Morsels

Wearing a traditional "meri"
blaus ("woman" shirt)

Just a few glimpses into some of my thoughts and experiences of the last week.

~I did not expect my first real wave of doubt to come as we were preparing to board our flight out of the USA. After all, this flight is ‘the moment’ I had been waiting for almost for 15 years! But as the frustrations and fatigue of the day set in, I found a part of my mind saying “What are we doing? Why are we doing this? Is this a bad idea?” ….oh I should include that a significant part of this questioning was due to a growing anxiety I was experiencing at flying in this exceptionally large aircraft (that has only been around for a few years). And indeed, I ended up having some very interesting conversations with the Lord throughout the flight, as my anxiety kept me from sleeping through the rather turbulent sky for 15 hours. (I knew it, I SHOULD have asked my dr for a Valium prescription, haha!)

~Despite the unexpected wave of doubt, once our feet were on PNG soil, I have felt quite at home, and able to ‘go with the flow’. The heat and humidity haven’t been discouraging, the traffic and atmosphere of the town haven’t been surprising, and the ants haven’t caused me to snap. Hehe. Yet. I think the most “fun” for me so far was when I discovered that a few hundred of the ants got into my bag of rice.(!) So we decided to put the bag in a container in the freezer to kill them. Whenever I need rice, I measure out what I need and soak it, and filter out the dead ants. Woohoo! (But Noe brought me some ant bait from town today after he helped another tribal team with their supply buying, and one of the families generously gave us a bottle of Ant Rid… so the bait is currently working its magic, and a few days will tell if we’ve made a dent or not!)

~Every night the geckos come inside and inhabit our windows (to kill other creatures). We first saw two of them when we were playing “Take-Off” with the girls before bed a couple nights ago. The girls decided to name these two “Todd” and “Olaf”. Too fun…

~Jocie is gradually getting over her fear of the ants. Last night she even laid down in her own bed at bedtime… for about 2 ½ minutes! But that’s progress! Today she looked at the table at a morsel of Cheese Twisties (these are like Cheetos… but NO, they are nothing like Cheetos. Eat some for us, American friends!!), and she watched as several ants broke off pieces of the morsel and carried the pieces away. We decided they were having a potluck. (See, it’s all about perspective. Well, much of it anyway.)

~My husband is amazing, and has been so helpful not just for our family in this transition, but for others on the center. Currently he’s out in a nearby village helping put up a thatch roof for a house. He got to go snorkeling yesterday with another missionary, and on their way, they went through a village where he met some men who had befriended some of our missionary friends, Jon and Taylor. These tribal men were excited to finally meet “Noah”, the “Mexican”. And they’re excited to meet our family. In the next few days, we look forward to taking the girls into a village to meet some folks.

~Surrounding our house, we just learned, are lemongrass plants, ibica (like spinach), a chili plant, a pineapple growing in the ground, and nearby the house is a tree of “Captain Crunch Berries” (that’s for you Bekka), and a plumeria tree! The girls and I, and the Crabtree’s girls, walked over to that tree earlier today and gathered some of the blossoms from the ground. We made a little bouquet in a bowl for a table centerpiece, which is now giving our dining a room a wonderful aroma!

Last night's dinner - homemade tortillas, refried kidney beans,
rice, and cheese. Yum!

Well I hope you enjoyed some ‘morsels’ from life here. It’s a bit scattered, but that’s how things are a bit currently. J I’m hoping to start Naya’s 1^st grade in the morning, unless there’s something else on schedule that I’m unaware of. For now, I’m off to start dinner. Going to make up some white sauce to put on noodles, per Jocie’s request. Wish me luck!