Ps 125:2

 

Now, if you don't know, I am a Kansas girl. Yes, flat, flat, flat plains. From my house, I could see the lights of my school, 9 miles away.
PNG is filled with beautiful mountains and valleys. Thursday, we climbed the mountain in this picture, named Elephant Back. Sunday, in my quite time I studied this verse...As the mountains surround PNG, the Lord surrounds me now and forever. (Gail Dooley translation)
What a peace filled my heart. To know that God surrounds me like the mountains that are all around me. Any time the enemy is trying to sneak up on me, He knows. Only if he knows I can handle it, does He let them come over the mountains. God doesn't protect me from every trial, but He is right there in the midst of difficulty! Praise Him!

Inspiration from the Bible and "Stepping Up, a journey through the Psalms of Ascent", by Beth Moore.

Britt's Taro

Sam Bennett had a graduation mumu on Saturday. What a wonderful time. All week was filled with getting things ready, collecting supplies, and labors of love.
The night before a mumu consists of food preparation. Judy, Britt and I and probably 50 women (it's women's work)peeled kaukau and bananas for hours. The women's joy filled the air with laughter, memories, and stories.

Brittany is game to try everything and anything. She wanted to peel a taro and all of the women said "no, it will burn your skin and hurt your hands". I assume they had never seen a white woman do it. Britt excelled at taro peeling!
 



Taro is a huge starchy food, potato like, but denser and less flavor (unless you are PNG and then your description may vary from mine)
 



Britt did great, and shed off a few layers of her "whiteness" in front of those women. I am proud of who she is.
 






Kau kau, bananas and taro all have ill effects on the hands, and our hands got much worse through the night. The juice from the vegtables is stickly and very hard to get off. Our hands even got way too dirty to hold the camera!

Making tortillas

My poor husband loves Mexican food! My problem is that it takes so much effort to make tortillas! But with two 18 year olds and a 3 year old helping, it is much more fun!

I made the dough.
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Britt rolled out the dough with Livy's help. Now if you have cooked with a 3 year old recently, you know that it is much more work to cook with them, rather than on your own. Patience was overflowing from Brittany.
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Sam fried them up to golden perfection! Good cookin' Sam!
 

And we all enjoyed eating the Mexican feast!

Hole in the wall~

 While in Madang, we visited a new place to us. There was a very pretty beach area for the girls to play in.
 There was a wall of lava rock that we could walk on. On the left of the picture is a deep area we could swim in.
 Here is looking into the pool, it was goregous! Sam and Scott swam through the "hole in the wall" probably 20 feet across, under water, against the tide, to the other side of the wall. It was a great swimming spot and an added adventure to our Madang trip.
 

Madang #2

PNG is a country full of resources. On our trip we saw lots of plantations and tried to get pictures of all of them.
  Coconut or Copra which is the white meat inside the coconut.
  Sugar Cane plantations.
 Palm oil plantations, aren't they pretty?

We also visited a Cocoa plantation, which was very interesting.

Baby of Cathy

 
 
This looks like a beautiful, ordinary baby from PNG. However, you are looking at a miracle of God! Baby of Cathy was born at home and brought in to the hospital with minimal breathing and very low heart rate. I was up at the hospital and wanted to talk to Scott about something and found Scott in the nursery (closet sized room) with 4 nursing students and a PNG nurse doing CPR on this baby. It was so sad to see a full term baby dead, but the thought crossed through my mind that this is a good learning experience for the nursing students to practice their CPR skill. I was so sad as I walked away, knowing that the baby would not live his life here on earth. I did say to God, "I know that if you choose, You can breathe life into that baby", but thought no more of it. Scott later told me the baby was still alive! We are still praying for full recovery and no side effects from the time without oxygen.

MADANG!

 
 
 

We had a beautiful vacation. Madang is about 400 kilometers from Kudjip, but it takes 9 hours to drive. On the way there, we drove 5 hours the first day and 4 the second. So much fun and so many laughs with our family and Brittany and Sam Bennett. We ate out many fine meals and lived in our swimming suits. Vacations with the Dooley's is not to relax, it is to stuff as much fun as possible into each day. Tuesday, we drove the whole way back, leaving at 6:30 am and arriving at 5:30 pm. I have been on the computer most of today, catching up. Sorry to Brit's fam and friends as I am hogging the computer. Thanks for your prayers, it was a great trip.

Another day in surgery.

 
 
 
Tuesday was a nice day in surgery. Brittany scrubbed in and helped out around the OR. The last picture is of Dianne, who had a cyst on her arm. She was adorable and very brave.

Bride price-PNG traditional wedding

On Thursday, we heard of a friend's brother paying his bride price and getting his bride that day, so we decided to go and take part. Brittany had no idea what she was getting into. We were told we would leave at 12, and headed out a little before one.
 
We met the groom's side of the family. The groom showed up about 3pm.
 We admired the food that the groom was giving to the bride's side. They also gave 20,000 kina and 30 pigs- a very high bride price.
 We saw the bride getting ready and took pictures of her. She was wearing traditional dress. Kus kus fur on her chest and a head dress that had been passed down for generations. The bride had not eaten all day and there was a dramatic fainting incident, but the ceremony kept going.
  This is the groom's side singing, dancing and waving umbrellas. They were singing a tokples song saying, "hurry up, let's get this wedding going, we have things to do, just give us the girl". Finally at 6 pm, the waitskin's left before the food was divided out, and before the party was over, but it was a fun day and a great chance to learn more about culture.

Brittany learns pidgin

If you remember my previous blog, of us picking up Brittany at the airport, you know that she is a high school graduate, from my home town, who is spending 2 months with us. We are enjoying having her here with us so much! These pictures are Brit and Lena learning pidgin, the trade language of PNG. I am sure she would enjoy your prayers on her time here in PNG. She is a wonderful lady and we are glad she is spending her summer with us.
 
 
 

Third try for quilting pictures...

 
 
 

Caution-surgery pictures

 
One of my favorite surgeries is the skin graft. This young lady encountered a bush knife on her elbow that would not heal.
 So, you take skin from the thigh, they are buzzing it off, like a lawn mower, just mm's thick.
 Mesh the skin.
 And put it over the wound.

I do not recommend that you try this at home, but if you want to help with one, come to Kudjip!

Quilting in a day.

I have been enjoying some quilting days!

 

Erica came on June 2nd and we made a whole baby quilt, start to finish in 7 hours, she only needed to hand stich the binding last night when she got home.

 

They don't know if it is a boy or girl, so went with black and white and red.

 

Erin and I got her's done in 2 days, it was a queen size, my first that big! I have lots of plans for more and more. Too bad I can't get my own done in a day!