Olivia the clown

Olivia, 4 years old, has a strong desire to be a clown when she grows up. She loves the the thought of throwing pies in people's faces.

We saw the clown clothes hanging outside on a barbed wire fence with other clothes for sale. I asked if she would like to have the clown suit, she said "not until I grow up!" But then changed her mind. It was 6 kina, or 2 dollars.

We brought it home and washed it, then from the dress up box came a clown wig and a Rudolph nose and of course face paint!

She is having lots of fun being a clown. It doesn't translate into PNG culture, as there are not any circus's around here or rodeos! But the patients at the hospital always love to see Livy, especially in a clown outfit!

"I'm not in Kansas anymore!"

This is one of my closest friends, let's call her Nena. She comes and works in the garden on Monday's and used to watch the girls on Thursday when I worked at the hospital. This picture was taken on a long walk when Livy decided to use Nena's puffy hair for a pillow.

She lives in a village not too far from the hospital, and has given part of their land for a church. So the church is very close to their house.

2 weeks ago, a "life band" (spoken very quickly and needs repeated several times to understand and she could have been meaning live band, but that is not what she said moved into the market, right across from Nana's land and the church. This "life band" built a fence and set up a dance floor. Villagers were encouraged to try out the band instruments and singing, I guess PNG's equivalent of karaoke. Initially, there was a 50 kina per head entrance fee, but it quickly went to 1 kina (33 cents) to get people to come. The "life band" played from dusk to dawn every night. Very loud, bad music with bad speakers drifted through all of the bamboo walls and grass roofs of the nationals homes for miles.

This was a big disturbance for every one, but Nana didn't complain. Their church services and prayer meetings were disturbed, but no one confronted the "life band" people.

It was in the first week that there was an equipment failure. The life band folks immediately blamed those pesky Nazarene's for praying and causing their stuff to break down. They were demanding that Nana, and her church friends, pray that the music would start again or they would be taken to court (this in itself is amazing that the non Christians would believe so strongly in prayer).

When Nana shared this with me I laughed. Quickly I stopped as I saw she was really worried that she would be blamed and have to buy new equipment for the guys if it wasn't fixed. At the same time, she was happy that her nights were not disturbed. Nana and her friends spent a night praying for the situation to be resolved and that no one would be harmed.

After a tense night, the life band folks did not blame the Christians the next day and they were able to fix their stuff. They stayed for another week and have just now moved on.

Here in PNG, things are pretty black and white. If it is not uplifting to God, it is of the devil. Hence life band=devil worship. I come from a land of grayness. Actually maybe not the states should be called a rainbow, because if it makes you happy, then it is good. Anyway, just a daily situation that makes me realize "I'm not in Kansas anymore."

New Hosptial's Ped's Ward Murals

Em's party

Emma has been planning a sleep over birthday party for many months! Friday, the day finally came for the party!

It was a dinosaur party. They made fossils, then Scott buried the fossils and the girl's had to find them. They played "hot dinosaur egg" (hot potato), "don't break the dinosaur egg" (a balloon tied to every one's leg and you try to break other's balloons while protecting your own) they colored pictures, they played in the dinosaur cave (refrigerator box) played Twister, and watched the Land Before Time. Whew!

Emma and the girls decorated the cake themselves, it's a volcano with dinosaurs. Em says it was her best birthday ever.

Emma is 9!

How has it been 9 years already? We have a tradition of breakfast in bed for the birthday girl. Emma's favorite food is doughnuts, but they are a bit labor intensive to make, but Em was very happy with funnel cakes for breakfast.

Another tradition is a new outfit, it is hard to see Em's cute dress in these pictures. Emma and I did a bit our homeschooling and then took a sack lunch up to the school to celebrate with cupcakes.

Em has been planning a birthday sleep over for months, that is to take place on Friday with 3 friends and her 2 sisters. Emma is a wonderful daughter, she was born during residency, in Springfield, MO. She loves to laugh, and make others laugh. Definately a big clown in our family.

*can you believe that they still make feety jammies for 9 year olds? I found them at a second hand store!

McDonalds in PNG

I was out of ideas for a meal and found chicken nuggets on line. Then french fries, so the idea grew from there.
I copied off McDonald's menu's from around the world from the Internet. Emma made place cards.

I really wanted to have fresh green peppers as side, but Emma thought it was "anti-McDonald's". It was Em's night to help with supper, and she breaded all of the chicken. I think I will have her do all of my breading from now on!

We found some McDonald's toys up at the hospital and traded some of our other toys for these.

The caramel dip was the greatest! Em and I just finished reading the book "Sarah, Plain and Tall" and one of my favorite quotes from the book is "There is always something to miss, no matter where you are."

New children's ward

First you find a picture...

make an overhead, borrow a projector, trace like crazy,

get some paint, mix it up,

then paint away! Do you think there are any copyright laws that I should check into? But our new children's ward is going to be great. I'll put up more pictures when we are done.

Spot's wedding by Emma

"All of the boy stuffed animals getting ready for the wedding. They are all wearing matching scarfs.

This is the groom and bride kissing. Spot, who I got on the day I was born from Allison, and Ginger I got for Christmas.

This is the wedding. Dark blue is the boys and the light blue scarfs is the girls. Only dog and bears were invited to the wedding, and one cat. The piano is beside Spot. The blue scarf is the aisle. Allison's doll was the preacher.

I wanted Spot and Ginger to get married because they are both dogs and they like each other a lot and they wanted to get married. "

by Emma
_______________________
The girls spent hours on Friday afternoon with Spot's wedding. At 4:30 pm, I got tired of all of the preparations and said "the wedding needs to take place before supper!"

Em had asked "Are dog weddings forever? What if I get a Dalmatian girl dog later and Spot wants to be married to her?" I counseled her that maybe Spot wasn't ready to get married if Em was worried about that and that even stuffed animal dog weddings should be forever, no matter what new toy comes along. :)

Missionary Kid School

Here are our wonderful teachers! We love them so much and appreicate all of the work they do!

Here are all of the kids and Aunt Lois. 2 children are missing. One will come next week, back from vacation. Anther will come to PNG for the first time in September and join our school after getting orientated to PNG>

School in the Dooley house

Here is our school desk!

This is our little sign that we hang on the door. I was worried that we would have lots of interruptions. It says "I am doing school inside. Come at 2:00"

One of my goals of homeschooling is to fill Em up with encouraging words. But I am her mama too, so to make myself more conscious of my words, I covered this paper with contact paper and use a dry erase marker to tally my positive comments and negative comments. It is really helping.

We also want Em to have a better grasp on what she is feeling and how her words affect others. So we created these little pictures for the wall.

There was only tears once on our first day of school. Emma's not mine. And we worked through the hard math problems and dried the tears.

Keep us in your prayers as it is a new adventure and I am a little stir crazy and it is only day 2!

Ready for school!

How does one get new clothes for the first day of school? In May (?) I ordered these outfits on line. Sent them to my mom. She mailed them to Dr Erin, who was in the states visiting her new nephew. She put them in her suitcase and brought them back to PNG. A little harder than a trip to the mall, but they loved the dresses. They are SPF 50...who knew!

Frequently, I find clothes at the second hand stores around PNG. Australia sends up huge bundles of clothes for PNGers to buy. Then the PNGers resell them. A dress would normally be a couple kina (60 cents). I can always find used things for Liv, but harder for the bigger girls. This queen sized quilt/duvet cover and 2 shams were only 50 Kina! ($20) that I found last month! Gotta love a bargain.

We got ourselves organized for the morning routines of back to school. Al has a list too. Em is doing school at home this year, but lists help her remember what is next.

New Baby

Our PNG friends had a baby last week. Here she is, one week old. They joined us for pizza, movie and fellowship on Friday night. In PNG, it is common to not name the baby for a few weeks or month. No name for this sweetheart yet. Pray for this family as they are beautiful Christian leaders at the hospital.