Before and After

It is important for us that you count yourself as part of "we". As we work on computers or run sound for services,teach children or host bible study or whatever it is we do, YOU are part of WE.

As I lift the volume on someone speaking, I'm supporting them communicating their message to the room.

As you pray and financially support us, as you write us, we are supported, you lift us up.

But as I press keys and turn knobs, I usually see an instant result. For many of the translators there is not an instant result. Their work is hard.

Today during our morning of prayer, where the community gets together for 3-4 hours of prayer, we heard a few stories.

I will highlight 2 shortly.

One translator couple early in their project, (which can be over 20 years) had a run in with bees. The wife got stung as a child and never had a reaction, but in the village 20 years ago, she stepped on a bee, and went into an allergic reaction. She watched as the poison spread up her leg and she swelled, went numb, and was told she couldn't stay.

Years after that occurrence they delivered the first translated book of the Gospel to their language group. The people were less than enthused, no one was interested. It was greatly discouraging to them (this is where support staff play an important part, in encouraging, and helping.. outside of their normal job). Years later, they returned with a finished translation of Luke. A church service began and the time for testimonies was called, all the nationals gave head nods to the husband as if to say "time to read from your new Bible!" Now normally this church didn't have youth in it, but this time the church was packed with young and old alike. So he stood up, and passed out the Luke in their language. As he read people began to laugh, women were shaking heads in agreement. There was such an overwhelming response because people were happy to be reading the world. There was laughter and joy and excitement.

In the same way the first bee sting she received didn't have an effect, neither did the first translation they did. However the second one, slowly built until it changed a community, infecting it with God's joy!

It's a ministry of endurance.

The second story is a 15 year before and after.

When this one couple got to their assignment (we'll call him Mark), the husband and his friend needed a guide to get to a village. NO one was interested in guiding them, not for pay, not for anything. No one was excited about the prospect of getting the Word, or a landing strip. It was utterly discouraging. SO.. the two men, left their wives to try and go into the jungle alone without a guide. Tom and Mark asked "at least, point us in the right direction?" And they went out into the bush. Two days of rain, getting totally lost, and dehydrated, they wandered around in the jungle. They finally found a stream and followed it to a river, which they had to hide from a crocodile, and arrived in bad condition, at the village they were aiming at. For two days these men were lost in the jungle.

Imagine the discouragement and sense of failure during this time. You've trained for years, raised partners and support, and stepped out.. and the people... aren't glad you came, to top it off, you nearly die out in the jungle, lost.

But God prevailed. 15 years later, the New Testament was delivered to a people who not only were excited for it, but could now read, had dictionaries, and it completely changed the entire village and surrounding areas. As discouraging as it was for Mark that first trip, was how encouraging it was for their final trip. The change in the heart of the people because of God's Word was overwhelming.

This is God's work, WE (you, me, and the translators and everyone involved) are honored to be involved in it.

Thanks for being we with us.

My kind of ants!

we have Beef Ants.

We don't really know what they are called, so we call them Beef Ants. Other folks call them sugar ants because they are so small and like sugar.

Except for our house. In our house, the ants are weird. They huddle around a speck of meat but will completely ignore the sugary spills.

No dropped morsel of meat goes uneaten in our house!

Drinking it in

I'm not the brightest banana in the bunch. Never have been as smart as my family members, friends, co-workers nor students. One thing I have never forgotten is that hard work, and a learning attitude go further than an education sometimes.

I have a college degree, and I don't claim to be stupid. I can reason and think clearly enough for any man. But I do not have the... super brain that many of the people around me have.

I'm very curious and I LOVE asking questions and learning new things.

Which is why, living here, is like a kid in a candy store. I ask questions from Bible scholars, I ask questions from car mechanics, aviation mechanics, pilots, children's home parents, directors, electronic technicians, telephone managers... everyone.

This place hires and attracts nerds, geeks, and otherwise very intelligent people.

So when I ask a question, hearing the answer is often like drinking from a fire hose.

I love it. I love the wealth of information available here. I love the talents God blessed people with ... all pooled together for a common cause.

I love passionate responses, I like to see where God has inspired people to act and serve. I jsut generally enjoy the people.

I guess I pretty much enjoy people everywhere. I enjoy the people back at home too, conversations we've had, watching people in ministry. Generally I've been blessed by being surrounded by quality people.

Thanks for being a quality person.

Making myself Laugh

today I found out that my department repairs eyeglasses.
So I went in to some of my national friends' office and said

"Husat i wokim aiglas?" (who works on eyeglasses?)
they asked what the problem, was, and without thinking in English I removed my glasses and said,

"I've got a screw loose."
well, I cracked myself up as soon as I heard myself say it, and took a moment to laugh.. and then realized, they had no idea of the idiom, nor why I was laughing.

"I've been accused of that for years."

I heard another ex-pat explaining the term to them as I left, absent-mindedly forgetting to interpret myself.

Sound advice

one of my ministries here is running sunday morning sound every other month.
each Saturday we spend 2 hours rehearsing, but it seems each Sunday there is a new hurdle to overcome.

Equipment fails on us randomly. Most of our sound equipment is in need of replacement but there is no budget for it. It gets heavily used by the English service and the Tok Pisin service, as well as all events, and town meetings.

A few people have the skill to repair, and some of it has been repaired many times.

This morning, a mysterious hum overpowered the speaker at the podium. I was turning knobs, pushing buttons trying to isolate the source of the sound.

One man whom I hadn't yet met, came to give me advice, which I listened to but it wasn't entirely accurate. The amount of adrenaline that hits when you realize there is a sound problem and you desire to resolve it before the sermon begins, is large.

I couldn't find it.

So I stopped,
"God, help me find this problem, please send me some help"

I opened my eyes, and there was a friend, "hey, you need some help?" He felt like he should do something. He recommended replacing a mic cable. Which of course was the right solution.

I had it narrowed down to either the mic or the cable but was unable to leave the sound desk while the lady up front was praying, to swap the cable.

My friend, Tim, was able to, had the sense to come and offer help, and then he did, and the hum went away and there was no longer a distraction to people hearing the message.

I was amazed at the immediate answer to prayer. I opened my eyes and there he was.

God is great.

Running sound for me is a lesson in humility. I enjoy a certain amount of technical expertise in computers and rarely is there a problem I can't solve.

Sound, is replete with problems, and rarely am I able to solve them on my own, and... it is a very public thing. If there is a hum, everyone is looking to me to resolve it.

I was reminded this morning to rely on God in EVERYTHING.

If you happen to be reading this and have access to old but functional sound equipment that you're able to donate, by all means, please email me.

Two weeks ago, we lost two mic stands. An over zealous sound helper tightened a stand too tight, and snapped the bolt, another one is too loose, and slowly drooped during the praise band's song.

you can find my email address at
www.gimpel/tv/newsletter

thank you
and praise God, HE does answer prayer.

Bits of Saturday

Bits

Redefining Fresh:

most of the food we get here at the store says "best if used by" a date that ocurred months ago. Typically, if it's only a few months old, it's called "FRESH"


Mildew:

today I spent an hour cleaning out my closet and removing the three pair of leather shoes I brought. They were covered with a thick layer of mildew. Even though it doesn't seem that humid here, it is still the tropics.


Calvin laugh, he's so literal:

I woke up this morning and walked into the kitchen and ask my wife how she felt as the previous evening she had a headache:

Kendal:"my head no longer hurts."
Chad: "how about the rest of you (jokingly)"
Kendal: "fine"
Calvin: "Well my head is fine, but my foot hurts a little."
Chad: "Sorry to hear it buddy, but I wasn't asking you."
Calvin: "uh huh you did."
Chad: "No I was talking to mommy."
Calvin: "yes, you were and then you said "how about the rest of us"

He got me there.



Sydney laugh:

Calvin went down the road to play, riding his bike. HE was to call and let us know when he was coming home so that one of us could meet him on the road. IT's the first time he's rode the bike since his stitches.

phone rings:
kendal: "I'm going to go down the road to meet CAlvin.. unless Sydney wants to go."
Syd: "go where?"
Kendal: "to meet Calvin"
Syd: "I already met him."

that got me, I laughed pretty hard after that.


Today was half filled with chores, small things, practicing worship for church tomorrow, putting together a bookshelf for Calvin, cleaning closet etc.

Then I took Syd down to the river for an hour, jsut to have some Daddy Daughter time. We made a makeshift sand castle, played in the water, etc.

Throughout the day I'm checking in at work to make sure things are good, and thus far they are. I am enjoying the hassle free weekend, last weekend was pretty busy.

Capsicum

This weekend had a few more firsts for me.
I nearly had a sandwich with capsicum.
What is that? It's the British/Australian name for Bell Peppers.
That's a good one to know since bell peppers don't agree with me.

I'm constantly learning new words and phrases. Or learning new meanings for old words and phrases. Sometimes someone will blush when I say an innocent word in my American English. Other times, someone will say something that strikes me as rude. Sometimes it's a new application of a less used word.

But most of the time, I'm hearing words I don't understand but inside the context they make sense.

It makes conversation interesting, I enjoy the vocabulary expanding interaction.

The other first was that for the first time since I arrived, the power situation was such that we shut down all non-essential servers for the duration of the weekend, so that the technicians wouldn't have to live in the network room.

I liked that. We shut down the servers, so that we could have a weekend. WOW, how anti-silicon valley is that culture? I love it!

After spending much of Saturday battling the power failures, we said, "shut it all down!" and we did.

And we rested on Sunday and did not work. Today, Monday we came in, and turned it all back on, after they had repaired the generator...we hope.

I come from a line of work that says ... "always be up, always be online, 'five nines uptime!!!' (that means 99.999% uptime which means you can't have servers down for long).

I come from a world of pagers and cell phones, of all nighters and priority ones.
I come from a world of catastrophic failures and emergency phone calls.
In 1998 I slept with my pager on my chest in vibrate mode, so as not to wake up my wife when it went off.
In 2006, I made over 10% of my salary in after hour emergencies, that were billed to customers.
In 2007, there was talk of me not working during the day, and simply being on call for emergencies.

But, in 2008, I came to work for God. And He said, "remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." And He rested.

And so we rest. Even as I type this I feel my blood pressure lower than it's ever been. It's been a hard weekend, lots of work... but....

If you look for them, there are blessings. All around me things are difficult and down right hard for folks, but if you see them, there are reasons to be pretty excited about the blessings God gives.

I'm not saying life here is easier, but the stresses come in different forms then they used to, and for that, I'm thankful. I worked 24x7 for 5 years. I turned the car around while we were heading to family vacation, I've missed birthday parties, I left get togethers, and I woke up countless midnights to work. I do not miss that.

We have emergencies here, but I really appreciate the mentality that says, "we can get along without when we need to." And people do.

I believe it is because we have faith in God who provides.

I'm once again thankful for all of you who sustain us here.
For your gifts, for your prayers, for your emails and thoughts.

POWER

Today, Friday, was a normal day. Do a few network patches at the school, double check backups, tweak a few servers.

But then at 3pm, the power went out.

Our server room is powered by a room full of batteries connected to an inverter. We used to use Deep Charge but they were hard to come by.

ANYWAY....
when the power goes out, the servers run on battery power. BUT, the air conditioning doesn't run.

Very quickly our little room of servers begins to heat up, and when that happens the hardware begins to fail.

Typically turning on the generated is automatic after 5 minutes.

So the power goes out..
we wait 5 minutes... no generator
we wait 10..
we keep our eye on the thermometer readout...
it's growing.
We call the electricians "hey what's going on, we're going to have to start shutting down."

today the answer came (welcome to life here) "We can't get a hold of [the guy who knows how to start the generator]"

My guess was he was watching his kids compete at the annual sport's day...
So I ask a co-worker with a radio, "can you call him on the radio?"

"he doesn't have it on him."

So.. a guy nearby him with a radio hears the call, taps his shoulder.. OKAY now he heads to the generator room.

Uh oh.. problem in the fuel line... he begins to work.
The call comes back "20 minutes to an hour before it's up"

So.. we... the network guys, at 3:15pm begin shutting down servers, which at this point, are basically heaters with strong fans.

Services go down, but people don't mind because they're houses are out of power too.

We finally get down to the bare minimum... open all the windows and doors, and the servers stabilize and begin to drop in temperature.

For those that are aware of the "watchdog reset"... ours kick off around 31 degrees celcius. The inside of the servers got to 29 degrees celcius.

That's 2 degrees... PHEW.. we made it.

If we let them get too hot... parts melt and break and it costs us money.

So it's not frantic but it is a little bit of... hustle.. bringing things down so they don't break.

Well it's all back up now. This happens a few times a year, and when it does... the computer/network geek appreciates three things in a major way:

-Air conditioning - and those who can maintain it
-Electricity - and those who can maintain it
-CB/HF radio - and those who can operate them

Keeping this room running safely was truly a team effort, and if there is one great thing to say about this place, it's that people pull together during a crisis, be it ever so minor.

Coffee Festival

Kendal and I drove to Goroka a few weeks ago to pick up some friends from the airport. In the interest of killing time and seeing some local culture, we attended the Coffee Festival.

Unfortunately we didn't spend a lot of time there. The crowds were huge! We parked, but were wary of leaving the car, because it doesn't take long for someone to open it and take the belongings inside.

So we went for a quick 5 minute visit. We snapped this photo with permission above of some of the ladies in the area, resting between their dances and performances, which we didn't get to see in person, because a few moments later...

I heard "pait pait" which means "fight fight", and turned to see maybe 200-300 people running right towards us. I was completely unsure if they were running TOWARDS the fight or away, but I had prepared for this eventuality.

Fights in town can break out quickly, and can turn into riots. The best thing to do is to get in doors quickly. Stores will let white skins in during fights to protect us as visitors to their country. I have never been in one, but typically the interest is not in harming us as we are guests and typically treated nicely.

But here we were, in the middle of a field, near a thatch wall. Not seeing an exit, I very quickly surrounded Kendal with my body, back to the crowd, and moved us up against a nearby wall where the odds of any fallout were diminished.

Well the crowd very quickly dispersed, nothing happened at all. It was odd to see that many people herding right at us, and then stopping, and laughing. AT first I thought it was a massive practical joke, but that wasn't a realistic thought. The laughter made me uncomfortable. I thought it was a "hey let's play a prank on the white skins!!" but later found that laughter is a nervous reaction to embarrassment. They were most likely embarrassed of running and panicking.

We quickly left the field, having our fill of the environment for the day. We didn't feel it prudent to stay in the wake of that, not knowing the situation.

This highlights an interesting part of living here.

Even if you are 100% fluent in the language, (which I am not) you are never fully aware of all the forces at play in any given situation. Trying to stay up on the political, social, and religious news of the day is busy work. You can never be sure when you walk into a town, if you're walking into the middle of a tense situation.

It's best to always be alert, and always trust in God for your protection, we pray a LOT when we go into towns.

A thought struck me, I wonder if that was what it was like to visit a town in the old west... riding into town... not knowing what has recently transpired.

Hmmn.

DHCP

obtain your ip address automatically? Nope.

For weeks, I've been instructed to draw personal boundaries better. Don't let people call me on the weekend about work. So this Sunday, was family day, we even had a visitor, I had turned on the oven for our traditional pizza that my wife made.

The phone rings "the entire network is down in finance department."
I looked at my equipment everything was giving me the okay sign
"can you be more specific?"
they were unable to, and I realized this would be a few hours, so I said, "well it is Sunday, so I'll look into it first thing Monday morning."

I was proud of myself for drawing the limits. The last 3 weekends I've had to run up to the network room for some emergency, and this time, I was proud I drew the limit.

Only, Monday I came in and in fact the network WAS down!
It wasn't the network so much as DHCP, which means, no one was able to get an ip address.

Departments began phoning in like mad "I can't get to anything on the network."

Other people in the dept, came in early trying to troubleshoot. The problem was resolved 5 minutes after I arrived.

I don't say this to brag, because I honestly feel all the skill I have is because God has given it to me, and I'm the first to recognize where I am weakest.

I thank God that somehow, one of my talents seems to be quickly finding the root of a problem and solving it, under pressure.

I honestly do not know how it happens, a thought pops into my head, then another, and I always pause to pray for guidance during moments like this.

The clinic was unable to sell it's drugs, the finance unable to transact, the director's unable to check email... everything was coming to a halt, electronically. The phone was ringing like mad.

I thought it ironic that THIS weekend was the time I chose to be more assertive in my personal space.

This place has challenged me in new ways. Many ways. So I tend to celebrate when I achieve successes. You really should take the time to celebrate successes, in the form of worship and thanks to God.

THANKS GOD, we solved that ONE!!!!

Trials develop character, and successes revitalize.

Harry Harry

act now, while supplies last. We went into a store that I hadn't been until since 2004, and right there, in the middle was the same sewing machine I had seen 4 years ago, it hadn't sold yet, and it hadn't come down in price. It seems that often the "last" of something is not marked down to sell, also, I've seen that they do not price to sell items, if it doesn't sell, they don't seem to mind too much.

Mud Men

while we were on our 24 hour holiday, we sat and had dinner. Soon the "mud men" came creeping into the restaurant slowly and earily, almost like moving statues. It was interesting to watch but I didn't know why they were there.

Until at the end, a man came in selling little mud men figurines. I'm sure there is more of a cultural story here, but I haven't desired to delve into it yet.

Time for New Glasses

last night Sydney woke up around 11:30pm.
"daddy, my pillow keeps making a clicking noise and I can't sleep"
"Sydney, your pillow is clicking?"
"yeah"

she is prone to waking up, sleep talking, and then going back to bed.

"Well, can you figure out what the problem is? Go back to bed sweetie."

She leaves, I figure that's the end, but then a few minutes later I see two eyes poking around the doorway.

So I get up, shuffle in there
"don't turn on the light daddy it'll hurt my eyes."

I pick up the pillow to listen to it, hear no clicking but she says,
"daddy there is something under it"

I look down in the dark and see 8 legs. The biggest spider I've ever seen, right under her pillow!! A big hair tarantula, which is odd because we don't see tarantulas up here.

I turn on the light, ready to catch the spider...
wait.. it's no spider, it's her toy plastic jumbo jacks. 8 legs, nope, 2 plastic jack pieces.. funny how they click when they touch.

My daughter looks at me and says "oh."

yeah.. OH.. daddy needs night vision or new glasses.

Changes...for the better

Inherently there is resistance to change. Changing things requires work.

Recently, our department has become somewhat unpopular to some because we've asked people to make changes to their email settings. Nobody likes it when email doesn't work. Things should simply work.

Months ago, I had a vision. I had a plan and I sold people on it. The plan was for email to simply work. Wherever you go, it worked. It worked securely, it worked quickly and it didn't require any changes or forms.

People here are on the go, they go on trips, they go to villages, they go around the country and out of the country and until today, when they would go, it would be a small mountain of paper work accompanied by the hassle of changing email settings, and possibly losing email.

Today, after months of work, puzzle solving, trying to figure out how to get around different requirements, I was able to announce that as a team, we have made email... WORK from Anywhere.

The announcement has been out for ten minutes, and already the praises are flooding in. People going to Australia to have babies are happy, people going to the village are happy, people going on medivac's who don't have time to fill out the forms are happy.

It's a happy day. And I'm glad we were able to make lives easier, even if it meant, for the last month, people have been upset about the changes... now that they see why I think they will glad they did.


ALSO,..
today we did a short computer orientation for the new arrivals here. This is something that wasn't previously done, but was an idea me and another guy had to reduce the amount of confusion that people have when they come here, and thus reduce the amount of unnecessary work our dept. sees.

It felt good to see the fruit of some of the labor. The last few months have been tough because a lot of things have been not working right, breaking, etc. Hey, that's why I'm here!

Still, it's really nice to have a success that everyone can enjoy from time to time.

The short version: - After a lot of work, trials and failures, I was able to make things better.

Hosed

Today we made massive changes to billing. I edited multiple perl scripts, and access databases. Also we cut over a new email solution here to make things easier. It was a big day for change.

Change is something that folks do not like much, unless they are clear on the benefits. These benefits were clear and people were more than happy to make the changes, but with changes comes complication.

It hurts my heart when a translator is having email issues. It really does, I'm here to alleviate that, although since I'm the one invoking the changes, very rarely I can be looked at as "the big mean guy who is making us change things."

I've come to learn this past year, that helping people does not always mean they will be happy you helped them. Case in point, give a child a booster shot and they will not smile and thank you. They will cry for a very long while. (-;

But that's not what I wanted to blog about today.

Each year, as is the custom here, the parents of the juniors and senior high schoolers invite their children to their banquet. Each year they do it in a special/secret way.

This year they started a fire. A fire in the field, threw the alarm, and the kids all evacuated to the field, saw the fire. Then the dads came in on the fire truck, siren blaring and instead of putting out the fire, sprayed the water into the air, misting the crowd to get their attention. It was a fun hullabaloo.

I really enjoy how the parents and the community are engaged with the youth.

More on the village

"In peace I will both lay down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me
to dwell in safety."

A week and a half ago, I had told you how a clan had joined
with another and [more] people against S and his clan. They
intended to wipe them out and take their land.

Two of the translators are here and they report that S's
hamlet is completely destroyed. The clan, a village surrounded S's clan and burned down all their
houses and destroyed the gardens. S prevailed on his men to shoot
only warning shots, but in the end there was one man who was
killed. S's people were all miraculously delivered. In the middle
of the night, as they were surrounded and fearing for their lives,
S prayed. "Lord your purpose is still pending, please serve us that
we may be able to escape" When he finished praying, he saw a gap in the
enemies' lines surrounding them, and he led his people through that gap
and to safety. The enemies pursued them, but were unable to harm them.

Now, S's clan is staying on land belonging to the neighboring
village.

S is still determined to continue in the way of peace, and to
continue with the translation work.

We are as a community conducting efforts to help S's people start over.

Ephesians 6

Two days ago I shared some conversations I had with my kids.
I dunno about you, but occasionally I have a moment where I have a scary thought and then I remember quickly to give it to God in prayer.

Well, this story might be interesting because today I got a special blessing and answer to prayer. I was asking God for assurances that our children were growing closer in Him.

Today for some unknown reasons, Sydney got it in her head to start reading her Bible.
She was almost late to school for it.
Then today after school she ran back into her room.

She handed me a paper, on which she had written front to back all of Ephesians 6.

She made it a point to show me, not mommy, me.

She came and said "daddy, I wrote out the Bible here. And I'd like to point out something to you.... this part 'Fathers don't make your children angry.'

I smiled and said "what do you think that means?"
she paused.... and then I said , "it means that while children have a job, they're to obey and be good, parents also have a job, and they're not supposed to frustrate their children in wrong ways. Sometimes daddy's and mommy's can do wrong things too and the Bible tells us not to."

then she says,
"well it is interesting that the very FIRST verse is 'Children obey your parents as believers in the Lord."

She was happy with that and waltzed away as is her fashion.


That was a very meaningful moment, and I'm thankful to God for answered prayer.

ushers

One of the traditions around here is the "fellowship family".

When a new person(s) arrive here, they don't know how to find their way around. So a family gets assigned to them to help them adjust.

We were were spoiled, we had an excellent fellowship family who not only showed us around and got us setup, prepared our house before we came here but also showed us around some of the towns and stores.

Today was our turn to pay it forward. A new couple arrived that we knew briefly a few years ago. We have spent the last week preparing their home, cleaning it, putting flowers and welcome sign in place, turning the gas on, the electric, etc.

Today we picked them up from aviation, and gave them the tour, and got them set up. They are so excited to be here, the last 2 years of their lives have been moving around and not having a place of their own.

We were glad to talk to them, share some ice cold lemonaide, move their luggage, and help them get settled.

It is jsut being neighborly, there are so many opportunities to be neighborly here, we love it.

The Net Gag

Last week I scheduled with one department to upgrade their network from a 100mb fibre link to a 1000mb fibre link.

I asked them to alert the department as to the time we had agreed on.
I was sick today, but because of the scheduled upgrade, I decided to go in for the upgrade.

I went in, and began the upgrade, and the head of the department came up to me and said,
"Chad, our network is down, it's a good thing you're here."
I didn't recognize he was joking until another came and said,
"chad, good to see you, the network jsut went down... can you fix it."
I'm starting to catch on
then another
"Oh hi, Chad, hey, since you're here, the network jsut went down, can you look at it."


I was playing along the whole time, not sure if they were joking or not. But then later they told me "yes we knew." They decided to have a little fun with me.

The department was LCORE. This is the language center of the universe here. It is where all the braniac translator geeks hang out.

I appreciated the fun, but sometimes, translator humor is a tad too subtle for me (-;

God's Word, and babies.

wierd conversation.


Today I had a few moments to myself to think. And what I thought was "aaahhh I'm getting older, the kids are getting older. Time is passing too quickly!"

So I thought "what are my major goals in life?"

And one answer was "I really want my kids to have a close relationship with Christ."

So at dinner today we talked about truth and lies, about reading the Word, and I taught them an important skill. I asked them if Potiphar was married.

I do not know why that question came up, buy my daughter ran to the concordance and knew it was the book to use, I was impressed.

Then I showed them how to use it. I also asked them to tell me Jesus' middle name. First one to answer gets a treat.

Well, they found the verse and answer and I gave them both a candy.

It was a fun exercise, for them, and I felt "good I did something today to help along the goal."

But then it dawned on me that the rest of that verse was "Potiphar's wife said to Joseph, make love to me..."

I closed the Bible quickly but then felt convicted... So here is the conversation we have over pixie sticks.

dad - "has anyone ever talked to you about babies?" (I asked hoping the answer to be no)
both - "nope"
pause.
calvin - "well grandma did."
now dad pauses...
dad - oh.? What did she say?
calvin - making a face, 'she said they have delicate heads and stuff.'
dad - oh... good.. yes they do don't they.
both - yup
dad - has anyone ever talked to you about where babies come from?
both - nope
dad - do you know where babies come from?
both - nope
pause
sydney - wait.. yes (dad gulps).. "they come from the mommy's stomach"
dad - yup.. that's right, well gnight.
sydney - "only... my baby won't come from mommy's stomach right?"

at this point I can see Kendal's shoulders moving in silent laughter as her back is to us.

dad - "no, your baby will probably come from your stomach"
sydney -"right, unless I decide to adopt. and then it'll come from some other mommy's stomach"


And they were completely satisfied with this conversation. I'm constantly astonished at the lack of curiosity and ease of acceptance of concepts my children exhibit at times when I expect them to be confused and ask a lot of questions. It's usually when I don't expect it that they ask me a question from far out of left field.

Today I asked them "how do you know if someone is lying to you."
and my son after thinking said "because you know the truth"
and I said, "how do you know the truth"

which is what sequed into reading the Word.... and the rest of the evening's conversation.

Speeding up the School

Today we spliced some fibre cable, and I, for the very first time, was able to connect and patch fibre with my co-workers.

I dunno why, but somehow cutting and crimping glass cable gives me a thrill.

On top of that, we were able to dramatically increase the speed of the primary school's network. No more waiting for minutes to load pages and send mail, now they will wait for seconds!

Any day where you get to drill holes in walls, bolt stuff in, use a metal grinder, and patch networking is a good day.

Learning New Things

one of the questions put to me by myself and others before I left was
"how are you going to stay technically up to date?"

Honestly I've never worried about that, I've always seen whatever I'm doing as what God is having me do right now, and He has a reason so it'll all work out. I've seen plenty of evidence that the things I have learned have been put to me by God to do something else with later.

Well besides the fact that there are a lot of very intelligent people here whom I can learn much from, I can also learn new technologies or "new to me" from those who are here.

In many areas of tech there is the old guru. The guy who understands an older technology that the company relies on, but no one new has bothered to learn. There are a lot of people around here I can learn from in THAT regard.

But today, I learned for the first time how to "splice" fibre cable.

We didn't use a fusing technique, instead we uses a light conducting gel with connector. Still it was very interesting to learn and do.

I learned this from a man who has been here for ten years. So I guess the real question is.. how did HE stay up to date? (-;

Running Sound

This Sunday was the most technically demanding time I've ever run sound for church. I had 3 vocalists, 6 instruments, a cd track, a wireless mic, a lectern mic and a computer sound input.

I'm not extremely experienced in sound, and yet I find myself juggling the knobs and faders, and feigning confidence.

I am the net, trying to keep everyone sounding good, mixed and equalized, and if nothing else, heard by the congregation without sending high pitched feedback into their ears.

My daughter was sitting to my left (we divided the kids so that mom didn't have to sit with 2 alone), and to my right was a high school boy running video.

In retrospect, I'd rather be running video, but God does a miracle in my heart each week and makes me a willing and joyful servant.

So in the midst of all this chaos, the video isn't showing and the high school boy turns to me and says "it isn't playing what do I do?"

I have no idea.
I'm a computer and a video guy, but my mind was SO into the sound at the moment that I completely blanked and looked at him, then at the equipment I've never touched before and shrugged.

It all went perfectly well, you don't stick around here if you can't overlook a few hitches in life from time to time.

At the end Sydney was very interested
"daddy I saw you turning a lot of knobs, is that what makes the video go?"
"no those are what makes the sound come through"
"what does this do?"

She was taking a genuine interest in what I was doing and we only ended the conversation because we had to leave. I was slightly surprised at her interest, she normally isn't that interested in what I do or how. I think we'll have to see if she wants to sit by me next week.

Directing Email

Saturday I got a call from the head honcho, the director.
He was leaving for Thailand and had a number of problems with his email.

Normally we aren't asked to work Saturdays, but my option was to work at 6am monday before he got on his flight, so I opted for the Saturday night.

After about 3 hours of work, absent mindedly missing dinner, and one network emergency, we got it up and running so he will be able to stay in communication while in Thailand.

While I felt foolish that it took a whole 3 hours, I realized that of all the people he called, the director did call me.

There are some days when you think "God what am I doing here, am I really being that effective?"

and then days like this come along when He says, "yes, yes you are, jsut keep plugging along, you'll make mistakes, but it's good you are there."

It is very affirming when He does this and I give Him all the credit for knowing the right times to give me a challenge.

Victory for I.T.

Today I got a desperate call. One of the surveyors had been editing a file and accidentally deleted pages of information. Days of work was lost. It was language data. Comparison data.

From what I understand, surveyors go out, find information, gather it, database it, and decisions are based on that data.

Well this particular person had lost days of data, and was looking at a very bad Monday.

I got the call, and within minutes the file was back in place.

We had been working on a new backup solution here that would allow us to restore data more quickly and back it up more reliably.

I was surprised because this was our first restore outside of testing, and it popped up VERY quickly.

I was glad to make the call "your files are back, please try it out."

Boy was she elated!! Her Monday went from possibly being very bad to being a decent Monday.

This is a very practical example of how our presence here has helped with Bible Translation. Had we not been able to restore those files, it would have set her work back a few days, and the work of those waiting on her data. It could have potentially pushed back some due dates on different projects.

I'm very pleased that the new solution worked well. And I'm thankful to God that it all came together when it did.

Calling on God

Some of us heard a dramatic story of a man here I'll call "S". He came to know the Lord in a very dramatic way through one of the programs we offer here to teach Papua New Guinean translators how to translate. He used to be the fight leader of his people group and led them very successfully in fights against old enemies. But now this man preaches the Gospel, forgiveness and peace.

He is now trying to lead his people down a different road. The Word of God changes lives but it can be hard.

A few weeks ago S and his family were held up and almost killed but they escaped. The friends of S sought revenge and went and found one of the enemies responsible. They were going to kill said enemy when S told them to release him. Peace was found and things were calm.

Another time S was wronged by another group and again his men sought revenge. S instead tried to make peace again.

Currently these enemies have surrounded S's entire people and seek to destroy the entire clan and take their land.

This is a man who has been changed by a relationship with Christ, and he is standing up for God trying to change his people from fighters to peace makers. There is opposition and right now, his people are truly threatened.

This is one of those conflicts you see in movies. The underdog, trying to stand up for what is right.

Only he's not an underdog, he has God. God is not a genie who will answer wishes, this is something I keep telling my kids.

In my mind, this is one of those chances for God to be glorified to two people groups! He can show up, save S, and his people and rapidly change lives.

But I'm human, I don't know God's mind. And so I pray.

Please join me. Please pray that God would protect S and his land and that none of it would be taken. That He would protect every man, woman and child.

This seems to be a theme as of late around here. Please pray that God move mightily and that He is glorified.

thank you.

Cargo Cult

during WWII the Australians arrived here and would occasionally radio for more supplies. Soon supplies (aka cargo) would be dropped to them, and the folks living here saw that.

This is only one of the many ways that the Cargo Cult was born.

The link above is a nice concise definition of a Cargo Cult. But basically it is the idea that Stuff comes from God, who is yet another god to be appeased through saying the right things.

The white skins know the right things to say, and the missionary white skins will tell us the right things to say to get the stuff. The right things might even be in this Bible.

Well all that to say, that occasionally a translator will find himself in a position where the people they have been serving start demanding Stuff from them.

It is a hard thing to take. The idea that someone values your stuff more than you and is very open about saying so. It is one of the many challenges that a translator faces.

Imagine not only translating the Word of God to people who need it, but teaching them to read it, AND.. teaching them that it isn't about STUFF, it's about a relationship with Christ.

I have heard stories of people being upset when they can't find the magic words, and I have been asked in the past "what is the way to make it rich?" by a man on a PMV before. (public motor vehicle.. aka public transit).


It is an interesting development that derives from their culture meeting with our culture, and it is a development that the Word of God can address.

Beef Crackers

When I first arrived here I was told that one of the foods that typifies the region is the "Beef Cracker". So I tried one.

Disgusting. That was in 2004, and again when we arrived here last year.

Still every so often I'd try one... and.... blech!

I was regaled with stories of youth who loved them, and folks who when on furlough ordered them by the case because they missed the food.

Still, I couldn't stand these things, but what is worse, I couldn't really imagine ever having a fondness for this food.

I thought, "well maybe something has to change to my fundamental chemical makeup before I can like these."

I figured if I ever did like them, that would be evidence that the water here has mutated me.

This month, I began to have an urge for something salty and crackery.. and I didn't know why.

So I tried the cracker again. Yuck. But... not as bad.

It's been 30 days now, and I've eaten a package of these crackers once a day for snack at 3pm each day. I really like these crackers.

I have no idea what's changed, if I've in fact mutated... but these crackers are really tasty to me now.


hmmn.. I wonder if I'll enjoy brussel sprouts now.

Rest

There was a reconciliation ceremony after the peace agreement in which the men piled their bows and arrows in a heap and the pastors set them afire.

The men and women gathered in a big circle, mostly keeping their heads down, I'm unsure why but it might be a shame thing, they look as if they are praying in the photos.

Hugs are given, and promises to cease fighting are made.

It is an interesting ordeal, and to my knowledge it occurred before anyone died. There were injuries, destroyed property, and other unpleasantness. Still, no one died.

PEACE

praise to God

Sources are reporting this afternoon that a peace agreement has been reached in Ukarumpa village. It was reported that afterwards, bows and arrows from both sides were piled up and set on fire.

It is looking like the fighting is over.

Thank you for praying.

What Chad Does

I don't normally talk about what I do. Usually it's because people who'd understand don't need the explanation, and people who wouldn't won't find it interesting.

So this is my attempt at explaining what I do in a non-geek manner.

8am I arrive at work, I look at several things to make sure everything is working.
The translators here along with the school, the literacy team, the programmers who write the software for the translators, school and literacy team, the accounting department, and the director's office all keep their information in one place.

I'm in charge of that one place. I'm part of a team in charge.

That information, is anything from the Bible translation to someone's list of email addresses.

I make sure this data doesn't get lost, and that people can get to it over the network when they need to.

Then we offer services that people need to get their jobs done, and to communicate with others across the globe.

Email is a huge part of my job, I keep it running, I keep the spam out of it, I keep it moving.

Then there is the network, I keep that up, I keep that running, I keep it secure.

Each member of the team has their specialized area, but we all need to know each other's parts too so we can cover when they are gone.

Then there is the personal touch. The smaller issues that affect one person at a time that we're responsible for.

Fixing laptops, making programs work, all the stuff that annoys you at home, we're the ones you can take your computer to and get it fixed.

There are certain services that are essential to living and working.
Power
Telephones
and in the past decade,
Email
Internet

People working in these departments are a bit more higher profile, as your name gets attached when these things go wrong. If you're doing your job well, no one knows your name because it's always working.

I've worked a lot of jobs, big companies, small startups, but I've never worked in a place like this.
We offer home internet to people
We offer corporate services to people
We have modems and dsl users
We have people whose work machines are their home machines.

It is a very unique blend of home networking and corporate networking and it all twists together into different issues that I had not anticipated but enjoy troubleshooting.

For example.
For all of you at work with a computer you don't own, someone is responsible for that computer. They install anti-virus on it perhaps. They run software to monitor it and keep it healthy. These are your system administrators. (me)

Now, at home there is no one who will do this. No one will fix it when it breaks, and if you get a virus, it's your issue to resolve.

But here, people at home and people at work depend on us to fix issues. So when we say "you need to install this anti-virus on your system" some people get upset.

'It is my home computer, how can you force me to do this?' But the truth is, they use it on our corporate network so we need to keep things secure.

That is one of the many issues we face.
We have "customers" all over the place and I've never heard of another place that has to deal with these unique-ities.

And the driving force behind all of it is to accomplish Bible Translation. So if something seems completely unusual and impossible, but would dramatically help the cause, we find a way to do it, even if it means making our jobs that much tougher, because that's what we came to do.


Part problem solver
Part miracle maker
Part complaining post
Part service provider

That's what I do, and that's what a lot of people do here daily, regardless of what department they work for. I jsut happen to do my job with computers.

Friends in need.

The outlying villages around us are currently having land dispute issues. Attempts to resolve peacefully have been unsuccessful and this weekend fighting broke out.

We are not in danger, this is between the landowners of the villages, it is a Papua New Guinean conflict, and it is a thing that often happens.

It hasn't happened locally for over ten years here, but tension has been high before.

We have friends in one of the villages who are updating us with their stories of the violence that is happening and we feel bad for them and are praying for their safety.

The other day I sat awake in bed, unable to sleep, and I had the desire to pray for one specific man, so I began to pray for his safety. I really didn't know why but at times I get these urges and I follow them.

A few days later he told me a story to make your hair curl. He was attacked by men with knives, and he escaped with only a bruise. He told me 'I should be dead, I praise God that I am alive'.

Prayer works.

Please pray for the outlying villages that they can resolve this peacefully and not have any loss of life. Fighting can occur but once a life is lost things escalate very quickly.

We are concerned for our friends, the reality is that the people we love and work with are threatened, and I may come to work one day to the shock of realizing a friend is injured or killed.

I really shouldn't be saying all of this, as it doesn't paint the culture in the brightest of lights, but truly it is a remarkable thing to see people standing up for God and coming under opposition for it. Please pray that this one village be protected by God's might.

Birthdays

Today is my wife's birthday.
Last night the kids and I were making her a birthday cake. The history of my birthday cake making is disastrous. One year it was lime green, another it was lopsided, another I got sick and she had to make her own. This year, it came out almost perfect except I burned the edges a tad. Hid it with frosting, no one will ever know (-;

The kids decided to make her a pinata. They stuffed a paper bag (which they decorated) with mini candy canes and laffy taffy, sent from back home. The pinata was dangled from a string and during pouring rain we took bats at it.

WOW, it was surprisingly strong, and then, as we're hitting it I ask
"kids, what's in this?"
"mini candy canes and stuff"

so we were essentially making candy cane dust with our repeated whacks.

Finally Kendal went to town on it like Jack Nicholson on a windshield, and it fell apart.

Sure enough, little packets of pink dust fell from it and we laughed pretty hard.

During lunch I decided to get the kids to try and appreciate "mommy a bit".

"Close your eyes, spend 2 minutes thinking about what your life would be like without mommy."

-syd - "okay it.."
me- "ssh.. keep it to yourself (I didn't want to hear what they might say) and use it to appreciate mommy."

a few minutes later
calvin - "daddy can we share jsut 1?"
me - "okay, we're all listening."

calvin - "well all our food would be burnt."
sydney - "we would have to spend all our time with jsut you daddy."
at this kendal begins to laugh, and I can take the jibes... but for added measure sydney adds, mumbling under her breath and shaking he head, "that would be a miserable life."

Kendal lost it, nearly spit her drink through her nose.
Now I can take a jibe now and then, but that was jsut over the top. (-;

Tonight I cook her dinner, and we have some friends over for dessert.

Later in the month I hope to take her for a night into Goroka, a town about 2 hours away she hasn't visited yet. It is hard to get excited about it, but you take what you can get, and it's a time when she won't have to cook and will have some "jsut us" time. We're coupling the trip with picking up some friends on from their furlough.

All in all, birthdays are pretty mellow, and you take your fun where you can.

Conservation

I have always known that I have a lot to learn about conservation. I knew this because I watched my grandmother, a WWII bride, and how she conserved things.

Living here has been a new experience in not being wasteful.
Conserving water, shorter showers, less wasted water while brushing teeth. Different families take different measures. Using dish water to water plants, fill toilets etc.

It's interesting that in a place where it rains so much you conserve water, but the reason you do is because you can only store so much of it at any one time.

But the one that our Haus Meri taught us was washing zip lock bags. Sure we re-use them but I hadn't realized we could wash them too.

One wonderful thing about PNG culture is that they are not very wasteful of items. They will go through your rubbish and pull out items that are useful to them. It is humbling when you have someone say "don't throw that away, I can make a bilum out of that."

I have found that living here we are much less wasteful, in that we do not produce as much garbage. There aren't many pre-packaged meals or foods here so that is a lot less boxes and bags in the trash. We re-use all plastic containers... for ice tea, kerosene, whatever it is.

Whatever is paper is burned, so there is only the wet garbage left. We compost for the garden, so that leaves only certain items. I'd say what we put out each week is about 1/4 or less of what we put out in the States each week.

It's interesting the tricks you learn by living amongst seasoned pro's at conservation!

it came out of the sky

today was a normal saturday. Saturday is our productive day, sometimes it's spent in extra service to people around us, some days it's spent tinkering around home doing odd jobs. Sunday is family day.

Today was a normal day like any other. I was tinkering in the living room when suddenly the clear sunny sky turned grey and the heavens opened up.

Water poured from the sky and Kendal said, "you know what this is?"
I pulled my head from under the corner I was in tinkering, "what?"
"this is a perfect opportunity to test my new rain boots" - a present from home.

A tick went by and then I had a thought... RAIN TAG!!!

We ran outside, shedding our socks and shoes, except Kendal who put on her boots. The kids were outside already playing with friends, I found Calvin stripped with clothes under the overhang running around without his shirt.

Suddenly, something we had never done, but everyone understood "Rain TAG" began.

We ran all over the yard, me, Kendal, Calvin, Sydney, the neighbor kids, and other gathered friends. We had about 9 people, of which 5 were running around, the rest were watching the "Crazy Whiteskins" running around under the protection of the roof.

Soon the grass was all underwater, the water tanks were flooding into waterfalls, I had a drink. We splashed, kicked the

ball around, and then as we finished, almost like from Rockwell painting, Kendal pulled fresh baked chocolate chip cookies from the oven, and we each huddled under the porch roof eating them and smiling.

It was a purely spontaneous wonderful moment. AND.. bonus, I had needed a shower anyway. Ironically as we came in to dry, the song on the radio was "It Came Out of the Sky".

It has been a tough and busy week at work. There have been conflicts and biblical resolutions (this is a hard discipline to foster, but I'm glad we all made wise choices this week). It has been a time of hard work, and accomplishment. It was one of those weeks where you really earned your paycheck if you know what I mean.

I tend to be tenacious when I come across a problem that needs solving. If it last multiple days, then for multiple days

I'm focussed on solving that issue. Sleep doesn't come easy until it's been solved. Friday I solved an issue for the entire center that has been bugging me for about 6 days. I was very relieved as I solved it at 5pm on Friday.

Earlier today I had looked around and realized that this is truly what contentment felt like. I live in peace knowing that my life is spent in service, that there are those who agree and support us as a team, and that during the tough times God is there with us. We have the assurance of a support family back home, we have the comfort of a God who loves us personally.

This isn't a bad life at all.

Calvin's face is healing very well, he's somewhat sad because people have stopped asking him what happened to his head.
The big challenge for me this month is that it's going to be a very busy month starting on April 1, and we will be short staffed for 1 week of that.

Kendal will be a kindergarten teacher next year as the primary school really needs teachers there and the ESL teacher is returning. She's fine with that as she knew she was a stand-in, and she's excited about teaching kindergarten.

You know Kendal so it doesn't bear me mentioning but she's a pretty nifty lady, and she really puts a lot of priority on early school teachers preparing students so that later in school they are well prepared to do well.

Easter 2008

Happy Easter!

This is our second Easter here now, but we celebrated with another first. We all woke up at 5am and went up the hill to a

sunrise service. Although the fog kept us from seeing the sun, it was nice to awake early as Mary did 2000 years ago. We

sang songs, prayed for each other, the community and the country, and remembered Christ's sacrifice. HE IS RISEN!

One of the traditions here is to transform the symbol of death and pain (the cross) into a symbol of life, by putting

flowers on it. Around here there are no florists so the flowers you see come from our own personal gardens. In fact

keeping up nice flower gardens is very useful as it is used for arrangements and boutineers etc during times of celebration.

If you notice, I got tired of standing in line so I went around back and reached up top and placed a red carnation at the

very top as only I was able to reach that place.

We then went to some acquaintances house and ate Easter ham. We dyed eggs yesterday with our Finnish neighbors and we hid

them inside the house as it was pouring rain outside.


Then we ate some homemade pie Kendal made. Very good work on the part of my wife, and finally we celebrated by having

Calvin's stitches removed and spending time together in the evening.

Yesterday we spent time making an Easter craft. I thought the kids would enjoy a more interactive time talking about the

Easter story, as well as spending time in "daddy's shop". I had some spare Kwila (hard wood) and I cut a few notches and we

made crosses while talking as a family about Christ and the symbolism. It is remarkable how much they understand and know

already. The depth of their understanding isn't your typicaly sunday school answers.

I asked "Why is Easter Sunday so important?"
"Because Jesus came back to life."
"why is that important?"
"because if he didn't, then we couldn't be saved."

on Good Friday a thought someone shared struck me.... for the disciples 3 years of living with Jesus came to an end at His

death. For those experiencing separation, this is the extreme. Imagine spending time with Jesus for 3 years, and then Him

being gone.... that resonated with me. That type of separation. I can see why people describe Hell as separation from God,

and I wonder sometimes if that is why leaving friends and family is so hard... separation is seemingly the opposite of what

God created us for.


Jesus is alive, He is risen.
We will be joined with Him some day!

From all of us here, Happy Easter!!


pictures here

1 / 29

Yesterday was our 1 year anniversary of arriving in PNG.
Thank you to all who are involved in this ministry, for all who have been praying for us, for all who have been financially supporting us. It's been an exciting year!


Today is my 29th birthday. Well, my "spiritual birthday" as we call it around my house. At age 5, 29 years ago, I made a decision to turn my life over to Jesus. Since at that time we're 'born again', it's our birthday in a way.


Happy Easter to everyone! This weekend we celebrate by attending/serving in a Good Friday and Easter Sunday service. We'll decorate eggs with the kids, and hopefully have the Finnish kids next door over to celebrate a fun tradition.

Each year at easter we take our family photo so we'll post soon.

This is our second Easter here in PNG.

Grease

tonight Calvin and I were doing dishes and he read the dish soap label aloud

"dad, if it's tough on grease but soft on hands, I bet it's pretty tough on greasy hands."

I had to laugh.

Stitches

At the top of a rocky hill, Calvin decided he wanted to go down the
hill. He didn't use brakes, and I heard he was pedalling. He lost
control, and fell.
He had his helmet on, and Kendal was there with him, amazed that he
tried it, and wondering why he did, she thought for sure he would get
off and walk it but he took off before she could stop him.

He got a little road rash, on his chin, elbow, knee, back, etc... the
worst of it was his forehead hit a rock and he wound up getting 8
stitches (3 deep tissue, 5 in the skin).

Kendal picked him up and made him walk home while she pushed his bike.

He was crying etc... but then took him to the clinic.

Dr. Jeff at the clinic stitched up Calvin who was extremely brave on the
"surgery" table, I sat there and watched the little guy as he would
squeeze my hand.
About 5 stitches into it he asked "when are you going to put that needle
in me?" to which the doctor replied, "it's been in you 5 times!"
He was relatively brave the entire time, so that was good.

IT was his first time riding his bike to school. Later he asked "hey
dad, how does sydney go down that hill so slow?" "she uses her brakes
son." "oh." he says.

After he was checked out and stitched up, the doctor prayed over him.
That was a new experience for us and really a blessing.

On the table to get his mind off things we asked him
"Calvin, you know how the Bible says to give thanks in all things? I
know this is a bad time for you but can you think of some things to give
thanks for?"
"I'm thankful that my head didn't split open" he said,
"and I'm thankful my bike isn't ruined" he said.
"and for the medicine that makes you not feel the needle" the doctor said.
"and that didn't break any bones" I said.

It was need to have that conversation with a doctor and a nurse present.

And we're very very thankful for the staff here at the clinic, if it
were not for them, we would have had to travel a very long way to get
him stitched up in a not-as-sterile environment.



We were very blessed by the medical staff here and the supplies available here. It can be tempting at times to not be thankful for the limitations. For example a broken bone means you may have to fly to Australia. But we are very thankful for everyone involved and that includes the people back at their home places who have sent them here.

The chain works. People send us here, you send and keep us here, we keep kids taught, servers running, network operating. Translators us the network to relay information back and forth across the world to help with their translation. If I had to fly to Australia, it would be harder for them to accomplish that task should problems arise. So the doctors and nurses here and their support team who keeps them here, allowed me to stay, which allows me to work, which allows translators to work, which allows translation to get done which allows someone very soon, to have a Bible in their language. We're on the eve of 2 or 3 dedications here!

The other way it could have gone, would have been much worse, not to mention the stress on everyone around had we needed to leave for a hospital.

Thanks to God for working in SO many lives to allow the people and supplies to be here to accomplish His work!

Dust

Today I was going around the center, and I saw a group of people who instantly stood out in my mind as "they're new!" I couldn't figure out why I thought that. There is plenty evidence to support the idea that they simply are people I haven't met yet returned from furlough.

And then it dawned on me.

Their clothes were still white and bright. Their shoes were shiny.

If you looked closely, the elastic in their socks still had some stretch.

I thoroughly enjoy that I can not worry about having short hair, fashionable clothing, or even clean pants.

Can you keep a secret?
I have a still-in-the-bag set of socks and underwear that I've been saving for that time when I would really like to wear something new.

It's my emergency underwear.

The thought of that makes me laugh to myself.
Imaginary scenarios come to mind...

"man it's been an "open the new socks" kind of day."
or
"quick, where did I hide my emergency George Forman's!!! A man's life depends on it!"

Still, there is something about a nice new clean pair of socks. I was wearing a pair that was new only 3 months ago, now stained beige from the mud I got stuck in and in an awful state.

I noticed someone look over at my socks while I crossed my legs and the odds are they were thinking:

"wow, those socks are pretty new!"

Monday

birds chirping, dogs barking... yawn.. wake up... hearing my wife hiccuping.

I get up, sneak into the kitchen and startle my wife. She does NOT appreciate my efforts. NEVER go with your first impulse when you wake up on Monday morning (-;

We laughed about it, about 30 minutes later.

The kids head off to school, I head off to work, my wife instructs the yard Meri and works around the house (monday is her day at home).

At work I find three couples who are in dire need of their email being changed. People fly in and out all the time.

Discussed reconfiguring the network, wrote a script to help me do so, then checked my email. More work needing done. Was able to fix the new XP desktop for the telephone manager. Back to my desk.

Talk with someone about server configs... lunch time.

WOW this monday is going really well, work is getting done, problems aren't coming left and right like last Monday.

Lunch was nice, went home, ate home-made pizza with my wife, came back to work.

Passed the autoshop, they're closed for stock take, waved hello on the way to several friends.

Back at work.
I turn on a song while I work...
"I am thankful that I'm incapable, of doing any good on my own."

And it hits me, it's a good day, sunny, productive, everything is in harmony... and I'm feeling pretty good about life. And none of it is from my own capabilities. Reminding myself that any good that came of today is from God through me.

Through me.

It's a good day.

Mushbeard

tonight, I worked a little late helping the telephone manager bring his computer online.
I got home and another person called me apologizing for calling at home, and had email issues. He had jsut gotten back from Australia on medical leave, his wife has been diagnosed with cancer.

I typically draw the line at after hours work, but in this instance, I gave him all the help I could, not because of my job, but because we are brothers in Christ and he was in need at the moment.

For those who have ever worked in professional ministry, it can be hard to know the lines between your job, your ministry, and your private time. Drawing boundaries is important, knowing when to make exceptions is important too. Being good neighbors, for example when our neighbor had to fly to Australia with his son to have his broken arm mended, his wife was at home without her husband.

She was nervous, and scared, and we had her over for dinner, I kept an eye on her and her house for her... to add that extra bit of ... someone is caring.

We are unable to express the gratitude we have for living here because the opportunities to serve God by loving other people are plentiful! You don't have to try hard to find a way to serve in worship. I think the bigger challenge is to maintain a glad heart when you do serve.

You can pray for that, that we would continue to serve with glad hearts, and that others around us who are tired of the struggles, could find some peace.

I'm told that when the one year mark hits, people start to hate life here. It is some sort of mental barrier that has to be broken through. I'm told by many people
"the culture shock hits a new stage, and after a year, you hate it here, after a year and a half, you love it more than ever." Some people don't make it that long.

We haven't hit the "we hate it here" stage, but if we do, we're prepared because we know it's a part of the adjusting.

In fact we still very much love it here.

Tonight, we gathered in our bedroom, the four of us, with the lights out, watching a lightning storm in the distance.

Professionally I knew that lightning is bad for computer equipment, but we were taking a moment to enjoy the lightning and God's creation.

When my daughter said, completely randomly
"you know what it's called when you have a mustache and a beard?... a mushbeard."

we all started laughing.

It was a great way to end the week. A week of ups and downs.
Ups - work is going well, new services are helping translators.
Downs - we would still like to make more friendships here, we have some friends who are getting discouraged and that weighs heavily on our hearts.


To spend the moments before bedtime, watching God's handiwork, and laughing with our kids was a special moment.

where we live

someone has taken the time to post many youtube videos of Ukarumpa.
this is a nice scenic example of where we live.

I saw a Giant!

Today, a co-worker pulled me aside, and speaking in a mixture of English and Tok Pisin he told me this:

The other day I was in my village and I heard a man telling a story in Tok Ples:
"I was sitting outside CTS (my work) and I saw a GIANT MAN. HE WAS TALL AND BIG! When he walked he had to duck under the doorway. He was so tall he had to duck under the roof when he walked outside!"

I heard this man telling this story and I said, "oh yes, I know him, his name is Chad."

Jesus Genie

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with my kids..
I was sitting down and I said, "boy I wish I had a nice glass of lemonaide"
and Sydney said,
"if you have a wish, ask Jesus for it."
which gave me pause. My daughter has taken on two aspects of her conversational style that are similar to my own.

1) I can never tell when she's joking
2) she'll talk in circles jsut so she can't be proven wrong.

So I say, "What, is Jesus a genie? does he grant 3 wishes?"
Sydney - "He could if you wanted."
Me - "Syd, Jesus is not there to grant your wishes, He is our King, He is our Lord. If anything we are here to grant His wishes."
Syd - "Jesus isn't a king silly, He's God."
Calvin - "uh huh, he's King of Kings and Lord of Lords."
Me - "Glory, Alelujah!"
Sydney agreed because she recognized the truth since it came from a song.

I was fearful my daughter had a completely askew look at Christ and God but then realized quickly she was being facetious for fun.

She got me going though.

Culture moments

Cultural moments. These are the little things that sneak up on you and remind you "oh yeah, I'm in a different place."

Cultural moment #12 - Hearing an odd like screeching/talking and realizing your neighbors "Coki" (white parrot) is flying around the neighborhood yelling "Coki kaikai" (parrot food).

Cultural moment #16 - Pleasantly surprised when you find $5.00 in the pocket of a pair of pants you haven't worn in a while, and then realizing you can't spend it without converting it.

In the Air

This tower is 95 feet tall.
The man at the top of this tower is the manager of my department.
Yesterday a team of us upgraded the wireless connection to aviation.
Aviation is a mile down the road from the computer center, and we use a standard home wireless router, connected to a 16db antenna mounted 95' in the air to get them their network link.

I've never seen this before with ordinary household wireless access points. (linksys, from cisco for $75 at fry's). And they were running this way for over two years.

So yesterday we upgraded the antenna to 25db, and the WAP to a professional grade with more diagnostics. (translation, their network is much much faster and many pilots,mechanics and admin staff are much happier)

But to do so, we had to run new lightning resistance, new grounding cables, drill holes in this wall stuff they call "cement board", route new network cabling. And basically get a crash course in electrical wiring for networking in a heavy lightning environment. I learned that copper grounding should never touch galvanized steel!

It was a full team event for an entire day, and it was some work.
The men on this tower are over 50, and they are trained telephone workers. Why is being over 50 significant? Well because one of their wives said, "can't they find anyone UNDER 50 to climb this tower?) He was up there for 4 hours!

Do not worry, yours truly would never have attempted climbing a tower like this.

But it was exciting being on the ground team and getting this job done.

See, I don't always sit in an office! In fact, I rarely get to simply sit in an office, I'm constantly doing odd and interesting things like this.

In the Midst

in the midst of an otherwise stressful time, I got a fun quote.
I'm working on an older translator's laptop and I'm trying to repair the modem.
He happened in, gave me a very firm handshake and said, "the sound hasn't been working since I spilled coffee on it, but the modem is fine."

and then I asked "was the modem working recently?"
"oh yes, it was working as recently as a year ago."

I would have chuckled if I thought he was joking.
It highlighted the difference between those who have been here over 20 years and those who haven't yet been here a year.

Update on the Water situation:
Our water has been dismantled by a man who has done so illegally.
As a result his entire clan have been made ineligible to work here. Every department has lost many employees until this water issue is resolved.

It is the culturally appropriate way to handle the issue, let the clan deal with it amongst themselves.

Currently, our work load has doubled since we've lost half our staff in our dept. Kendal's school is getting no maintenance or janitorial work done, neither are we.
We've been asked not to use the bathrooms at work because of no water, and at home, 1 of the two bathrooms is working.

But it has been raining a lot.

Still, disputes over water rights went out in the 1800's in the U.S. didn't they? It is a very interesting new twist to living here, and it will be educational to see how it works out.

Mending the Bridge

Yesterday was one of those memories I'm never likely to forget.

There are three "crisis" happening around here at the moment. But the most urgent one is that a bridge between our center and the rest of the world is sinking due to the river eroding the bank. The water has been high during this rainy season and the bridge has been there for 30-40 years I've heard tell.

The administration has been urging the department of public works to repair the bridge, meanwhile the surrounding communities have been upset at us for not doing more to repair the bridge.

We had men in bulldozers and dump trucks trying to save the bridge, we were asking people not to drive over it, etc. It is important to know that the surrounding communities view us as an organization as a respected group, but also a rich people. Our entity has always put community outreach and relations at a very high priority, so as a result, we have a good name, well respected, but also we are depended on, and looked to when things get rough. It can be an awesome responsibility and burden at times. But enough of that.

One end of the bridge has broken and dropped about two feet into the weak corner. So only 4x4's can cross, but armed guards are not allowing vehicles across now. So the public vehicles stop on one side drop off all their passengers who walk across the bridge to the other vehicle waiting to pick them up.

In an effort of good faith, to show we were in fact trying to do something, the call went out for all able bodied men to show with shovels and start filling sandbags.

And we showed in a major way.


I'd like to set the scene for you, but honestly, this is something that'll stick in my mind alone I think.

We arrived in a pick up truck, short shovels in hand. The bridge was sunken down, the blacktop cracked. Three hundred papua new guineans were standing around the line of vehicles, under them, wherever they could get protection from the rain.

Another fifty PNG men were standing on a hill of gravel, along with 50 or so from our center. People were standing, talking laughing, smiling, waiting. Crowds and crowds of people, watching this spectacle, and people walking across the bridge, being dropped off, walking. I met several people I knew heading back and forth.

Then a dirt bike pulls up and drops off 300 sandbags, leaves and goes for more.
We get to work.
Dozens of us shovelling, bagging, dragging, dropping bags over the hill to the men below in the river packing them under the weak corner of the bridge.

It isn't long before the 300 bags run out.
I'm shovelling shoulder to shoulder with men from here I haven't yet met, and men from PNG whom I may never see again. But it was good, hard work, honest work, and work shoulder to shoulder with the community.

I felt like I was really doing some good. I'm not sure if the bridge will hold, but working along side the men of the area was a very satisfying event.

And who doesn't like working on a bridge?!

Soon another 50 bags came, rocks flew into bags. Someone brought by a few cases of coke which was fun, the png men dove into them!

Waiting for more bags we talked about the bridge, got to know some folks, I played and joked with some of the kids. Almost everything we did was better than television for them. When I walked on the scene they seemed to murmur and whisper in awe. It felt like a challenge, "can he work twice as hard since he is twice as big" is what it felt like. I worked harder than I had in a very long time because of the extra urging.

Ironic to me that only two weeks before I had been shoveling gravel for my own driveway. Today I am not even sore. Perhaps it was conditioning and God's timing!

The bags filled up and went away. Some people arrived across the bridge who had been out of town. The call was put out that day "come home now, or you wont' be getting home" so we lugged their luggage across the bridge into new vehicles and got them home.

The river was rising, and we covered the sandbags with chain link fence, and drove it in with spikes. Under the sandbags was special protective fibre cloth to hold back erosion.

None of us were sure all the work did any good for the bridge, but we were all pretty sure the work did good for the community relationships as well as our own personal relationships with each other.

I was glad we went, I am still glad we served, I don't think I shall ever forget that day. I hope that I do, I hope that there are so many more alike events that this one will become blurred into all the other times when I'm working side by side the nationals here to accomplish an important task.

But for now, this one is burned into my mind's eye, and I am very encouraged and blessed by God to have been in that situation.

How you can pray:
emergency #1 - the bridge - without this bridge we can not get groceries trucked in, fuel for the airplanes, or any other such supplies. We can not leave except by plane. The plane schedules will take another drastic hit as they decrease passenger weight for fuel weight.

emergency #2 - our water supply is out. Someone in the night (we think) dismantled the water pump system. We are now completely on rain water, but it is raining a lot!

emergency #3 - this one is all but over soon, but work permits and visa renewals are still in progress, meaning no one can leave or enter until this paper work is approved by the government.


PRAISE GOD that we have planes to get out, we have rain to give us water, and that recently the Work Permits were approved and they began on the Visas.

Things may sound tough right now, but if you look at it a different way, God is providing!

Steak

animals don't often get fat here.
pigs are kept lean until months before slaughter
beef is sometimes milk cows that stop producing

the beef here has very very little fat in it.
Which sounds healthy, but the result is very tough meat.
Also it's rather gamey.

Burgers don't taste the same.
Hot dogs as known in the States, do not exist.

One of the bigger culture shocks here for folks from the States is that of the beef. Hamburger and hot dogs simply don't taste like they did.

And then, there is steak.
I wasn't a slouch in the grilling department before moving here.
But I have yet to make a decent steak.

I've attempted 3 times, on special occasions.

The first time, I didn't know about the toughness, and we got a gamey tasting super chewy plate of rubber. I only used a dry rub with spices we had brought from home.

Then I tried tenderizing and marinating. Back home, if you tenderize with a spice or a salt, you normally give it at max, 3 hours to soften the fibres. So I marinated then tenderized with some meat tenderizer spice from Costco.

Still super tough, but good taste.

This time, I decided (last weekend) to tenderize the tar out of it, and soaked it fo 2 days in tenderizer, vinegar, lemon.
But what I didn't realize was that my tenderizer had salt in it.
And I marinated in teriyaki.

So... I essentially made beef jerky.
Super dry, super salty but wow.. not so tough!

I think, try four (sometime in the next few months) will prove more favorable results.

I'm on the verge of giving up.
Your diet here is a challenge for variety. Chicken and rice constitute a large portion of our meals, but my wife is incredible and has flourished as a cook here.

We have been here long enough to adjust to most of the "odd" tasting meats.
One of our favorite breakfasts is spam and eggs now. (-;

Busy Sunday

It's 3pm on Sunday and our yard is full of children from the neighborhood. 2 Americans, 3 Finnish, 8 Papua New Guinean.

there's a line at the trampoline my neighbors have (we share a yard) there's a line at the basketball hoop, there's a line at the tree swing I made.

It is Sunday and our yard is chirping with activity. I enjoy all the children but there are times when you would like it to be still outside.

No blessing is without its price.

Yesterday Calvin gave a bag of his old clothes to a friend he made across the road. A young PNG boy. That boy left the bag out in a field, and when you leave things out, the general idea is that all can come take what they want.

Add to that there are two children with a slight reputation for taking more than their fair share, and you have a formula for upsetting the neighbors.

Today there was a knock at the door.
In Tok Pisin the man told me, that my son had come to his house, gone inside and accused his son of stealing.

The man was calm, we sat down and brought the children around and discussed this serious issue.

Apparently, the boy who took some clothes, assumed it was free for the taking, and once CAlvin handed over the clothes, it shouldn't have been our issue. But his friend came to him, explained that he never got any trousers, and Calvin got mad.

So mad he walked down the road to the boys house, went inside without permission and accused him of stealing.

So now I found myself sitting outside with this neighborhood man whom I only know a little, having a calm conversation, getting all the witness accounts (all the children weighed in) and we determined that there was a misunderstanding followed by a wrongful act on Calvin's part.

So Calvin and I went inside, and we talked about how it's not right to accuse people falsely, how to control temper, etc, and he went down the street this time to apologize.

IT's not that cut and dried, but that's what happened.

I found myself in a sort of kangaroo court, everyone was looking to me to resolve the issue, and I'm desperately trying to understand this super fast Tok Pisin. Thankfully, I held my own and it was resolve amiably.

I half admire Calvin's gumption, but I wish it hadn't resulted in a cross-cultural conflict.

So for those keeping score:
Number of cultural close-calls with the neighbors:
Calvin - 1 (trouser incident)
Sydney - 1 (watermelon incident)

As Kendal and I chatted this afternoon she noted, "Sometimes, parenting is exhausting". So true... so true.

Our kids are getting older, the parenting challenges are getting to be more and more unique.

Today my daughter decided to paint her bedroom floor in blue paint.
She thought it'd be fun.

IF you're praying for us, pray that we be given an extra amount of wisdom and patience regarding parenting, because these kids are REALLY keeping us on our toes these days.

Success

Email is to missionaries as blood is to the heart.
It carries our messages throughout the world and it communicates to us from our families.

For this reason, the #1 priority of the network staff here is to keep email up.

Processing email, protecting email, quarantining email, forwarding email, takes up a HUGE portion of our time.

Believe it or not, missionaries move around a lot! (-;
So then their email has to follow them.

We came up with a vision "what if your email worked, wherever you were, without having to change settings?"

We began this project months ago. Pecking at it over time, with technology I was not fluent in, completely ignorant of, or simply had never even heard of before.

I'm a unix guy at heart, but we use Microsoft mostly here.
So, today, I'm pretty excited and mostly only geeks will understand why.

I got exchange email to work securely through a netscreen firewall via ISA2006 publishing!

What does that mean? It means that email won't break when people move around.
It means that very soon (when we go live with it) the missionaries here won't have to have their workstations re-configured when they get here before email works.

This means a drastic reduction in the amount of work we have to do daily, which means that staff can spend time on all the other things there are to do,
and it also means that there will not be the odd, 3 day window where someone gets here on a friday and their email doesn't work until Monday because CTS is closed.

I'm pretty excited about this success.

One of the things I want to do here is not only keep things running smoothly, but improve systems so that there is less time "in the shop" so to speak for the folks.

So far, I believe we're doing a pretty good job of it.

Thanks and praise to God for somehow giving me the smarts to solve the issues we ran into.