Leave it to the ants

I don't like ants. Granted there are some ants that I dislike more than others. There are the kinds that are tiny, scatter quickly but you can squish with your finger. There are those that are big and red and go nuts when a tree has been cut down. There are also the ants that are black and carry pieces of leaves twice their size and really just want to get the job done. So if you pick the leaf up they will hold on tight...because they are NOT going back to the queen ant empty handed.

When I was teaching in the states I had my students go outside and find different items in nature that we could sort and use to make a collage. One of my students had finished finding his items so decided to sit down and wait for the rest of the class. But to his surprise he sat on a red ant hill and quickly found out what they thought about that. This poor little boy ended up with welts all over his stomach and back. As I was walking him to the nurse he said, "Why did God make them?" I don' t know! I don't like ants.

During my 5 weeks of living in the village with a Papua New Guinean family, my friend and I took a walk to church. We saw that up ahead a tree hand fallen on the road. Thinking nothing of this we continued walking at our slow pace until we reached the tree. The family we were staying with were walking a good distance behind us and said that when we got close to the tree we started doing a "silly dance" and watched us run a good distance until we were far away from the tree. Their laughter quickly faded once they met the "instigators" of our dance! OH....those nasty red ants! They were vicious! One of them was so fast it bit me on the back! I will forever be cautious when I approach a fallen tree! Can you tell that I don't like ants.

Today, however, I had quite an interesting experience with ants. These ants, although fast, are not biters. When we went to do something with the circuit breaker a whole swarm of these tiny little ants can tearing out! So I called the electrician and when he came he sprayed the switches with bug killer and I wiped them all down. What a mess! Can anyone tell me why ants would want to make their home in the electrical circuits? Crazy ants. What I think is ironic is that it was really no big deal here to have ants in random places of your house. He sprayed, I wiped, he put the circuits back, and I went back to work.

Leave it to the ants.

GOING GREEN

The other day I wanted to make a dish that required canned green beans. I decided to go and buy a can instead of steaming the ones we got at market. After buying it I thought to myself, "This is crazy!" Fresh green beans are soooo much cheaper here than canned.

This got me thinking. How many green beans could I get for the same price as a can of green beans? Since we get canned and processed foods imported from America and Australia they cost more than getting the "organic" version at the market. In America it is such a big deal to buy organic but it is VERY expensive. Here in PNG people have never even heard of pestisides and everyone eats organic so they don't even think twice about it.

My roommate and I went on a mission. We bought one can of green beans for K3.90. Then we went to the Ukarumpa market which is set up outside on old wooden tables. Nationals come from all around on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to sell to the people here in Ukarumpa. They sell fresh produce, flowers and even artifacts such as wood carvings, string bilum bags, and paintings. The produce is likely picked the day before or the day of market. Walking into market you will see little piles of green beans set up nicely on tables, each with a price (often 20t). We bought K3.90 worth of fresh green beans to compare to the can. This was A LOT of green beans!

We brought them home, soaked them in bleach water to clean them, and then counted....316 green beans! HECK yeah!

I am pretty sure we will sharing with our friends!

PNG has already gone Green!

I'm an Aunt!

When I was a little girl living on the mission field in Colombia I quickly realized the other missionaries were not just my parents co-workers, they were family. As a MK (missionary kid) we would decide which adults we would give the title "aunt" and "uncle". We decided this on how well we knew the person, how much they were apart of our lives, and how fun they were!

If they were our parents good friends they usually earned the title.
If they were really cool and took us to cool places.
If they listened to us, mentored us, or basically were given responsibility of us like our parents.
If they attended our events, dramas, and other special events in our lives.
If they were there for us in hard times in our lives and still loved us....they were given the title.

Even today I still have a few people that I call "uncle" and "aunt". It gets a little trickier seeing as I am also a missionary with Wycliffe now, but some titles just stick.

When I was attending my training camp here (POC) I ran into a couple who were both MKs in Peru. It has been fun getting to know them and their two little kiddos. As we started talking I realized that they gave the title "aunt" and "uncle" to everyone on the Peru mission center. They said their center was small and everyone that is older, any adult, was given this title. I thought that was pretty interesting!

We thought about what their kids should call me. Should it be, Aunt Amanda or just Miss Amanda? Which would mean more to me and to them? We settled on Aunt Amanda. I am thrilled!

Though I have 5 biological nieces (2 on the way) and 2 nephews there is just something different about being a "missionary" aunt. They will never be on the same level but I am honored.

I am now a missionary aunt to three families here and take great pride in it. It's like they are welcoming me into their family!

So if you ever see a missionary being called "aunt" or "uncle" and you know they aren't related to that person you will know that it's because we have shared this bond, this special experience that is almost like family.

Christmas in August!

In January I decided to send some of my belonging in a shipment. The items were packed up in boxes and put on a ship headed for PNG. I was informed that it would arrive in May, possibly beating me to Ukarumpa. I was thrilled and went along packing, moving, saying goodbye, and so forth.

In May I arrived here and realized my shipment had not arrived. Though a little disappointed I realized this was not uncommon. I though of all the reasons why it could be delayed and relaxed. Many months went by and to my own dismay I began to realize I had put certain things on the shipment that I should have taken on the airplane with me. Discouragement began to creep up on me.

People kept saying it would be here this weekend or or this Friday and I decided not to listen. It would come when it was suppose to come. With this kind of thinking you can imagine my surprise when I went to the store this Friday and actually SAW my shipment. Faith without seeing just didn't work after being let down so many times. There it was and it was beautiful! I am thankful for all the hard work the shipping department did. I can't imagine it being easy to work with so many different countries. I am thankful for my "Christmas" in August!

On Friday night my roommate made cookies while I showed her everything I had brought! I think she is excited to "share" my things! I feel like I can begin to nest now and create a home for myself.

The Wall of 300

I continue to remind myself how blessed I am to be working where I am. At the end of the school year we all walked into chapel to find a row of little cards wrapping around the top of the building. The Principal stood and explained that each one of these cards has a name of a language group in this country that does not have a Bible in their language. There were 300. Each child in the school had colored and decorated one of the cards. Looking up at those cards I was amazed! Though I have spoken about this to many people during my Partnership Development trips, it still hits me when I see it. The Principal went on to say that every time one of these language groups has a translation we will put a red line over it meaning, "finished". Praise God!

After we talked about the cards we had a time of prayer. At that time I was responsible for the Kindergarten children so I took half of them and gave the other half to my Papua New Guinean assistant and we prayed for a few different provinces in PNG. My students listened with great interest as I explained that these people do not even know that Jesus loves them, who Jesus is, or that God has a book to tell them about it. Their eyes widened. Though I am sure each child in this group has heard this before, their parents being missionaries and all, it reminded them again why they were in this country. I asked them to close their eyes and one child began to pray. As she prayed I felt tears come to my eyes. Her desperate prayer for people to KNOW that Jesus loves them to BRING missionaries here to tell them so they can go to heaven with us, was just precious. I am glad we can include the children as we pray for these people. I KNOW God hears our prayers, especially those of children. Sometimes I think they are more faithful than me at time!

Yesterday I took my new group of Kindergarten students into the auditorium. We sat on the floor and I told them what the cards on the wall meant. I explained that their parents, in some way (either support missionaries...like me, or translators) are helping to bring God's word to the people of PNG. We talked about how these 300 language groups on the wall are still waiting to hear and waiting for someone to come to them. Then we began to pray. Again tears came to my eyes when one little girl began to pray. Her eyes closed tight, her tiny little hands clenched in a folded position. Oh God, hear her prayers! Bring more translators to these people and help us in this task that is too big for us...but not for You. Hear the prayers of the children.

Thank you for allowing me support Bible Translation and to minister to the children at Ukarumpa International School Primary Campus!

HOT WATER!!!

Today I had a HOT SHOWER!!!
Okay, this may not seem like a big deal but when you have gone days desperately waiting for the sun to heat your water so you can have a hot shower because it's CRAZY cold for some reason, it's a BIG DEAL!

Let me show you how my perspective has changed over time in regards to hot water.
November, 2011- Waxhaw, North Carolina
I decided to take a "stress shower" so I did. Yeah, don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. If you had a bad day and you don't care about your water bill (that is not in front of you....that does not REALIZE what kind of day you have had and you "deserve" an hour long shower) you can wash it all away in a steaming hot, FULL pressure shower, for as long as you want to. This is the kind of shower I could take. Or the I-just-went-for-a-run-gotta-get-to-bible-study-in-ten-minutes-so-I-need-a-quick-shower kind of shower. This is a shower in the states. One where you don't think twice why the water is hot, who is heating the water, or why you should even bother answering those questions!

February, 2011- POC, Madang, PNG
In order to obtain hot water at my Pacific Orientation Course in PNG we had to light a fire. Now this isn't just any kind of fire, because if it was, my two roommates and I would have been able to light it at 5am and then go back to bed with no fuss... OH NO! This furnace was ridiculous. One of the first days there we were given a tutorial on how to light the furnace and keep it lit. If we scrape this, and stack this, and the kero goes like this, and then check it 30 minutes later...no problem right. WRONG! This is how my roommates and I would light it. We would roll out of bed, grab a skirt, trip around the room to find the Furnace Bucket, go out in the dark/often rain, and stand in front of the furnace. we would do everything they said to light the thing: scrape, stack, spray, light. It would go..pretty big in fact so we would leave. 30 minutes later...it was dead. The point of lighting the furnace at 5am was so that at 6 when most people started to get up it would have heated the water for warm showers. They would come into the bathroom fill a bucket with warm water (that is, if the one of lighting duty could get it warm), pour the bucket into another bucket with a shower head on the bottome, use a rope to pull the "bucket shower" to the top, tie the rope off, and voula...a shower. We'll just say...cold showers were looking a lot more promising to me on those days (it was so hot I often didn't mind)

April, 2011- Wayu Village
A hot shower? What's that? What's a shower? River washing all the way. Yu go waswas!

June, 2011- Ukarumpa, PNG
The water at my apartment is heated by use of a solar panel. It is great when the sun is bright and the water is flowing off the roof into our tank. The showers are so hot and wonderful!!

July, 2011- Ukarumpa, PNG
I am getting desperate! It has rained for ...MANY days and the sun has hardly appeared to heat my water. I have quickly learned to check the water in the shower before even preparing to take a shower. Why bother getting ready if it's going to be cold? This is when I say, mi les (I don't care, I'm lazy) long waswas (to wash). During this time though I had decided I was in desperate need of a shave but I was certainly NOT going to shave with cold water. So I made a plan. If I heated water on the stove and poured it into the tub...Hmmmm. It worked. I have to say, I did feel a little ridiculous. But hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

So Mr. Sun, you are welcome to shine on me any day!
Enjoy your hot shower today!

A tea party in PNG?

My friend Melissa wanted a tea party for her birthday and I told her I would help organize it. I decided I wanted it to look like this cute little tea room I went to in South Carolina a few times. This little tea room was so precious. When you first walk in you get to choose a fancy hat! We could even try them on and look in the mirror! Very fun! Then we could choose a tea cup and saucer for the day.

With this kind of tea party in mind, I knew I had a lot of work to do! Thankfully I had already been to a fancy tea party. Some ladies had put it on right when I got here so I knew there were MANY fancy tea sets around...even in PNG!

I wrote on the group board asking for items for the tea party. The list was pretty ridiculous seeing as I had NOTHING but food to contribute to it. I wanted to make this day special for my friend, especially how crazy her week had been already! After a few days I began to hear from people so Melissa and I went on a "little" trip all around center.

We visited 12 different houses and borrowed items from tea pots, tea cups and saucers, to freshly squeezed lemon juice and 16 hats from the high school prop room (ones from past plays)! I was ecstatic but knew my neck was on the line if anything was broken! (Not a good situation when you live on a small center.) We even managed to convince two high school girls to help serve so Melissa and I can enjoy being at the party...which was a great idea!

The day of, I woke up to rain! Being a new driver, and a driver of a "questionable van", and also knowing I would have to make a few trips to take all the tea pots and so forth to where I was hosting it, I was a little nervous! But all worked out perfectly. The rain stopped and we only needed one trip!

The 9 other ladies and us enjoyed trying on hats, drinking strawberry lemonade, and choosing a tea cup (one lady even brought a mug because tea cups don't hold enough! haha). Our first course was cranberry scones with cream served with the first round of hot teas. The second course got many OOWWW's and AAAAWWWW's as the trays were filled with: fruit kabobs, chocolate covered pretzels, cheese and crackers, and cucumber sandwiches (my favorite). It is always nice to watch a missionary relax and savor the moment. There is nothing better than providing a memory like this (like I felt at training when I received a chocolate Hershey's candy....I don't think I have ever eaten anything and liked it that much!). The last course was cake and ice cream followed by a Happy Birthday song to my friend.

It was a nice morning...and yes, nothing has broken. Hopefully the last two deliveries tomorrow will keep my record clean!

Even though I am far away from America, I believe I can still host fun events and pamper my friends. I am glad that God continues to show me how I can do this.