Arriving at POC

Our first day of POC was a relaxing day as not everyone enrolled has arrived yet. We took the opportunity to snap a few pictures.

Our son was eaten by mosquitos in our own home, the evening before we left to come here, so while he looks like POC isn't agreeing with him, it is. He was eaten alive back at home.

Calvin is loving the ping pong table we have here. Sydney, well, we haven't seen her much as she's running around exploring and making friends. She acts as if she was born here. We see her at meals and when she wants to show a new friend her room. (Which we also have pictures of)

The internet speed here is rather slow, so I thought I might put the time into uploading the pixas now and hope that holds you out over the 6 weeks we'll be here, and then I'll post more pixas later.

I tried to include the scenery as well as the kids since the grandfolks say we need more pictures of the kids. Sad to say, most of these have Calvin's face swollen up.

The campground is on top of a mountain ridge, so we overlook the ocean on two sides and directly overlook a dense jungle. We are down only about 1000 feet above sea level here (I'm guessing) so the air is warmer but easier to breath. This place feels a lot more like being in a jungle than our home in Ukarumpa does.

We're very thankful for being in Ukarumpa before coming here. Things here are more primitive. We saw 4 cane toads last night on the walk to the bathroom (big huge toads). I think our thoughts today, had this been our first exposure to the country would be: "Is this our life now? What have we done!?" But we know there is a more cozy place when we're done here.

On the flip side, this place is gorgeous. The ride up, was a wonderful 4.5 hour drive, beautiful. People warned us about the road coming up the hill, but it was very reminiscent of the roads from my childhood. My wife was extremely confident that I'd be able to drive it, and while I was told 4 wheel drive was necessary, it wasn't.

What seems like a scary crazy road for most folks, seemed actually nicer than some stuff I'd driven as a teenager.

As you can tell by the pictures, it is very scenic here. We're getting a really nice ocean breeze up here, so things aren't as hot as they could be, it is in fact, quite comfortable. A little warm, a little sunny, but comfortable enough to sleep through the night.

The beds, oye, this will be our biggest struggle. Two inches of weak foam on top of plywood. Every side of me hurt this morning, but oddly I feel rested at the same time.

Well that's enough information for now. We're here, we're safe, it isn't as bad as we had anticipated as far as the living conditions, and we can definitely get along well here.

There are families from many nations here, and people with many skills. I was elected last night to help people get their email up and running, and laptops were coming out of the woodwork. I'll do the same tonight, jsut to make sure everyone can write back to their loved ones.

We feel sympathy for the folks who flew in last night. We can see the tired look on their faces and know the feeling, but thankfully for us it was a long time ago.

If you've ever had the feeling of.... coming into your own... of finding something that you're good at, that's what yesterday felt like. Before starting the journey our translator friend Mr. Enoch prayed in Tok Pisin for our safety, as I began to drive I felt all the thoughts going through my head:

"avoid pigs, avoid potholes, don't hit anything, drive slow enough to see, remember to slow at bridges, they have the right of way, beware of blind corners... "

and so on... but as I settled into it, I realized that God had given both my wife and myself certain experiences to prepare us for life, and that each of us had experiences that prepared us for being here. For me, it was where I grew up, how I learned to drive. For Kendal it seems to be her natural ability to get situated quickly in a new place. She has this place figured out and is telling me where things go and what I need to do by what time.

So far.... SO FAR..... this has been a zero stress adventure. Most people were saying the getting here is the hardest part. We packed in plenty of time, that things were not stressful. We gave ourselves plenty of time to drive, to settle in. So things have been completely unstressful for us thus far.

Continue to pray for health and safety. If you can throw in a "reduce the swelling" prayer for Calvin I'm sure he'll appreciate it. He didn't really enjoy the ride over, BUT, he didn't sick up. That's a first.

Thanks God for getting us here, thanks for preparing us, thanks for providing Enoch our tour guide, and thanks for the people here preparing to educate us.

SCRATCH the pictures, takes too long to upload, waited two days for the few minutes I have now

Packing for POC

What is P.O.C.? Pacific Orientation Course. It used to be called "Jungle Camp". Some people love it, some hate it, but if you're here for longer than a year, or anywhere in the Pacific area... you go through it.

What happens there?
well I'm not sure until I'm there, but hiking, swimming, learning, camping, village living, bug fighting, malaria dodging, ant killing. The typical PNG stuff.

We're packing to go, and today I thought would be a nice quiet work day.. but one of the translators wanted to bring in his translation assistants to learn some computers, specifically our HF email solution.



More pictures

I think the most interesting part about this pic is that it sort of shows you my size in relation to most people here.

The grey haired gentleman is Peter. He is Dutch (a dutch colony in Indonesia) and has been here working on a translation for many years. He is going semi-retired. For some time he has been training the other two men (left=Tobias, right = Fidelis) to do the translation work and then send their progress to him for review.

A lot of the translation projects focus around training one or two individuals who understand the language, so that they can be your liason to the culture and language. Sometimes they work so well that the translator in the final years of his project, can move out of the village and take on more of the finalizing tasks of the translation. This is a relationship that works to the benefit of both parties as it educates and provides a job for the nationals as well as helping speed the progress of the translation work.

There is a down side to it, in that the translator often plays host to men from a different culture and sometimes doing this takes more work than not, training takes time and money, but once they work together for some time, they get a good system down and the traveling can be reduced. The aim is for translator assistants to be dedicated to the task and committed for many years to working on it.

Names are interesting here, a PNG national can have 3 or more names and the one they give you is usually their "work" or their "for the whiteskins" name. They rarely give out their actual birth name. So it isn't surprising when a man tells me his name is "Fidelis". Because i know the odds are, he wasn't born with that name, he jsut chose it, and sometimes it can tell you a bit about the person as to what name they chose.

The discovery of this was an interesting process. Our Haus Meri was talking to me (mind you it's in Tok Pisin so I'm only 80% sure I'm understanding her):

-"You know Noah"
me - "I do?"
-"Noah, he says you are his boss."
me - "I'm nobody's boss."
-"He says you are a good guy, he works with you in CTS"
me "I know everyone at work, no one named noah."
-"are you sure? He says he knows you, he is my cousin."
me "can you describe him?"
-...describes something that would match any human being in existence.... generic
me "oh you mean Bosaka."

So later that day, I found Bosaka whom I known for sometime and said "Hi Noah" He stopped "where did you hear that name?" He asked as he smiled. Then he told me about his names... he can tell who knows him and how they know him by what name they call him.

Which suddenly explained why when I shouted his name across the road the other day when he was with friends, that he didn't smile his normal smile and wave back.


We leave for POC on monday and I do not know how often I will be able to blog or email.

Please pray for health and safety. For endurance.
There are a lot of things out there that want to make us sick, please pray against it.

Sidewalks and Grass

i've been looking at pictures friends have sent me from lately and something was striking me as being... foreign. I couldn't put my finger on it until today.

The nice edges between sidewalk and lawn... it's so clean and crisp and foreign to what we're used to here.

It's funny, everyone has little things that strike them as they adjust to the differences. I guess for me, one of them is the visual difference between the urban cleanliness of nice lawns as compared to the tropical lawns we have here.

you never know

Different folks remember different parts of your life. You never know what someone will see as significant. People remember stories about how you've affected them that you may or may not recall.

This to me is part of God's miracle of relationships.

He knows what parts of you will impact people for His kingdom.

Part of our being here in PNG is the acknowledgment that God has put us here, not because of what we do, not because of who He's made our character into, but because we said "yes".

Things said in passing sometimes have a deep affect on people, other things that you intend to have an impact, don't.

This is the humbling reminder that God can use any part of you, and going it on your own is rarely productive.


Which is why a comment like below, is both encouraging and humbling, because it reminds me that God will pick and choose what about our being here, is helpful.

context:
I got an email warning about a newer email scam. It was a rather obvious scam to me and I had already received a few, I was about to ignore the warning when I realized, maybe there were some people around who it was not as obvious to. So, without spending much time or thought on it, I posted it to a public forum here on center. Then I went about my day with my 'important' work which is the rest of my job.
It turns out, that day, the most significant thing I did, at least for this person, was taking the time to post the information.

Thanks Chad,
Think we might have just gotten one of [email scam] and because I read your note I was suspicious :).
Your ministry in this way has saved us lots of time getting uncorrupted.
Appreciate your partnership.
[name]

Speaking

Our new neighbors moved in last night.
They have 3 children, none of whom speak much English.
They are Finnish.

The one son told his parents he would never speak English and wouldn't make any friends and would only email his friends back home.

So when his parents saw him playing with our kids and speaking English, they were pretty happy.

Our daughter says to my wife

"Mom it's hard, I was playing with our neighbors and [names of national kids] and I had to speak pisin to some and finnish to the neighbors"

It was a cute moment because our daughter doesn't really know either, what she does it speak English with a few other language words she's learned, with the accent that the others speak it.

But it's amazing how she can communicate. She can say the same thing I say, but she puts the accent on it of the people she's speaking with and they understand her better.

Really, learning a language with your ears has to be the best way.... adults who want to learn foreign languages should take a note from their kids books. Don't attend classes, jsut get some people together and play.

Clocks

here's something you don't think about.
no digital clocks
at least no digital clocks from the U.S.

we brought 3
a radio alarm clock, a wall clock, and an atomic clock.

figured out why yet?

the power goes out frequently here, so without a battery backup you're constantly resetting clocks.

But that isn't the end of it.

Because the clocks we brought weren't international for power they run slow. They aren't used to getting 50hz of power. We step down the volts to 110 from 220, but we can't change the cycles.

Blenders run slow, clocks run slow. As you look around homes in this country, you don't see digital clocks.

What does that mean for us?
We suddenly realized our kids hadn't perfected their ability to tell time with an analog clock.

Our son has it down, but our daughter hasn't yet decided it's something worth mastering and so she relies on him to tell her the time.

He's 2 years younger. She also relies on him to do her multiplication for her. (-;


Geek Moment:
------------
Out of curiosity I brought my atomic clock. I did not know until today that they weren't supposed to work globally

Q: Will Atomic clocks work everywhere?
A: Atomic clocks will work anywhere they receive the WWVB signal from the NIST. This signal is broadcast to reach across the continental US and into parts of Canada and Mexico.

*There are some environments and weather conditions that may influence the reception of the AM radio signal. Just as with an AM radio, the clock can be positioned for optimal reception. For instance, it is best to position the clock away from metal studs and toward the directions of the tower in Colorado. Since these timepieces contain highly accurate quartz movements, they function with very high levels of accuracy between signal receptions.

But, I wanted to see anyway, so I plugged in my laser projecting atomic clock (19.99 at walgreens) and the only thing that would power up is the projector, and I could actually feel the heat on my hand, so I knew there was a power problem. Very clearly on the back of the clock is a map of the U.S.

MAP conundrum:
I have room for 2 maps, and I have 3. PNG, US, and World.
I guess the Old U.S. map is gonna have to take the bench.

---------------end geek moment----------------

language barrier

today in the rain, our haus meri and her daughter knocked on the door.
my wife was having a bad allergy day and not feeling well so I answered the door but politely asked them not to come in.

"how can I help you?"
"I need ice and sugar."
thinking it an odd request I went to the kitchen, and began cracking ice cube trays into a ziplock bag. Thinking perhaps she was making ice cream. Then I grabbed a jar of sugar and returned to the door.

She gave me a very weird look as I said "how much sugar do you need? this is all the ice I have I hope it is enough." holding the elements up to her.


"no, mi laik ice and sugar, ice and sugar, mi makim donuts."

I pause... and then.... from the back of the house, it clicks with my drowsy, sneezy wife and I hear her holler/chuckle from the kitchen as we both get it at the same time....
"icing sugar"

OOOHHH!!

Yes we have plenty bags of that. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a bag of powdered sugar labelled "icing sugar" and returned to the door.

We had a nice little chuckle.

Cuz' Hey... Free Shoes!

I saw a fun sight today.

You know how some folks throw their old shoes up over the power line?
I saw a papua new guinean man, barefoot, look up, see the shoes, go into a nearby store, borrow a long board, come out, and lift the shoes off the wire, put them on his feet and return the board.

As he got them down he held them up like a trophy while other people smiled and some even whistled.


that.. is resourcefulness at its best.

Moving Day

the moving Story

A month or so ago, the opportunity came up to purchase a house. After much prayer and consideration, we decided to make a bid on the house.

Housing here is very different than in the United States. The average price of a 4 bedroom, two bathroom is $30,000. Most houses have a garden of some sort, and many have an outbuilding, which is used to house a national translator/guest, or be a storage facility, or any number of things.

When you look at a house here, you're looking for whether or not it's a place you can live. Does it have the bare necessities? Does it have anything you really like?, as well as how the plumbing works (a puzzle at every home, there is no standard), how the hot water works, (is it solar, is it gas, how old are the panels on the roof? Does a heating coil go through the fireplace?) You're also looking at electric, most of the lighting here is fluorescent because of the high light yield and low energy cost. If you think working in the office is bad, people here "ooh" and "aah" if you have an incandescent lamp in your house, and usually it's a luxury. Dryers are rare, as are dish washers. This house has neither of those, but the house we rented did, although we didn’t use them because we didn’t want to get spoiled. The pictures (see link below) seem to say “this is a normal U.S. home” and that’s what we were hoping for. However living here while not as difficult as many places, is more involved than in the U.S.

You look at the walls, are they mildewed? The walling here is not sheetrock, it's "fibro". A very brittle, hard, non-absorbent thin type of material that offers no soundproofing at all. If a room is hot and the outside is cold, or vice versa, condensation tends to collect on the fibro. Thus making enamel/oil based paints practical for cleaning these walls. So you get the picture of a shiny indoor room. Bright, reflective (oil based paint), and noisy.

So there is a challenge to make a warm and inviting home here. Housing is mostly seen as utilitarian. It gets the job done. But some of the homes have a nice touch to them. EVERY home has been added on to multiple times. This place was started with huts, and each generation builds up from there.

The home we purchased, ironically has lower ceilings in some of the rooms which will be a challenge for me, mister 6'5" tall. I already hit my head on the doorjambs around here as it is, and I have currently have what I fear is a permanent welt on the top of my head from not clearing the beam in the under-the-house area where I go regularly. (-;

Is the house on stilts? How high up is it? Is it at the top of the hill? Is it on the ground? How close to the river is it? (mosquitos) Is it on the fence line? (there is a fence around the center) Is it near the road (more dust if it is)? Is it near the construction (more noise if it is)?

Our house is near the fence, near the river, near the gate, near the road, near construction. What the means is... more dust, more mosquitoes, more traffic noise, more daily noise, and less of a view... THAN the houses on the top of the hill.

But we love it down here. We love that we daily have nationals near our home, to talk to, to visit with. We don't mind the traffic noise, and in fact, our new house is further off the road than the one we're currently renting.

We are moving about 4 houses down from where we've been staying the last few months. Everyone is different, and living down here, makes the place feel... more alive. I've spent hours at the top of the hill at it feels more secluded. It's nice to go there, up on the top has gorgeous views, but there is fewer interactivity with the nationals of the country who live down here more than not. While being at the top is more secluded from the rest of the country, being at the bottom is nicer because you can't see every house on center. Being on the fence means we don't have neighbors all around us, and so, I enjoy it.

Out of all the houses we've seen on center, there are a handful of "we could live here" type of houses. And the one we bought, is in the top 3.

But buying a house works differently here. Housing is limited and so there are rules. When a house goes on sale it has to sell for what it was bought for (until the recently changed rule). This is a guideline more than a rule now, meant to keep real-estate from being an investment. All it is, is a way to keep from moving multiple times a year. It is for family stability.

This stability is something we prayed for from God 2 years before coming here. WE specifically asked God to provide the money and the house. He did both. First the money. The money came rather surprisingly as a series of bonuses from my previous employer. Our bank account went from zero to an amount near exactly what we paid for the house.

Next came the house. While we were here, a few went up for sale, we looked at them and really liked two. We bid on both. The rules:
-if it is a 4 bedroom house, the couple must have a minimum of 2 kids.
-if the bid price equals the asking price, (no one can over bid), then seniority on center is used to decide the winning bid
-the amount of children in a family also plays a role... a family of four vs. a couple, for a 5 bedroom house, will win out even if seniority is less.

So we have our two bids out there.
Same price, one house is 6 bedrooms, HUGE... it used to be a hostel. The other is 4 bedrooms, and not as big. Different locations, but both nice. We had begun praying about the houses, for direction. We wanted the exact house God had prepared for us. But there were two. And here we are, not even a month on center, with zero seniority so if ANYONE bids with us we lose instantly.

After we prayed the next day we heard that a family of 7 wanted to buy the larger (6 bedroom) we had bid on but they did not have the money. They became the underdogs for this house, and we found ourselves not wanting to bid against them. They had seniority and their church had been scraping together for a year for them to buy a home.... they came up short, by $1000.00.

Which means, we would win the house.

This family of 7 whom we had not met, because they were in the States on furlough, was living in a 3 bedroom "apartment" aka "flat". They were crowded to say the least.

Not knowing them, but not really having a use for 6 bedrooms, we decided to withdraw our bid from this house. This REALLY nice house with a nice yard, and plenty of room, and a nice rock fireplace and..... why did it feel like such a sacrifice? We don't know... but truly we gained friends through it whom we're hoping to meet, and the nice benefit of not having ticked off the community that wanted to see them in the house.

They fended off several other bidders and won the house. Meanwhile... our bid for the other house was accepted, with zero competing bids. No one bid against us! So we got what essentially was our second choice, after being only a month here.

In a seniority based bidding system, that was nothing short of confirmation from God we had the right house!

MOVING IN:
Right now we're finishing packing our house.
When you move out of a house, renting or owner, the housing department here requires you leave behind certain things, and you pass a cleaning checklist. House wares stay, furniture stays. When you enter a home here, you should be able to buy food, and begin cooking, have a place to sleep, sit, etc. You never move into a completely empty house. What's the sense in shipping all that stuff everywhere? Add to that, frequent moving, and it makes things more simple.

The side effect of that however, is that sometimes people leave a little more than the bare necessities behind. So here is our moving plan:
Monday - we get the keys, we go in, we clean everything from top to bottom (with help)
Tuesday - we move in our stuff
Weds - we move in the rest of our stuff
Thurs/Friday - we clean the home we were renting top to bottom.

Because moving is part of the culture here, we stumbled upon two surprises:
1 - you get two days off of work to move.
2 - your neighbors call you and offer to make meals and carry boxes!

WOW!. Yes we're no stranger to people offering to help, our friends and family were always helpful. But making meals, because... you can't eat out. You can't order fast food. That was a surprise. So we have neighbors dropping off dinners for us two nights next week. What a blessing this community is!

Attached are some pictures of the house we purchased. The house is in disarray as we move in but I wanted to get the pics up soon since we will be slowing down on the blog in the next few weeks due to P.O.C. (I’ll blog about what this is later)

This is our first house we’ve owned. The benefits of owning here are that we no longer have to move when the owners return, we’ll not have to worry about if the kids scratch a wall, WHAT will the owners (our friends) think?

We’re both firm believers in leaving something better than you found it, so we’ll be doing some touch ups on the house we’ve rented too because, kids are kids, and dads are dads, and sometimes things get scratched (-;

We haven’t completely acclimated to the whole idea of cleaning up after someone, and packing up all your belongings on a regular basis, and knowing the person who owns the house you’re living in. It adds that small touch of extra… worry when you know that every nick in the house could possibly affect a personal relationship. On the flip side, we’ll eventually be renting this house out to people and will try to remember that and be very flexible.

We want to praise God for answering prayer.
We had a chief 5 prayers we went to God before coming here. THESE 5 things are things we either need to give up, God, or we need you to fix.
Of those 5, we learned to give up 2 of them, and God supplied 3 of them. Owning a house was one of the 5.

God’s continuing to provide for us in unlikely ways, continues to amaze us. IT is another confirmation that we’re in the right place.

In many ways, we still feel as if we’re in transition here…. There is so much we are waiting to do. Kendal will begin teaching when P.O.C. is over. (again I’ll blog on that). We’ve been able to minister but really have been ministered to more than anything. We’re hoping to settle after P.O.C. and really sink our teeth into what we came here to do.

It may not be much, but I’ll relish the chance to say to my kids when they’re in their 30’s:
“When I bought my first house, I paid $30,000 and I paid cash fer it!” Can you imagine how expensive houses will be when my kids can buy one?

Copyright Law

At Biola University, I took a semester long course on Copyright Law. I took it only because it was one of the options available to me, and because I was going into communications.

I've not really used that course in it's entirety for any reason.

Through a series of unrelated events, I was asked to explain copyrights to a gentleman from a different country. Nobody here has any idea I took this course years ago, and even if they had known, it wouldn't have had any bearing on why I was selected to have this conversation.

So here I was, sitting in a room with four countries being represented, discussing what is arguable the most popular area of law right now. Copyright and Privacy law.

And I marveled at God. What small piece of my background does He intend to leverage next?

Honestly there was no reason for me to be in that meeting other than someone randomly asked me because I work in computers and assumed I had to know something about it.

I am definitely no expert. But it was another one of those little times when God said,

"you're in the right place."

Bel Isi

My department (computer services) has a daily 30 minute devotional. Today was a special morning as we spent the time listening to the testimony of two co-workers who went on a crusade.

In our department there is as many Papua New Guinea nationals as there are whiteskins. Two such nationals are in the worship band in the Tok Pisin Lotu (the pidgin church service).

They were sent to a crusade at a not so nearby area last week and spent from dawn monday to sunset saturday on this crusade. With only a few hours sleep each day, the crusade was really a 'round-the-clock' event. Staying up past 4am is not unusual at a get together of this type.

The equivalent of "heart" in this country is "stomach". Or more accurately "bel". Here you feel things in your 'bel'. When things aren't right, they sit uneasily in your stomach, when you are at peace you are "bel isi" (easy stomach). The stomach is the place where you feel here, and I really enjoy the term because it makes sense and feels right.

We do the same back home, we say "my gut feeling is....". It points to the center of their wellbeing and their emotions... this "bel".

The testimony we heard was awesome, because they spoke of miracles. Healings. A man blind in one eye, was prayed over and able to see again. A man with a crooked back was made straight. The testimony was in tok pisin so I didn't make it all out, but these men who went came back proclaiming the strength of Christ's blood. That's why they went.

God is powerful, and He proved it at this crusade to many people in this country. The worship leader told a few stories of physical healing, some of emotional healing, but the continued thread was at his awe of Christ's strength and how it was impressed on the people.

Then the other man shared. Him I'm closer to as there are about 30 people in my department, (we cover more than computers, we do all types of electronic repairs) and I've spent the most time with this man.

A brief history on him, he married a woman from a clan that his clan at one time was at war with. In fact where we work and live is their old fighting ground. So he is a man with many pulls at his attention. They live in peace now, but he is a serious man and has much responsibility on his shoulders.

His testimony (from what I could put together, I'm still learning the language) was that during one sermon, it was pressed on his heart to forgive someone from a different clan that had weighed heavily on him. So he went to them, and they cried together, and soon, pastors joined and cried, and many people cried so many that if they were on a grandstand it would have broken and fallen over. And God did a great healing of peace and unity between the clans that day. He walked away feeling as if God has lightened his burden and done a great work. And mostly he proclaimed how God is strong.

Strong bilong em i helpim mi. (God's strength helps me)

This is a country and a people who are so very loving and giving towards their friends. Without a thought a man would give you the shirt off his back if you were a wantok (close friends, family is more accurate) and yet ironically they are no stranger to fighting and having real enemies. They have multiple names because you never share your one true name, for fear that it would be used against you in sorcery. They are a people who are aware of spirituality and spiritual influence. They are a people who are aware that they can be called to fight with knives, spears and arrows against their enemies.

And in the middle of it, many of them men are struggling out what it means to follow Christ in this culture. It has been somewhat peaceful here for some time (at least locally) and during election time (now) things can get stirred up because of all the conflict between tribes.

We're praying for peace, but mostly that God's strength be known to the people here. God's love is a powerful force in America, people experiencing His love experience Him. Here, that is also true, but God's strength and forgiveness are major themes here. Christ's blood can wash away sins, and we can lean on God's strength to help us.

My heart, is filled with God's praise for showing His strength to these people and seeing their lives changed is remarkable.

Thank you for your prayers!

Happy 4th

What did you all do on the 4th?
send us an email so we can celebrate with you in spirit? (yesterday was our 4th of July) owens at gimpel.tv

thought of home yesterday as one of the families here had a 4th of July bung (boong...get together).

A lot of Americans gathered at one home, picnic style. We grilled on the Australian grill (a flat grill, what we would call a skillet, not an American bbq grill because they are hard to come by) It was covered in hamburgers and hotdogs and steaks and chicken.

Kendal baked apple pies....and they were mighty tasty.

There must have been about 80 Americans there.
For fireworks later the older kids stuck steel wool in the fire until it got red hot, then spun it around on a chain. It looked a lot like the chinese fire wheels, spinning fire... it was fun to see.

The organizer coaxed many to sing American patriotic songs. You really have to be more deliberate here because the holidays sneak up on you.

Without the television and radio ads, and stores selling products, you almost forget a holiday is coming up. For us of course it wasn't a day off of work, we're jsut one nationality here of several.

There was a moment of homesickness as I realized that it was July and didn't feel like summer (it's winter here) during that moment though, I looked over and saw my wife singing American patriotic songs about the Revolutionary war, shoulder to shoulder with the vice principal of the primary school who is from England.

A Brit and an American singing the American national anthem, shoulder to shoulder, in Papua New Guinea.
The awe of that moment, blew away any homesickness I was feeling.
I don't think they realized the significance of it. They were representing opposite sides of a war, singing a song about the war of independence, in peaceful harmony. God brings people together, time heals wounds.

The opportunity to be near so many different cultures provides us with different moments of admiration for God's creation.
I looked out over the rolling green hills that were the view of this person's back yard, and smiled at the sunset. I smiled at Sydney and Calvin running around with sparklers. (Someone had saved them for such an occasion, probably for as long as a year) I smiled at eating apple pie. I laughed at eating hot dogs which didn't really taste like hotdogs, but no one was complaining. (it's near impossible to get a good American beef frankfurter here).

It feels a little odd celebrating the freedom of your home country when you're so far away from it. But we did, we spent time together in prayer thanking God for the freedom to share Christ. For the men and women who died to protect those freedoms, and for protection of those in harm's way now for the same reasons.

Then we prayed, that we would be good witnesses for Christ where we are now, and good representatives of our country as well. Many here don't have the roots of a home country because they've moved around so much. I was speaking with a new friend of mine, who was born dutch, in Peru, grew up in peru, but lived in villages, and now is serving in PNG. Where is his home? He spent a few years in Tennessee, and that's where he tells folks he's from because that's where his dad is from. Gives you a new perspective on national pride... it's a privilege to come from a place... especially if that place is America.

We prayed for America's leadership. There may be a lot of America bashing in America itself. We all have things we dislike about our own country, we have the freedom to criticize, and that is part of what makes our country great. It's a country that maintains it's freedoms, even if those freedoms are used to do it harm.

I have gained a perspective that I held only loosely before regarding politics and government. Being in a country where currently we are able to share Christ, spread the Gospel and are not held in contempt to do so, is a luxury. The government can change any moment on us here, it is election time in this country. And the new officials can decide to forget their history, to ignore the good that has come to this country with this organization's presence, and dispel us.

This is not a real threat, so don't be alarmed, but we could very easily lose our freedoms quickly should the wrong sequence of events occur. Which is why, my perspective on freedom has intensified. While we enjoy the freedom to share Christ, we shall use it.

God has put it on our hearts to be here, He has provided the freedom both from our home country to get here, and the host country to stay here, and do what we're doing.

We thank God for that opportunity and we pray for those living in less free countries who are putting their lives at risk for doing what God has called them to do.

Today's prayer request is that God's light would shine in all countries to all nations and that those He uses to shine it, would be protected.

Happy 4th of July!

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.