Christmas Service

It's wonderful to be able to celebrate the birth of Christ with our Missionary and Papua New Guinea friends!!

Jordan, Rachel H., Zachary, and Susan led the Christmas worship

Miles was entertained by the music and food!

Bill, Ted, and Andy played trumpets

The teens did scripture readings

Miles was entertained by his shoes

The little missionary kids sang a special Christmas song

The missionary adults sang Silent Night

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

New Operating Room

Look at that fancy arch!

The new operating room is almost finished.  The exterior is completely done and the inside is getting it's final coats of paint applied.  The last step is to plumb in the septic, and it should be ready for business!

The many hats of Miles

We like to say that Jordan "wears many hats" in his role here on station.  In actuality, he only wears two dirty, stinky, falling apart ball caps every day.

On the other hand, we have Miles...who LOVES to literally wear many hats.  I suppose it's my fault...when you live on the equator, in the mountains, sun protection becomes important.  At a very young age I was constantly putting hats on him, even in the house.  I wanted him to get used to wearing a hat so when we went outside I wasn't constantly fighting him to wear his hat.  I never intended my "hat training" to back fire into a hat obsession.  The good news is...his head never gets sunburned!  :)

Oh...and he loves shoes too.  The boy is just all about the accessories I guess!

My Thankful List

Today my "Thankful List" includes:

-my Savior, Jesus Christ.

-consistent power.  PNG power has been off for the past 2 days, but we've had power thanks to our hydro power plant.

- decent internet.  We recently had very VERY bad internet for (what felt like, not sure of actual time) a couple weeks...now we're back to normal and it's wonderful to be able to skype with family and friends again!

- wipes...good wipes...not the cheap tissue paper kind or clothe.  This is something I once had and didn't realize how much I was taking real wipes for granted!  So today, I'm thankful Pampers or Johnson & Johnson or Huggies make quality wipes, that exist in this world...and I'm praying that someday, those wipes make it back to Papua New Guinea!!

- Earl Hartwig (builder extraordinaire of the hydro), who called the other night to relieve Jordan of his recent nightly duty of taking power readings a couple times.  We were able to be together as a family (and Jordan was able to stick around to help with the dinner dishes!).  ;)

Outside the Church

At church in PNG, there aren't any nurseries to drop off the kiddos.  It's just me, Jordan, Miles, and a big open area filled with other people sitting on the floor.  So, once Miles gets to a point where the temptation to...poke every baby in the eye (while proudly saying "EEEIII YE" very loudly), pat everyone else on the head, and perform a thorough investigation of the breast-feeding lady next to us...is just too great to resist, we have to head out of the church building.  We usually find a few other children outside, around Miles's age, who also just couldn't sit still any more.  

This last church experience we found some children to share our cereal snacks with...however Miles decided the best way to share is if he were able to place the treat directly into their mouth.

They were obviously a bit confused...but to my surprise, they let him.









Once church was over, we were joined by a few more children who all found Miles quite entertaining! Many enjoyed watching, but were terrified when he got too close.  Others just enjoyed following him around.

No, church doesn't go the way it used to or the way I thought it might.

Yes, I know he'll eventually learn.

But for now, my prayer is that God will use us as a blessing even outside the church building.

Yeah...he can do that.

 Being a maintenance man on a hospital mission station means you have your hands in pretty much every aspect of keeping the hospital running.  Power is a huge necessity for the hospital and a welcome commodity for the surrounding staff houses.  Recently, we’ve received the amazing gift of a finished hydro-electric plant, which is now Jordan’s responsibility to maintain.

How does one go from having NO experience with hydro-electric plants to being able to maintain one?

 You may ask.  I asked… probably with too much doubt and fear in my voice (not my best “wife moment”).  

It turns out, it takes spending hours with the man who designed it, spending hours after work reading about it, and then being forced to wire most of the thing together yourself!  VOILA! 

After that…you find someone brave enough to climb up a pole with just a couple little spikes strapped to your feet (I’m not sure where Jordan actually learned this skill himself), you teach them how to maintain the power poles and security lights (not sure when he acquired that skill either), and you’re good to go.  Bring on the hydro power!  

Below is one of my favorite pictures because, clearly, the best place to sit and watch Jordan up on a pole was right in the middle of the road.  No worries!  :)

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance.  It is the Lord Christ whom you serve."

Colossians 3:23-24

Where are we?

To celebrate the Queen's birthday this year, we took a trip into Mt. Hagen with our friends, Mark and Esther Crouch and their adorable kids!  We call it..."the day we forgot what country we were in!"  We ate at a restaurant, swam in a pool, and ordered soft-serve ice cream from a drive-thru!!  

Levi and Anna

Miles's first swim lesson!

The Big Rooster...the only drive-thru in the highlands of PNG!

Kind of a creepy picture of me...but I wanted to show the car load! :)

Just Another Mom

There are a lot of things that make me different from Papua New Guinea women.

Many things I just can't change...for example, the way I look and the color of my skin makes me stand out.  In fact, it usually makes people stare.

As much as I think I know the language, the way I talk will probably never be quite the same as a Papua New Guinean.  I often find myself stumbling over words because my mouth can't always produce the Pidgin as quickly as my brain thinks.  And even if I do get the language down perfectly, I'll still always have a strange accent.

I'm not always able to view issues though the cultural lenses of people here.  My way of thinking is not always the same as theirs.

I get hung up on these things sometimes.  It's too much.  I can never make a real connection.  There are too many hurdles.  Too many obstacles.  Too many differences.  For me....

...but (and hallelujah for this "but") I serve a HUGE God...who can do ANY-THING!  Who is so much bigger than these differences!  AND Who makes ways for us to be more "the same."

At church last Sunday, I was embarrassed by how much I had to wrestle with Miles when he had no desire to sit down.  In a little bush church, sitting on the grass covered floor, we were a huge distraction.  Miles wanted to poke every baby in the eye, hit every little kid on the head, and throw dried grass on everyone else.  It was a disaster.  Eventually I had to take him out of the church.

I recalled the horror of the service to my friend, Gail.  Gail smiled and kindly said, "Yes, but those people probably saw you as just another mom."  Those words have stuck with me.  Hopefully, for a few moments at that church, it didn't matter I was white, or spoke English as my first language, or had more education, or didn't live in a grass hut.  For a few moments, I was just another mom wrestling with her toddler.  I was just another mom.

I'm thankful to be a mother for many reasons...one of those reasons is the connection it provides with other Papua New Guinea mamas.  It's a blessing and an opportunity that I don't want to waste or take for granted.

May God use every part of my life...even the struggles and embarrassments that come with being a mother...for His glory!

Easter 2014

Easter morning we attended a church, just across the river, with some of the Radcliffe family.  

Thought we could walk to church...

...but decided to ride instead.

It was a blessing to be able to celebrate Jesus' resurrection and worship with the people of Misa Church.  

Although, church has become a different experience for us now with a squirmy toddler. :)

Sitting next to Lydia was a huge help when it came to wrestling with Miles!

Josiah sharing his amazing guitar talents!  

The ATV

Ever since Jordan has been working in maintenance, he's talked about how great it would be to have a small all-terrain vehicle.  Thanks to a very generous donation his dream has finally come true (I know this sounds dramatic...but he really was SO excited!).

So far it's been used for:
- carrying materials (tarps, chainsaws, paint, concrete tools) to and from multiple work sites.
- pulling a dump truck out of the mud.
- towing a small car down station.
- making quick trips to turn on the power/checking generators at night (usually in the rain, which makes the covered top really nice!)
- towing a cement mixer
- lighting up a concrete work site at night with the headlights.
- taking us to church on a road that would have been impossible to travel on in a normal vehicle.

Jordan is very thankful for this new tool that makes his job a little easier!

When did we see You sick?

 “Then the righteous will answer Him,

‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You,

or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 

And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in,

or naked and clothe You?

When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 

The King will answer and say to them,

‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine,

even the least of them, 

you did it to Me.’”                                          

Matthew 25: 37-40

We love Jesus and we are here in Papua New Guinea to serve Him.  Jesus asks us to do that by serving the poor, and the broken, and the sick…

My high school students and I decided that we wanted to take that seriously and literally.  Sunday we (the high schoolers, myself, and many other missionary families) took the short walk to the hospital to worship with, share the gospel with, and pray for the patients there. 

We met a mama who had a very sick baby…we prayed with her as she wept quietly.

We met a man had a heart condition and who wanted to become stronger in his walk with the Lord…we prayed with him.

We met a man who was in the hospital after getting himself into a horrible fight and had no interest in God…we prayed with him.

We met a man who wanted to give his life to the Lord…we prayed and rejoiced with him!

Many others I don’t even know about were visited with and prayed for…

One of the great privileges we have is to live so close to the poor and the sick, the people Jesus calls 

"brothers of Mine."