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Trip Start May 27, 2007 Previous
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  Alotau, Papua New Guinea
Sunday, June 17, 2007

Good Morning/ Evening/ Afternoon!  Wow!  I cannot
believe that we have been here for 19 days!  It kind of
feels like we have been here forever, but not really in
a bad way.  Today is our day off, so I have time to put
up a post.  I really thought they were crazy when we
first got here to give us a day off, but now I am
sooooo glad we get it!  We have been crazy busy this
week!  If I listed everything we have done, it would
not seem like a lot, but when everything takes longer
to do.it takes up a lot of time!  We are all still
healthy and doin' good, but I must admit that "culture
shock" has been taking its toll on all of us lately.
For those of you who have not been through it, well,
let's just say that the idea that it hits right when
you go somewhere is SO not true!  It usually hits about
two weeks into the trip and again at about six weeks.
Another thing I didn't understand about what the
missionaries kept saying was that we could "not do
something if we were feeling overwhelmed that day."
Well, I kept thinking."why wouldn't I want to do
everything?!  I am in Papua New Guinea!  Of course I
want to do everything!"  Haha.it's amazing how much the
missionaries know about being worn out and needing a
break!  I do not say all of that to have you feel
sorry for me or to worry any more than you already are
about me, I just say that to let you know that I really
do need your prayers!  I have realized that God's will
is the only way I am here and that He is the only way I
am going to make it with great experiences, both good
and bad!  Now for the funnier part of my email!
Friday, the 8th, we got up and went to cut sago (say
the name of each vowel to pronounce the word).  Now,
there are several things you should know about sago.
One, to the people of Papua New Guinea, the sago tree
is like the buffalo to the American Indians.  They use
every part of the tree.  They eat sago (NOT my favorite
meal I must add), they build with sago, they dress with
sago, they sleep on sago mats.well, you get the
picture.  It looks like a coconut tree except that
instead of having coconuts on it, it has bunches of red
seeds.  (I'm sure you can look-up a picture of it
online)  Anyway, Wesley, one of the Christians from
Gama (a local village with a church) needed a new roof,
so we were volunteered to go help!  We went far out
from Alotau, into an area filled with sago planted by
the government, and Wesley chopped down two of the
trees.  He chopped the.leaves.limbs.I'm not sure what
to call them, but he chopped off the big fronds.that's
a good word yes?...and we all had knives to hack the
leaves off.  After we had the leaves all hacked off, we
stacked them and Wesley tied them into bundles to take
back to his house.  They will let them dry, I think,
and then sew them all together on different long sticks
to layer like shingles to make a new roof!  Chopping
enough leaves to make 6 bundles only took us two hours,
since there were eight of us working, so after we
finished that we went back to the house and got cleaned
up to go out to eat!  There is a place called Masserah
that serves food buffet style and is really good!  We
won a big box of cokes.sodas.whatever...in the raffle
thing they do.  They have some of the best sodas over here!
Saturday was our off day and we went to the beach with
the Ford family and the Reese family!   We drove for
about an hour and a half to get out there, but it was
really worth it!  The beach we mostly coral, but we got
to snorkel!  I have never done it before, but other
than the fact that I am completely petrified by deep
water that I cannot see through, it was awesome!  The
water was SO blue and clear up at the shore and there
was plenty of coral reef in the shallow part that I did
not have to go to the drop off!  Fish were everywhere!
 There all these bright, and I mean electric, blue
fish; half orange and half purple fish; lots of
beautiful coral of all kinds; and SO many other kinds
of fish that were so amazing!  We snorkeled for a while
and got basically baked.yes mom, I put on lots of
sunscreen, but when you are this close to the equator
they don't make an SPF high enough!   After the Fords
went home, we went to a village near the beach and got
one of the locals to take us to this cave full of human
skulls!  It was awesome!  We walked back into the
jungle, but still close enough to the beach to see the
water a lot of the way, for about an hour.  After
climbing up some volcanic rock hills, we were able to
look into this cave and see some of the skulls.  The
guide seemed kind of upset and when we asked him why,
he said that a lot of them were missing!  Apparently
the different tribes steal each others skulls!  When
tourists come and ask to see their "skull caves" the
locals tell them to wait a day and they will take
them..well, the locals then go out and steal other
tribes' skulls and make a new skull cave!  The guide
told us that his ancestors had eaten all the people
whose skulls we saw!   He said that they would kill
them and then take them to the cave and eat them on the
wooden bowls we saw in there too.  I cannot remember if
I have mentioned this, but missionaries originally had
a terrible time preaching about Jesus' death because
the New Guineans saw treachery as a praiseworthy thing!
 The natives would praise Judas for his betrayal.which
kind of messes up the point!  If you want to know more
about it.read "Peace Child."  It was written by a
missionary to PNG and is really interesting!  Anyway,
after Rachel fell and scrapped her leg pretty badly, we
headed back to the house.  Any sore is a BAD thing here
because everything gets infected SO fast!  Daniel
already had a small sore get really bad, really fast,
but thankfully the missionaries got him to take some
medicine to stop the infection.  Her sore, thanks to me
and my wonderful bandaging skills; and God's
protection, did not get infected and is healing nicely.
On Sunday I went to Gama for church and after the
service, which was in Tawala (the local language), we
had a buy-the-plate potluck.  They are raising money to
send some of the females to a retreat thing in a few
months.  Have a I mentioned that they eat a LOT.and I
mean a LOT.of yams?  They have more yams of more
flavors and textures that anything I have ever seen!
It is crazy!  They also eat the leaves of a plant that
is related to the okra plant and they call it "ibica
greens."  Never a dull meal when it comes to trying to
eat.but almost always dull when it comes to flavor.
They put coconut milk in EVERYTHING!  It's not that
it's that bad, but it does get..um..unpleasent.after a
while.  After lunch I went and helped with a new
Christian Bible study with a girl named Mennie.  After
supper we went to another Bible study with a teacher
named Josephine.  She is not a Christian yet, but she
is asking questions and Leslie is studying with her.
Monday was another crazy day.  We went with the
missionary women to eat at the international hotel for
lunch before the Ford's left on Wednesday.  Rachel and
Bethany have been working with the girls here on Sunday
in their class, while I have been working with the
kid's class.  They started a girl's devo class on
Monday afternoon; please keep this effort in your
prayers because the girls here really need to KNOW that
God loves them even when their parents do not.  We have
been learning that parents here are very harsh and not
encouraging at all towards their children.  Most of the
girls get pregnant when they are 16 or 17, so that adds
another level of problems.  Marriage is also unheard
of.  People just live with each other and no one ever
actually commits to anyone else.  If they want to go
live with someone else, then they do.  The only people
who get married are the leaders of the local "churches"
that get married to as many women as they want to and
don't really take the idea of commitment too seriously. 
We had a schedule planning meeting with Marcus on
Tuesday.  After several hours of that, we went to the
local public high school to see if we could talk to the
classes about America (and use that as a door to get to
talk to them about God).  When we had set up several
class times, we came back later that day I went with
Leslie to another devotional with a large group of
Christians in Golanai, while the rest of them went to
Top Town's devotional.  They have decided to set up two
different devotionals since there were so many people!
Wednesday was really my hard day.  We had been invited
to go to Cameron high school to talk to one of the
history classes at 7:30 am and thankfully we decided
that we should not all go to the class, so I stayed and
everyone else went.  When everyone else got back, the
other girls were supposed to go a girls devo while I
went to a Cameron class thing.  Well, I really think
that God was really looking out for me because the
girls' devotional was cancelled and so Diane offered to
do a mentoring time with one of us girls.  The rest of
the group agreed to go back to the school while I went
to talk to Diane.  That time was such a blessing to me.
 Since I have not really had time to process all of
this, it really helped to be able to talk to her!
After that time, we went to interview Karoline.  She is
a local, single woman that is trying to help us in our
work with the girls here.  Then we had a meeting about
the Trobriand Islands trip we are going on soon.   When
we got back to the house the "State of Origin" game was
on.  For those of you who, like myself didn't even know
what rugby was, that is the "Super Bowl" of rugby.
(That's the best way that I can explain the importance
of that game to the rugby watchers here) 
Thursday we went to a "Religious Instruction class"(RI)
at one of the local schools.  The school systems here
let any religious group that wants to come in, come on
different days to have a class time with the kids.
After RI we went to the market and bought fruit and
cucumbers for the hospital patients.  I really do think
that doing the hospital food thing is one of my
favorite things that I get to do every week!   Siggy,
the local in charge of us crazy interns when we go to
the market, let me have some of the money and so Luke
and I got to go around on our own and buy food!  It was
awesome!  We bought a huge box of food and had some
money left over!  The market is really cool because you
never really know what you are going to be able to buy
or what they will be charging for it.  We went over to
the hospital and took the food to all the patients,
there were more this week, so we only had a little left
over for the families that were waiting there. 
Friday was down right crazy!  Daniel, Luke and I went,
at 7:30 AM, to Cameron High School to answer questions
about the USA in one of the history classes.  It was
fun, but they kept asking us questions about the school
systems and Luke and I were home-schooled and Daniel
was a missionary kid in Kenya!  That got a little funny
after a while, but I think we did a pretty good job!
After that we went to the International school to help
with their RI and then we got to interview a couple
that translate the Bible for SIL (I'm not sure what it
stands for).  It was so interesting!  They went to a
language group in PNG 21 years ago to start translating
the Bible into the local language, but they had to
write the language first!  They went in and developed a
alphabet for the language group and then started
translating the Bible.  They are still not done because
it took them so long to get help from the locals.  They
also said not to swim near the mouth of a river that
dumps into the ocean because they have BIG, and I mean
10-12 foot, saltwater crocodiles in the oceans here!!!
 AHH!!  I am SOOOO glad I did not know that when we
went swimming!
Saturday was amazing!  I didn't do a thing, ok, well I
did clean our room, but I didn't go anywhere!  I really
do enjoy all of the experiences that I am having here,
but good grief!  It is nice to have a day off instead
of just off days! 
Well, I'm sorry this is soooo long, but I didn't know
what to leave off!  I hope you all have a blessed day
and PLEASE keep us all in your prayers!  Love and miss
you all!
Bekah

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