Water Cometh

since a few of you have asked.....
and since it is raining cats and dogs outside.... I mean REALLY pouring...

I'm more than glad to answer.
Since we prayed for rain the night our tank went dry, it has rained every day.

No rain for weeks, then rain every day. And today, right now, the hardest of them all.

That tank is gonna be filled before bedtime tonight if this keeps up.

After that I suppose we'll be praying against the river flooding (-; ha ha ha ha ..

It was as sunny as an L.A. Sunday a few minutes ago.

I remember praying for weather when I was younger but never really believing it had any affect, I mean sure we pray for things, but how often do we get the answer we're expecting?

So to go from that to praying a short prayer and seeing rain for days, blows my mind completely.

I do not believe in coincidence, I can't afford to anymore.

A brief memory comes to mind back in college, there was a christian music group we went to see in concert called "Pray for Rain" that later changed their name to "PRF".
We saw that at Knott's Berry Farm along with DCtalk.

The rain in their hit song was a figurative cleansing from God.

Chorus
I pray for rain to come
And wash away whats made me numb
I pray for a raging storm
To drown what's in me
And the rain comes in the nick of time
I swallow hard cause my throats been dry
The rain comes beating on my skin
Till I'm washed away - nothing left within
When the rain comes
Your rain comes

Seasons have passed so quickly
Since I felt that first big storm
Still there have been times of drought
When Ive prayed for the clouds to form
And I often hear the thunder
And I know of its coming rain
Many times in my life I'll kneel under
The moving showers that brought this change

I'm reminded of that song as we actually pray for rain for survival.
It's an awesome thing to see God at work taking care of His people.

Dry Water

You may recall an earlier post about water and how it works here. Last night at about 8pm our tank ran dry. The tank is about 2000 gallons big, and it hasn't rained here significantly for about a month and a half.

The faucet started to spout which told me the water pump was running dry. So I went outside in the dark with my son, had him look down the hole in the top of the tank.

"dad all i see is dirt."
So I climbed up the ladder, looked down.. the tank was BONE DRY.

Which means it was time to switch over to the OTHER water source for the center.

I explained it earlier but...
the CLEANEST water is rain water, which hits your roof, drains down the gutter into your tank, is pumped out into your house and you can pretty much drink it straight.

THE OTHER water (RAM) is pumped out of the river at the top of the hill, sent through purification/filtration and hits your house with gravity flow as the pressurizer.

EVERY house has a maze of pvc pipe, metal fittings, rubber hoses, and valves that somehow manager the different types of water and WHERE they want the water to go into the house.

For example, you don't need your good drinking water filling your toilet bowl.
So there is a valve for that.

The sinks here sometimes have 3 faucets on them. (1 cold for tank, 1 cold for RAM, 1 hot.)

Then there are valves for the hot water tank and how IT gets filled.

Confused yet? If you aren't you should be.

NO house is the same. Every home owner has tried to simplify their system to fit to their needs which ensures that there is even more confusion added to the mid.

So I'm here, under the house, I have about a five foot clearing, and I see writings on the beams explaining the valves. And I have a sheet explaining the valves.

I do everything I think I should to get it all right, and still no water in the house.

After going over it a few more times, I'm convinced, (troubleshooter that I am) that the only possible explanation is that the center valve is busted.

Now I'm no plumber. So I'm drawing on my network knowledge. In my head the pipes turn into network cabling, the valves into routers, and I'm 99% sure a valve is busted. Which is why I'm 100% unsure of myself because it sounds really silly to say

"well I know nothing about his plumbing here, I've never changed water systems in this country, but I'm sure because of my understanding of ethernet networks, that the center valve is broken."

I sounded stupid saying it to myself.

SO... I called someone up who knew the house better than I did, and who has lived here many years. He dropped by... within a few minutes he said "I wonder if the middle valve is broken."


THANK YOU!!!

I wasn't about to start taking apart the plumbing here without a second opinion.
Within 15 minutes we had water in the house.
The center valve had corroded enough to make it not-open. The fact that the valve was turning was attributed to my RAW MAN STRENGTH which torqued it enough to unthread the knob from the actual valve.

We took it apart, cleaned it and put it back together.

I was glad I wasn't wrong, and I gained a little bit of confidence that maybe I can figure out how things work here!

Now we have the issue of drinking water.

GOD provides.
About a week ago someone was leaving here and wanted to sell their water purification system. (the same type that NASA uses apparently) It is the de facto standard for purifying water here. It's basically two buckets and 2 filters.

Anyway they cost a few hundred in the store, but we bought this one second hand, with a filter that was only a month old, in preparation for POC (a camp coming up). So we had this filtration system on hand, and about half what we would have had to pay for it had I to run out to the store when it opened this morning and bought a new one.

God provides.

Prayer list:
new water might mean stomach aches.. we don't know.. pray against sickness
praise:
God provides! We have better water pressure now, because we're at the bottom of the hill!!! God provided a neighbor willing to confirm the broken valve, AND God provided me with more confidence and understanding of my environment.

OH and get this..
as we went to sleep we prayed for rain.
at 2am I woke up to the sound of rain on our roof. It lasted only shortly but what a great thing to hear.

One good solid day of rain will fill the tank back up.. but until then, we have this other water system. It's great to have a backup like that!

White Watched

To give you an idea of what it is like to walk outside of my front door, imagine if you lived on a crowded street, perhaps near a park. And every time you stepped outside, several complete strangers stared at you and watched your every move.

Watching white people is one form of entertainment. We are to them, what movies are to us.

So when I leave my house I am getting accustomed to several people stopping what they are doing, and watching my every move..... until I am out of their site. It isn't a brief stare, it's an I'll watch you as long as I can...stare. There is no awkwardness in staring here, no uncomfortable part to looking prolonged into your eyes. There is no looking away quickly or looking down as is such a part of American culture.

Many people watch silently, and sometimes I'll interact, a greeting, or something to make the kids laugh. Sometimes they'll be rude and laugh and point. After all I'm not only white, I'm HUGE!

It's something you get used to, but it is still a bit odd as I walk to work, there is a section I pass where several people stare as their heads follow me. (as I'm passing by the local clinic).

So it should come as no surprise to me that yesterday as I stepped outside my door, there were 25 or so young kids sitting on my front lawn. I figured they were there to watch me, and then it dawned on me.

They were there to play with my kids.

My kids are very social. It started with a few kids and a ball.

Then it moved on to every day two or three friends would come over. We love our neighbors' children. They speak some English, but the little girl that is fast becoming my daughter's closest friend is very polite. She offers to wash laundry, helps my daughter clean her room and otherwise encourages my daughter to be a better person

"Sydney, u no can tok long yu mama like dat!, U listen to hah!"

A great little girl!

It has progressed to where there were 30 kids in our yard yesterday playing. It isn't because we provide snacks, we had to stop doing that, it's because the kids come up with some very fun games and they enjoy each other.

But now we have a problem. The odds of someone getting hurt increase exponentially when you have 30 kids. Not only that, my wife didn't sign up to run a day care.

If one of those kids should get hurt, suddenly we have a "Hevi" with their parents... we would owe them something, we would be in their debt if their child got hurt on our property. It is a part of the culture called "compensation".

So.. we have asked our daughter to tell them she can play with 6 a day, and a different 6 another day. While this made her sad... she understood.

Secretly, we suspect our children are planning to overthrow us and are amassing a small army. We are taking every opportunity to disperse the mob before they get too organized, but I think they are having secret meetings in the bathroom because my son has to go an awful lot these days. (this is a joke (-; )

WAHOO!

Today I'm pretty excited.
About a week ago a close friend sent me an email something like "if you're interested here's a nice network utility."

I poked around it, tried it and moved on to another software, that I happened LOVE!

As network administrator, my personal goal when "moving in" is to gain complete visibility to the network, and thus be able to predict, see, and troubleshoot network problems. Everyone has their preferred tools, and I honestly have never been completely happy with any single tool for network monitoring. On my usb thumb drive I keep several tools and carry them with me.

Well, this particular software had a "freeware" trial version and in the course of two days me and my co-worker really fell in love with this software. We wanted to recommend it to our management, only the version we wanted cost $100.00.

A mere pittance compared to other competitors. The new guys always start out very affordable. Ironically, both of us had used Solarwinds, back when it was $100.00

But this new software, PRTG, props to http://www.paessler.com is phenominal.

I won't go into it, I get pretty excited.

ANYWAY, as we were preparing to pitch the idea, our manager walks in and mentions "I'm over budget." So we let it go.

Then I thought, "hey, why don't I write a letter?"

So I wrote a letter to the company (email) and explained who I was, who my organization was and what we would love to do with their software should they donate it to us.

The next morning (today) I came into work, and BINGO, they said "we have donated you a 100 sensor license and 12 months of support" !!!!!

WOW!!!!

I mean wow. $100.00 may not sound like much, but what is so rewarding here is that they responded so quickly, and so completely. The email had a link to the software, a license code, EVERYTHING we need to get better visibility on our network!

I tell you, God has been increasingly teaching me to think outside of the box. There is nothing He can't accomplish!

It feels really good to find a piece of quality software, but then add to that, a generous heart, and I say that company has the makings of something good.

Thanks.

Our kids

Today at lunch, my son told me he was playing with two png friends and they caught and grilled a grasshopper and he ate the leg.

I said -"well"
son - "well what?"
me - "well did you like it?"
son - "yeah!"
me - "would you do it again?"
son - "yes."
me - "what did it taste like? Peanut butter?"
son - "it tasted more like chicken."

and he doesn't even know the famous line about tasting like chicken. (-;

Today at tea time, a PNG acquaintance told me,
"about 20 minutes ago I saw your son playing basketball with some boys. He took his shirt off... BOY there was a lot of white there!" we chuckled.

Then he said, "I think your children are very nice children." And I thanked him... but was interrupted by another png lady who said,

"he has very good children, they already know some tok pisin!"

and so on.

As a father, it's always great to hear people praise your kids, but to hear it from a different culture with different values add a whole new level.

There are times when we sit back and marvel at how God has prepared them for this adventure, because honestly there are parts of their personality we can claim no credit for.

Jury Rigs

I've blogged in the past about how ingenuity is a part of the job here. Some folks asked me to post more information and photos about some of the solutions.

"The Server Overheat Fix (or delay)"

problem: servers exist in a small enclosed room which is air conditioned. When the power fails the air conditioner fails. How do we keep the servers from overheating since they are on battery backups?

solution:
-take a pneumatic screen door ..actuator?... reverse it so that the door OPENS instead of closes
-put an electromagnetic latch on the door
-remove the door knob latch
-connect the electro-magnetic door latch to a thermostat
-connect the thermostat to a phone out dialer
-when the temp in the room reaches 30degrees Celsius, release the door, it opens, and call the CTS employee's phone (mine and a few others) to notify them.

Theory: the servers will have a LARGER room (our offices) to draw from which has a separate air conditioner (which will also be out) but the air will be cooler, and thus give us time to get here and down the servers.

The actuator:


The magnetic latch:


The cable to the thermostat:


The thermostat and dialer:




--------
"How do we get the Airport on the Network - FIX"

Problem:
The airport is off center and they need network connectivity. The land owners between here and there don't want to let us run cable, and copper wire theft is a major problem in this country.

Solution:
Give them wireless.

Problem:
we can't afford commercial grade wireless

Solution:
Use consumer 802.11(b/g), build a tower, put a high gain antenna on it, and do the same on the other side. Two netgear wireless routers, span the distance of about a mile as the crow files. Maybe a tad less.

(I have no photos of the antenna tower, but you can imagine it, and then add razor wire at the bottom)

New Problem:
there is a line of trees growing and will eventually block the signal.
(can't trim them down until we reach an agreement with land owners)

Issues to remember: a lot of lightning in this area, and if people CAN'T steal it, they will, so everything is located HIGH.

Solution:
Move the antenna 30' higher. (this is an ongoing project)

The server room wireless routers connected to the cable going EXTERNAL to the high gain antenna:



You might be able to tell, that this stuff is FUN. It's fun to conquer a problem and fun to come up with a solution. I thank God every day for the ingenuity he's blessed the people here with. Not a day goes by that I don't see something that makes me say "wow.. what will they think of next!?" It's a place where elbow grease and creativity are survival skills.

A Good Day

My definition of a good work day is a day where you solve more problems than you receive. It saps your energy when your list of things to do grows more than it shrinks. Some says it grows fast and other days it shrinks.

When you're in a lot of meetings the list grows because you are working to resolve issues as much as meeting to identify them.

Some of you will understand the I.T. mentality and not need to hear this bit. But for those that don't:

-Firefighting mode - is when you are hit with a lot of high priority, drop everything and solve this now... issues. You do not have enough time to work on projects and anything that CAN wait until later, MUST.

-Project mode - the fires are out, and you're able to work on the things that help improve things for everyone long term. This time usually requires concentration, and time.

-Helpdesk mode - time spent solving issues you can easily solve are adept at. This mode is the least challenging, but constitutes a lot of your time depending on your job description.

-Troubleshooting mode - something isn't working right, and you don't know why yet. You require a fully functioning brain, time, and google.

You'll notice the word "time" in each different mode. An IT person shifts between these modes all day long. TIME is the enemy. Uptime, downtime, lunchtime.

TIME.

You tend to lose energy when you've been battling time without prevailing.
Today though, thanks to the gifts of God, I prevailed.

With any new job I've taken there is an element of being in the "deep-end" of the pool so-to-speak. Being thrown in and hoping you can learn the idiosyncracies of any new system before an emergency comes up.

I've been battling and losing two major troubleshooting problems because they were both in areas I have little experience. Last week I was sure I'd never solve these issues.. this morning I was sure, I needed outside help... and moments ago, those issues are solved.

I'm pretty jazzed about it (for techs: I solved an SQL authentication issue and a windows netbios issue).

As I mentioned before, people here are getting tired right now. So dealing with problems is even more tiring.

Technical difficulties tax your energy. I'm motivated to help people resolve their issues as fast as I can because of that. I'm so relieved to have solved a problem that has exhausted two others and myself for weeks prior to today.

Someone out there was praying for me today.. a special blessing, a moment of clarity.. something.

so thanks.

New Noise

Moving to any new place requires adapting to new noises. Sometimes it means getting used to the creaks a house makes. Sometimes it means getting used to dogs barking all night long.

We've adapted to dogs barking, house creaks, the sound of scurrying lizards on the roof, birds chirping, cicadas blaring, geckos chirping, traffic driving, dinner bells dinging, river rushing.... all during the night as we sleep.

At first I thought "I'll never get to the point where I tune this out." I am a very light sleeper, the slightest unusual noise wakes me up. I prefer this, I like to remain vigilant and keep my eye open for issues around the house or with the kids. I've always been this way. When our children were babies, a cough or sneeze would wake me up from two closed doors down.

Which is why I'm amazed that we've adjusted to these noises and have been sleeping.

Until last night.
We got a new noise. Which I'm sure we'll eventually adapt to.

IT was hard to determine what it was at first but we landed on a bird's squawk.

At 3am, we darted awake to the sound of a loud car alarm... only slower.

And it was a bird.

Speaking of birds, a friend of mine would love bird watching here. If you are an avid bird fan this is the place! My wife saw a bird the size of an eagle, but brown on the white parts and white on the brown parts (if that makes sense) and the beak was something like a toucan's.

A large exotic looking bird. I wonder if he was the one making all the racket!

__________
please continue to pray, we appreciate your prayers.
There are a lot of families here saying their goodbyes and a lot of people with tearful eyes as they are going home finished. The end of the high school year often marks this large exodus.

Here we are, as the "new" arrivals. Several of us here are new. I am sitting in the place of a man who leave in 2 weeks, having taken his position. So there is definitely a sense for us of.... replacement and departure and loss. No place I've ever worked has had this kind of revolving personnel. The lifestyle here can be taxing, as can living under constant spiritual awareness.

There is no illusion here of safety, no illusion of financial security. Everyone is fully aware that they depend fully on God. It can be a struggle to constantly remind yourself of this, and for many that is a tiring struggle. For others, it is second nature.

Either way, our newness affords us the emotional detachment to not have to cry at every departure. So our prayer is that these families going on away would be guided by God, comforted, given rest, and kept safe. They have blessed us in so many ways in the little time we've been here and we pray that God would re-establish them where they are going and give them a vital new ministry.

This place needs to be surrounded in prayer right now as people are emotionally and physically exhausted from all the things they have to do to leave. The enemy wouldn't hesitate at the chance to use that leverage. We pray for their energy.

Please pray for ours too! Thank you!

Bits is Bits

it’s monday morning.
I’ve spent the last 2 hours trying to get skype up and running so I can call my family. It has kept crashing and I’m about to give up.

While this is going on I’m getting updates from my children who are running back and forth between my desk and the neighbors yard.
I’ll try to walk you through the comments I’m hearing as my headphone set continually rings with the sound of skype crashing.

“dad can we play with the [foam] airplane.”
time passes
“dad can we visit the neighbors”
time passes I’m growing more frustrated and less attentive to the world around me as I work on my issue

“dad the neighbor’s………….”
“honey… honey did you hear what our kids jsut said?…….”
“honey?”

time passes

“dad the neighbors jsut cut the head off a chicken…. and I learned……. still moves after…..”

time passes

“dad they’ve cut it into little parts…. and……”

time passes they’re running a good 40 yards each update…..

finally my world comes colliding back to reality when my daughter shoves a severed chicken foot in my face, blood and all.

“dad they cut up a chicken and I got to watch and they gave me this chicken foot as a present!”
“they gave me one too dad!” (son)

okay, I apparently was paying WAY too little attention here…. and now both my children have a severed chicken foot in their hands and the neighbors kids are smiling like it’s the best present they’ve ever given anyone and I pause…

I take off my headset….
I muster the best smile I can … trying to reflect their enthusiasm while hiding my frustration at my computer issue, and masking the slight shock that accompanies a severed chicken foot less than an inch from my nose and I say…

“wow! That’s great!”

they’ve run off javascript:void(0)
Publish Postagain and are probably concocting games to play with chicken feet. I think it’s time I turn off the computer and go see what they are up to.

Wara

Wara = water
ai wara = tears

There are three different types of water here.
-RAM water
-Tank water
-Filtered water

There is a pump at the top of the hill which is in the river, and pumps the water down into the houses. The pro is that this water is always available, the con is that it isn't the cleanest source of water, even though it is processed. Another con is that when the electricity goes out, so do the pumps... but if you live at the bottom of the hill that's a PRO because the water flows with gravity and when your tank water isn't pumping into your house, RAM water will flow into your house. (a con for those at the top of the hill as they lose water first).

RAM water is used for non-drinkable situations for most people.

TANK water is water from your tank at your house. The tanks here have pipes running into a large screened hole at the top. All gutters are fixed to the pipes, and so many houses have a complex maze of gutters and pipes into their tank. When it rains, the water landing on the roof flows into these tanks.

This water is the cleanest for drinking. The con is that during dry seasons, the water comes in short supply.

Some people do not feel the rain water is drinkable and they fill up filter systems. Typically this is 2 large 5 gallon buckets with a gravity flow filtration system inside.

We don't use a filtration system in the hopes that the rain water will help us with our immunity needs, and we only drink tank water.

The plumbing in houses here is all over the map. Depending on how complex you want your house to be you can have valves to put the toilet on ram, valves for the HOT water to be on ram, valves for everything to be on ram or switch to tank.

Looking at houses, one of the things you do is learn the water system. IT is usually a five minute session of "we tried to label it, this valve turns on ram I think..."

-------------
Prayer requests:
-recently the headman of a village that some of our translator friends live in was attacked. He was a christian and was instrumental in helping our friends bring their translation to the people, but now he's in the hospital.

-some of our friends have fallen ill and have been medivac'd out of the country.

-more of our friends have grown very agitated at living here and have decided to leave for a long duration.

-in a week many people are going to be leaving here because it is high school graduation, there will be many tears and many sad people.

-it is coffee season here AND elections are near. This makes this a very active time and tempers amongst the nationals are high. IT isn't the safest time to travel so we are staying inside the center until things cool down. More events are likely to happen during this time, and people are a bit more cautious than usual.

What we're seeing, with eyes that God has allowed us to see with, is the enemy at work. Trying to slow down the translation work in any way he can.

PLEASE pray against the enemy here, pray for our health and protection, pray that we stay focussed on growing close to Christ, and let that relationship help us to flourish. Pray that our energy level stays up during this time of saying goodbyes.

We have so may praises to God... so many ways He has blessed us that far. Perhaps I'll outline a few in the next blog.

Suffice it to say, God is good, and He is faithful and He is alive!!!

High Frequency E-mail

This week on Thursday I participated in something I've never done before, a technology dedication ceremony. Several years ago one of the CTS employees got the idea of how to provide email to translators far in the bush who didn't have telephones or network connections. HF radio email. The concept wasn't new, but his deployment hadn't been done before. The only other people doing it were doing it commercially and the equipment was very expensive.

His vision began in 2002. He began to put together a system that consists of an HF radio (high frequency) attached to a modem, attached to a pc running server software that would fetch pop email from a main corporate lan server and compress it enough to send over the hf radio waves to the client in the bush, who had a radio a modem and a laptop all connected to a car battery which was charged daily by solar panels.

In order to get it done, he had to have antenna towers built, a parcel of land cleared, and had to solve many problems, not the least of which was, where to put it and HOW to put it.

The final result is all this equipment sitting in a steel shipping container in the middle of nowhere. Telephones ran a line to it, networking hooked up dsl so it could be networked, electrical ran power, and so on and so on.

The following is a pictorial of the dedication but more specifically the equipment.
(for higher res pics you can go to my photo gallery)

This picture shows the steel container and one of the three antenna towers.



This view shows the power and phone patch panel on the left and the server station in front.

Notice the setup. More detail in the next closeup. The radio system requires DC power so you'll notice the battery system which powers the radio and will maintain a charge for several days should the power go out.



In this closeup, you see the radio (center), a ups on the left, the power converters on the right, the dsl modem on the left, and the antenna cables coming in from the top. The copper bar behind the UPS is the grounding cable. Notice the small black bock between the radio and the UPS. This is a radio receiver and is part of a different project. In this country you have no FCC. So when requesting a new radio frequency (which we sorely need our traffic is so much) the government asks YOU to tell them which frequency is unused. So this receiver is attached to an antenna and is scanning the range we want 24 hours a day and logging any traffic found. After several months we will analyze the data and tell the government which frequency we want. The risk is, without doing this work, that we purchase a frequency that is being used elsewhere, because no one seems to record the used frequencies.. which also means someone could eventually be using the ones we have. (all the more reason to acquire more frequencies).

For jury rigging fans, notice in the very front is a webcam. It is pointed at the frequency of the radio. The server software is unable to interface with the radio to the point of telling us what frequency it is currently on, so every time the server receives an incoming connection, it snaps a pic with the webcam, and we can later compare if we need to check logs, the picture with the time stamp to see what frequency was used. If no incoming call, the radio scans channels until it receives one.

Also this room gets VERY warm. All this equipment has been functioning at over 50 degrees Celsius.

Another fun note, for a while now people have been receiving jolts when touching different parts of the shed. My cohort figured out why when he received a nice jolt, the antennas were not grounded properly (had a ground loop). SO, that copper tube bent behind the ups is his invention. He grounded it well through a bolt connected at the base, then grounded outside. He flattened the top and then attached all devices to it for grounding. The shocks went away. Remarkably he didn't know much about grounding but was inspired by his shock to investigate it, and found there are plenty of people here who know that kind of stuff and were able to help him. And finally, for the super geeks who noticed that black box inline with the coaxial cable (2 inches big) that is a lightning arrestor. We have lightning and thunder storms here sometimes weekly as we are in a valley and the atmosphere lends itself to heavy electrical activity.


The power and phone patch.


People touring the container before the dedication. This effort lasted many years, and many people were involved in bringing it about. Mentioned by name was the developer of the software who is a christian and has donated the server and all the clients. An impressive homegrown software called UUplus.



Another shot of the container and people gathering.


The crowd listening on.

Below, the man on the left is the one who came up with the vision and has been driving this project. He is from Sweden and has been here ten years. The couple are translators and they are sharing how the HFemail has affected them.

A brief synopsis of what they said, "We have a daughter staying here while we're in the village, and it has been such a blessing to be able to hear from her daily and write back the same day. Yes we have radio scheduled meetings but there are personal things you can't say over the radio with everyone listening. For a long time I had to read between the lines with my daughter to find out what was on her heart. Now with hf email, I can hear from her and reply in the same day. Also at another time, we had a family crisis and the hf email system really let us feel connected and we were able to resolve it, as far away as we were." The husband shared, "when you're translating, you don't always want your work all in one place. Hf email allowed us to transfer files back to here, so we could keep backups in case something were to happen. Also we've been able to communicate from here back to the village to our translator helpers as they continue the work from there while we're here doing work on this end."




A lot of what we do is about communication. Translation is really about communication, and systems such as this help that goal. Currently maintaining this system is our responsibility as CTS network engineers. So we have been trained on it (me and the other new guy) and it is quite a thing to inherit this child. It is also quite a nice perk to this work, that we can dedicate our results to the Lord.

I may have gone overboard with all the pictures, but this was a very special day for me, and I wanted to share it with you. For the technically minded, I hope it was a small glimpse into what is going on here, for others I hope you can sense the significance I feel. I may not be a translator myself, but being able to construct and maintain systems like this, and hear testimonies from translators about how it has improved their ministry, is very, very fulfilling. I offer up all the joy inside my heart from this as praise to God who brought it to happening. Who inspired the people who donated, who worked in giving the vision, and who brought the skills together to get it done.

Praise God, His kingdom endures forever!

Appointed Dentist

Yesterday I had the nicest dental appointment of my life. I arrive on time, they sat me immediately, and the Dentist said "you have good teeth." Only in a missionary country would you hear that I .. have good teeth.

My teeth are sub par for Los Gatos, CA standards. (-;
He had a few spare minutes so he gave me a cleaning too.
And while doing so, he told me his story. (One of his sons is my son's friend... great kid)

He had his own practice back in North Carolina, was perfectly happy with his job and his family and then God put a call to become a missionary on his heart. It was hard for him to find full time dental work because so many dentists did part time missions work that many places didn't need him. He had almost given up.

I'm watching the joy come from this man's face as he's been here only a few months like us, and he's enjoying this job, even though he no longer has his 10 assistants who prep patience for him, no longer has the latest greatest tools, he is obviously very happy here.

The dentist here was not an orthodontist but he took weekend courses during his furloughs, and did much more than his training provided but was wise enough not to get in over his head. He retired at 72 this last year and after 2 years of looking for a replacement said "okay God, I can't find anyone, I need you to."

About the same time both these guys gave up, the new dentist, said "God, I know no place is going to use my extra 3 years of orthodontics so I give that up to you, I don't know why I learned it, but I'll do whatever you want." And soon he got the email for this other dentist.

They began to talk on the phone since the retired dentist was now 2 months in the States, and at the end of the conversation he said "by the way, you don't happen to know any orthodontics do you?"

That was a huge confirmation for God and soon he was out here doing full time dentistry.

I really enjoyed the conversation (well, I really could only listen). Here was a man whom I had met, our sons had played together, and I only barely knew, but who had a very similar call on his heart to come out here.

I really enjoy hearing what God does in the lives of people. So many of the stories are similar and yet unique. Each one is fun to hear, and fun to share.

I'm still stunned that we have a dentist out here.

Lae of the Land

If there are things you are curious about, email me at owens@gimpel.tv and I will hopefully be able to respond to them in the blog.

One of the common requests has been for me to provide sort of an idea of the area and the environment.

First I'll write a description. Then I'll link to some photos, and finally I'll link to a video.

We are staying on a fenced in center which consists of homes, as well as all the necessary buildings required to provide the type of services and support we do. That includes schools, administrative offices, translator cubicles, guest houses, auto-shop, joinery, post office, grocery store, clinic, etc. It is very close to a functional small town.

But why have an auto-shop? The vehicles here take a lot of pounding, and the safety requirements of this country are strict, so we need to maintain the private as well as professional vehicles being used. Most every service available to those that live here on center are also available to people who live in elsewhere. We serve the community by having the clinic, and the autoshop and all of those things.

The closest village, is under a mile away. It is Ukarumpa village and the reason we call this place Ukarumpa is because we live so near. A village however doesn't have much more than gardens and huts.

The closest major town is Kainantu (aka K92) and it has a thrift store, a grocery store or two, a police station, and a few other items. The things that this town has, we don't need to replicate here on center. It is a ten minute drive with the current road conditions, but all travelling off center poses a certain amount of risk. Violent crime against whiteskins is practically unheard of, but since we are "rich" we become targets for a small percentage of folks who are less than honest.

The interesting thing is that if a crowd of nationals sees a "raskol" stealing from a whiteskin, they'll chase him out of town. So really when you are surrounded by people you are more safe than when you are travelling on roads alone. We therefore employ precautions when travelling.

These small towns offer little in the way of acquiring important items, but are interesting diversions. The two BIGGEST cities are LAE and Port Moresby. LAE is the closest at 3 hours away. A very tiring 3 hour drive dodging potholes and such.

LAE is a shipping port and has many more stores there and you can get many things you need. But because many people here prefer not to travel, or can not travel there we import items from LAE into our stores here.

The stores provide services for the people who live here, the people of the surrounding communities, provide jobs for nationals, and are pretty much self-financed because they do not keep a lot of useless inventory.

That is a very simple overview of how and why. You may say "I had no idea they had a hardware store." Yes we do. I can buy bailing wire, or a new doorknob/lock. But I can't buy anything specialized... the odds are what you want, you won't find, but what you need, you can find.

There is also an extensive network of lending/sharing amongst ourselves. I need Hair Gel, you have Hair Gel? GREAT! Part of the community here is a WANTED newsgroup where people post things they need. You often get many responses when you post a need there.

I hope that answers some questions.

What do the houses look like? I will post future pictures on this. At this time I'm not comfortable blogging about the inside of a house I do not own.

What does the center look like? Video.

Here is a MAP to go with that video. The map is the center on which we live, and the red line is the path I took in the video.

Techniculture

Disclaimer:
Don't read this assuming that the differences are bad. I rather enjoy the differences in our cultures thus far.
Also, please recognize that my current understanding of the PNG highlands culture is very limited and sometimes it takes many many years to fully understand these things.
-------------------

Since I know some folks are more technically minded than others I would like to take a moment to mention two cultural differences that have an impact on my job.

The first is the tendency of the Papua New Guinean to not want to offend by saying a straight "no" or by declaring that they do not have something. This affects my job when it comes to ordering equipment. When you send an email, or make a call inquiring as to whether or not a supplier can provide a part for a system or some such supplies a common occurrance is to be told that they will look into it and get back to you. After several days of getting what feels like "the run around", you realize that in fact the supplier doesn't have the part and simply doesn't want to offend you by telling you he can't help you.

This difference exaggerates the typical American need for instant gratification. When you call a vendor, you expect them to look up the part number and tell you within seconds how many they have and how soon they can get it to you. Here, it's more of a finesse between understanding that the culture is more relaxed and knowing the difference between the "yes we have it" wait and the "no we don't have it" longer wait. (-;

It is part of the adjustment here to understand that it takes some time to get parts. Foresight helps you avoid problems but when you're dealing with a small budget, foresight can also be costly as you do not want to overstock items that you may never use.

The second is the tendency to not directly ask for help. In the PNG highlands culture, if you become stumped on an issue, you shelf the issue and work on things you can, never asking for help. You wait until someone offers help to you. We have as many nationals working for our department as we do whiteskins. They are very smart, and know more about electronics than I'll ever know. They work according to how they were taught and don't always know how to think outside the box of their instructions. They can, and often do, but when they do get stumped, they do not have a natural inclination to come to us for help. I am not sure if shame is a factor in this or not. Some of the nationals who are more accustomed to the Americans will ask for help. The solution to this is that each day, I remind myself to take a break from the issues I'm dealing with, and stroll through the rest of the building offering help to anyone who wants it. It is at this time each day that I come across one or two small things that have been sitting and waiting.

Really, this is the fun part of my day. It is a distraction from the normal troubleshooting, and I turn it into a relationship building and teaching session. These guys are reading PC magazines from 5 years ago because their desire and capacity to learn this stuff is huge.

I thought some of you might be interested in how the culture affects my job. If I can think of examples more later, I will.

Community

Missionaries are bold people. Not everyone is bold the same way. With boldness come opinions. I've no shortage of those myself. Wisdom, in my experience, is knowing when and how to restrain yourself from sharing your opinions.

For years, I spouted my opinions to everyone and anyone. I quickly got a reputation amongst my family as people would often say to me "ah... that's jsut Chad." I was a teenager after all, I knew everything.

I had a list of things that were required for a Christ centered Utopia. How the world SHOULD be run.. according to Chad. That list ran miles long and it began its construction in my early teens and was promptly burned the day after I got married (-;

Marriage and having children quickly make you realize how much you have to learn in life. You shift from thinking your parents knew nothing as a teenager to realizing jsut how much they did now. I started shutting up and started observing and God taught me a lot of things. I abandoned my list for Utopia and began learning God's list for my life.

Which is why, I am stunned to be living in the place I am now. There are many things here from that list written so many years ago and forgotten about.

Things like:
-a lack of focus on material wealth
-a lack of focus on fashion as a status symbol(this one was added because I personally have no sense of fashion)

but the one that has really reached me strongly is
-a caring community


Where we lived, you could find caring communities if you looked. It was often a rare find, and once you found one you stayed in it. We found one back home, and we stayed for as long as we dared until God called us here.

After living in such a wonderful place as we did, with so many wonderful and caring friends, I was prepared to make living in a land of total strangers a sacrifice of worship.

But God loves to bless us, and He loves irony. The people here bond together over a common purpose. The fun I've been mentioning is a side effect of this bond.

What prompted this entry is that last night we attended a performance that was a rehash of a tradition they do with the graduating high school class here.

As a form of recognition and a way to encourage and honor the 11th and 12th graders, they do a "carol sing" like production by renovating a building, and serving a banquet. They perform a play that incorporates a lot of inside jokes for the youth, and then the next day, they do the same thing for us and say "this is what we've done for the youth."

The play consisted of gentle reminders of Biblical character building concepts, moral points, and good old fashioned clean fun.

There were parts that reminded me of home. A lot of parts that reminded me of home. But what stayed present in my mind the longest is how wonderful God is.

Here are people who have come here to work on Bible translation and literacy, and they have these other talents, some acting, some painting, construction, writing, directing, sound, whatever it is, and they put them to such a use as to almost create what amounts to a celebration and rite of passage for these young men and women who are very soon going to go out into the world to find what God has for them.

I'm always amazed at the talents of people, and to see people use every talent they have for God is praise inspiring.

And then, after all of that, God says to me "remember how you felt a truly Christ centered society would be?.... remember your opinions about a loving community? I've given you one...again."

I love God's style... I jsut love it.


-Chad
p.s. I put a brief png tour movie together on the website that you can download.
http://www.gimpel.tv/newsletter
(look on the left sidebar for the PNG tour video)

Blessings!!!!

Coaxial Relationships

For a while now I've been praying for the dam to burst regarding me and relationships with Papua New Guineans. I figured it had to be learning Tok Pisin and so I've tried to hurry that process up.

In my department, CTS, there are at least 10 Papua New Guinea employees. They know how to make antennas, work on radios, do part ordering, electronic repair, and all kinds of things.

The other day I wandered into the tea room and sat down amongst about 5 of them. One of them, named "H" asked me if I played American football. I told him in school I did, and we all got to talking sports. Out of that conversation I was able to learn their names (because until then I hadn't learned everyone's name) and they told me that the big sport here is Rugby, because it's popular in Australia. AND that in a few days, the BIG game was on. And that at tea time that's all they talk about, is rugby.

SO, I thought HEY!! I gotta figure out how to see this game.

Well I asked around, not many people have tv working here, because it is PAL tv and not NTSC and most of the tv's here won't work. BUT, I noticed the top of my house I'm renting has a t.v. antenna.

It isn't as simple as plugging in. I have to find a way to create a cable with the right connectors to connect to my t.v. which I bought used off a leaving missionary a while ago. So I decided to ask the antenna guy here about NTSC vs PAL television.

Apparently we have the equipment to make a cable, if I can supply a multi-system TV. I can not, but I might be able to find someone else.
When he asked me why I was making this cable (pal male to pal male) I responded "to see the rugby game"

At that, suddenly I had a ton of guys helping me. They all seemed to drop what they were doing to help me. They gathered around, and were chit chatting. One lady named "Mavis" came up to me and told me she knew my daughter and how nice my daughter was. It was like there was a crowd around me and I suddenly felt very bad for holding up actual production work with my simple questions.

Within 20 minutes we had a new cable and everyone was smiling and I had made some very quick new friends and am somehow now .. "in the club".

The rugby game is named "state of origin" and is between the "maroons" and the "blues". Some of the guys are fans of opposing teams, and they have flags on their workbenches, etc.

So now, that I have seen this reaction, I feel as if somehow building this cable together was a rite of passage and now they are excited to talk rugby with me.

All this time I thought Tok Pisin would be the thing to tell them I was interested in their culture, when really, apparently, it was an interest in rugby.

It's true what they have told us...
God will work His way, be willing to go in with a learning heart. If I had said "I can make this cable myself, without help" then I would have made a cable and not some new friends.

I'm not a rugby fan, and I'm not a tea drinker, but I'm willing to become both if it means making some new relationships!

Sporting Fun

Today was sports day. My son really got involved and was racing his heart out during the "family" time. The school here is a big draw for the community and the high school is really a focus right now.

It's nearing graduation, and they have:
-their talent show
-the marching band's annual show
-sport's day
-banquet (like a prom w/o dancing)
-graduation

These kids have been raised, some since birth, together. Leaving high school means leaving the country to go back to their homes for University/College. These kids are preparing to say goodbye to their closest friends, knowing that they will scatter all over the world.

Parents take a break to settle their kids into their new environment, and jobs shift around to cover their absence. June-January this place becomes a little less active, but before it does, April/May/June is VERY active.

Everyone in the community comes together to celebrate and have fun in track and field events. At the end of the high school competition they let everyone compete in rallies. Someone got the funny idea late to create a "team cardiac" and have me and 3 other out-of-shape guys run 4x100meter rally.

One of the other guys was the current network administrator. So I asked if he could run the leg before me, so while he was handing the baton to me, he was also symbolically handing off the baton to me.

How many people get THAT opportunity, to actually have the person you're replacing hand an ACTUAL baton to you in an ACTUAL race?

People got a huge kick out of it... they felt we were engaging in the community atmosphere and making it fun, which was our goal.

My son, raced in 2 races, completely unplanned. He loved it!

WHAT a fun Saturday. We've been getting more plugged into the community here as more people know us and we know more people.

The part that is amazing, and can really choke you up, is that people go hoarse cheering here because they cheer as loud and as long for the last person to cross the finish line as they do the first.

The community is VERY supportive and while somewhat embarrassed my participation was another step in showing people that we care about the community.

I have to say I'm mighty proud of my son today, completely unprompted he ran 2 races. I looked down and said "I didn't know he was racing in that?" He ran every chance he could.

What a great day spent with the community here, getting closer to people, showing them we care and that we want to belong. People are very supportive here, but there does tend to be among a few, some initial caution in making new relationships. They often ask "what do you do here, how long are you staying?" It is a hard time of year with friends leaving for furlough because of school break, and as a new couple, you understand that people may not want to become bosom buddies if you're only staying a few months.

On the other hand, the warm reception I received when here for only 3 weeks in 2004 contributed a lot to our return.

Pictures

here is a link to the new pictures I've posted today.
It SHOULD start a slideshow for you.

I like to change the photo size from 320x320 to 800x800 to get max size.
and click "show more info" to get the picture titles which help explain what they are.

Seeking Wisdom

(sorry 2 posts today)

For a long time I've tried to seek out the wisdom of people who know the environment of which I am a part. We find ourselves here in new and unusual situations that are complete foreign to us. And so, we seek out the wisdom of folks who have lived here longer. And we often seek out the wisdom of multiple people.

I take the leading of God as priority in all these situations, but often find that the wisdom of others will be in sync or at least share some common thread with what God has put on my heart.

So far, heeding those words have saved us from embarrassing situations and we continue to be able to forge relationships with Papua New Guineans as well as those from all other cultures who live on center.

It is important for us as support staff, to learn the way of life here, so that we can not only help others, but avoid making bad impressions along the way so that people are not receptive to our support. The best way I can put it is... until we learn the ropes, we're trying to remain non-abrasive.

So we cling to scripture such as :

Deut 1: 9 At that time I said to you, "You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone. 10 The LORD your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as many as the stars in the sky. 11 May the LORD, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised! 12 But how can I bear your problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself? 13 Choose some wise, understanding and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them over you."

14 You answered me, "What you propose to do is good."

15 So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you—as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens and as tribal officials.

when trying to decide what action is best to take.
God has not led us astray here.

If you are praying:
-pray for continued safety and peace
-pray for a home... we would like to find a place to live where we do not have to move a lot. We need wisdom in choosing this.
-pray for wisdom and guidance.

thank you so much!

Understanding Blessings

It is very easy to concentrate on the positive here. You simply have to look around. I've been entering the phase of cultural adaptation that is typically described as "irritability". For no known reason I feel grumpy and discouraged randomly throughout the day. But I know this, and so I try to control that.

I take long breaths and look at the scenery.
I thank God for what I see.

There are so many blessings that this part of the journey is thus far, easily adjusted to.

This weekend we had a great time! The weekends here are so... restful and filling. The one thing I think we're starting to feel a bit of the pull on is preparing all meals. You have to plan your day so that you have the hour or two or three it takes to prepare you meal. Speaking of which, one of the easiest weekly meals we had as a family is now our hardest, as we continue to keep Sunday our pizza night! We made a GREAT bbq-chicken pizza last night. My wife did the dough, I did the sauce, we put chicken, olives, grilled onions, pineapple on top. OOH boy.. good stuff! But it took a few hours from start to finish. You don't buy grated cheese or sliced olives or any of those things that could shave even a few minutes off the process.

But still cooking is therapeutic, and when we do it together, it is more fun! Although Kendal does do most all the kitchen burden right now, I have to be honest.

Friday night, under the category of inventing your own fun, the high schoolers gave their annual talent night. My son fell asleep, buy my daughter was enthralled. They had gymnastics, lip syncing, piano, guitar, singing, drama, all kinds of performances and we laughed a lot.

Saturday I attended a horse management course in the morning. Yes they have about 24 horses here, privately owned, and they need people to tend for them while their owners are away. I thought it would be an awesome opportunity for my kids, but before they can approach the horses, I need to complete and pass a several week management course. I have some experience with horses, so I'm not worried about that. I'm simply shocked and amazed they keep horses here. Well "they" don't.

The organization I work for allows their employees to entertain their hobbies off center and will not be involved or subsidize it. So there are horses near here, but not OF or FROM here if that makes sense. I need to make that point because you may wonder what raising horses has to do with Bible Translation. It doesn't, it's jsut one of the blessings that comes with living where I do.

Most of the more "fun" things to do here, doesn't have so much to do with Bible Translation directly as it does with being a way that members here recreate. Please don't think that my organization has anything to do with it. They don't. They simply give us the freedom to let our weekends be our weekends. (although during emergencies many of us work on weekends).

Later that day the high school had a track and field tournament which we attended for a while.

Then in the evening, my wife had the opportunity to spend some time forging relationships with some women on center at a "gals night out."

Sunday was Mother's Day and we had brunch, I surprised Kendal with a book (Anne of Green Gables) that I had bought used off of a leaving member, and then went off center to a river and the kids and I played in the water for a bit while Kendal looked on lovingly. (-;

Overall, a very restful and fun weekend. I'm hearing that come June this place is a ghost town for 6 months because everyone with school aged children leave for break. We'll enjoy the fun weekends while they last.

But today is Monday. And work begins. Today as I walked to work, I prayed "God, today your work begins new. Please let me heed your wisdom, and serve you well. Thank you for the chance to work for you."

As I restore data from tapes, implement new services, and research new ideas, I can't believe that not only is God letting my work have a purpose, but He's made me a part of a bigger team, and... He has thrown in the side benefit of having this wonderful place to live in. God truly blesses us abundantly.

And then... as if I didn't have enough blessing from God through all of this, I get this email this morning. God really piles it on sometimes doesn't He?

Dear Chad,
Just to let you know that my daughter in [place], Fiji and I, in [place], New Ireland are now connecting. I rang you the other day about telephone to broadband connection. Thank you for your reassurance and help at that time.
In Him,
[name]
[position] Manager

One small phone conversation I had, linked a woman in New Ireland to her daughter in Fiji. THAT is why I am here. I can only imagine what other things God has planned. I remember after this conversation that I barely understood a word the woman was saying and I was trying to be helpful and when we hung up I thought "God how can I have possibly helped that woman, I couldn't very well understand her."