Come along to Hagen!

Are you ready for the adventure of a trip to town? Brace yourself! First stop circle at the hospital to say goodbye to the volunteers who have been helping at Kudjip for 2 months. 8:20 leaving the hospital. 9:00 am first stop airport, dropping off the volunteers. Second stop MAF-missionary aviation fellowship-to check on tickets and use the restroom.
Head into town, third stop ATM machine-only to find that the "system is down". The other ATM in town, same thing. Next stop grocery store.

 This is a gas station that was filled with about 30 vechicles all trying to get diesel.
  Did you ever play "one of these things is not like the other, 3 of these things are kinda the same" from Sesame Street? What doesn't belong in this picture?
 If you are lucky you can catch a picture of a nice lady standing by the frozen meat (well, frozen during the day, freezer turned off at night...)
 And if you are really lucky, you can walk around with a friend in the grocery store!

Checking out of the grocery store, system is still down, meaning you can't pay with a credit card.
So off to the bank to see if that system is up now. No! Realizing that it is a phone company system problem and the whole town is not working. Can't even check the balance in my checking account.
Back to grocery store, loan a check to a friend that was going to pay wiht credit card.
8th stop-court house
9th stop-Highlander- nice resturant/hotel that has a pool and we swam for awhile and got a bit of sun burn
10th stop- cash machine is up, put cash in to cover the check written
11th stop- SVS (super value store) Olivia sleeping in the car at this point- looking for a broom and a clock. Found a broom, no clocks.
12th stop- West Bake Mini Mart- see a boy get slapped in the face 2 feet from me and buy frozen chicken.
13th stop-produce market- get fresh fruits and veggies. Olivia awake now and as we are getting out she says "I haffa say hello?" and I answer with "Yes, Olivia, people love it if you say hello"
14th stop- back to the airport to pick up someone who needs a ride to Kudjip.

5:30pm- back to the house, unload the groceries, put the meat in the freezer and collapse!

Fun times, thanks for going along!

Give us each day our daily bread

2 days after arriving in PNG, there was a giant landslide, which covered over 1 km of our Highlands Highway. This highway is the only route in and out of the Highlands, where over 1 million people live. We use the road for getting food from the coast, and imports. For getting Oxygen, Medicine, Disele, for transporting out all of the food grown in the Highlands, the coffee that is ripe now, and just tons of every day uses. A person can walk across the land slide, but must pay each person who claims that this is "their" part of land. The land slide is still shifting, so no work is happening on fixing the land slide at this time.

 

During all of this, which could be stressful, I am so blessed by a peace that God is in control, worrying will not help one bit and that God will give us our daily bread-even if that is the form of kaukau, which is the staple here.
 

This is Olivia and I making our weekly bread on Monday, I think she is helping herself to the dough. I am thankful that I serve the God that will take care of me, my family and all of our needs, all of the national's needs, all of the sick people in the hospital.

Coffee?

 
First morning back in PNG, sitting down to a cup of coffee in my favorite cup, I look down and find floaties. Hmmm...what could it be? I check out the coffee in the pot, okay. Milk in the box, okay. Look in the sugar bowl, yep, that is it. Full of ants!

I have been a missionary long enough, living in the tropics, I should of known better! But it guess that it is a sign of my years here, that I just drank it anyway, didn't even try to fish them out.

Funny thing is when I got the cup out of the dishwasher (yes, we have one of the few dishwashers in the entire country of PNG), this morning for a picture, it was full of ants! Guess I didn't get it rinsed well enough! I'll learn all over again.

School's in!

 
 
The girls were very excited about school yesterday at the Missionary Kid School with the "real" teacher, Aunt Diane. Even though we are still a bit jet lagged and Mama can't find all of the school books, the had a great day. Olivia asked all day long "where are Allison and Emma?"

Back in PNG

After our rainy time in Fiji, we are back safe and sound to Papua New Guinea. It was a hard trip back mentally, I was ready to get back, but not excited. There are many comforts of living in the states and many discomforts of living in a underdeveloped country. Also, super hard to leave family this time. Once here, God has blessed me so much with reassurances that this is where I should be. It is a peace unexplainable to be in the center of His will.

 
 

The girls are happy to be back as well and jumped right into school today. Scott went back to the hospital and it was like putting on a comfortable pair of shoes.

We are off!

We made it to KC airport and got checked in so smoothly! My most stressed out time is getting our bags checked in! But there was a true miracle from the start of the process all the way through!

Thanks so much for your prayers and for continuing to pray for us as travel on!

We got to KC airport early so we passed the time by playing pass the pigs with Grammer and Papa. Pictures in the below blog.

 
 

Packing!

Can I tell you that Scott Dooley is the most amazing man in the world? He is an expert packer!

I wish I had a picture of our excitement yesterday of packing. We were in my parents basement with stuff everywhere. Piles to go to storage, to give away, to take to Fiji, to put in suitcases, clothes to wear today, clothes to wash, things for mom and dad to bring to PNG later, what a mess. I didn't take a picture because I didn't know which pile the camera was in!

Anyway, Scott had packed 7 of our suitcases in Feb. I was to pack the other 3 while he was in New York. I would get to 50 lbs without a problem, but the suitcase was only half full! Scott fixed everything yesterday and we ended up with one extra suitcase because it just wasn't going to fit. Mom and Dad have a big outside scale and all of the bags are 48.5 lbs! I have chocolate kisses to give to the people that help us check in- because what a headache!

So, think of us tomorrow with 5 people, 11 suitcases, 5 carryons and 5 personal items heading through the airport.

We spend 3 nights at Uprising Resort in Fiji and arrive at PNG on April 14th 5pm or so. You can google Uprising to see the run place we are staying.

Thanks for your prayers as we travel!

more SDC

 
 
 
 

Silver Dollar City

Today was our last day in Springfield, MO with Scott's family, so we headed to Silver Dollar City. We started the morning scrapping frost off of the windows of the car and ended up the day with sunburns.

 

We are all pretty tired and head to Kansas tomorrow for 2 days with Gail's family and packing before we fly out on Tuesday.
 
 
 

 

Future occupation? Too funny!

 
 
 

7-7-7

Emma has an August birthday. We are back in the states every other year, Jan-March. Many times in the past she has asked "Will I ever have a birthday in the states?". Her motivation has been "wanting the Applebee's people to sing to her". So last week, we celebrated Emma's 1/2 birthday at Applebee's and Emma was on the top of the world when they came out singing with the ice cream.

 

The next day we decided that March 27th was actually Emma's 7 year, 7 month and 7 days old. So we made a little cake and had another celebration. I am so thankful for all 3 of my girls. They are a huge blessing and all have said at this point that they are ready to head back to life in PNG.
 

Fishin' with Papa!

 
Fun week at Gail's parents, while Scott was in Upstate New York.

 

The trout were really biting at Papa's secret fishing hole! As soon as Papa would cast in the hole, the fish would bite! Al and Em were able to catch them and reel them in!
 
This is Allie's whopper- at least 2 pounds!

We are happy to have Daddy back and the computer too!