Radio

This is Steven, and his dad, and David our radio tech. Today I had the pleasure of setting them up with village email (or HF-email). This is a system I've described before about how a laptop using software designed by a believer, to use an hf-radio connection and modem to transmit email VERY VERY SLOWLY in places where internet connectivity doesn't exist.

Steven recently was in a near fatal car accident and broke his neck. You can see here, that the neck brace is gone. Steven works with an organization run by nationals whose goal it is to translate the Bible.

For those of you interested in missiology or missions theory, I'm sure you have heard the idea of "get in, train, and get out". The idea that an anglo presence in a country changes it more culturally than it does for Christ and that we shouldn't stay resident for too long. This is a concept I have struggled with a lot here as we do see people starting to adopt some Western culture.

We're not here to spread our culture of the West, only our culture of Christ.

Well, Steven's organization is a huge example of why we can't simply leave. They are national driven, but they rely heavily on our technical expertise to help them accomplish their goals. We partner with them, and help them, and yet they run the show for their mission.

It is a pleasure to help someone like Steven who has a true heart for Christ.

For those who subscribe to the "get in and get out" theory of missions, this country proposes and interesting problem in that the very culture is an obstacle to letting any one people group get trained and able to reach the rest of the country. It is a huge task, but because they are so divided by language and culture, no one man or one group can reach them ALL.

Many of us would love to pass on training and skills, to cultivate a mother tongue leader, but it simply is not something that would work here. I can't simply show Steven how to run the radio and email, I have to show a thousand Stevens.

Still, it is a pleasure to show one at a time, day by day. Knowing that what amounts to only a few hours of my efforts, could amount to an entire people group getting communication via email and voice.

Vikings have arrived

Myself and my friend are both large men. He's maybe an inch shorter than me. Together we were rowed from the big boat on a small dingy to the shore. We stepped off, our booted feet making large imprints in the sand. The local nationals stared in wide eye disbelief. They rarely see white men, much less, giant white men. I think the disbelief was also that the dinghy didn't sink.

These men, dressed in their dancer garb (bilas), traditionally dance from dinner time to sunrise every Friday. Pounding their drums and shuffling their feet across the coral covered coast, they seem larger than life. Two of them paused to ask for water. You rarely ever hear a PNGian ask for water, so you know they were thirsty. While the water was fetched I posed for this photo, it was minutes before we left the dedication on the boat. It wasn't until today that I saw this photo, and realized, that these men, even with the feathers on top of their heads adding a foot to their height, were still not as large as they appeared.

I am still surprised to see how large I am compared to them, as they, with their spears and drums and feathers, seemed to be... larger than life to me.

Anecdotes from our trip

we were all sleeping in these communal huts, about 40 of us shoulder to shoulder sleeping.

Calvin jumped up and spoke in his sleep "don't give me a pop quiz!" waking a few of us up.

Sydney said "mommy snores, daddy breathes loud, calvin talks in his sleep and mister koons snores like a bear."

one night I got confused as to the time, Sydney woke me up and said "daddy I can't sleep" I looked around assumed it was 5am and said "go sit by the fire until the sun comes up." It was actually midnight, and eventually Kendal went to find her and get her at the fire and said "what are you doing up so late, get to bed." "daddy told me I could get up." she had been sleeping about 3 hours. Wow, how confusing it is when the moon is full and you are sleeping.

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Calvin and I were out looking at fireflies at night, and he caught one. HE was so proud showing it to everyone, until a village man said "please let it go, if you get his fire in your eye, your eye will go bad and you will not be healed easily". WE think it was an old wives tale, but we honored his request and let it go. Calvin was very proud he had caught one.

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Getting off and on the boat myself and another like-sized man filled the little dingy to the point that everyone watched to see if we would make it to shore safely or sink. As we stepped our huge booted feet onto the coral sanded shore of the village it was as if the vikings had landed and everyone looked at us with wonder and amazement. I learned one word in their language "Gosawara" it means "get out of my way!!" and I learned it because the kids would come up to me and touch me and try to get on video that I was shooting and I needed them to move so I wouldn't accidentally step on them while video taping (since I wasn't looking down). It felt rude at first, but it was a very effective word. Made me feel like Fezzik in "The Princess Bride" (EVERYBODY MOVE!!!!!).

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One of the songs that touched me had the lyrics
"and we know, yes we know this is a special visit, to Gapapaiwa, that you come so far from your places to visit us, we thank you brothers and sisters for coming to this bible dedication"

hearing their voices lifted, the words hit us. These people were honoring us for our part in helping to make the translation happen, and simultaneously praising God that we were able to come visit them.


God has intended a life for us more abundant than we could craft for ourselves, and days like this, it floods into your heart and overcomes it... and you realize, we can't handle even a small portion of the blessings that God wants to pour out on us.

Combatting Tech

During this Bible Dedication the translators chose a person to photograph and a person to videotape. I was the video man, but there were others with cameras. One of the pilots who also dabbles in video brought a tripod and an umbrella. The night before the dedication a crying photographer came to me. All her photos up to now had disappeared. Her compact flash card had corrupted and her Mac couldn't see the files.

I told her "let's pray, and I'll see what I can do."
That night, I came down with a fever. The hot weather, bright sun and fever led me to think I could not shoot the footage I had come to shoot.

I tried my hardest, but near the beginning of the dedication I started to feel very sick and could not stay awake. Looking now at the footage I shot about 40 minutes with my lens cap on and putting the camera in the bag. I was somewhat delirious.

Some thought it was the flu, others malaria... whatever it was I'm healed now.

But the enemy tried hard, even the footage I did get, my camera had some odd white balance issue and kept switching into "night shot" mode. IT was very odd.

PRAISE GOD though, the other videographer got some VERY good shots and remained healthy so I will be able to combine our footage.

I asked him "can I use your shots, I sort of missed a lot of the dedication as I was asleep" (I fell asleep on the grass under the sun and many folks thought I had passed out, but I hadn't).

He said yes. Well I really wanted the footage in 4:3 aspect ratio because and in the DV format because that was what MINE was shot in.. I asked him.. "well you might not be able to use it, it's in 4:3 and on DV"

AMEN!!! PRAISE GOD for that.. yes I know HD is the way to go. And maybe on furlough I can scrape together enough to get a good camera. This one has been used to death.

There were other things going on too. The enemy loves to cause distraction and chaos to distract from the celebration of God and His accomplishments, but we didn't let it happen, we simply prayed and God worked it out.

Yesterday, in the comfort of our computer lab, we were able to recover the lost photographs!!!

God is good. He is stronger than the enemy, and His glory will not be diminished.

Menapi Photos

This is the plane the kids and wife took to get to the helicopter pad

this is the village from the sky that my wife took in the helicopter.

Bird's eye view of the area. The boat I came in on is in the water here.
Helicopter view of the village

The Bibles and the missionaries approach on the canoe.

The Bibles are carried in during the processsion, the two in front are the translation couple who spent 23 years on this project. They were emotionally overwhelmed by the excitement of the celebration.

More Conch

The warriors who dressed up as the cannibals. Notice the conch shell in his hand. He blew it to call the other warriors to the shore. Imagine hearing that as you approach an island known for cannibals. DINNER BELL.

Another dancer, the decor he is wearing we call "Bilas"

Calvin posing with one of the warrior dancers.

People excited about the New Testament in their hand.

DINNER!!!

One of the night dancers, in his hand he has a Kundu drum which together with 40 others sounds impressive. Their tradition is to dance all night long to the songs of their ancestors which since have lost all meaning over time.

Calvin making friends in the village.

This canon marks the furthest EAST the Japanese were able to advance during the 1945 Battle of Milne Bay. Held off by the Aussies and the U.S. , this memorial park was once an airstrip.

We took a few days to relax from the village trip and site see. We found war relics and some tropical animals nearby.

This hornbill nearly ran us down in Alotau, swooping over my left shoulder.


Giant snails found in Alotau, the Japanese brought these over during WWII for eating.

The Bible Dedication

This post will be the story, the next will be the photos.
My assignment on this trip was to be the videographer so you can be sure there will be 4 minute video of the entire event.

We decided to make the trip with one other family. We drove 2 hours to the airport, got on a plane, waited 2 hours in the airport got on another plane (a Dash 8 both of them) and then arrived in Alotau.

In Alotau we stayed in a centre owned by our organization. Imagine Hawaii or Florida climates. We spent the night and I did computer work for the centre the next day while the kids played with friends and my wife helped prepare food for the village.

The next day, 4:30am, me and my friend Andrew hopped on a PMV. (Imagine a large public flatbed truck with benches on it) we jammed about 30 people in this truck and then began driving across a road we hoped was open. It was, but we came up with a flat. 30 minutes later the flat wasn't repaired and since it was a duely truck, we went on hoping not to get two flats.

The road was opened, it wasn't washed out, so we kept going and eventually made it to the north coast of the cape. From there we got on a dingy loaded all the cargo and all the people and got on a boat (pictured later). 7 hours on the high seas, VERY calm (like glass), and we arrived in Menapi.

As we dropped anchor I saw my wife and kids land. They opted for the plane and the helicopter route. Much quicker but a bit more pricey. Still we all landed on the beach at the same time.

The sand was white coral, and gorgeous. The village was ecstatic to see us. I've never felt like so much of a celebrity in my life. Dancers dressed in bilas (decoration) greeted us and escorted us to a choir of singers.

Boys and girls, old women and young, all sang to us songs that praised God in their language, and threw in one in English too. We were later told they re-wrote the songs of their ancestors with lyrics to praise God. They had been praying and fasting in preparation for our arrival.

This village is a true example of Christ changing an entire people group. Part of the dedication was the translator couple talking about the difficulties the culture presented in accepting the principles they were going through when translating the Word and how at one point they were considering abandoning the project. But they didn't, they stayed with it, and about two years ago a large breakthrough happened and lives started changing.

We had dinner that first night and met a man named William who served us dinner on his only plates, and told us his story. When I asked him about when He became a Christian he said "one and a half years ago, I realized I was polluting the Lord's temple and changed and gave my life to Him." Changing the lyrics of the songs was part of the entire people group's desire to glorify God. They were praying during the fasting time that they would not do this ceremony in such a way that would be to impress us (their guests) or make themselves look important, but instead to glorify and thank God.

That is the kind of excitement that breathes new energy into our hearts as we go about doing this work.

The people built 7 new houses, 2 new guest sleeping houses for us to bunk in, a wash house (showering with coconut shells) and a cook house. So when we arrived, we all said it was the cleanest, nicest, newest looking village we had ever seen. And that is all because of the efforts they put into hosting us.

The next day was the dedication. It began with a ceremony renacting the first missionaries arriving 118 years ago. They arrived to cannibal warriors threatening them on the coast, but in this new rendition, the bible arrived on a canoe with the translators (who symbolized the original missionaries). Then two women went out in the water to get them carrying a grass skirt up high, symbolizing peace. Then once on land, the bibles and the missionaries, followed by their supporters (friends from their home church and other supporting missionaries (us), followed by the Anglican priests from the village, followed by dancers and warriors.

The warriors really hammed it up, threatening us with spears and sling shots, making grunting noises etc. They pounded 50 kundu drums in unison. I tell you, if I was those first missionaries 118 years ago... it would have been a VERY scary site. The drums and the decoration and the cannibal warriors... all of it together would have made every inch of me want to turn around and go home.

The ceremony then became a parade, escorting the Bibles down the coast to a bridge. At the bridge there was a horde of children chanting things similiar to "we accept this gift of the Word of God and recognize it is for our generation and we accept this responsibility". Things like that. The point was, that there was a strong emphasis on this being for their children and their children's children. A gift of truth that should be passed down for generations. A new tradition.

That choked me up a bit. Although I was experiencing what was arguably a flu. Some thought it Malaria but it was a quick 24 hour flu... so I was already choked up (-;.

Then the Bibles and the procession came to rest in a field with a stage constructed. Speeches, songs, sermons, testimonies and the like followed. It was definitely an official ceremony and it ended with the Bibles being dispersed.

To give you an idea of how excited these people were. They had 1000 Bibles to disperse (sell at a small token price to make sure people would value them) and 800 of them went in the first few hours. Typically if you pre-order 1000 you have them around for a long while, but these people were swallowing up the Word of God. It was an overwhelming statistic to us that these people were excited.

Rest time.

Later that day the pigs came out, and they were speared, roasted, then slow cooked all night. The kids gathered around as the pig hair was burned off a big bonfire was created. This was Calvin's favorite part (until the butchering started, then he left).

Sydney enjoyed the dancing.

We all had a feast, roast pork, the next morning. The day was peppered with rest, dramas, dancing, drums, etc.

The sun set beautifully the full moon rose and we heard the drums from the jungle somewhere. The got closer and closer until about 40 dancing men and women arrived. They danced and invited some of us to dance and would have danced all night long but we eventually stopped around midnight.

That night I got on a boat and fell asleep, and woke up back to our original departure point. We took a PMV back to Alotau and while it was a bumpy ride, we made it.

All safe and sound.

We saw things, experienced things, met people and shared with a completely new culture a time of celebrating Christ and His Word.

It was remarkable.

The lyrics that choked me up most of all, the ones that gave credence to what you and I are doing. Why we are here... was hearing a choir of children and adults together sing...


"Thank you for coming to Gapapaiwa Bible dedication, brothers and sisters, thank you for serving God, praise God for His Word."

still choked up, and the flu has passed.

God is great.

We're fine

We're home, we're safe, we're fine.
For those reading news about a plane that went down, it was a different airline than what we took, and it was in a different area. We are safe and sound.

Thank you for your concerns, following shortly we'll post pictures of the dedication and the story of the trip. It was awesome!

Pics for fun

The Malasanga coastline looking east toward Welowelo.


The bugada coastline on a gorgeous day. This coastline suffered damage during the December king tides.

A friend of mine took these photos while out on survey. Survey is the Indiana Jones type job of translation work. You load a backpack with survival gear, and head out into villages who have voiced an interest in wanting a translation done in their language. The surveyors learn the geography, learn the people, and the viability of beginning a project. (If a translation project takes 20 years to do, and a language has only a few hundred people in it, will they be around in 20 years? Will that language be dead by then or thriving?) These are questions the surveyors do. They get dropped off or hike in to new places and discover these things. And along the way they snap some really nice photos of remote areas of the country. (-;

thanks for the photos to Scott

fun photo

I like posting funny photos of things found in stores.

This week:

The Lecends of Batnen
OF COURSE!
note: batman, daredevil, a power ranger, the hulk, and spiderman.
I'm not a comic fan, but I believe some of you may be able to tell there is a mixture of DC and Marvel there.. along with a power ranger.

It's always fun to see what you'll find.

Hand Carved Chess Set

someone at market was selling this chess set. It's obvious they've never seen the game before. (-;


props to Michael

Travelling to Menapi

Okay we're all booked for travelling to Menapi for this Bible Dedication. I thought it might be helpful for you to see what we're doing.

Ukarumpa and Menapi are maybe 100 miles apart. But there are no roads. So the only access is via fixed wing plane to an airstrip and then from there a helicopter shuttle. OR you can travel commercially fixed wing and then take a boat. Since our only boat is in Alotau, we are flying into Alotau and then taking the boat.

Roads: - the roads are anywhere from paved full of potholes to dirt and possibly you find out half way through they are washed out.

Seas: - this time of year VERY choppy and gauranteed to make you sick (-;


So... here is the plan:

We (a van of 12 people) drive 2 hours to Goroka on mostly paved roads, curvy and typical third world main highway type road.

From there we all hop a commercial airline plane and fly 1.5 hours to Port Moresby.
From there we change planes and go to Alotau (2 hours or so)
From alotau we get picked up and drive the road to the centre. REst for the day.
From there the women and children take a fixed wing aircraft to the other side of the country while us men take a boat 7 hours across choppy seas, around the cape. There WAS a road straight from ALotau to the other side of the cape, but it washed out. That road would have taken us an hour to drive, and saved us 7 hours on a boat.

From there, the ladies take a helicopter over to Menapi, and the men go another 7 hours on the boat. (the boat is more affordable and we know the captain, so we're going to save money and also to keep him company)

After we arrive, we'll celebrate and have a ceremony and sleep on the hard ground or possibly a village house floor, and then the next day get back on the boat and travel back.

So, travel wise, we're looking at a VERY long route to get to this location, which I hear is gorgeous.

Me and my friend are of two minds on this.
He keeps saying "it's great adventure, we'll get sick, it'll be GREAT"
I keep thinking "oh boy, 15 hours of seasickness is gonna put me in a great mood to sleep on the dirt. I'm gonna be too tired to enjoy the ceremony."

So here's how you can pray:

-calm seas, good travelling, that I'll have a good attitude. It's an adventure and like any adventure, you need to have a good attitude.

Personally I wouldn't blame anyone who called me crazy. Because of all the travel we're paying a handsome sum to do this too. So that's a possible double whammy on my attitude. Each time I'm bending over the side of the boat I have to think "yup I'm paying for this." hehehe.

-good attitude (yes I listed that twice)

-safety

-an excellent celebration (I'd really like to have this been a memorable occasion for the entire family)

-energy

-skill - I'm going to be in charge of video documenting the event. A tricky task because I'll need batteries and won't have any way to charge them, so I'll have to conserve my power and use it wisely.

-finances - it would be nice to have this trip paid for before we get on the boat.

Thank you all so much, and if you ever want to come visit us, give us plenty of notice so we can plan an adventure for when you're here!!! A dedication is the celebration of the fruition of a team effort. As we travel there, it's like we're taking you all with us. I'm going to have a video to show you, it should be a GREAT time!

Sharing the Failures

Well I suppose since I just shared a success I should share a failure.
For a long time in my career I have been able to say "I have never had a large data loss." I've always been extremely careful about backups and double backups. But mostly however, that was on unix systems where duplicating disks and running raid was my cup of tea.

This weekend our major corporate email database (microsoft exchange) was corrupted while one of my co-workers tried to restore an inbox. After 8 hours of work and database recovery, I was able to restore ALL previous email but 2 days worth.

Still, 2 days worth is serious data loss to me.
Fortunately, out of the 600 people on centre, only about 5 people thus far have actually experienced data loss because most folks were running in Cached exchange mode.

I have not experienced any key people... so the data loss isn't HUGE.. and so far nothing vital was lost. I've even had people say "hey I love it, now I have a scape goat.. I can say 'oh sorry I haven't worked on that, you must have emailed me during the 'blackout'"

Still though, this weekend was a time for me of pondering if it had been better I didn't even wake up this weekend. I know my value here, I know God put me here, but it doesn't mean everything I do will be a raging success.

This data loss, while minimal, was the largest data loss of my entire career.

I guess that means I've had a blessed career.

I think the sting is a little harder because my customers are also neighbors and if they feel an email loss, so do I.

Formerly if I had down time like this, it would have been costing us millions of dollars, and so working here for me has been less stressful than working for a big corporation.

I did learn this weekend though, that I need to constantly be vigilent.
The entire error happened because I was very very busy handling 3 emergencies and someone asked "Hey Chad should I try this." and I said flippantly "yes" without thinking through the consequences.

I think from now on, I'll be more realistic about my abilities and try to be more cautious. I think handling 3 emergencies isn't a time to be answering questions I'm not entirely listening to.

I praise God! During the outage I was praying "God please, let the only person affected by this be me, let me pay the cost for my mistake, not everyone else working here."

And while I was upset about the failure and loss, God brought this to mind:

-If I hadn't split the email servers to home/corporate 2 months ago, this loss would have affected more than twice the amount of people.

-Cached mode saved most emails for most people.

-You've learned a valuable lesson from this.

Yes I am humbled today. It is a good thing to be humbled from time to time. And I personally LOVE that God doesn't seem to let me get out of check. I constantly pray that God would not let me think that what is done here is of me, but instead of Him.

This weekend could have been HORRIBLE but instead it was only bad. That's a huge reminder that the skills I have are from God and my attitude should reflect that.

It was fun being a hero last week, but it was also enjoyable in a different way, to watch God be the hero this weekend.

Power

Part of living here is losing power.
We have a massive generator system which helps us maintain security lighting and power to our homes. However tomorrow we'll be undergoing a full day's outage to upgrade the generators (which we are very thankful for).

As a result I'll be working most of Saturday to keep the servers offline so they don't over heat.

Here was my son's prayer tonight

"Dear God, thank you for all the wonderful things you've given us, like blue skies, and birds and water, and power, even though tomorrow we won't have any. But it doesn't really matter because I'll be outside all day at a mumu. Amen."

hah!
( a mumu is a traditional meal, similiar to a luau, in that the food is all cooked in the ground with banana leaves)

Laugh till it hurts

Today was a really tough day at work. The kind of day where you come home and really want to find out your kids were well behaved.

Well my daughter misbehaved a bit and I had to send her to her room. She had moved something of mine that I had told her not to touch.

So I sent her to her room "please do not touch my things."
and she replied "well dad, I didn't mean to touch your laptop."

well I didn't KNOW she touched the laptop, I was talking about something else, so I opened my laptop, and apparently for around an hour or so, my daughter and her friends were playing with Photobooth on my mac.

They shot video.
I'm watching this video not sure to be mad or laugh, and I see my daughter touching all kinds of things. In one video she's playing my banjo and mimicking me.

So I call her in.

"While you were in there did you touch anything else?"
"nope... "
"my banjo?"
"oh yeah.. that."

So we have a serious problem now, see, she wasn't silly enough to confess to anything she didn't have to, but she was silly enough to video record herself breaking the rules about my banjo.

We had a talk about trust, and now she's not allowed in my office.

Meanwhile I'm watching these videos laughing with my wife, and definitely burning these to DVD.

THESE babies are coming out when the kids start dating.

"photo albums? No... I wouldn't show you photos of my kids when they were younger..... no.. I HAVE DIGITAL!!!! Here, I'll upload this video to your phone."

mwa hahahahahahhaahah

Being a Hero

from time to time days come up where you get to be someone's hero. I personally relish the days where my talents can enrich and help someone else in this way. Yes what we do here helps Bible translation. But occasionally it also saves someone's day.

My wife and I have a little joke, when I get home from work she says "did you save the day again today?"

In the past 24 hours I have been a hero twice, and it isn't a pride thing that makes me feel good. It's the fact that I can serve and help someone else that makes me feel good. To be of use, to be helpful, to be able to fill a drastic need.

Yesterday the principle of the primary school was having a REALLY bad day. I won't go into it, but it was simply everything going wrong. I was in a unique position to help. One of the things that went wrong was her laptop stopped booting. It took me about an hour of running chkdsk /r on her laptop and it was up and running.

She also had several computers from the PC lab have multiple problems. School starts in 3 days. And her computer lab is in a shambles. So our team of crack computer experts swarmed on the situation and have been working to repair it.

We saw the look in her eyes that day, man was she spent. So Kendal and I invited her over for left overs. While we were eating dinner, 2 friends stopped by, so we said "grab a plate". Suddenly our nothing planned evening became a left-over buffet and a great meal with friends.

I get a call from one of the top managers here, that their laptop was stolen in the capital city. So I had to scramble to check data backups and inventory information to help the police recover.

Today I came into work and the corporate email database (exchange 2007) was down.
So I've been repairing that so that people can get back to work.

It's been 24 hours of heroic activity. Perhaps it's my years of doing this now, but I recognize that God has put me here and given me these talents to use them to bless others and I really feel good when I can be useful that way.

So, it does feel like being a hero, but it feels more like being put in the right place at the right time by God, with the right skills He positioned me to learn.

There is something so very satisfying about that, so very peaceful about knowing without doubt that you are where you are meant to be.

Planes

This picture is of the delivery of the Iyo New Testament.
The village is the area of some of our friends who will be dedicating soon (although we will not be able to attend as we are attending ANOTHER dedication).

The Cessna 216 you see here was able to carry all of these Bibles in 1 trip with 2 pilots.

One of the many ways I supported this particular delivery is by maintaining the systems that allow the pilots to move about.

Aviation has so many technical requirements, tracking, communication, booking, shipping. All of which take computers, radios, gps systems, and complicated software to maintain.

I lend technical assistance to Aviation by helping the guys there who maintain their software. Kendal teaches the kids of the pilots and the translators.

In fact Kendal had the son of these translators in her class.

I love these types of pictures, seeing a box of Bibles in a village represents a huge team effort. You are part of that team by allowing us to be here.

Booking flights

Because so many people are going, we can't use our aviation department (they are booked)
we have been planning for months but could not get substitutes to cover for Kendal so we're a little left out in the cold.

IT's okay. Booking commercially is cheaper. But definitely more difficult.

There are times when you are hit in the face with the fact that you live in a third world country.

For example. I booked the flights for all four of us to go, on 2 legs via a web page.
The web page was poorly designed but saves us the 3 hour trip into town.

When it's all said and done... this is the result.
-The kids aren't booked on the flights we are.
-I call to get them on the flights
-They can book the kids on 1/2 of the flights.

I try to explain to them that my kids can't meet us half way. IT takes some effort to explain they are 8 and 9 and unable to fly across the country unsupervised.

Finally I get them to commit to letting my kids on, but I have to pay some sort of extra fee.

As my temper started to increase, as often it does when booking travel, I remember the go team when we came here years ago... and I remember Victoria M. saying...
"Most countries do not react well if you begin to get upset when dealing with them. Remain calm."

In America you ask for a supervisor, express your frustration politely, and expect results. Here, if you do that, you get no results.

So I remained calm, on the phone and very very thankful for that education I received years ago.

IF you can pray that we all get to the dedication and back... relatively together, I sure would appreciate that.


The enemy doesn't want us to go on this trip.

We've seen countless obstacles.

Even today AS I pressed "book" (the most crucial part of the 1 hour online process) the flights, the power went out, and then when it came back on, the wind blew so hard it knocked a curtain over my monitor...

Our friends are having a hard time getting their infant on the trip as well.

Praying that we get there, and that God is glorified. WE truly want this culture to be changed by the Gospel, and this is a part of that process.

The Dedication

This is going to be a saga.
It will encompass not 1 post but many posts.

Some friends of ours are dedicating a New Testament in a Gapapaiwa village.
To get there we need to take a car to an airport.
Take a plane to Moresby.
Hop a plane (hopefully same day) to Alotau.
From alotau my wife and kids will take a Cessna 216 fixed wing across to a landing strip and then a shuttle helicopter over to the village.

I, along with other husbands will be taking a boat. The Kwadima II. This boat ride will last 14+ hours over choppy seas.

The amount of detail in planning this trip is enormous as you can imagine. Add to that we really don't know where we're going to sleep until we arrive. It most likely will be on the floor of a village house.

This is by far the most stressful and detailed adventure we've had yet. Trying to get not all 4 of us there, but 2 families there in conjunction with a whole bunch of other people going to see this big dedication.

I have been commissioned to shoot video and help with any computer needs along the way as well. So it is not a vacation.

The end result, is that we hope to have a very nice video to show you all of what an Island location dedication looks like.

Fun Stuff

In living here, from time to time you run across a fun piece of English translation on an item in the store. For many of us it has become a game. Find a hard one, then email out the text and then the others try to guess what it could possibly be. Believe it or not, this is one of the more obvious.

4th of July

(me and a friend spinning steel wool... we were dubbed "men of steel" )

These pictures are what you see when you light steel wool on fire and then swing it in a circle from a chain.

(and then someone increases the exposure on their camera)

For the fourth several of the Americans bunged (came together and shared food) on the grass to celebrate. We sang the national anthem, we saluted the flag, we ate hot dogs and we had home made fireworks.

One of the guys from the auto-shop filled balloons with acetlyne gas and that made a nice BOOM.

I was able to launch a couple of flares from an old emergency kit.

Kids had glowing bracelets. It was like a normal 4th block party.

To make it happen, all you need to do is:
-remember when you're in town to look for sparklers
-remember to buy steel wool ahead of time
-special order "american hotdogs" months in advance
-find a place that sells yellow mustard
-make hot dog buns from scratch (Kendal's were tasty)

I think one thing that makes me appreciate our celebrations so much is that they aren't instantly put together. In order to make something "special" it does take anticipation and planning. And not everyone is a planner, so those of us who do plan tend to bring a little EXTRA for those who don't.

It was our great privilege to give glowy sticks to the younger kids who can't handle the sparklers... makes us feel like Uncle and Aunt again. We picked them in in Lae about 7 months ago when we found them and held on to them this long.