B & G in PNG

  Greetings to everyone in the States.  We thought we would share a few things we found interesting        as we try to acclimate to our new surroundings.  Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers.   The nationals are a very warm, friendly people who always greet you with a smile and hello or nod of the head. Whenever someone comes to your home they call out a greeting to announce their presence while standing about 10-15 feet from your front door.  They typically do not knock on your door. (This can be a problem for Bob if he doesn’t hear them) They do not like to call at your home unless your front door is open.  A closed door usually means the owner does not want to be disturbed or is not home.  If you are home you pretty much keep your front door open to be hospitable. Everyone immediately removes shoes upon entering your home.  So bare feet is very common. Cicadas are common every morning about 6:00 am.  T

We arise anywhere from 3:00 am – 5 :00 am partially due to our jet lag and to the time changes (when it is 7:00 am EST in the USA it is 9:00 pm here).  We have our morning devotions and then we eat breakfast together.  I make Bob’s lunch and send him off with prayer and a hug. Laundry, cleaning, sweeping our wood floors and/or making bread are completed in the morning. Laundry is assisted by a nice washer, but there is not a dryer.  I only have God’s sunshine and air to dry our clothing.  We have a nice clothesline outside and Bob has secured a couple lines in our laundry room space to hang items indoors too. Then I am off to the elementary school by 12:15 pm and prepare to teach four boys 5 th /6 th grade grammar. (Surprise! – I did not expect to teach school- LOL- who would have thought!)  I often walk home with Bob from school at the end of the school day. Bob leaves for school about 7:00 am.  It is about a 10-minute walk on a rocky dirt road to the four-room school.  He teache

  Our plane landed in Mount Hagen at about 1:30 in the afternoon of Thursday, April 13 th .  We were hot from sitting in the “lounge” at the Port Moresby domestic airport, a room about 50 x 80, filled with several hundred people awaiting all the flights leaving for the next several hours. It was 90 degrees with 100% humidity that day.   We were stressed from having one flight canceled, being bumped from a second flight, and now wondering if the third flight we were scheduled for this day would actually fly out.  And we were exhausted from being in either an airplane or an airport for the past 70 hours. We found out that flights in PNG do not go by departure time or schedule of any kind.  They seem to go by if there is enough fuel to run the plane, if attendants are available or any other unknown reasons. But we are sooo glad the travel is over. All our friends and family had been praying for us through this entire time.  God had watched over us, and we were safely on the ground in PN

  When we received tickets to fly to PNG on Thursday, April 6 th , our prayer focus changed to having God go with us and protect us throughout this trip instead of asking God to open the doors of this serving opportunity.  I know most of our friends and family have been praying the same thing.  So with all of this prayer, where was HE? So we started taking note of our “God sightings” through the trip. That made us think back two weeks when we were discouraged that paperwork just wouldn’t come through.  We wanted to be good stewards of God’s money that so many people had generously contributed as they partnered with us on this mission we felt called to.  With that in mind we were praying and had penciled in April 1 as the date we would pull the plug on this school year and begin preparing to serve in Kudjip next year instead.  March 27 th God showed up with Gayle’s visa  (4 days ahead of April 1 st ) and everything changed; the trip was on. God showed us again that He was directing the

  Wow!   Things have gone from way too slow to way too fast.   First, Gayle’s visa was finally approved on March 27 th . Then we had to send our paperwork and passports to the embassy in Washington, DC to be stamped.   They came back from the PNG embassy this past Tuesday evening.   Next was airfare but the travel agent that usually arranges these trips was not available until next week.   So, our Kudjip friend, Katherine, had another experienced agent familiar with travel to Mount Hagen who arranged our flights, and we now have tickets to fly out Monday, April 10 th .   We have been on mission trips outside the United States before, but always with a leader, someone who knew what to expect, and what to do.   We are on our own this time, and it seems a daunting task to maneuver through multiple airports and keep up with the busyness in several different cultures as we make this first trip to Kudjip. Thank God for praying friends and family!   We are thankful for and counting on our