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  Alotau, Papua New Guinea
Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Hey everyone! Hope you are all having a great week!

We have been busy getting stuff set up and ready to be

here for the next 7 weeks. I cannot believe that we

have been here for a week already! It is Monday night

here, but I'm not sure what time it is there! This

past week we got to know several people who live around

here. The land is really fertile so no one goes hungry

unless they just don't do anything! The men just stand

around all day and don't really do anything, but the

women work and make sure the guys don't starve. On

Friday we had a meeting with Marcus Reese, one of the

missionaries, and got to talk about the culture and

what the missionaries have been doing. There is a

strong belief in witchcraft and animism. They don't

really have an all powerful god in their beliefs, it

just depends on where they are as to who is more

important. One helpful thing about the area we are in

is that almost all the people in Alotau speak English.

That is a huge blessing when it comes to teaching the

gospel

Flying over PNG

. They also, for the most part, say that they

believe in the Bible as the word of God. The island

was divided many years ago by the different religious

groups that came in and the people in the different

areas are still strongly linked to whichever church was

in control of their area. Even if they have never

attended the church, they still feel a bond with the

idea of whichever church. They have witchdoctors that

are used by members of the different religions because

no one has ever told them anything different. In

Alotau the people are not usually persecuted

physically, but they are harassed verbally if they are

baptized. Saying magic words is very big deal here and

a very big part of the "witch" idea. After our meeting

we went to the high-school to see if there were any

kids that needed us to tutor them in some classes.

Saturday it was raining...again..., but we had the "Amazing

Race" PNG! There are 3 missionary families here and

they each have a truck, so we were split up into 3

teams and had 9 clues that we had to complete. They

were kind of hard! We had to go all over Alotau and we

ended up at the Ford's home. Daniel, Logan and I were

a team and it was a lot of fun! On Sunday it was still

raining...shocking I know..., but we went to the church in

town. They meet at the International school, where

most of the missionary kids go to school

Flying over the Pacific

. We had a pot

luck and it was pretty good! Their cultural food is

not very spicy, but it is VERY starchy! After church

we were told that we, the interns, were going to be on

a team that would compete against the girls, or as they

call them "gels," and the boys! We got creamed! They

have been studying Daniel and I must admit that I have

not read that story for major details in a VERY long

time! It was so much fun though! I also got to sit in

on two different study sessions with Leslie. One of

the ladies, Minnie, has been baptized and he is just

finishing up a study to help her grow as a Christian

and the other was with a teacher, Josephine, who has

been coming to church for a month now and asked to talk

to him. It was really awesome to get to hear what she

was asking and get to hear his answers. On Monday

(which we didn't have last week because we flew over

the Date Line) I learned how to drive stick-shift...on

the OTHER side of the road and the OTHER side of the

truck! I cannot remember if I told you all this, but

they drive on the other side of the road, so that was

fun to learn how to do that! The only thing that is

really hard is turning, because here the right hand

turns are the hard ones, not the left hand turns! The

Williams also live in Top Town (yeah, that's right,

it's called that because it is at the top of the hill!

) and the hill is VERY steep! Tuesday was a little

busier because Marcus came over and we worked on our

schedules and the missionaries had a team meeting in

the afternoon

At Gama cooking

. They normally have it in the morning,

but the social workers came over to check on everything

at the house because the Williams are still trying to

adopt Bailey. Please keep them in your prayers! They

have had her since she was 3 months old, she is 3 now,

but they are still trying to finish adopting her! That

night we went to Pastolla's home, she worships with the

church in town, for a devotional with a lot of the

Christians from Top Town and Golanai. Leslie decided

that next week we would split up Top Town and Golanai

devotionals because there were too many to bring over

in their little truck! I think we are going to be in

charge of the Top Town one. Wednesday we went to

another church devotional, but this time it was out in

the "bush" as they call it. Gama church is in a small

village out of town, but there are quite a few members!

We learned how to make "taro." Taro is like a potato

and it is their staple food over here! We got to peel

the taro, break it into little pieces, scrape dry

coconuts (which is VERY...um...difficult), then we got to

squeeze the coconut (kind of like squeeze the

fish...haha) that was scraped out to get the milk to cook

the taro in, and finally we had a devo while it cooked.

When it was finished it kind of looked like the liquid

part of oatmeal, but starchier, and it was sort of

grayish

Gama cooking

. It really was not bad, I mean, I would not

really like to eat it every day or anything, but it

won't kill you! We got back in time to leave to go to

a farewell devotional for the Ford family. They are

leaving next week to go on furlough. Jerry's baby is

due in about a month and they will be gone 3 months

because they have to get the babies passport. Please

keep them in your prayers. Today, Thursday, I am

supposed to go interview a guy about the Trobriand

Islands. We are going there for our survey trip, so

please keep that in your prayers, because I really just

don't know what to ask! Well, I guess I have bored you

enough for a while! Hope you are all having a great

week! Love you and miss you all!

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

making coconut milk	older women at Gama	Gama church building	Our room
Mountains	Outside Alotau	Milne Bay	Cutting Sago
Freddy	Stacking Sago	Sago trees	Sago leaves
Gama river	Bewa	Kids at Gama	Leaving Bewa
Freda teaching RI class	Cameron high school	girls devotional	PNG
Milne Bay	Luke and Daniel climbing	Susan and Loopie at the coconut tree	kids at Gama
kids	Fransisca	Gama	kids at church
church	me weaving	Daniel making a canoe	Near Gama river
Milne Bay	War canoe	War canoe up close	Milne Bay
Waterfalllllllllll	Baylee	Luke, Daniel and I after hiking up	climbing coconut tree
Daniel and I drinking coconut milk	Family we stayed with	Daniel and baby	Kids at Opalai
Alotau coC youth group	Gama river	cooking at Gama	PMV in Kiriwina
Yam house	Kiriwina village	kids in Kiriwina	me, Caroline and Mabel cooking
Daniel and Luke weaving wall for bath house	more weaving	Taro	Doreen and me
cute girl	me with several of the family we stayed with	making mona	FLAT island
pretty flower	kids following us	youth camp	cooking at camp
Wesley	Neti, Susan and Susan cooking at camp	Luke's shirt we made	from the top of a mountain
Our look out!	Logan and I

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