The Butterfly and the Cocoon

written and illustrated by Claire (age 6)

Barbie the caterpillar went to bed one night in her warm cocoon.  In the morning, the sun came up, but Barbie didn’t want to come out of her cocoon.  She said, “It’s too cozy in this cocoon with my Buddy.  I just want to sleep some more.”

But her mom and dad said, “If you don’t come out of your cocoon you won’t go to the restaurant with us.”

“OK, I’ll come out,” said Barbie.  “But first I have to straighten my cocoon.”

When she was done, she came out and realized that she had pretty pink and purple wings.  Then she went to the restaurant with her mom and dad and had mashed potatoes and peas.

The End

Wherefore Art Thou Romeo?

Wondering what happened to that airplane Jon was working on at JAARS in Waxhaw, NC?  Well, after Jon and the others completed the modifications, the Kodiak aircraft was flown to Moundridge, KS.   A crew from Weaver Aero Int'l then installed a ferry tank and made other preparations for flying it over half-way around the world.

 

On November 3, it left Kansas to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, the Middle East, and South Asia.  Praise God!  On November 19, the Kodiak arrived safely at the Aiyura Valley airport (near where we live and serve on the Ukarumpa center).  It flew 87 hours between Kansas and Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea.  While it was in Port Moresby, it received its new registration of P2-SIR, and will probably be called “Romeo” henceforth.

A small crowd was on hand to welcome Romeo to its new home in Aiyura Valley.  They praised God for its safe arrival and dedicated it to the Lord’s work.  Soon, it will be put to work alongside its twin “Bravo”.

We thank God for the opportunity to help prepare this Kodiak for its service in PNG.  Lord willing, we’ll get to see it in action soon!  The aviation department in PNG is seriously short of aircraft maintenance technicians right now, so we’re eager to get back there and continue the work.  Please join us in praying that God would expand our team of partners to cover the last 26% of our monthly financial budget.  Pray also that our house would sell and free us to return without the concerns of caring for a home here in the US.  Thank you so much for your partnership in prayer!

If you’re interested in learning about why the Kodiak is the perfect tool for supporting Bible translation in Papua New Guinea, watch the following video clip.

Kodiak Tour

Bountiful Bananas

It still strikes me kind of funny that now I pay around $0.49 a pound for bananas when in Papua New Guinea at times I couldn’t give them away.  They grew in our backyard and in everybody’s backyards for that matter.  And when a bunch was ready for harvesting you hoped this time they’d ripen slowly instead of all 104 turning brown at once!  Sometimes you had to get creative in your uses for ripe bananas if you didn’t want to just throw them away.  Now it’s rare that I have any left over for baking.  But when I do, this is our family’s favorite way to use those brown, spotted and mushy fruit-fly attracters.  The mushier the better…!

Dressed Up Banana Cake

Combine and beat:

• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 cup sugar (or less)
• 2 eggs

Add:

• 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine separately:

• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 teaspoon soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 2 teaspoons nutmeg

Add alternately to the first mixture:

• 3/4 cup milk

Beat well.  Pour into well-greased 9x13 inch pan.  Sprinkle on top:

• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Bake at 350F for 30-40 minutes.

Hopeful Creation

So we’re back home for about a month…a couple of weeks…an undetermined number of days.  I woke up this morning feeling strangely like I’m on vacation.  Must be the result of sleeping in my own bed for a change.  I could have stayed under those covers for much longer, but the sun comes up an hour earlier now, and so does our rooster (aka Isaiah).

This rooster requested pancakes for breakfast.  Fortunately, I saw it coming and made the batter the night before.  Pancakes are essential to Isaiah’s “settled in” feeling.  He rates our many “homes” by the frequency he gets pancakes for breakfast.  According to his Sunday School teacher, they figure into his top six things to be thankful for—falling right after “motorcycles” and right before “his sister”.  Actually, I was quite surprised Claire made in the top 100.

It being the gorgeous autumn day that it was, Claire’s and Isaiah’s PhyEd teacher determined class would be held at Holliday Lake State Park.  This park boasts a 6+ mile trail around the lake, and each time we visit we try to hike a little further than we did before.  I estimate we walked 3 miles this time, and with minimal complaining about tired legs.  I’d like to say that our kids’ appreciation of the great outdoors kept them going, but it was probably the snacks.

The trail was ankle deep in crunchy oak leaves so any wildlife we might have seen heard us coming a mile away.  Undeterred, Isaiah stuffed his pockets with acorns of various sizes and Claire adopted a pet rock.  The said pet accompanied us on our hike for a lot longer than I would have guessed, until it decided it would rather take a swim in the lake.  According to Claire, rock is currently looking for its baby rock on the bottom of Lake Holliday.

The teacher in me can’t help but point out how all the plants and trees are letting go of their babies…or seeds and getting ready for winter.  We find berries, acorns and pods of various sizes.  These seeds will fall to the ground, get covered by dead leaves, and hopefully rise up to new life in the Spring.  The browns and golds of dying leaves and plants dominate the landscape we see right now.  But there is hope for new life yet to come.

“…with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay….We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.”

--Romans 8:20b-21,23b

Maybe that’s why I love autumn so much….