language. To do this, you take the recording, then put it
in your editor, and read along the script, and take out noise, spaces,
and multiple takes.

It seems easy enough in theory, but in practice, I'm listening to, and
reading a totally foreign language. It is tiring. It took me 1 hour to
do 1 chapter.

Okay, so, Luke has 24 chapters.
Each chapter has to be RECORDED, which is at LEAST an hour per chapter.
EDITED, and formatted, etc.

that's already 2 hours per chapter, that's 48 hours for 1 language of
Luke. And I'm working with others to do 4 - 6 languages.

I'm starting to understand why this takes so much time (-;

Still, it's pretty exciting.

Beef Free not Free Beef

Current price of ground beef ... translated price - $10.50 per pound

Current price of unleaded gasoline ... translated price - $9.52 per gallon

So we're currently not eating beef, or making any long trips.

Water Level Indicator

This weekend we cleaned our tank, but I also invented and installed a water meter. I had this idea cooking around in my head. We have 3 water tanks to our house, so we've never run out of water, but it hasn't rained in weeks and I took a risk cleaning a tank, because it meant losing some water. Since I'm on the volunteer fire team, I was able to use some of our water equipment to pump and store our good water into one of our three tanks. This tank is our main tank. (Technically we have 4 if you count the gravity feed hot water tank on the roof). Sparing you the details, they're all rain water tanks, and they are positioned in multiple areas to store rain water. They equalize to each other's levels. The tank we cleaned takes the brunt of the dirt from the roof (put there by passing vehicles on the dirt road stirring up dust).

Then the water distributes evenly to the other tanks. Our best tank is our new (3 years old) tuffa tank because it's not metal and doesn't have rust.

BUT, we have no way of knowing our water level, nor how much we use in a day or a week, unless we go out and tap the metal tank to see/hear/feel where the water is. Now we do.

Need:
-fishing line
-coffee mug
-empty plastic coke bottle
-metal weights (like washers or something)
-hose clamp
-old piece of pvc pipe

I'm rather proud of this invention, I came up with it when looking at the 'pay' water meters which gave you a REVERSE level. The indicator on the side of the tank would RISE when your water lowered.

Drill a small hole in the top of the tank, put your old pvc pipe in there,if your hole isn't tight enough use the hose clamp to keep it from slipping in, Tie the fishing line to the empty coke bottle, this is your float. Drop it in the water. Run the other end through the handle of your old coffee mug. This is your pulley, drop the mug slowly into the water. It shouldn't move much once it settles. Run the other end up through the tubing and over the side. Eyeball your water level, and tie pull the tension in the fishing line taut. Then tie the fishing line to the weights right at the water level.

The weights will rise with your water level and sink with your water level. So far, so good, the mug hasn't moved, the line hasn't twisted. And now we know that after 2 days of no rain, our tank levels collectively go down about 3 inches.

The best part about this indicator is we can view it from our kitchen window.

I'm a simple man, being able to device simple things that are helpful and work, make me happy.

Rats die

lately we've had a bit of a rat infestation. We hear them running around in the attic, probably hunting for geckos. We like geckos, they eat mosquitos. We don't like rats. So, we waged war on the rats. Putting up the first trap baited with sweetpotato (aka kaukau) and peanut butter it wasn't ten minutes before I heard the trap close shut.

We've disposed of 4 rats in a 20 hour period so far! You may say 'disgusting' but actually we're all in 'hunter' mode and it feels like a pretty good haul. We all slept well last night, not hearing the scuffling sounds of critters up over our heads.

Yeah okay maybe the fact that hunting rats excites me is further evidence that I'm meant to be here and do this job. (-;

Bridge open

our bridge is open, it's been extended about 15 feet, but this is a temporary fix.
Still we can get fuel now, and go into town for food! (if we had a car).
Please continue to pray that the bridge gets permanently repaired soon.

Fire loses

Got back to the office after lunch today and the fire phone was ringing. Deployed the gang zipped over to the fire on my atv. along the way one concerned citizen was indicating i should slow down. They later realized that when i drive fast it IS an emergency. We let the small brush fire burn down. Wet the area. Refilled the truck and now I am back at the office. A bit dirtier. Exciting lunch break

After

My son had fun and his reasoning was 'how many kids get to say they were inside their water tank?!'

Super clean

All we need now is rain!

Before. Ready for mud

Mud on tank

Someone poisioned the water hole!!!
Quote from toy story

Our drinking water has been muddy this week forcing us to use a bucket filter. So we decided it was time to clean the tank. My son was very keen to go in. We found a lit of silt on the bottom. I reckon it hasnt been cleaned in a decade.

fetchin' the yunguns

Today's adventure was that I was asked to be a part of the convoy of vehicles meeting at the bridge (which is out) to pick up the returning youth from their off site, week long retreat.  I was assigned a Land Cruiser and told to pick up the sound equipment, so that it would be more secure enclosed.  It was all very well organized by my friend Geoff.  I was give a slip of paper, told what order to drive in, etc.

I was prepared for trouble and praying against it.  The bridge is out, so it is effectively a dead end loading zone.  We were told on Sunday it was quiet, but we hit during rush hour (tons of pedestrians). I was following my buddy driving a 6 wheel ex-army truck for cargo, and man was I impressed when he threaded the needle reversing up to the bridge.
THERE WERE A TON OF PEOPLE all around.  So I was trying to filter out OUR gang, equipment, keep the car secure, etc.  It wasn't very hard, the high schoolers did most of the loading and unloading.  On the other side of the bridge our vehicles were locked up and an undisclosed location.

So we transferred students and cargo alike, and though the seats were tight, having a bunch of high school boys wanting to ride on the army truck freed up several of them.    I mean who wouldn't want to ride 10 feet off the ground?   

How did you spend your lunch hour?

The Bridge in Pictures

The pictures don't do it justice.  When a vehicle gets on the bridge, the bridge teeters.  One end of it is held up by a rock.  The works dept. is putting a temporary fix on it by extending it into the dirt.  Vehicles aren't supposed to pass, so they put armed police on either end... however they don't seem to stop the vehicles that pass (the pics show a truck passing and an armed policeman standing there letting them do so.)

Our annual youth retreat involves driving 2 hours away over the bridge, but they can't. so... they load up the kids, drive to the bridge, walk over the bridge with their stuff and then get into new vehicles and continue on.  This requires twice the amount of drivers, and was going to require 2 trips, but some courageous driving by one of the Auto Shop staff, got the cargo over the bridge before the works dept. piled mounds of dirt on either end to keep that from happening.

notice the gap? that's where the rock is.

the extension "fix" truck ignoring the sign, policeman looking other way


I think that's all I need to say really.

Bridge

The bridge is officially closed now, and we can't afford to build a ford across the river, because the property owners want a LOT of money.  The government works department has started some repair on the bridge, which means it's closed.  We do not know how long they will take to repair the bridge, nor if the repairs will be permanent or a stop-gap measure until later.  What we do know is that when trucks go across it, it moves and teeters, and we know that each progressing rain makes it worse as the river edges erode.
 
But, seeing a tractor has to be a good sign... right?

except now we can't go anywhere until it's fixed (-;

Bridge Repair

our team has gone out a few times to repair the bridge (this is a joke picture)... and now we are investigating making a ford across the river.  In order to do that we have to secure land rights which often costs a lot of money.  We are being asked to pay money to allow trucks to drive across the land on either side of the river, to bring supplies....  my wife says 'driving across a river always makes me nervous'.  And reasonably so, sometimes we're driving in well over three to four feet of water.... and can only cross in certain vehicles, and only cross in a certain place, and only cross when the river isn't going too fast... but crossing rivers is a way of life here, although it makes going into town a lot more adventurous.

bye bye groceries

This is the burnt remains of the place we get most of our in country food stuffs.  Pray for a new way to get supplies.  As a result of this and the bridge failing, we've had to resort to implementing a store card policy so that we reduce the amount of sales of food stuffs to the neighboring villages, in order to reduce the speed at which our supplies are diminished.

internet is up

7 days.
We were offline for 7 days.

Not much else to say about that... except.... I'm going to go take a
nap, and say hi to my family.

downtime

The worst Internet Outage Ever.... is OVER.. we're back online!


Sunday night as we went to bed, my wife and I said 'this is going to be
a busy week'. It was one of those weeks when you pray no one gets sick
or injured because you can't flex enough to cover it.We had extra work
responsibilities, I had a scheduled network maintenance which would take
a half a day, departments were closing (which makes my life a bit harder
sometimes), it was the last week of school term, and thus concerts to
attend on weds and friday. My daughter's schedule is hectic, I'm
performing in a farewell concert this weekend, and generally life was so
booked up, that we could not possibly fit any more in.
We had to fit more in.
On Monday I packed up a lot of equipment and shipped it to a site I was
scheduled to do a remote VSAT installation. I got a call saying our
nephew was gravely ill (he no longer is) and the entire family was sent
into a tailspin with this horrible news. Tuesday we found out it was
bogus, and that was GREAT news. Phew, close call there, we nearly had
to start the equations of figuring out another trip home?!?!
Then weds the internet stopped working. I'm alone in the network room,
we're short staffed, and I can't figure out why, so I call the ISP.
Long story short, life got a whole lot busier as I started pulling a 20
hour day.
It turns out the equipment on our end failed, and we had no spares. It
took us an entire day to troubleshoot because we had no internet
connection, no way to talk to the outside world but by cell phone.
In the U.S. the worst outage I can recall was 8 hours long. We were
able to get hardware replacements VERY quickly. Here, the best time
looked like 3 days away. The internet has been so stable and reliable
for the past several years. In fact during my entire time here, it's
never been this bad. We're on day 3 as I right this.
Last night, there was the possibility of getting a replacement on a
plane, but the guys with the spares, missed the plane by 2 minutes. They
saw it taking off as they pulled into the airport. Around 8:30 I gave up
trying plans B and C. Long day started at 4:30am.
I was able to choke down a three minute lunch, attend most of my
daughter's band concert, and say hi to my son.
This morning, I got a call 'we're able to divert a plane to Madang'.
Okay, THAT is cool. The internet being down is a crisis but not a fatal
one. On my say, a Kodiak plane and it's pilot were diverted from their
schedule of 30 minutes away, to land at a different airport, and pick up
spare parts. Suddenly there is a hope that the spare parts will arrive
here in 2 hours from now!
This outage has been the worst in my career. It is something I have
tried to avoid and plan against, but we couldn't justify having $15,000
worth of spare equipment lying around. Until recently that wasn't an
issue in that we had VSAT installations sitting around waiting to be
shipped, and so would have had spares anyway. But on Monday I shipped
all of that to the final installation.
So my tools, cables, testers, all of it, gone, during what has become
the worst internet outage of my career, and of recent Ukarumpa history.
(I heard a tale that before when they were using leased lines they would
lose regularly for 3-4 days at a time and send email via a hard drive on
a plane to a place that had internet).
As any network admin knows, when your network is down, the up side is
that you can get a lot of maintenance done, which I did, taking the time
to clean up our horrible network cable mess.



Also thank you to a friend who donated my original iPhone to me years
back, I was able to do most of the network troubleshooting with an
iPhone because our cellular network was the only thing working at the
time. I've written Apple with a testimonial in hopes they might want to
send me an iPhone 4s for free (-;

Tough week

The internet has been down for 7 days. During those 7 days I worked
from 6am to past 12 midnight nearly every day with very very short meal
breaks. I learned a lot about VSAT but the bottom line is, it's a very
touchy technology.
During those 7 days:
-The bridge went out, and the main grocery supply in town burned down
(accidental).
which means
-Fuel and cooking gas are rationed (can't get supplies)
-Food is rationed (can't get supplies)
It seems like hard times right now here for us, it's been a really tough
week. I had to cancel the trip I was expecting to go to Port Moresby
and help setup a new VSAT but I can't go now because the internet is
still down.

Each of these bullet items is a very long story, but I'm too tired to
write much more than that at this time.

Pray for energy, please, and for things to start getting fixed and
working again. I would appreciate it greatly.

We know God is good, even when we hit tough times. Which is why I'm
asking you to turn to Him in prayer for us.

thanks

Isolation

Sending this from my cell phone. This week the bridge is mostly closed to traffic because it is too dangerous to pass. We are working on fords to cross

Also Internet has been off for 4 days this far, I've been super busy trying to solve that

Last night we got word that our main in country grocery supplier burned to the ground (Rabtrad).

So now we're scrambling not only to find a way to communicate and to find a way to travel but also to get a new food source.

Feeling a tad isolated. Folks say this is more like it was 7 years ago

Then today we got news via telephone about the attacks on Americans in the middle east.

Pray for us please it feels like we're under attack from all sides

Pray our Internet comes up today.

Thank you


-Chad

Interesting Day

Today was the tok ples conference that I attended only because one of
the presentation was doing audio recordings.
When I woke up this morning I prayed 'God, I give this day to you, if
you can spare it, today I'd really like a nod that my interest in doing
audio and video recordings is the right direction to be heading.'

The room was packed with pastors from PNG. The focus of the conference
is that it is very important to get the Word of God into their
languages. They may be able to read foreign language, but the Word stays
in the head and doesn't get to the heart, so it doesn't have as much of
a change.

There were two huge lines, one of people trying out the Audi Bibles
which are low power, mp3 players. (to put it simply) There is a solar
panel on the back, they take a microSD card, and when you put the Bible
on them, people can listen to them.

It can be used for learning the language, learning the Bible, teaching
reading, and dozens of uses. Also on display was a hand crank SABER for
recording,playback to larger rooms. Also on display was a Pico projector.

Mentioned was the Luke video, Jesus, Genesis, Mark, Hope, and many more
videos. The presenter explained how the workers are very few and how he
would love to train as many PNGians as possible to do recordings. There
are far too many languages that need recordings done, and far too few
people who know how to do it. With these affordable tools, it could
very well be done in the village by interested PNG people.

During the training session the linux netbook he was using wouldn't
boot, so I sat there and not being an expert in Fedora or how to get it
to work with dual monitors (on a project) I fiddled around with it for
about three minutes and boom it was working. The instructor replied,
"Boy I'm glad you were here."
I took his camera and shot some stills of him teaching, the room was packed.

A LOT of PNGians were interested in what he had to say.
At the end one man asked for him to give a handout next time of the
training, which the teacher replied, 'I'd love to but I have no time.'
I dashed back to my office, and spent all of 15 minutes typing up a
single page in Tok Pisin with screen shots, how to use the software and
the bullet points of his teaching.

I was VERY encouraged by the huge amount of PNGians that want recordings
of the Bible in their language, excited to find out the local radio
channel wants anything we can give them, verses, psalms, chapters,
books, whatever, in audio.

And then to be told 'I'm glad you were here.' .... well being able to
use my talents in this way was a huge answer to prayer for me, because I
asked for God to give me a nod today, and I got it.

It was important because our family got a bit of bad news last night
that is affecting us deeply. It's not my news to share so I won't but
you can be praying for one of our nephews who is ill.

Audi bible interest

RatUNES

I guess the rat in our wall wasn't groovin on our tunes. After investigating why our tunes stopped working we found this cable chewed up as well as the power cable.

history

I asked my kids if they knew what 9/11 was, and my son said 'yes, it's when the japanese flew kamakaze planes into the pentagon building.'


A friend of mine said the other day 'tranquility base, the eagle has landed'
and a girl replied 'ooh ooh, Princes Diaries 2 right!?'

there are times I weep for the future.

Making Jesus

Here I'm working with several others on training as well as the Agarabi language recording to dub the Jesus Film.   We're in a remote location, powered by a generator.  Fun stuff.  The Jesus film is an incredibly powerful movie.  I was told that when shown, during the scene where the Romans were nailing Jesus to the cross, one man from the village stormed up to the screen and started poking the Roman shouting in his language 'you can't do that to HIM!!! HE is innocent!! HE didn't do anything wrong!! STOP IT!!'

When shown this video has enormous impact, it's a pleasure to be involved in the dubbing of it into a language it's never been recorded in before.

The things you see at a Bible Dedication

fun story

My son's 6th grade teacher was presenting the class with hard problems
yesterday and said 'okay, ready for this next one, it's a doozy' and the
class responded 'um... what's a doozy?'

surprised the teacher responded 'oh, I guess that must be old lady talk.'

my son replied, "I know what doozy means, does that make me an old lady?"

The entire class erupted in laughter.

Holy Cow

Some of our friends keep a milk cow so that they can provide fresh milk to the community.  Our other source of milk is milk powder.  Today as I left the house I saw his cow walking down the road.  I was on my ATV, and knowing that the man of the house is currently out of country, I decided to try and rustle the cow back into his paddock.  I got in front of her, with my ATV and laid on the horn which stopped her dead in her tracks but she wouldn't turn around.  What followed was a fun little scene where I'm chasing this cow beeping while the neighbors are watching this surreal event unfold.

I had no rope.  I had no real plan other than to get her back to the paddock.  She had a plan, but I thought she was just wandering free.  At one point I had rustled her into a corner so she leaped over the ditch, and landed in a garden.  Suddenly I saw pictures of people demanding compensation of me as I caused a cow to damage and eat their garden.

I gave it one last try, and got in front of her, stared her down, laid on the horn, and she juked me and started kicking up a storm.  I decided to let her go and alert the owners.

I found out that whenever she goes into heat, she escapes and runs down the road to where the bull lives.  The story has a sad ending though because though they've been trying to mate her for a long time, the bull seems to have chosen a life of celibacy.

Oh well, next time I'll have to bring along a rope.

no pain no gain

Photo taken in a nearby town to us.  Fun school motto, sure to attract flocks of students.

Worst Dad Ever

aka, Epic Dad Fail

So today is a big day in our family. Sports day happens once a year and
this is our last sports day at the primary campus. Also it's our
daughter's 13th birthday party. Our house has been a flurry of
activity. My wife has been cooking up a storm for this party/sleepover
of 11 teenage girls. Making everything from scratch, and I mean
everything! So this means that our daughter will be getting a ton of
attention. So dad, needs to be sure to spend a lot of attention on our
son too, since it's his last sports day.

"Dad if you can only attend 2 events it should be the sprint and the tug
of war, I'm anchor."
Typically I show up to sports day for an hour and go back to work, but
today, I put on the red t-shirt I bought on furlough, and showed up to
support the Red team my son was on. The kids here still have activities
and fun. Sports day is all about building character in the kids as well
as giving equal time to kids who may excel in sports but not in
academics. Of course some kids excel in both. The school is a very
academically tough school, so it's important to create opportunities to
let kids shine in whatever area they can. Sports day is hugely about
encouraging others, people cheer just as loudly for last place as well
as for first. I'm not one who thinks every participant deserves a
prize, but I do believe that sports day is a great opportunity to help
kids apply some of the stuff they've learned about how to treat others.

The boys had to do a 3 lap race, and my son had to pull out his inhaler
during it, and finished last, but he had a great attitude, was
participating and adults were coming up to me and saying 'your son has a
great attitude!' They were inspired by his well documented breathing
problems and yet his desire to participate.

By the time tug of war came around, he had three first place ribbons for
team sports, and 1 second place ribbon. This was the final and big event.
I stood by to capture it on video and to coach him, we practiced, he was
getting ready.

But then, according to him, the opposing team began pulling before the
whistle was blown. It caught a lot of boys in back of guard and they
went down quick, and were dragged.

Here's where I get the worst dad award.
I video'd the whole thing, and was laughing, hard, because... it was
funny. I thought my son was smiling and having fun, but a few moments
in I heard him screaming in pain. Apparently he was rope burned
everywhere, his pride was hurt, and his sense of 'rules' was really
offended. He was mad... and I calmed him down enough to rejoin the group.

He walked away with the sportsmanship award for the 6th grade boys. I
told him "son, this is the hardest and most rare award to win, I'm proud
of you." It's true, people can go their whole lives never really
learning sportsmanship....how to maintain a good attitude even when life
serves you rotten apples.

My son has gotten a few rotten apples this year, but he's a trooper and
his attitude inspires others.

Here's the video, I promise not to think ill of you if you laugh.

Herding Bees

Herding Bees

We had a bee infestation in our woodshed.  I covered myself in denim and made a mask consisting of my jackaroo leather hat, and some fly wire (screen).  I then sprayed the area with poison and the bees died.  The next week I had an infestation under my house.  Did the same thing, this time threw some mothballs around the location as well and calked up the hole. (mothballs are poison to bees).  They died.

Then the next week I had an infestation in another area outside my house.  Rinse, repeat.  The bees seemed to enjoy moving between four locations.  3 of them on my property and one on my neighbors who did not at all enjoy having a nest of bees to contend with .  So, I repeated until finally the bees decided to settle in a location on my property that wasn't as dangerous as the others, and there they lie.

So, if you want your bees moved, I'm sort of the pied piper of bees now.  Only instead of playing a pipe, I spray poison.

I smell ants

"I smell ants."

It's not as catchy of a line as 'I see dead people', but my life isn't a
movie. Maybe it should be, who would star as me?

Last night around midnight, I woke up, it was dark in the house and as I
headed to the bathroom I smelled a familiar smell and said out loud "I
smell ants."

My wife must have thought I was crazy, but she didn't. She said
'Where?'. I replied, "you don't think what I just said sounds crazy?"

She got up turned on the light and we looked, and sure enough, there
were a hundred or so ants crawling along the wall into a hole.

"No, you're not crazy, those black ants have a very definite smell", and
she pulled the covers back over her head.

Well, chalk that one up to "skills gained by adapting to your environment."

I can smell ants, at least this type. They tend to come in the house
when it's raining outside. I thought I was wrong, I thought I was just
associating the smell of ant poison with these ants, but my wife's
distinct lack of calling me crazy was all the proof I need that I
wasn't. She's usually the first to let me know when I'm being nuts.

I can also apparently herd bees. But that's.... a different story.

Greek to me

This morning one of the legs of the network went out. (a UPS went bad,
so I had to replace it). The network closet is in the back of a class
room, in retrospect, not the best place to put it because we end up
having to wait for classes to be over. Today, it was a Hebrew class. I
stood outside the door as expats were teaching Papua New Guineans,
Hebrew. They were singing the alphabet in Hebrew.

It was interesting and odd. But the usefulness of it strikes me as two
purpose. There are artifacts all over the room and they were working on
their vocabulary, and as they were doing so... I observed in only 3
minutes what I see as two very useful reasons for such training. I'm
sure the instructors have many more uses.

1 - it teaches them how to do language learning via a process... a skill
vital to Bible translation....,ironically most of the people in this
course are already multi-lingual.

2 - it teaches them Hebrew, knowing source Hebrew is also vital in
translating the Bible.

Marik

MORE than three thousand people in the Transgogol area of Madang District who speak the Marik language will now be able to read the New Testament Bible in their own language. This follows about thirty six years of hard work by bible translators from the PNG Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). The New Testament translation in the Marik language was launched over the weekend and marked by cultural singing and dancing and choirs by the local people at Gonoa Village. The translator Hyun Mo Sung who hails from Korea said soon after the launch that it had been a huge challenge trying to translate the New Testament. He attributed the success to God, as well as the passion in him that had pushed him to complete the translation.
Mr Sung said he and his wife would be leaving the country in two weeks time back to the United States of America where they have recently become citizens. Pictured here are the Sungs enjoying the festivities to mark the launching of the New Testament in the Marik Language.

burning

The folks didn't really like the results of the elections around here, so they burned down one of the few restaurants in town, and they burned down the equivalent of a DMV about 20 minutes down the road. I got my license renewed here last month.  Sometimes this culture is so self-destructive. You put a lot of time into helping people, but inevitably something like this happens and you wonder to yourself who exactly is being punished?  The nearby prison was full of people, they screamed but thankfully didn't burn.

Anticipate I.T.

A huge part of doing I.T. in the middle of nowhere is being to
anticipate equipment failure.
In the Silicon Valley, if an important hard drive died, and I didn't
have a spare, it would take me twenty minutes to rush to a store, buy
it, and return with it. If I had to do that it meant my support
contracts weren't great because usually I had someone show up in under
an hour with a replacement part.

But in the middle of nowhere, in a country without electronic stores,
being able to anticipate failure is important.

Hard drives are easy, they WILL fail, so you keep a stock of spares.
Spare RAM too. If you can standardize on equipment it makes keeping
track of it easier.

It takes about 2 months to get a replacement part here. So, that's a
VERY long time to be without something like, the Internet.

Today our internet went down for the first time in a year. It was down
for 12 hours, (from 9pm to 9am).

Thankfully a year or so ago, we got DATA plans on the nearby cell
service and sometimes it's up. So, I used my phone, launched 'myWi'
connected with my laptop and sent off an email to our provider in
Singapore who called after a fashion.

They asked me 'do you have alternate internet?'

ALTERNATE INTERNET... what a concept for a place lucky to have internet
in any fashion. But, as a matter of fact, YES WE DID, because we
thought ahead of time, ordered a HUWAEI CDMS usb modem from the U.S. and
purchased a SIM card for it, which we configured to be the only POST
paid card around. (Pre paid cards expire here after 90 days).

So I grabbed a laptop, headed to the VSAT dish and the nearby modem,
(it's down the road a bit), connected via a console cable, plugged in my
USB CDMA modem, and used TeamViewer for the tech to see what was wrong.

I was sitting there thinking 'wow, this is awesome! What if we didn't
have this usb modem? This wouldn't be possible, we'd have to talk it
out... how? Over the cellular phone I have that didn't work 2 years ago.'

Technology is awesome, and the funny thing is, to us all of this is new,
but in the U.S. it's been around forever. Still, being able to
anticipate problems, and having equipment on hand here, means we don't
have to have an outage for 2 months.

If you're a praying person, pray that we can always have spares at hand
when they're most needed.

I'm sad we were down for 12 hours. The really puts a dent in my five
9's... drops us down to 4. But hopefully it will remind the community
that we still live in a third world country and to be thankful for what
we do have.

Have Laptop, Will Travel

Today it rained.  I was called around 3pm because the nearby clinic had installed a new X-ray machine that produces digital images.  It was a network box, and they needed me to check it out and tell them how to accomplish what they wanted as far as file sharing.  So, I dawned my poncho, hopped on my ATV and drove to the clinic.

Who knew I'd be working on X-Ray machines when I woke up this morning?  Raise your hand... come on.. what no one?
Who knew they'd be basing it on Windows XP??!?!?!!?!!  And... check this...  the interface to the scanner, is FIREWIRE.  Finally, an in production windows machine running firewire, I never thought I'd see THAT.

fun thing if I understand the tech, exposing a plate is pretty standard, but the film inside is mylar with a phosphorous base, that can be reused 30,000 times.  This solution apparently is popular in humanitarian clinics all over the world.  The electrician that installed it, said his last one was in Ethopia.  I meant to snap a picture of me working on it, but was to surrounded by people with questions, that I didn't.

Jesus Film

In concept you've probably heard of the Jesus film.  The idea of this somewhat aged, movie of Jesus' life being dubbed into a local language and then shown.  One of my earliest experiences in this country was trekking up a dangerous muddy road to show the movie to a village.  Raised with such films, I had never truly seen the impact that video has on people when they see and hear the story for the first time.  There were people openly weeping during this movie.  It has a huge impact, especially on those who can not read or have not read the Gospel before.

Today I had the incredible and AWESOME opportunity to sit in on a recording session for the Agarabi language.  It sparked all of my old juices from when I went to Biola.  I instantly understood the equipment.  He was using an Intel laptop running Adobe Audition to cue up the video track and then dub new audio.  There were two technicians, a friend and his wife, she was managing the edit list, there were two voice talents pictured in the booth there.  There was a voice coach (to my right) and there was a translator linguist coach.

So a scene was cued up, (everything was run from the laptop, via a usb interface so dual monitors, 1 mic, with a talk back mic)... we played it once in Aramaic, the voice talent listened... then he read his lines and did his thing.  If it needed some coaching, then the man on my right here would take the English instruction from the technician at the laptop, then speak into the talkback mic so the voice actor in the room heard it.  Then if there was something wrong with the line, the linguist would assist us in translation.

It was remarkable.  You had audio recording, and editing all happening right there with translation, 3 languages flying back and forth (english, tok pisin, agarabi), it was an energetic mixture of translation, production and some post-production all going on at the same time.

I was REALLY excited by this.  It's been 16 years since I've had my hands on this level of equipment, and while I'm a hobbiest, seeing the templates and editing lists and all of it made me feel as if this production was at a much higher level of professionalism than I was expecting.  I was very impressed with the proceeding and I sat there enthralled and excited and... to use a word I haven't used in a long while.. 'like totally stoked!'

Taco Tuesday

On Tuesdays we buy a dozen home made tortillas (not tortilla option here other than home made) which are made by our friend Rose (pictured here).  Then we make taco meat (our special Dr. Pepper beef recipe is an extra treat when beef is affordable AND Dr. Pepper is available in the store), and serve it up with home made sour-cream (you have to make yogurt from scratch and turn it into sour cream, so that too, is a special treat).  Last night, we had sour cream, but no Dr. Pepper beef.  Cheese is a regular option when it's available, and tomatoes, cilantro and lettuce from our garden.

So on Taco Tuesday you know it's almost dinner time when you hear "Sydney, go grab a handful of cilantro from the garden please!" 

Fun Quote

Kurt Vonnegut wrote in 'Cat's Cradle' something I thought was rather
apropos to IT work or any technical field:
referring to some scientific processes he was showing to a stenographer:

"They're designed so as to NOT be mystifying. They're the very
antithesis of magic."
"The very what of magic?"
"The exact opposite of magic."
"You couldn't prove it by me."
"Dr. Breed looked just a little peeved. "Well," he said, "we don't WANT
to mystify. At least give us credit for that."

15%

wow 15% seems to be the magic number by which to increase things this year.

Medical premiums went up 15% for us.... did they for you, I'm thinking they did.
School fees went up 15% for us....
Food costs, prescription drugs, all went up 15% this year.

WOW...
that's like, 45% increase! 

I'm guessing you folks in the U.S. are feeling the same crunch.  All these notices and realizations that things are increasing in cost around you.

Our population here is shrinking a bit, the school lost 20 students, which increases the cost to each child still going, across the board, expenses are going up, and shared across fewer people.  So the overall financial impact can have an emotional impact as well.  People start to worry more... sometimes going into debt in order to remain on the field.  You know, that finances can be an overwhelming burden for many families, and it starts to become what is on the forefront of your mind.

I wanted to take this opportunity to say, that we appreciate your support. 
I think that by being linked to you in this way, we share a close common bond.  Our livelihood is directly tied to yours, and both of us rely on God to provide it.  Because of that, we pray for you daily asking God to bless your family and keep your family financially stable, keep you employed, protect you from increases in costs that you can't afford.

Our motto is "let God take care of the things we can't, and we'll keep focusing on the task at hand."

Isaiah 41:10 fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Matthew 11:28-29 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Today, keeping God on the forefront of my mind, not the finances.  But if you would like to know,  email me and I can give a full account.  Currently we're at 96% of where we need to be, which is a healthy situation to be in, because it is keeping us from going into debt.  And your financial support this year has been overwhelmingly encouraging to us, as these one time gifts come in to sustain us.

THANK YOU!

Reciprocal Encouragement

We are so encouraged by the people who support us to be here financially and through prayer.
Right now I'm having a bit of hay-fever and so if my thoughts come out muddled, know that it's because of that.  I struggle against bad allergies here (well in the U.S. I did too, so there's not much difference, except here the only cure I've found is to wrap a bandana around my nose and take a nap.  Which is alright until your daughter snaps a photo of you to show her friends... because to be honest a bandana around your nose looks pretty silly)

but I digest.

(yes I know I said that wrong, but it's true, I digest, I had a cookie about 5 minute ago, and you should be thankful because taking a cookie break is what encouraged me to sit down and type this blog entry.... come to think of it, you might come down on the other side of gratitude... in that case, blame the cookie (-; )

Where was I?

Oh yes.
A few days ago on a Saturday, I had finished all my chores and was at a point of either relaxing and taking a nap, or doing something fun. I chose to do something fun.  So I grabbed my video camera, and headed over to the local gathering of what I've dubbed 'the quilting mafia.'

They're technically called 'piecemakers' which is a clever name.  My wife is a newbie quilter and has really enjoyed this group of women that gather together periodically to share company and a common hobby.

I thought it might be fun to make a video of them, and show some of the quilts, and decided to hammer out something rather quickly (I was finished in the same day I shot it, so you know it was a quick job).

As I did it, I saw all the happy faces in the video and realized that this was actually an important ministry, not just fun, but a therapeutic gathering of incredible women gathered here in this country to serve God.

It turns out that the video itself was an encouragement and that plus a little email I sent turned out to encourage people who had been struggling lately.  I honestly had no idea that little bit of fun I put together would mean so much to people.  Another side result is someone asked me to help them make a Bible dedication video.

The point is, by using some of my side talents, and hobby, I was able to encourage some people who needed encouraging.  Which helps them to do better at their jobs, and to possibly stay here just that much longer.

And I wanted to let you know this, because sometimes being here, is itself a ministry outside of the job we do. And I wanted to thank you each for your encouragement to US, that enables us to encourage others.

By giving to us financially and praying for us, you help alleviate burdens that would otherwise distract us from serving others.  You lighten our load, and you join us in purpose, and for that, we thank you.

if you would like to see the video it is here:

http://youtu.be/VC0skKFjYlQ

Jury Rig #392

I don't own a chainsaw. It's been very cold lately. Two years ago I installed a dog fence for security by running 'pig wire' (here the wire is called by what animal it holds in usually. (so you don't speak in gauges). There is Pig Wire, rabbit wire, etc.

I used long lengths of firewood. Here the way to cut firewood is in long 4 foot wedges. So one four foot tree trunk, can make 4 wedges. The reason for this is they don't cook indoors, the nationals cook in a 'haus kuk' and the way they make a fire is a small round pit, they light one end of a piece of wood and as it burns off, they scoot it in more. Wasting very little wood, and making a tiny little fire for cooking over.

So, what I have to do when I want to fit it into my little fire stove is cut it into 12" segments. But again, I don't own a chainsaw.

But I own a saws-all!

My family was confused when I asked for a saws all many years ago, but I'm really glad I have it now, as it comes in handy when I need to make cuts from wood.
But what's not handy is when your blade snaps and the nearest home depot is 6000 miles away.

It takes 2 months to get new items from the U.S. here. I had spare blades, but none as long as the one that snapped on me today, right before I was almost done.

So... what to do?

Well.. you can take out your vice grips, and clamp the broken off piece to the blade, then take out an angle grinder and grind the blade down to create an identical end so it fits back into your saw.

That's the idea I had anyway.

Small World

Last night I was in a multi-cultural workshop and happened to be next to someone I didn't know, so I introduced myself.  Her name was Elaine and she had been here for only a week so far.  Having travelled here alone.  She asked me 'Do you keep a blog?' ... I slowly responded 'yeeessss.' 
"and, did you recently blog about your wife's adventure in travelling?"
and I replied "yesss."
and she started to tear up, and told me,

"I want to tell you I found so much courage from her and her troubles travelling alone."  She could barely get the story out.  "I was stuck in California trying to get here, travelling alone and I took encouragement and thought if she can do it, so can I."

The rest of the story was unspoken, but it seems she was asked to come out here for a short while to help fill a much needed job.  To do so she had to leave in a bit of a hurry, and all by herself, and she did it, thanks to the courage my wife had, that I blogged about.

It's a small world sometimes.  And I'm honestly surprised and encouraged to find people actually read what I write here.

I asked her "how did you know it was me keeping the blog?"
and she said "I was reading a lot of blogs before my trip, and...well, you wrote you wouldn't say where you were, or what organization you were with, or where you lived, but you said your name was Chad.... I took a guess."

Good guess.

bridge fixed

See the huge hole?  See the broken beam that collapsed under it's own weight being pulled out?  The bridge is repaired and crossable now!  YAY!!!

cross cultural texting

I don't text often, so when I got this text this morning, it took me a while to understand it.
It involves 2 languages, tok pisin and English, and 2 cultures. I had no idea who had sent it, but I figured it out after thinking.
Translation:
----
Manager Chad, the ballot officials cancelled voting for the town of Kainantu yesterday and voting will be held today.  I'm going to vote and I will return before 1pm.
---

anyway, I got a kick out if, I don't often get texts.  Voting in this country happens every 5 years.  IT's a huge thing as a lot of violence erupts around the ballot boxes.  Soldiers in hueys come to escort the ballot boxes around the country.  People have been shot and died.  So 'going to vote' means 'I'm waiting for public transport, risking my life over a bad bridge, trying to avoid catching a stray bullet, ignoring the intense social pressure to vote for the same people my family is voting for, and I should be back to work by 1."  It can get pretty hairy, so we (my family) remain totally neutral, and avoid areas that have voting going on.  If you've never seen  a huey land and ak47  armed soldiers in camo jump out by the dozen.... it's pretty cool.

Having lived here, and seen the violence and the campaigning (which amount to people singing a lot and driving around with music blaring to grab attention...bullhorns are involved).... I better understand what the news means when they say 'voting is going on in NAMEYOURCITY today.'

4th of July

(my son flinging steel wool)

Our 4th of July celebration was the other day.  This is when a lot of the American ex-pats gather for a picnic on a lawn, show the flag, sing the National Anthem, and generally enjoy being together.  A few years back at our very FIRST of these annual gatherings, we found that it really gave us a huge sense of community, even though it was mostly with the Americans, even our British friends and Canadian friends sometimes attended.  One of the traditions is to light and spin steel wool, as a firework.  Sometimes we fire off expired safety flares for a nice 'rocket's red glare' effect.

The overall sense of 'these are the people I serve with' fills your heart as it does with any large community event.

Given that the smaller kids like to run towards the burning steel wool, (pictured above), Kendal and I had the idea to provide the younger kids who didn't get to 'fling wool', glow sticks.  So we started a tradition years ago of doing this.  After everyone has eaten and the kids want to run around, right before the sun sets, we pull out the glow sticks, snap them and put them around the younger children's wrists.

This is an idea we got from my uncle Randy and aunt Rene many years ago, as they did this with their nieces and nephews camping.  It brings an extra element of fun to camping... to have a 'glow night'.

This year, we had our stash we had squirreled away from the U.S. and we used it for a youth event.  Having written about the youth event, some good friends of ours realized we were short of glow sticks and sent a huge bunch of them our way! 

Just the other day we employed them.  Suddenly feeling like the uncle and aunt we rarely get to be, we noticed there were a LOT of younger kids.  Many more than last year.  HOW AWESOME is that?  New families had arrived this year.  And just like us over 5 years ago, this was their first 'Ukarumpa 4th of July Celebration'.

They were amazed and encouraged.  See, when you get here, you've left family and community and are still trying to become part of this community.  An event such as this, warms your heart, and confirms that you're not alone.

And when we're able to give the young kids, these glow bracelets, it tells the families that even their little ones are cared for. 

That's a huge encouragement to a family who may have a large fear of what moving here may mean to their child's future.
Just to know, that people care.

And so we're encouraged too that some friends cared enough to send us glow sticks, so that we could encourage others in this way.

apples

today for lunch, it was such a nice thing to bite into a granny smith apple.

nice!

we don't get apples here all the time. From time to time you find
yourself enjoying something and half way through you realize 'oh, I'm
enjoying this because I haven't enjoyed this in a while'. There is much
to be said for delayed gratification.

'Oh Where did you Get that Lovely Top?'

Where do you get your clothes?
The only in-country places to get clothes are thrift stores.  Around our neck of the woods, you'll often hear 'do you like my new top, only 1 Kina!!!'.  I used to wonder why missionaries dressed funny.  (As a kid I thought they did).  Now I know.  Once you get used to wearing out dated, used clothing that is super affordable, it's hard to justify buying new.

But, for us Big n Tall guys, even the thrift stores offer little hope.  One of my big n tall buddies, buys 2 pair of jeans, then sews himself a single pair out of them.  That's resourceful, and even skillful, but it results in a frankenstein type look.

Elastic wears out of your socks and underwear rather quickly, because we don't use clothes dryers. We do laundry in a very Australian way, we hang them out to dry and it takes a short time because the sun is so hot, when it's out.  Sometimes the rain pours while the clothes are on the line and prolongs the drying time.

The Laundry Dash - is a cultural happening when you're in the middle of something and realize it's raining, you sense the rain, is it going to be a downpour, or light, if it's light, you leave the clothing out, if it's going to be a downpour, you bring it in.

Everyone of your neighbors knows what clothing you wear, no one needs to ask you 'boxers or briefs'?  Of course we're  clever, we puts the particulars on the inside of the line, and the sheets on the outside to give that added bit of privacy.

The end result of all this is that if you're a Big N Tall guy, you only buy clothing when you're in your home country.  And when you do you need to buy a lot of it.  But it will hurt you because you think 'my wife got a top for 1 Kina, but I need to buy 20 t-shirts at $20 a piece!!!'  You get coupons, you wait for specials, etc.  When you get back, you'll be the sharpest dressed guy in town for a few days.  Then your socks will start to droop, and your whites will be more like light brown, and your pants will have holes in them.

All that to say, a sense-of-fashion isn't highly regarded in these parts.  Another reason why men feel so at home here, few of us have a sense of fashion anyway.