Christmas Day

All of the missionaries got together at 1pm for a Christmas lunch. It was a bit like a family gathering (the missing elements would be someone napping on the couch and a football game on the TV). After lunch, Santa came to visit. Allie got a MP3 player, thanks Uncle Verne, little speakers for it.

Emma got a giant silkie blanket, the girls are sitting on. And Olivia got a wooden food tea set, it is very cute.

Eating!

We played Operator Charades and then a rousing game of Family Feud. It was really fun. Settler of Catan came out and a 500 piece puzzle, we snacked from the fridge and the fun kept going until 7pm when the puzzle was finished and we all went home.

Christmas Eve night

So, the missionaries all gathered together, sang Christmas songs in Pidgin on all four of the hospital wards and gave out gifts.

It was a fun, wonderful time, sharing Christ's love and remembering the true gift that God gave of His son at Christmas.

Christmas Eve

Judy, Ester, the girls and I spent our morning putting about 100 gifts together for the patients in the hospital.

There was a nice organized system that Judy created and we were done in no time.

All of the packages were wrapped in a pillow case and tied with a bow that let us know whether the gift was for a big kid, little kid, woman or man.

This is what the patients received this year. A container arrived on Tuesday, so we were thankful that there were more things to give the patients. A camo jacket or pants, toothbrush, tooth paste, comb, washrag, bar of soap, lotion, candy and a card. The kids got stuffed animals along with the pictured items and the babies had a layette with baby items. You would think Kudjip hospital has their own army now by the looks of the hospital patients. And now everyone else is wanting fatigues as well.

Christmas Eve Eve

All it takes in PNG for a party is food,

some people,

and wonderful entertainment. It's a party! Lawrence and Kim provided us Kudjipians with a magical night of fun, with the first annual Christmas Concert: Giving Thanks.

Caution! Surgery pictures. AV Fistula.

Let me tell you a story about Esther. She is about 25 years old. Came to our hospital in September after a stab wound. She was trying to stop her sister from being chopped and got in the way of the bush knife. The picture above is her arm, just below her elbow, where she was stabbed. She lost a lot of blood. Scott happened to be in the ER when she came in. The staff worked hard to just keep her alive and sew her up and stop the bleeding. If I understood the history correctly, they even had to do CPR.

She lived and went home. But developed a lump in her arm and numbness down her hand. Coming back to the hospital, the doctors found that the lump was blood pooling and not fully supplying her arm with blood. The fistula pictured above is where the blood was collecting and you can see the hole. Dr Kevin took out the defect and got a vein from her leg to put in Ester's arm.

Here is the leg.

Here is the vein before putting it Ester's arm. I didn't get a finished picture. But it was so amazing after Dr Kevin sewed both ends of the vein to the area where fistula was, and it filled up with blood and started pumping! Wow! This is not a typical surgery we do at Kudjip and I had never seen it done before. But Ester's injury, left untreated, would have kept getting worse and she would have lost her arm and eventually died. While at the hospital, she realized the miracle of her even being alive and made a decision to follow Christ. I am praising God for letting me be a small part of the miracle in Ester's life.

Making Christlike Discples In the Nations.

Singapore was a beautiful city. Extremely clean and easy to get around, full of people from every land.

We spent our time discussing our mission strategy, personally and as a whole. God renewed Scott and My's vision for the people who have not heard about Christ, my friend and Savior. We discussed real, day to day choices that bring non Christians into our lives, and how to have intentional conversations with people.

Who does Christ have for you to share with today?

Singapore Food!

Upon our early arrival to Singapore, we toured the city, eating and shopping. It was amazing! What does a missionary crave who has not been out of the world of resturants for 9 months, let me tell you....a Whopper (from the airport! at 9pm at night!)

Sushi, made by someone else. Scott does a great job with making sushi, but it is quite labor-intensive. So, it was nice and cheap at Singapore.

We had ice cream 3 different times. My favorite was strawberry cheese cake from Baskins Robbins. Or what it the strawberry sorbet with my team?

A trip to a first world country would not be complete without a Big Mac. I was in line at McDonald's, to get a kids meal with apple dippers, but then a large coke was calling out to me! Just so you know in Singapore, there is not an option of super sizing, and all of the people are tiny. Shopping was not as productive as eating. I bought men's shorts because the large in women's was too small! How is that for humbling?

The city is beautiful and we had a great time getting around Singapore. The island is only 18 miles by 28 miles and I am pretty sure that we walked at least 18 miles every day for 3 days! So, we are thankful that we didn't gain weight with all of the eating as it was counteracted by the walking!

Children's Christmas Drama

December 7th, the children did a wonderful drama of the Innkeeper's Daughters. Allison, Emma, and Elena were the daughters.

Remo and Lorena were the Innkeeper and his wife, Sarah.

Jerome and Chiara were Mary and Joseph.

Olivia was a wise man. I was so proud of all of the kids. Some of the Swiss children at the beginning of the school year would hardly speak to me one on one. Now, these kids said their lines so loudly and sang so beautifully in front of a large crowd of people. It was a wonderful time to start off the Christmas season.

Singapore Wishes for 2009

Scott and I just got back from being gone for 10 days to Singapore. It was a wonderful time of spiritual refocusing. We were there a few days before the conference started. On Friday night we went to the Nutcracker and in the lobby, they had tons of big white beach balls that they wanted people to write their wishes on.

Then, as we took a late night boat ride on Saturday, we saw all of the white ball in the harbor. If you look closely at the water you will notice them. Quite fun. What would you write for your wishes for 2009?

Christmas Decorating

Saturday, we got out the tree and our decorations. This year, the girls were big enough to put up the tree without my help. So we started a new tradition of making gingerbread men on the decorating day. The girls helped me after the tree was done.

Not the best picture of Scott and I, but I wanted to show our new shirts! Neat huh?

We are excited about this time of year and celebrating Jesus's birth. Christmas is different here because the weather is 70-80 degrees every day and not the icy Kansas that I am used to. Christmas is also not very commercialized. A PNG family would celebrate Christmas by going to church all day and eating a meal together with their church family. Here, a church family is your neighbors, and your neighbors are family.
Some of the stores in town are decorated for the holidays and even 2 extremely large, blow up, nylon Santa's and one snowman are living on the roofs of stores in town. Gift giving and Christmas trees are the exception in a PNG bush house, definitely not the norm. No stress of finding the perfect gift and maxing out credit cards!
So, as we live in PNG and anticipate Christmas we are pleased to be able to focus on the important parts of the season.

Adorable nephews!

I can't help but brag on my cute nephews! I had a dream the other night that I got to hold Colton and I was so thrilled. They will be 18 months and 13 months when we finally get to hug and kiss them. I am thankful for email and pictures!