downtime

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


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



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

Tough week

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

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

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

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

thanks

Isolation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pray our Internet comes up today.

Thank you


-Chad

Interesting Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Audi bible interest

RatUNES

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

history

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


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

there are times I weep for the future.

Making Jesus

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

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

The things you see at a Bible Dedication

fun story

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

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

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

The entire class erupted in laughter.

Holy Cow

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

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

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

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

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

no pain no gain

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

Worst Dad Ever

aka, Epic Dad Fail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Herding Bees

Herding Bees

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

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

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

I smell ants

"I smell ants."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greek to me

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

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

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

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

Marik

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

burning

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

Anticipate I.T.

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

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

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

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

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

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

They asked me 'do you have alternate internet?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have Laptop, Will Travel

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

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

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

Jesus Film

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

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

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

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

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

Taco Tuesday

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

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

Fun Quote

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

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

15%

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

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

WOW...
that's like, 45% increase! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THANK YOU!

Reciprocal Encouragement

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

but I digest.

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

Where was I?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://youtu.be/VC0skKFjYlQ

Jury Rig #392

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

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

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

But I own a saws-all!

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

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

So... what to do?

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

That's the idea I had anyway.

Small World

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

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

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

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

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

Good guess.

bridge fixed

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

cross cultural texting

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

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

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

4th of July

(my son flinging steel wool)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

apples

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

nice!

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

'Oh Where did you Get that Lovely Top?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Broken Bridge

You can see where the bridge is buckled here.  This is one of the main bridges on the road to our location.  For a while now we haven't been able to send large trucks over it, as it's been slipping and breaking.  So whenever we get a grocery supply truck to come,  of a fuel supply truck, we park it in town, unload it into several smaller vehicles, and then bring the supplies in.

This bridge is notorious for shredding tires, as you can see the light coming through there.



You can see here why it might be chewing up tires... ragged steel sticking up all over.  This bridge is not our property, but we have repaired it a few times.  We have to weld the plates down well, because over time, people steal parts of the bridge. 

In this case, erosion, and weakened steal, and theft, have weakened the bridge to the point where we've known it would buckle any day now.  The officials have been informed, and they in fact spent money and bought equipment to build a new bridge.  The equipment is sitting in a town a few hours away, waiting to be assembled.

You can see here the wood planks, which are a temporary fix for the bridge, although we have no idea how long before those planks go walkabout.

The bridge finally buckled this week as a large coffee truck went over it.  So now, we are cut off from supplies, as well as cut off from driving out.  We can't drive out to the local commercial airport, or the towns where we can get food and fuel.

So... today I am very thankful that we live where we do, because unlike a regional center, we can self-sustain for a few weeks while we wait for the bridge to get repaired.  We have supplies of food, and fuel, and we have a local aviation department.  So while a broken bridge is bad, it could be so much worse.

Pray with us that it gets repaired well, and finally (not another temporary fix up job).  We literally have been praying for months before crossing this bridge in hopes that it wouldn't buckle underneath us, before the officials in power replace the bridge.

It would be a nice blessing to have this one thing not to worry about.

And for those who swear we've talked about bridges before.  Yes, there are 2 main bridges to where we are, but immeasurable bridges throughout the country that affect our work.  This bridge I'm talking about here, is actually NOT the one we were praying about a few years back, that was another bridge.

Both bridges are on the same road into town. So, if one goes, they might have well both have gone, but I'm very thankful that we only have to worry about 1 bridge at a time right now.

Part of the experience of living here, is that you rarely drive off centre.  You never do so just for leisure as each time you drive, you take your life into your hands, in multiple ways.

So, each journey begins with prayer, ends with prayer.  You prepare yourself for vehicle break downs because abandoning your vehicle means losing your vehicle to theft and stripping.  You check that you have toilet paper, water, wrenches.  You call ahead and ask the local police if there is any known raskol activity on the roads you plan to be on.  You bring flashlights but hope not to be caught out after dark.  You pray every time you come across a bridge.  As we are fond of saying, it isn't the fall that'll get you, it's the abrupt ending at the bottom. (-;

On furlough we so enjoyed being able to jump into the car without much thought, drive 2 min down the road and have a place to eat, or get fuel!  It was a bit of a culture shock that my wife was able to drive in a car, alone.  It was liberating for sure, but still awkward at first.

So for those of you who get to drive around and don't spend even a moment thinking 'is there a bridge between me and my goal?  should I be driving alone?  Does someone know where I am planning to go and how long it'll take me to be there?'  Can you thank God for that freedom and maybe say a few seconds of prayer that our bridge get repaired?

Thanks!! We do appreciate it!

Important Penguins

Someone lent us the movie Poppers Penguins. We were also loaned the movie The Big Year. So, being Sunday, after we returned from church and had some family time, we turned on a movie.

Both movies had a very strong message about the important of family. Both movies were clean and PG. I typically expect some bad stuff that makes me cringe with my kids, and Penguins did have a brief moment like that, but for the most part I was pleased with the movies.

Is there a change in films in the U.S. right now? Are the films becoming more family centric, or do my friends simply lend me good movies?

As the Penguin movie ended the titles played with the song 'Ice Ice Baby'. That song was popular when I was 13 or so. Ironically the star of the film, Jim Carrey, once parodied that song on a t.v. show.

I had these thoughts:

- Jim Carrey doesn't look that old. But he was twice my age when I was a kid. Wow, I'm old.
- This song is over 20 years old... my kids have never heard it before... I told them it was sung by Vanilla Ice. My son said 'um.. what's a Vanilla ice.'.

By No means is Vanilla Ice representative of any kind of quality music of my era. And yet, in my kids minds now, they think 'the music dad listened to when he was our age is bad rap by someone called Vanilla Ice.'

I felt old. My kids were watching a man in a comedy that I watched in comedies when I was their age.

Today in church a testimony was given from the high school band trip. The message I heard was that the kids had left what is 'home' to them... to minister in Australia. High school boys who couldn't be bothered to do much more than grunt, suddenly became very talkative when speaking about what their parents do in PNG.

I'm 38 years old. My nephew just graduated high school. My daughter is nearly 13.

Behind me there are a lot of good memories, living in PNG is our current stage in life. It's lasted 5 years thus far, and with your prayers it'll last a while longer too.

My kids are experiencing life for the first time, hearing songs for the first time, seeing thoughts that strike me as having been expressed before, many times.

And I find that entirely encouraging.

There are some hardships right now. Our clinic is closing, the main bridge fell apart today-breaking our supply line, medication is costly, my wife's grandmother has passed on, we have financial need because of the airfare we bought to send her there..... and yet, God has blessed us with 2 kids who are looking at life and have so much potential... they are experiencing it all with wide open eyes. And we get to shape that a little bit more before their time with us is done.

So I can't really get too discouraged. I looked outside today at this beautiful place... and I've heard the testimonies this morning of people reading the Scripture for the first time in their language.

And I'm struck with one theme for the day. Focus on what is important.

(I'll flesh some of this out more throughout the week, to help you pray specifically, but today is Sunday, God's day, and I'm focussing on what is important.)

having a hard time believing

I know what it looks like, but no, I'm not in charge of the Jelly Belly factory... this is a hat they gave me on tour there while on furlough.

It's not relevant to this conversation other than it's a funny picture.

My whole life I've known what I'm good at.  I mean besides being super dashing in photographs. (-; But lately I've been discovering a few more things about myself and what I'm good at and how they can be used to help Bible translation. 

Last month I was helping out as Director for Regional Centres, they asked me back again for next month.
Last month I was asked to fill out a financial report to give contributors an explanation of how their money helped install VSATs across the country.  I did it, very nervous that I would mess it up, as a result they loved the report and have asked me to send more photos for a JAARS publication.

Both of those things I was totally convinced I'd be horrible at.

But the part I'm having a hard time believing is that I have a unique talent that is needed here.  Conducting job interviews.  I don't know how he picked up on it, but the Director asked me to put together a training so I can teach other managers how to conduct good job interviews so that they get good hires.

I really do not understand why he thinks I'd be a good choice to do that training... I kept protesting.
He kept saying 'you've done more interviews than many managers here.'  How would he know that? I asked him, he said 'how many have you done?' I'd done well over 30, and he said 'that's very unique experience here. can you help us out by teaching us how to do interviews.'  I was surprised to hear his story of how they do job placement in Australia and how they don't often conduct interviews for his work.

So I went to sleep last night thinking about this.  I still don't believe it's true.  I can't be one of the more seasoned interviewers. Can I? I'd hate to conduct training if I wasn't an expert, and I don't think I am.  He thinks I am.

And then I started to think about it.
I've looked back on my life and seen many ways that God prepared me to be here and help, many skills that have been honed over time.  But I'm really surprised that there is more.

Not long after college I was working at a large company, and was asked to be on the interview team.  From that time forward, I've always been part of if not the lead, interviewer in many technical interviews.  From company to company, I was the one creating a list of questions, asking them, putting the applicant at ease, and wheedling out information from them.  Such that I had several techniques that I would employ to do so.  When I got here, I had to do the same things, so I asked around, and learned and....

Maybe God was equipping me yet again.

I can not express how incredible this is.  7 years ago I was shown how God had been crafting my life to do this exact thing in this exact place at this exact time.  How I was uniquely suited to do this, and how God had been honing me for decades to do it.

That was 7 years ago.

I wasn't expecting that He'd continue to show me things.  I was expecting that was it.  I'm set, I know my purpose, I'm designed for it.

But the intimacy I feel with Christ because yesterday He told me 'your life isn't over yet, I'm still crafting you, and there are preparations in place for a time that hasn't come yet.'  Is mind blowing.

The other day, we started talking about implementing a new telephony system.  Cisco VOIP voice gateways.
What was one of the last things I touched when I worked for Cisco?
VOIP gateways.

mind blowing stuff.  It just keeps unfolding.  It's continual confirmation that this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

Cultural differences

Before this anecdote I should give some background. Australians use the term "mate" to mean friend. We spend a lot of time with Aussies.

Today I was playing a trivia computer game with my kids and the question came up:
"Name an animal people claim their mate sounds like when they snore"

My son said "what does that even mean? Mate ?"


It took me a moment while I was thinking a few simultaneous thoughts
1 I have had " the talk with my son. Did I leave something out?"
And
2 "oh the're being politically correct and said mate instead if spouse. "

But before I could explain to my son what it meant my daughter chimed in

My daughter replied "friend"

Which is when it hit me that was a perfectly valid answer to them as they have sleepovers with their friends all the time. So I stayed silent whilst my son answered

"donkey"



-Chad

in Praise

Today I find myself thoroughly impressed with a few things. First, I'm
impressed with my wife. In the midst of grieving she pulled herself
through a crazy travel adventure, spoke at her grandmother's memorial,
visited with family, underwent a long road trip, and was able to meet
with friends along the way. She's undergone crazy paperwork and
telephone hassles, a climate change, time change, been completely
uprooted. It takes one incredible woman to do something like that. I'm
constantly impressed by my wife.

I also am impressed with the people that support us. People were giving
my wife loving hugs, encouraging words, handing her money they didn't
have to spare because the Lord led them to, and commented on having read
about her adventure. I'm always humbled and amazed by people who care
so much for us to actually read our boring blog and emails, people who
give sacrificially. Thank you.

I'm impressed by our God. He knew this was going to happen, He knew it
would take a chunk of money to do it, and already He has people coming
along side and contributing to filling the hole back up.

I found all of this out today as I got to Skype with my wife for a few
minutes, and found out what a warm reception she's getting there. I
knew she'd be safe in your hands. Thank you, I needed boost of
encouragement today and you provided.

She Made It

Thank you for praying.

okay so kendal went out of communication when she left for Manilla.
I wasn't sure if she was going to make the flight transfer in Manilla (from POM to LAX)... but there was nothing I could do... which when I asked for prayer.

So I prayed, and left it to God, sat down with the kids to watch a movie... about 30 minutes into the movie, an idea popped into my head. I returned to my well worn seat in front of my computer.

I called Philippines airline and told them the situation, that my wife had luggage, and 1 hour to check in to a transfer flight. They told me it required a taxi ride to a new terminal!!! She was most likely not going to make it in an hour. But they told me 'tell your wife to do this (and several instructions) which involved her flagging down a Customer Service Representative.

I did not have a way to tell this to my wife.... I could hope that she might think of it, but in her emotional state, even though she's very smart, it might not come to her. So, I had another idea.

I tried calling the Manilla airport but the phone wouldn't go through. I'm told the Philippines have the worst phone system in the world.

Not to give up, I did some web searching and found an odd little website where someone had indexed email addresses and phone numbers.

So I wrote up an email, explaining the situation, and asking them to send a Customer Service Rep to the gate of her flight with a sign with her name on it.

I sent the email to several different addresses hoping that email would work, where telephones failed. (yes I'm geeky that way).

Then I set my alarm to the time the plane was scheduled to touch down... so I could wake up and pray her through each step.

I fell asleep praying, 'it's all up to God'.

I woke up around 1am, and prayed for each specific step, as she went off the gangway, etc... fell back asleep, and my phone never rang, indicating she made the flight.

I called her dad's cell phone 5 minutes ago and my wife answered it. She also had her luggage.

From her end she says this:

"I was stressing out the entire way from POM to Manilla, because the plane left late and arrived 25 minutes late. I knew I wasn't going to make it, but when I got out of the gate, there was an angel there holding a sign with my name on it. I would have never made it without this person. I had to clear security around 12 times, wait for my bag, take a taxi to the new terminal, but first had to convert my U.S. cash into Philippines cash to pay the taxi, then my angel helped me and escorted me into the gate and my bag was the very last bag to come off the track in LAX."

Is that not super exciting! .. she's safe, she's with cargo. We made the decision to not all go, if we had decided all to go, we'd all 4 be stranded in Manilla right now.

Praise God.... this has been one wacky story of travelling.

I feel like the computer geek in mission impossible, sitting with a phone headset at the computer, clearing the way every step. No one I've told this story to has EVER heard of Air Nuigini just letting someone on board. That miracle, coupled with the idea that came to me in the middle of vegging out with the kids... just popping into my head to get a customer rep... all of that was from God.

Thank you in your help getting my wife to LAX, as soon as she stepped off the plane, she was able to release the tension she had from the flight hysteria.... and I could hear in her voice she was already doing much better!!

Thanks to God.

What a CRAZY travel story.
Every single thing that could go wrong, went wrong, except the part where she didn't get to her destination. And.. she got there in under 35 hours. Many have travel stories like this, but this particular story shows us that God answers our prayers, He listens, He reacts, and He cares. He's a personal savior.

Emergency Travel

This story deserves several titles. It's 4:40am I'm a bit tired, so I can't decide. Should it be "Booking Emergency Travel in PNG" or should it be "When Credit Cards Fail You" or should it be "Why Even at 37, My Parents are Still my Heroes".

This story is somewhat typical of a couple living in Papua New Guinea, needing to book emergency travel, and what we need to go through to get it done, so I thought I might share it. And, our story has a little twist, but then, PNG is the 'land of the unexpected' so I suppose most stories from here do have a twist.

Friday evening I got an email from my parents stating that my wife should call her parents. It was bad news. It was one of those emails that we sometimes get living here that changes things, quickly. If you live here you come to call these emails the 3D emails. "Death, Divorce, Deadly disease" Kendal's grandmother who is very dear to her, was passing away.

The first hurdle was getting through to call. We don't do a lot of international calling, and it was a work day, so I had to reach my wife who was finishing up her last day of teaching pre-school…. ever, with the details of HOW to make the call. She'll be moving on to kindergarden next year. The end of the year is always emotional for her. On the same day I was finishing up a month long job, my kids were finishing school…. it was a day of finishes.

I got home to hear from my wife that her grandmother was not doing well, and the doctors said the outlook was not good. I came home to a wife who was emotionally a wreck. So we prayed, I held her, we talked.

We spent the remainder of the night looking at the possibility of her flying to the U.S. How much would it cost? What would the itinerary look like? Emails began flying around…. who would take up Kendal's other responsibilities…. is this even possible? I don't care how much of a planner you are, this is one thing you can only plan so far for. We had an emergency bag for such a thing which included different international cash, credit cards, travel docs, etc.

It was school break, so Kendal would only be dumping details like …. who finishes decorating cupcakes, what about our dinner guests coming, is there any food in the fridge, should Kendal go alone, should we all go?

The night was spent praying about it and talking about all the possibilities. If you've ever been in the throes of grief, trying to upheave your life you know what I'm talking about. It's hard to see all the loose ends, and focus on what you NEED to do. We knew she needed to be there by the way she reacted to the news.

So we deliberated, until too exhausted to think, and went to bed, vowing to decide before noon the next day.

We woke up rested, and checked in with family. Grandma had passed…. we made a decision. Kendal would go to the U.S. and Chad would stay behind with the kids.

This is culture note #1. This type of separation happens a lot, and it tears the heart right out of you, but practically, it's what needs to be done. I'll admit to being the one who wanted to scrap it all and all 4 of us go to the U.S. together, as a family to support Kendal and her family…. but reality sets in when you get to looking at the costs. I've seen families go through turmoil here. Having to decide all of these logistics really is torturous. I've seen people NOT go, couples split for weeks at a time, I've seen families leave kids behind and the parents go, I've seen every combination and there isn't any combination which doesn't cause pain and hardship. In the end you have to do what you feel led to do, and also be faithful to your financial supporters who put you here.

In this situation we were very thankful for the timing, school was out, the biggest obstacle was finances. We thought.

The decision made, Kendal was to go alone, tore at me inside, but it was made, and so it was time for me to begin handling as much as I could to offload my wife, so she could grieve, and handle that which I couldn't. Men, husbands, no matter how strong and intelligent your wife is (and mine is.. in spades) it's still hard to send them off in a situation like this alone. Men are designed to protect and support their wives. We are designed to stand in front of a bus for our family. I saw 2 busses coming and I wanted to stand in front of both. My wife gently guided me to standing in front of the 'stay home and care for the kids and worry about me leaving alone' bus instead of the 'come with me and comfort me' bus. Getting hit by 1 bus isn't nearly as painful to a husband as not being able to block ALL busses. Women may never fully understand that sentiment, but the men do. But.. I digress this isn't about me, it's about my wife and our family.

10am Saturday. I begin making calls.

Culture Note #2. Internationally calling is hard to do when the phones are not totally reliable. Praise God that Skype didn't fail us the entire day and I was able to patiently be on hold for most of 12 hours…. yes yes, I'm Praising GOD for being on hold. Because, it meant I didn't get disconnected… and it wasn't costing me any more than a fraction of a penny per minute.

After surfing the web for 2 hours we found an itinerary that required we leave at 3am. I booked it. As I pulled out our emergency credit card from inside our 'for emergencies' prepared bag from our lock box inside our locked cabinet, I realized 'this expired last month'.

Culture Note #3. Living in a place where you rarely use cash or credit cards, or look at your passport, often you need to check your expiration dates on things, because it takes weeks or months to renew them, if you even can from outside the U.S.

I had known it was coming, and I had a note on my desk 'renew credit card' which I had begun months ago, but life got a way from me the last 2 months and it was something I left undone because of the difficulty in renewing from outside the U.S. The Credit Card company was not approving the transaction.

Okay time to go to the backup plan. Use the Debit card. It means we won't get any Credit card miles, but it's an emergency. Only thing is, the debit card has been re-issued and is sitting in a safe at my sister's house, with a new number. My credit union was confused, and I was stuck there too. DENIED. Someone please let me pay CASH!!!! I have enough cash in the bank to cover this expense, but I can't move the money!

Okay plan 3. PAYPAL. I was able to book the return flights with Paypal, but the departure I couldn't book because by policy they won't book flights that are sooner than 3 days away.

Each booking and failure is costing me hours because I'm dealing in email and Skype. I've been on the phone for hours, and I still haven't gotten the booking for my wife to leave the country. But I have the booking for her to get back handled… barring some manipulation of the space time continuum I still need to GET here there in order to get her back.

BUT!!!!… all plans involve her leaving from LAE which is 3 hours away from here. And our car has not been running for months due to missing a part that has been taking forever to get here. And it's the weekend so the Auto Shop is closed and I can't rent a vehicle.

Culture Note #4. It takes months to get car parts. Plus living here is not a 24x7 thing. Places close at 5pm and when a place is closed, it's closed. I have enough friends that I could begin sounding the gong and adding stress to people's lives, pull them out of bed and ask for them to drop everything and help me. And they WOULD because the people here, are amazing people. But I didn't want to have to do that to them. Because it would involve disrupting more than a dozen people's holiday weekend plans. I'd have to get finance to open up, the Auto Shop to open up, a team of people in the capital city to wake up, plan rides, etc. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that. But if it did, I know they would help. I knew, that if I had to, there were swarms of people waiting to bend over backwards to help my wife. That's the kind of reputation she has, and the kind of people we live with. It's a benefit of being part of a missions organization versus going it alone, and it's a benefit of living with a tight community of believers.

So… before pulling that particular trigger I decided to call a good friend of mine. I met him over at the auto-shop, he pulled some strings, and within minutes we had rented a Ford Ranger, fueled it, and he agreed to travel with me at 3am to take my wife to the airport. He's my go to guy… I went to him, he came through.

But, we had an idea, what if someone else was already going?

Tech note #1. A Community Bulletin board is an awesome thing. (Maybe this should be tech note #2, because Skype is also awesome).

I posted on there 'is anyone leaving for LAE on Sunday morning?'. In the off chance they were. I got a call. Someone was. Only they weren't going at 3am, they were going at 8am, meaning my wife wouldn't make flight #1 on her itinerary.

Blast!

So.. waiting in the wings I have a co-driver. Which is much needed because the roads right now are awful and we'd be traveling them at the most unsafe time of day. Which means going slow… which is less secure.

Culture Note # 5: You're not supposed to drive at night in third world countries, but if you have to, go fast. Don't travel on roads that make you go really really slow in spots!

I also called a friend to see if I could access the community safe we keep our passports in. She not only said yes, she said 'I'll deliver it to you home!' Man, God puts incredible people in our lives!

When I got back home after making all these plans, I found that Kendal had also put out a request to our 'Kitchen Angel's' a team of people who gear up specifically for times when mom leaves, and can't be home to make bread and meals. I already had people signing up to bring me and the kids dinners! BONUS!

I checked email, the itinerary was cancelled, due to credit card problems. It's 4pm now. We have dinner guests arriving in 2 hours. The kind you can't cancel on because they arrived on a plane from the U.S. only a few hours ago. In 1 hour my daughter needs me to put on a tie and escort her to a Bible Study function she's been excited about for weeks. She made me a home made boutineer. I didn't want to break her heart…. so I had 1 hour to make this work.

It seemed like life was squeezing us into a few hours of total pressure. But the blessing was, Kendal was so busy she didn't have time to stop which I think… kept her going.

So I'm still on the phone at this time working out the new itinerary which can let Kendal go on the SAFER road trip, but I have no ideas left… none of our credit cards will work, I can't pay cash, I can't paypal. I pause. I try to cell call Kendal's dad, no answer. He's probably finally sleeping after driving straight through from Portland to LA when they got the news. In a clutch, I thought, I know!…I Skype call my parents. It's late in the U.S. but they claim they weren't sleeping. I chose to believe them. They give me THEIR credit card info, although I was absent minded enough NOT to get their billing address and info. This is important later.

Culture Note #5b One of the wonderfully hard parts about living here is that you need to rely on people. You rely on people for their support, their prayer, their encouragement. If you're new to relying on people, then the first time you have to do it, your pride will take a hit. But once you get through that individualism, you learn that God blesses you through people. You learn who those people are that you can turn to and rely on when the chips are down. And you learn as we have, that a whole heck of a lot of people love you. God blesses you through these relationships in a way so deep and meaningful because your livelihood is in their hands…. it's a blessing few others get to experience, and ironically it is one of the hardest things about becoming a missionary. It is also one of the best things about becoming a missionary, because it brings you closer and makes you more aware of God's working in your life… through people.

I book the flight with their credit info… the booking company asks me the billing address, I thankfully know my parent's mailing address and assume it was the same. The flight is booked. I jump into the shower, throw on a shirt and tie, escort my daughter to her thing, jet back home.

30 minutes until company arrives, and I have to do the grilling. Thankfully my son is well trained with a spatula and I put him in charge.
I find out during those 30 minutes the flight booking was rejected. NOT because of Credit card information, but because this company doesn't have a booking deal with Airlines PNG, our friendly 3rd World Country airline.

WHAT!?!?!?!?!

Okay Chad think.. think… I decide we can scrounge enough KINA cash to pay for this 1 leg of the flight. (We were asked the night before if we could lend a PNG friend our cash, and I had this odd instinct that I should say 'no'. Which is unlike me, but it was an intuition 10 hours before receiving the bad news.. Thanks God for that!) I redo the booking, I'm on hold for 57 minutes (PRAISE GOD AGAIN for HOLD!…am I crazy?). Our guests arrive, and understand COMPLETELY what we're going through. They do not feel slighted that I spend most of their visit with us, on hold.

Total failure, the booking isn't working, I take a break to eat a rushed dinner, and say hello to friends I've not seen for a year or more.

They leave, I jump back on the phone. I explain "I have to put my wife on a plane in 9 hours!'.

I rebook it all, sit on the phone, my final attempt, I'm exhausted, my wife is exhausted, we fall into bed around 12:30 midnight, praying to God, that this booking goes through.

I put a little prayer up to God 'God, I know you have it handled, I'm at my wit's end. I've been on the phone and computer for 13 hours. I'm not sure that my wife isn't going to wind up stranded… I need some details to go right today, I'm worried I'm sad, help me know what to do. I trust you… please help us." In the back of my head, I'm thinking if I wake up and it's all fallen apart, maybe we decide not to send Kendal at all. I think Kendal was worried about that eventuality too.

4:44am, I bolt awake, for no reason. I check my email.

DECLINED.

but then there's another email from my dad

"Got a call from our credit card company… the charge was blocked because you're in PNG"

Culture Note #6 Everyone who lives here knows what it means to have a credit card company think you are charging fraudulently because of where you live.

But then….
another email from my dad "It's okay, it went through! It's 8am here, we just got off the phone."
and then another email

BOOKING CONFIRMATION AND RECEIPT
Because I had to book with my parent's credit card, I had to give their number,… which the booking company could reach… during their timezone, which was daylight hours. The booking company couldn't reach me, they have no idea how to call PNG, during sleeping hours. It hits me… by being forced to book with my parent's info.. they were able to get a hold of a live person and work it out… clutch save dad!

!!!!!!
YES!
My wife was booked and paid for! Which means she shouldn't have to show an expired credit card that she doesn't really have to get to the U.S. !!!

It means I can cancel the car and co-driver I had scheduled, she can go with the friends already going, during daylight, be much more safe! It means that the trip is smoothed out before her as much as I possibly can do.

IT means God answered my prayer of worry for my wife. It means maybe she'll be okay without me, and God has her in His hands.

It means I can calm down. Only I'm not calm. I'm up at 4:44am writing this story, because I'm excited about what God did.

It took 14 hours of calling and booking. 4 different credit cards, Skype, digital, and several friends and family to pull off getting my wife in a car for 3 hours across dangerous highway, to a 3 legged flight of over 24 hours travel time.

She leaves in 2 hours.
PLEASE pray for her safety and that she gets through.
I know that if she can get to L.A. that her family will take care of the rest of the details. We don't know where she'll be staying or any of that, but she'll be with family and she'll be okay.

PLEASE pray for the kids here. They're very sad Grandma Shirley has left us, their sad mom is leaving for 2 weeks.

PLEASE pray that God will fill back in the money we had to spend.

and thank you… for your involvement in this story. I would tell this story to the friends we live with here, but it's nothing new. We all have lived through it. The only twist is that I let my credit card expire. Which in itself is a humbling thing because we're supposed to be the 'organized couple'. It goes to show you… not everyone has all their ducks in a row all the time. But it's okay, we serve a God who can realign any duck.

(-;

Hard Candy

-Chad



This place isn't just hard on rubber bands, it's hard on candy. This
picture is of a tootsie roll pop that I opened today after it was in my
shelf for 3 days. (took a while to get here from the store.) Hard candy
lasts a long time in my house, because it's a rare and special treat
that we savor and save. But this odd liquifying effect happens to most
hard candy here. The tootsie pop normally has a crunch... here, not so
much. With little effort you can pull the stick out of this making it a
Tootsie lump. It happens to Jolly Ranchers too, and other hard candy.

I don't understand why. Is it the humidity, the altitude? Do those of
you living at 5000 feet above sea level have this happen to your Tootsie
Pops? If not, can you try an experiment for me. Buy a box of rubber
bands and a bag of Tootsie pops. Open them both, and leave them in your
cupboard for a month (I figure it takes that long to ship sea
freight).... then let me know if they liquify.

If they don't then my theory will be accurate. I theorize that during
the customs process, they spray a chemical on all packages, that slowly
disintigrates them into puddles which eventually evaporate. This
explains why the books I ordered a year ago never arrived. (-;