Two Funny Stories

Yesterday I was at the aviation department saying goodbye to a friend. While there I saw a Papua New Guinean friend and I said hello to her.
In tok pisin the conversation proceeded:
me: Hi, are you leaving?
her: yes to port moresby
me: ah, why are you going?
her: to get Kero

now I think to myself "kero is short for kerosene here, but if she's buying kerosene she must be buying it in bulk because air fare is costly... so I figure she has to be buying a lot, or I misunderstood, so I cleverly figured out how to verify"

me: Kero?
her: yes.
me: How much?
her: this much (she shows me with her hands about the height of a 55 gallon drum)

now I think (1 drum? that's it?)
me: That's not much.
her: huh?
me: That's a long way to go to buy kerosene
her: not kerosene, CAROL! my daughter, her name is carol, you don't know my daughter's name?
me: I guess I don't.
her: Carol, my daughter has been in the U.S. for 5 months going to school.

I laughed out of embarassment but she wasn't laughing. Around here, everyone knows everyone and their entire family. It is the PNG way. But I am horrible with names and faces and so I had no idea she had a daughter nor what her name was. I didn't want to tell her that 5 months wasn't a very long time to be in school in the U.S. But I've also found that those who do come back from the U.S. often have learned a LOT in a short time, enough such that they can become quite successful at interacting with ex-pats. Which goes to show, the people of this country are intelligent. They seem to grasp things very quickly that we often overlook.

Second story:
I was driving around in our department vehicle when a man came up to me and said,
(again in tok pisin)
him: I see you are driving this vehicle, so I waited for you.
me: okay, how can I help you? (knowing this might be an interesting conversation)
him: I have a camera that won't flash. CTS will charge me 90 kina to fix it.
me: Yes they will.
him: all I need is someone to fix it, and I don't have 90 kina.

(at this point I know this is one of those broken devices that will not go away. Often times people throw away items that will no longer work nor are repairable, and CTS can end up wasting all kinds of time on these things. Which is why when we get one, we don't throw it away, we dissect it into parts we can use to repair other things. There's nothing worse than working to fix something that you think is important to someone else, that they picked out of the trash, and then keep bringing it back. It really wastes a lot of time, especially since the item was already deemed 'unfixable'. You'd be surprised how much electronics these days cost more to fix than to replace. At this point, I recognize that the 90kina number was a 'this is unfixable' rate, intended to deter people from trying.)

me: I can't fix it, I am not an electrical engineer, I fix computers
him: but you drive this car.
me: yes I work for CTS
him: oh... will you fix my camera?
me: I can't fix your camera
him: do you know anyone who can?
me: I know 1 guy who might be able to.
him: who?
me: He works at CTS.
him: but they will charge me 90 kina to fix this.
me: no, they will charge you 90 kina to TRY to fix this, they may not fix it.
him: can you fix it for me? I don't have 90 kina.
me: I can't fix it. I don't know how.
him: oh... okay.

Now, to you, it may seem like he wasn't getting the point. But he was. There were two cultural aspects at play here. First, was the tendency in this culture to repeat oneself. In fact to get the idea across and be sure that someone fully understands, you should repeat yourself several times. Second, the 'no harm in trying' concept we call 'traim tasol'. If you find a camera in the trash, and can also find someone to fix it for free, why not try? No harm done.

Next time I'll not drive the dept. vehicle. (-;

Back on the repeating something. This is something it takes a bit of getting used to here. But it is important, because if something is important, it bears repeating. This culture does not tire of repetition. They can hear the same story over and over and over.

Whereas in the U.S. you rarely enjoy watching a re-run. You have more important things to do with your time. Which is why if I said,

"Be sure to check that the oven is off before you leave. Before you leave, be sure that the oven is not on. If you leave, and the oven is on, that is bad, so check that the oven is off."

But here, that is perfectly appropriate and if you were to only mention the oven offing once folks might think 'well it can't be that important'.

Which is why, when discussing things of import, like Christ's redemptive blood, you repeat it. So you can imagine... given that it takes twice as long to say most things in tok pisin as it does in English, that a quick sentiment like 'check the oven' could turn into a ten minute conversation.

This is partially why a lot of the South Pacific areas feel like a slower pace than the rest of the world. You take time to stop, talk to people, repeat yourself, tell them the same story you've told them a million times, they'll laugh as if they've only just now heard it, and eventually you get around to business.

And while it is one of the HARDEST parts of adapting to the culture here, the slower pace... makes you feel as if you're wasting time... it is also why we love this place so much during Christmas.

Mind Upload

So it's such a busy time for everyone, I figure no one is reading blogs now anyway until maybe that Friday before Christmas vacation and you're killing time ??

Well I didn't have time to throw up any photos and such... but here's the download.


Weds - co-workers got back from Wewak.. YAY wewak internet is online now!
Buka internet still needs prayer, not coming up, but on the morning we prayed as a centre for it, it got an actual TX lock which was very encouraging. Still not enough though.

Thursday - threw a 'goodbye' bbq for a friend and co-worker leaving for Canada, not planning to return.

Thursday evening - hosted bible study

Friday evening - having the single ladies over for our annual Christmas Classic movie showing double feature of "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street". We find that around this time of year, many single people miss family more than at other times, so we try to offer a nice evening of placebo family. We serve up soup and I start a fire, and the kids get to spend time with some of their 'aunties'.

You wouldn't believe how many people have never seen It's A Wonderful Life.

I typically bore them with movie trivia about the film, and how it was produced. Soup, popcorn, cookies.

Saturday - youth group event, doing 'minute to win-it' Christmas Style for the kids. They should enjoy it.

Saturday - there is a big christmas hoo hah going on here, that we may attend if we haven't collapsed from an already busy pre-weekend.

Kids had a musical concert last week, this week it's final exams.
What else.... Oh Sydney won a contest at school for more 'festive' dress.

She wore a hat I fashioned with a close hanger to point straight up I also rigged it up to a thread so you could make it 'dance'.

and finally we did our annual "tree hunt" in which we hide our fake christmas tree and then go hunting for it. The kids enjoy that tradition.

WE find we have to create new traditions, but being creative is definitely something our family doesn't lack.

This year we have a real-tree we got from planting a christmas tree 3 years ago, it was finally tall enough to harvest (fake tree is in the pic).

And what else... oh yes... Merry Christmas!

see if I can list our family traditions:

-tree hunting w/cocoa and christmas mp3's
-hide pickles (hide a pickle or an ornament and whoever finds it before Christmas gets to open the first gift).
-Christmas decoration and music
-caroling - often carolers visit us (the high school choir) this year they brought cookies
-daily craft - there is a christmas calendar and for 25 days we all do something together, last night it was 'dance to christmas music'
-advent story - each day we read part of the advent story... and each Sunday we light candles
-reading of the christmas story

oh this year I will be performing with 2 friends at a little christmas gathering... I chose "this is our God" as a Christmas song, and while it's not really a Christmas song, it says "this is the one we've been waiting for" which is really the message of Christmas.


..okay sorry for the speed blogging... had to get that out and now I have to run!

Sunday

Saturday

Friday

Thursday

Back

Getting into my final plane for a while. A week in tropical Buka setting up Vsat Internet didn't go according to plan. More on that later. Here's the completed dish with belas (decoration) after the ribbon cutting ceremony in which three ribbons were cut asan official thank you to the three groups involved in getting it working. Richard and I cut the middle ribbon.

Good laugh

Needed something sweet so grabbed some cookies and was well into them before reading the label. Had a good laugh. Pretty much sums up most food experiences in this country.

Vision

(found this at Honiara, Solomon Islands at Henderson Field....a key victory by the U.S. over the Japanese in the south pacific)


I am now a manager of a section in my department. We are in charge of repairing and maintaining all the laptops/desktops and servers, the telephones, and the software of in this country. Since I'm the manager, I thought that I finally should share my passion for this work. I thought I'd share it with you too.


When a Bible translator puts their laptop in your hands to repair, when they entrust their internet communication to you, when they trust their hard work in the form of data to your backup system.... they are putting in your hands their ministry tools.

We are responsible for many of the tools that people use to get the Word of God into the hearts and minds of people in this country.

Because of this we should give them the utmost professionalism. We need to deserve their trust. We need to have excellence in how we deal with these tools, so that we can glorify God with our skills.

And that's what we do.

When you come to our department, you are not getting third world technical support. You get first class, professional help. That is what our aim is, that is what we have achieved and endeavor to continue achieving.

Sometimes we get very fortunate and get to do something glamorous like flying to the Solomon Islands or to a regional centre like Buka (leaving for there in 1 hour) and get to do something that is good and hard work. We get to take awesome pictures that help our people back home realize we're not always at a desk.

We get to install satellite dishes, run cabling, climb ladders, dig trenches, run conduit, patch cables, crimp connectors, raise antennas, work with nationals, etc.

But that isn't every day. 9/10 days we'll be at our desks, accepting broken hardware, and repairing it.

We do this so that these tools can go on serving God's purpose. So that His Word can get into the language of the people in this country and their lives would be changed by it.

We work on tools. We do so to glorify God with the skills we were given.
But as we work on tools, we work WITH people.

We get to treat them with love, and care. Let them know they are valued help in this common goal of seeing lives changed by God's Word.

We work with the people who trust us with their tools.
We work with the people who enable us to be here.
We work with each other as we need help fixing these tools.

We work with people whom Christ loves, and whom we will treat with love.

And this is how we justify why we get to do this work.

It is exciting and fun and rewarding to be serving God.

Let us not get discouraged by losing sight of why we're here in this country.
We are here because we are fortunate enough to be sent here by all the people whom God has worked in to get us here.

EACH person who supports us to be here has a story of why they support us, how they met us, why they sacrifice to send us here.

We are indeed blessed to be doing this work. What better job to have with your skills, than to be serving in the King's court?

Some people want to do something more exciting. There are a lot of exciting jobs out there. Sitting at a tech bench and fixing computers may sound like the most boring job to some people.

But I get excited.

My life has been a non-stop series of surprises and excitement since signing my life over to Christ.

I look down at this modem I'm repairing, and I imagine it is making it's way into a village. And it's being connected to a solar panel/inverter system that a co-worker setup. And it's getting power, and turned on.

And then it starts sending and receiving data, and that data is the latest revision of Mark in the Kuman language. And it travels through the radio waves, across hf-radio, over an antenna that another team member installed, and into our servers here.

Onto our file server, and our tape backup, and it will never be lost. And then, eventually that data gets printed out and put into the hands of someone who previously thought God didn't speak in their language.

And they are changed.

And that excites me. The same way it should excite the guy who makes the bolts and screws to hold together the antenna tower. OR the electrician who powers the whole thing. Or the radio technician who makes sure we are experiencing low interference.

There are things we know, feats we are capable of, that we can employ to serve God and enable the feats that OTHERS are capable of to see fruition.

So this job excites me, and I'm honored to be doing it.

Interview

Cross Cultural Interview

Today I gave my first job interview to a Papua New Guinean. I've done international job interviews before (where I am the interviewer). However I've never done them in this country. It was definitely a cultural experience.

Having conducted several job interviews in my career, I have found doing so cross-culturally is difficult. In an interview you want to gauge the applicant's personality fit, enthusiasm, and technical ability.

Personality fit you can do pretty quickly, cross-culturally.
Enthusiasm is hard, because different cultures have different ways of expressing this.
Technical ability is rather easy, so long as you're using the right terms. BUT to get to the point where you're 'getting down to business' you first have to lay the ground work relationally to get to where the applicant is comfortable enough to share with you and not feel bad when they don't know the answers.

That all is pretty much the same world-wide. What isn't the same is what responses comprise a successful interview.

The one phrase that came up repeatedly in this interview was 'I am a slow learner.'

What does that say to you? In our culture, it is a bad thing to be a slower learner. But it was said so many times, as if it was the winning characteristic of the applicant, I tried to figure out what was meant.

'slow learner'
If I put the emphasis on the 'learner' then this comment suddenly means that the applicant is trying to tell me that they have the ability to learn. That they are diligent in learning, and they take their time to learn it well. THAT is what I think was meant by 'slow learner'.

Anyway, the point is, as part of my new job I have to figure out how to wisely navigate the already tricky waters of hiring skilled personnel for a job. Hiring the wrong person could mean a ton of headaches that would distract me from doing other parts of the job.

You can pray for a skilled heldpdesk technician, who will fit in well, require minimal training, and be a good performer for a long time. This would drastically lighten the load on a some already overworked people.

Flurry

We are in a flurry of activity here at work. Having just returned from setting up a network in the Solomon Islands and Vsat in Aitape. We are now prepping for two more trips. Vsat and wireless and file storage for Buka and Wewak. We're using every last inch of space as we prep the equipment and configure the network and run test. The goal is to make the solutions as foolproof as possible so they don't break after we return to our home base.

Exciting!

Vsat saves lives

from a friend's blog, regarding the VSAT internet our team put in last month:

The VSAT has already helped save the lives of a mother and her twin babies! After coming back from the village, we learned from Emil via SKYPE that an Arop woman couldn’t deliver her second baby. Ben called the hospital in Aitape, a 2.5 hour drive away from the village and connected Emil to them using Skype so that they could talk to each other. The hospital personnel sent a car out to get her right away. A week later, I was able to reach the hospital by phone and found out that although the mother and babies survived, the mother needed blood. Once again, we got on SKYPE and asked Emil to send a family member to the hospital to donate blood for her. We praise God for the life of this mother and her babies. We are grateful for the VSAT which allowed us to help them get to the hospital!

Honored

My time has come to a close.  Not only did God smooth the way for us to complete everything we HAD to do, we got to finish a lot of the WANTED to do's as well here in the Solomon Islands.  Being that nearly everyone here is translator staff, I was really privileged to support Bible translation so directly.

 

off the top of my head:

We have accomplished a LOT here:

-file sharing

-secure wireless

-wireless and physical network coverage

-firewall

-billing/metering solution

-better throughput

-networked printing

-physical cabling to specific locations

-computer training

-language data backup/archiving

-offline windows updates

-anti-virus strategy planned

-hf-email more reliable

-remote access

-overall faster network performance
-webserver

-usage reporting

 

Then there are the smaller one off issues as people found me and asked me questions.

 

I.T. guys, you'd be hard pressed to find a spot of the world more grateful for your help, and more hospitable to boot.  I had dinner in every one of their homes, some more than once!  Great group of people.

 

At the end I had to fight back tears for the 'thank you' dessert they threw me and the prayers they prayed over me.  They called me a blessing.  Having those people, call me a blessing.... that's one of those.... 'woah, me? wow!' moments.  I can't express to them how awesome an opportunity to serve them this was for me.  To serve God with my skills.

 

Let's be totally honest, I'm not the world's smartest guy, nor the best I.T. guy around.  I'm just a bloke who said 'yes, I'll go.'  And God has filled in all the gaps since.  So all the glory goes to Him.  He kept me from crashing and burning this week, He gave me what skill I have, He solved problems quicker and smoothed the path for me.  I GET to do this?  Are you serious?  Go exotic places!?  Serve people who call ME a blessing? 

 

THEY are the blessing.  They brought me here, paid my plane ticket, fed me, and made me useful.  Then they appreciated my work, and heaped thanks on me, and gave me a special 'dessert' send-off where they prayed over me.  I covet their prayers.

 

Anyway, it has been a very incredible week.  I miss my family and it's time to go home, but thanks God for letting me do this, and for making me useful to these people and this project.

 

HERE are some of the languages that I was able to directly impact this week:

LANGUAGE

Areare

Aiwoo

Amba

Anuta

Arosi

Asumboa

Babatana

Baeggu

Baelelea

Bauro

Bilua

Birao

Blablanga

Bughotu

Cheke Holo

Dorio

Duke

Fagani

Fataleka

Gao

Gela

Ghanongga

Ghari

Gulaalaa

Hoava

Kahua

Kiribati

Kokota

Kusaghe

Kwaio

Kwaraae

Laghu

Lau

Lavukaleve

Doku

Longgu

Lungga

Malango

Marovo

Mono

Nagu

Nalogo

Natugu

Ontong Java

Oroha

Owa

Pijin

Rennel-Bellona

Ririo

Roviana

Sa'a

Savosavo

Sikaiana

Simbo

Talise

Tanema

Tanibili

Teanu

Tikopia

To'abaita

Touo

Ughele

Ulawa

Vaeakau-Taumako

Vaghua

Vangunu

Vano

Varisi

Wala

Zabana

Zazao

Humbled

If you have ever had a missions experience then you most likely know the feeling of humility that comes from being treated with hospitality from people who have little and whom you are there to serve.

You go with the idea to give and yet you are given so much. That has been my experience here in the Solomons this week.

I'm honored to have been invited here, sent here,housed and fed here. I'm aware if the rare treat to be in a place with such significance during WWII.

Working hard is the best way I know how to thank God and thank the folks here for the many blessings that come with thus opportunity to serve.

This is the market here. These are the people seeking food. These are the people we are trying to reach with the bread of life.

Runnin cable in Solomons

Found this

Part of what I am replacing is the outside waps. Found one in the rafters on a deck with an external antenna connector. But to get power to it they did some splicing and I assume rats or geckos liked the tape glue because it was off and the two power leads were touching. I don't know how the wap wasn't shorting out. But it may have played a huge hand in some of the network faults. This has been replaced with nicer wiring and a wap powerful enough to keep indoors. The wap had geckos all over it staying warm. I would have snapped a pic but it was too dark out.

What I'm here to replace

Honiara harbor

Choices choices

Pop cone!!!