A Day Off

Day 24: We took the day off today to do some shopping and then swimming at Jais Aben resort.  The weather wasn’t great for snorkeling, but Jon took each of the kids for a spin around the bay on a kayak.

Building a Hauskuk

Day 23:  The students started constructing their “hauskuks” (cook house) today.  Next week, they’ll begin using them to make their own meals on the weekends.

 

 

 

Isaiah works on his own creation.

First Wasfamili Visit

(Photo above:  30 pots of stew and rice.)

Day 22:  Each of the student families is assigned a local “wasfamili” (watch family) who will introduce them to real life in rural PNG.  Tonight the students will meet their wasfamilis for the first time and share a meal of beef stew, rice, bread rolls and banana bread.  It’s a lot of work making food for over 130 people, but it’s also a lot of fun working together to make it happen.

What’s Cooking?

Day 17: Successfully cooked 2 hot meals for almost 50 people without the aid of the amazing Kitchen Ladies--four local women who do most of the cooking on week days. We had lots of other help but I was calling the shots and that makes me nervous! Power has been on and off today so that is an added challenge.

 

Apparently this is what Mommy’s cooking does to people, so Claire is doing some of her own using only local ingredients—namely coconut, discarded tea bags and the old tube of toothpaste she found in the bathroom cabinet.

The Whole Family Pitches In

Day 10: Everyone hard at work in the kitchen. The students start arriving tomorrow!  (We soak vegetables to be eaten raw in bleach water.)

The Drum Oven

Day 9:  How do you bake bread, granola, pizza, etc. for 50 people at the Pacific Orientation Course in Papua New Guinea? With a wood fired drum oven.... 

At least it isn’t useless when the power goes out…or we run out of propane!

Taking Stock

Day 6: In between helping Isaiah assemble a pseudo-Lego set, we organized the pantries and freezers. Claire was a big help! Anyone know how many jars of tomato puree it takes to make spaghetti sauce for 60 people? I don't….

PNG’s Natural Gatorade

 

 

 

Day 4: Play with the kids, drink a “kulau” (the water inside a green coconut), maybe fry up some banana chips and REST. It's going to be a busy week!

A New (But Temporary) Phase

On 6 August, our family left Ukarumpa to begin a temporary assignment at the Pacific Orientation Course in Madang, PNG.  You can read more about why we’re doing this here.  Any faithful followers of our blog will have realized that this move resulted in absolute silence on this blog for over a month.  <cricket chirps>

Life has been crazy—lots of new and different things to adjust to, and the learning curve has been very steep.  Our current role is so far out of our previous training and experience, we can only rely on God’s enabling.  And as always, he has not failed us!

I hope to post photos and brief descriptions of some of the events over the past few weeks in an effort to catch up.  And maybe…(emphasis on “maybe”) I’ll find a way to keep this blog current.

 
Day 1 at POC: Met the other staff and participated in the first team building session.

Jon safely maneuvered the Hilux and the Hino down and up the steep mountain road to POC.  (The photo is the view of the coastline from one of the hairpin curves near the top of the mountain.)

I prepared three meals for our family, figured out how to deal with rubbish and calmly managed incessant requests for snacks and swimming by two children. We’re a long way from the nearest grocer, but discovering that I can purchase basic grocery items from the "store" next door went a long way to thwarting the temptation to panic.