Good Regina!

Regina only makes us more anxious to allocate in the bush soon.

She is clearly an inside dog. But PBT policy is strict. No dogs in the house. But they have no such restrictions on the houses in the bush.
She wants to lie down at our feet. She wants to be near us all the time. She wants to cuddle. But instead, she's set outside and most of the times we come out, we're laden with laundry or headed out to the car. (Yeah! You thought your washer was in an inconvenient location! We have to go outside and down the stairs and woe is us if it's raining! (we call it the presoak cycle).)
The result? SHE IS SO HAPPY TO SEE US!
But Jacob doesn't appreciate being jumped on while taking out stinky trash that has developed a drip. Or the compost with writhing little maggots inside. That could be disastrous.
And James doesn't appreciate being jumped on ever. And he doesn't understand as of yet that if he would just start petting her she would immediately stop shoving her body and nose into him. SHE JUST WANTS THE LOVE!
I think if they had more time to be mellow together they would get along great, but for that we must allocate.

Her work as a guard dog is a curious thing to try to evaluate at this point. We have another dog in the yard who's been known to cry wolf (or LOOK THERE'S A DOG ON THE STREET!) and Regina barks significantly less than he does. But is she just more discerning? It's hard to say that she's able to identify threats when we haven't had any threats for her to identify. So we hope and pray that when the moment arises that you really want a guard dog on the property, Regina will rise to that occasion admirably.
And looking at her lineage, she should, but luckily we've had no reason to find out.
(We have heard her bark and she sounds three times her size and vicious. Good Regina!)

She had worms when we first got her. The breeder tried to get her some dewormer before he shipped her over but we live in PNG and not everything is readily available. So we got some albendazole in her when she arrived and she's putting on weight admirably. Her mother was 110lbs and while the breeder doesn't anticipate she'll be quite as big, she'll definitely be a big girl.

All in all, she's a sweet girl and we're thankful to have her. Jacob and I will go out and sit on the porch in the evening and she'll saddle up for some petting and finally crawl into Jacob's lap. She's been known to play fetch but only for my verbal praises, the hunt is of secondary importance.

Shes a good girl, a quick learner, and a solid investment!

The Dark Day

Matthew 27:45
At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock.



I felt like the world going dark at all of a sudden was a little curious, mystical for sure, the kind of thing that fit right into the worldview of the Papua New Guineans. So I wanted to inquire about what this meant to them, what they thought the ramifications were when the sky went black.

"When the skies get dark we know a bikman (prestigious man in the village) is going to die. Jesus is a very bikman, so the sky goes all the way black before He dies."

While I was sitting in a group of men who had a great deal of exposure to the church, to a man in that culture who had never heard the Gospel, how powerful would this story be to him? Not just a story with foreign cultural practice after foreign cultural practice to piece together in a patchwork to discern what happened and it's implication, but this story speaks to his own culture.
When the skies go black, these men know:
This man who is to die is Lord of All.


Check out more stories from the back translation here.

Welcome Back to PNG

Well, we've been in town for about three weeks now and I don't know that anything has gone as planned, which is fairly normal here in the Land of the Unexpected.

We anticipated having our guard dog Regina with us by now, but through a series of typical events in Papua New Guinea, the delays snowballed. Hopefully we'll have her by the end of the week. Luckily, we chose to dog-sit for some co-workers who took a short trip stateside, so there has been a dog on the property, allaying my concern that every fallen coconut in the night is an intruder jumping the fence.

We anticipated having work. And we did. For a moment. The second language group that we're going to visit has a bit more of a literacy slant, putting Jacob at point. Well, the original suggestion involved sitting down and tagging an audio recording of Mark at every verse to sync it with the written text. Jacob listened very politely to all this being explained and then told me later that, in a nutshell, there's an app for that.  Apparently this app will read the text, analyze the audio recording, and sync the text to audio with modest accuracy. In 7 minutes for every hour of spoken text. So a months long project has been shortened to an afternoon.
I anticipated renewing my efforts on that side project for Lindy, but was told to stand down for reasons that haven't been revealed to me yet.

But honestly it was nice to have the time we did to unpack thoroughly. I have a couple more projects for the nursery until it's just like I want it. And I've been reupholstering the rocking chair because use has taught us that any prolonged sitting in it with a fussy baby caused great physical discomfort. I put sunscreens up over our front porch because it gets sun ALL DAY LONG and that's where we were planning on corralling the guard puppy to keep her from all the dangers on the ground level.

And day to day living is a bit more difficult. Both because we have two babies instead of one. And because we live in Papua New Guinea. Grocery shopping is a feat. Laundry has doubled as Marissa goes through more diapers at this age than James and a TON of burp clothes and swaddles. Even dishes are harder to do when there are two babies. James could be distracted or looked after by one parent but unless a baby is asleep… There's forever a need to stop scrubbing dishes and start a new episode of Dinosaur Train on the Kindle, get James water, get Mommy water, get Marissa a new burp rag, let Mommy take a shower, etc. etc.

But even as we get used to the new normal, both babies are steadily becoming more and more independent and the job gets easier.

In a couple days, our traveling companion for our second trip will return to country and we'll get to discuss this trip and how he would prefer to go about it and that may provide us with more work. If not, the Director of Language Affairs will be in country in a week or so and is normally bursting with ideas.
In the meantime, I'll finish up a couple of those forever loose ends from the first trip we went on. Including blogging about some of the highlights from the translation work there.

Grocery Shopping

Yet again, I thank God that we're both "work from home" parents as I walk back to where James is splashing in a puddle collected in the knot of a tree root and hoist him into his carseat. There are no laws about carseats in Papua New Guinea and so even though he usually gets all securely buckled, he knows he could be privileged to sit elsewhere, so he vocalized his displeasure in today's arrangement. Marissa is being clipped in by Daddy on the other side.
We turn on the air, which is more of a hail Mary than an actual effort to cool the car as the A/C probably went out of this car before I was born. We roll down the windows though I'm constantly anxious about the wind hitting Marissa's face so she can't breathe or her aspirating the dust or exhaust that can often be overwhelming.

We pull into Anderson's, an American geared grocery store. They have a defined parking lot which is nice instead of trying to pull out of street parking with random pedestrians blocking you. We wave at the parking guards as we unloaded the kids from the back. The parking guards protect the vehicles from ruffians and rascals and direct traffic within the parking lot (which they are miserably bad at). Each fine little hair on our babies' faces is clinging to a drop of sweat and I decide that heatstroke is probably worse than maybe aspirating dust.
James walks into Anderson's as Jacob carries Marissa. We want to be in and out so fast it doesn't warrant putting her in a wrap. All of the national women call out about how the sun will cook their skin and why don't I have an umbrella for them, nevermind that we were hardly in the sun for 15 seconds. As I get James in the cart, store workers swarm him wanting to touch his white skin, trying to get a smile, but he swats at them. He prefers women who play hard to get.

Oh, how I long for the days when I could take my shopping list to Walmart, get out of the car ONCE, put James in a shopping cart and Marissa in a wrap and get every single thing on my list, in an air conditioned store, grab a hot and ready meal, load back in the car ONCE. And get home, with lunch, and anything on my list I couldn't get at Walmart, I could order off Amazon and have in a couple of hours (because I lived in Dallas and Dallas is cool like that.)
But alas, that is merely a longing.

But as we start tossing things in the cart (regularly interrupted by every passerby reaching out to touch James' white skin), it only highlights the things we can't find.
Here there are three different grocery stores, not counting the Butcher's. 2 grocery stores have two locations. You would think that both locations have the same stuff but this is not the case. The last grocery store is Anderson's, geared toward Americans. You'd think this would be my one stop shop, but this is also not the case.
Anderson's is lacking in the nuts and the Asian sauces, as well as Napisan, our diaper (Australian: nappy) pre-wash. Anderson's also doesn't sell boxed heavy whipping cream, because apparently it hates me.
So we AT LEAST go to Anderson's and one other grocery store and the Butcher's. Of course, now we need to start buying dog food so that adds another store.
But that's JUST food. If I need a dog bowl, I have to go to an entirely different store!
So this shopping list:
Laundry Detergent
Napisan
Chicken breast
Salad Dressing
Box of canned cokes
Baking soda
Dog food
Dog bowls
Involves going to 6 different stores. Except for the baking soda which I still haven't been able to find. Sometimes things just don't come in on the boat and you have to hope it'll be here with the next shipment in a couple months. When I left, yeast was scarce. You could only find it at the Chinese shops (Chinese shops are a nightmare for productivity. Every single one is chaos with the exact same stuff but totally different stuff from the one next to it. It's nice if you're bored and just want to browse to see what there is to see. But with two kids, I'm never bored enough to venture into the Chinese stores.)

We finished getting everything on our list and more. In America, not impulse buying is a good habit that saves your wallet. Here, it is emotional survival. Oh, the day they had Sunchips!! Normally, impulse buying focuses in on the boxed juices on sale for US$0.75. We buy those up!
Heading up to the cash register involves more store employees swarming James. He's a little less overwhelmed now and a bit more willing to smile as long as they don't get too handsy. He's afraid they take him from me, but as long as they don't try to grab him, he'll play nice and perhaps even reward them with a heartbreaking smile.

We leave the store back into the heat of the day. Most places in this hemisphere (and perhaps the world) don't have central air conditioning as a standard. Instead they have air conditioning units, similar to window units. They're weak in comparison to the central A/C but at least Anderson's has one.
Most stores have none to speak of and heat stroke threatens when standing in the checkout line.

The carts aren't supposed to leave the store, I've been told by other missionaries, but no one's ever stopped us before. Instead someone tries to steer the cart out for us and James freaks out, thinking their taking him away from me. So I take over, shoving a cart over the cobblestone parking lot. I go around to unlock the car and Jacob snaps Marissa in, while the store attendant unloads the groceries into our car. We used to have only James and Jacob would load the groceries, and when he took the last load, the store employee would pretend to push the cart away with James still in it. He loved that. So Marissa helps keep people from proving James' fear well-founded again.

Our next stop is the beloved Butcher's. Right next to Anderson's, we could walk if it weren't for the heat of the sun (and it's a separate parking lot).
The Butcher's is a little gourmet slice of the first world. Gorgeous tile floors and wood walls. Goosebumps run up our arms as the aircon is running so low and effectively. The walls on each side of the store have a few store refrigerators and freezer. One side filled with cheeses and gourmet whipped cream and soda's. The other side with the best ice cream, frozen seafood, and frozen meat pies. Beside the freezer section is a single set of shelves filled with gourmet delicacies. Sauces, marinades, ice cream toppings, snacks, etc. We never buy anything but meat, occasionally a coke to refresh us as only coke can, and on a very rare occasion, a carton of ice cream, but we love to look at the lovely treats as they work on separating our 4kg of chicken and 2kg of ground beef and 1kg of sausage. We used to be able to make that much meat last two weeks but James has started taking a fair portion so it's a bit less than that now. But we don't begrudge a trip to the Butcher's!
They say the owners are planning on relocating back to Australia soon and are selling the place. Hopefully the new owners will keep the place the same because it's such an oasis.

With meat in the car, we decide the items left on our list aren't so important that we stop by the office to shove the meat in the refrigerator until we finish our shopping. One day, we won't be able to put off Napisan anymore but on this day, we'll just head home. The heat has drained us significantly. So we grab a couple fried items at the Butcher's little food bar. Most stores have a food bar with fried food and perhaps some stews and currys. But most are riddled with flies and roaches. Butcher's has the best tasting food and the cleanest facilities. Once they had a chicken patty for sale! I wished I had had a bun and lettuce and tomato. McDonald's couldn't have made a better McChicken. Normally it's just meatballs made of pork, but today they have chicken legs and hash browns, so we spend US$5 on lunch and head home.

Tomorrow will be a slightly sadder story in a different store. The grocery stores geared to the Chinese have more food with only Chinese on the packaging and a cat or two that I assume are for rat hunting but walk in and out of the butchery area at their leisure. They also have less aircon than Anderson's and are the same amount of effort getting in and out for only one or two items. But diapers have to be washed! And I do love finding pumpkin seeds!

Trip #2 is on the Calendar

While we were in Australia, some very important logistics were worked out for our trip to the second language group on the table.
Who was taking us?
And when would we go?

Even though the idea was mentioned, there's a number of reasons why going on our lonesome seems like a bad idea.
1. It's a road allocation. Meaning I would have to drive.
a. I don't know how to drive a stick, so that could pose some complications.
b. If something were to happen (flat tire, highway robbery, overheated engine, etc.), what would I do?! I have no idea! I don't have a lot of experience in crisis management in a third world country.
2. It's the first time anyone from PBT has been out to see this people group in a hot minute. They need more of a greeting than two green members.
3. When I'm picking an allocation there are probably a ton of things to consider! Things that you may only realize after the fact. So I wanted someone who had already allocated to help point out things to me.
So I picked three of the best names on the field and said I wanted one of them to accompany us.

William Butler stepped up to the plate.
William is nearly finished with his own translation project, has successful raised a couple of children in the jungle, and is a noted storyteller, frequently requested for The Coffeehouse, PBT's annual night of missionary stories and dessert.

So with this brimming cup of wisdom, we'll be headed out in August, penciled in for the 15th-19th.

Now, just as with the first language group, we need a reason to go. So our mission is to present a change in spelling convention which was decided by the translation team but never before seen in print and see how well this change is received.
For an example that would be applicable in English, a small team of people decided that "c" was a stupid letter, utterly pointless, so they went through every single resourse in the language and tshanged every instanse of the letter of whitsh we speak to a signifikantly more appropriate letter, s or k. But no one, not even the small team of people had gotten a tshanse to see this tshange in print. So we're going to go out and present them with this tshange and see how they like it.
How are we going to do that?!
That's a fantastik kuestion! (q is also stupid)
When we know, I'll write another blog post!

Until then!
Please be in prayer that God would give us wisdom in our desisions about allokation.

Back in Beautiful Madang

The sky is azure.

Or, as they say in Italy, "celeste".

My daughter's namesake.

Before it gently wafts the rich green of coconut palm fronds, dancing in the light and shadows.

On the horizon, rests the sea.

Or, as they say in Spain, "mar"

My daughter's other namesake.

Before it swings my Marissa Celeste, hanging in a bilum. She naps so sweetly in a bilum, with all the comfort of a swaddle and all the breeze of a hammock.

 I'm sitting now at the kitchen peninsula on the new stools the Branch put in our flat to nestle under it perfectly. It's a lovely sea breeze that blows across the veranda, rocking Marissa as if she were her own, sweeping into the house through our wall of windows designed to coax her in, refreshing us all.

A cup of coffee is still warm beside me and it's not the first time, by far, that I've thought about how much I love my life this week.

At least that's how things were when I started typing this. Marissa woke up from her nap. James started screaming. Hungry? Tired? I don't know and neither does he. He tries to be affectionate with Marissa with too much gusto. Now she's screaming and he's mad again for being reprimanded to be gentle. The ants found my coffee cup by route of the counter right in front of my computer. So when my wrists touch the counter, I have to pause to pick ants off of me. Some guy is weed whacking? But he might have literal blades of grass for all the racket it's making. And someone is burning their trash (because the garbage men didn't come again yesterday) so billowing black smoke with odeur de plastic is filling our house. The windows coax smoke in with as little discretion as it does the wind. 

But the thing about love is, it's a choice.

And whether I have the sweet scent of the sea filling my house or stale smoke in a stifling house as I shut the windows against it. Whether I have a weed whacker trying to take out sword grass* to serenade me or tropical birds hosted in the palms, the fronds sounding like a gentle rain when the wind brushes them. Whether I have screaming babies or the symphony of my son's laughter and daughter's giggles.

I choose to love my life.

It just comes a little less naturally at some times…

But it's the racket that makes the silent still moments so sweet.

We're so glad to be home.

Unpacking everything you own is a lot easier when you already know where everything goes. It's certainly a benefit of the Branch's efforts to keep people in the same apartments each time they come into town.

We have just a couple missing boxes but are otherwise unpacked with only a few nooks and crannies that still need a bit of organizing.

We have a lovely evening routine and half a morning routine (when you don't have to be at the office or school at a certain time, things start devolving after a warm cup of coffee meets your grasp.) And we're working on figuring out a mid-day routine, integrating the work of two full-time employees with the daily life of two stay at home parents.

Saturday, we'll start dog-sitting for a month and at some point in the next couple of weeks, our guard puppy will be flown in. So the routine can't get too concrete quite yet…

But life is starting to settle.

For a moment at least.

And we're so glad that it's here and with these amazing people we get to call family. 

Our Guard Puppy

There's something really hard about timing in the Land of the Unexpected.

Is NOW the right time to get a guard dog? Should we wait until we have an allocation?

Will this be a good way to have a toddler let of energy, in puppy cuddles, or is a beast of a dog going to overwhelm my son who still wants to play with the puppy?

So I put it in the hands of the Lord.

I'll ask one church to buy me a guard puppy. A small church. Generous, but without deep pockets.

If the Lord has given them the resources and desire to hook us up, we'll take it as a sign.

When I dropped the figure of $500, there was some hesitation.

But Colonial Heights Church of Christ decided to host a fund raiser, nonetheless, trusting the Lord to provide.

A Cici's Pizza night

Through proceeds from the event, generosity from the owner to give them 10% of all the business that evening, not just those who came for the fund-raiser, "selling" dog biscuits, and additional gifts, Colonial Heights not only raised the $500 but more, leading them to give us an additional check for $100 to help with expenses.

So we'll be receiving our puppy soon!

This is Regina at 3 weeks. She's a Neo-Mastiff Rottweiler mix.

Presently she's 12 weeks old so a lot bigger than this photo shows!

She should be arriving in the next couple of weeks.

Luckily, we'll have a fairly well-trained guard dog on the property for the first couple of weeks she's here, so hopefully she'll pick up some good habits!

Please pray for Regina.

PNG is rough on puppies. We'll keep her on the porch for a while, away from rocks (which they like to eat and then can't pass and then die) and away from cane toads (which they also like to eat, but are poisonous). But there's a number of other ways for a puppy to die.

The Lord used His funds to purchase her and now we need His hand to protect her.

Also, pray that James and Regina bond in a crazy way worthy of writing a work of literature on.

(Probably a sad one as most stories of dogs are, where it ends with Regina dying a hero's death as she intercepts the strike of a Death Adder to save my son's life, killing the snake, but alas, falling victim to its bite of death.)

(Also pray that my children never encounter a death adder…)

(Or any member of our household…)

In conclusion,

Thank you, Colonial Heights, for your faith when it comes to funds and for investing your resources in us and our ministry.