Date night!

Monday, James Johnson, our field strategy coordinator, had the MK's over for movie night.
So what does a couple do that has been married for almost 14 years do?
Date night!

The ladies on the MVNU team had offered to baby sit for us one night, so when I went to town last time, I planned for a nice meal.
We had Brie cheese, shrimp, Mars bars, capers...o-my it was so great.

Since there is no where to go and really nothing to do...we stayed home and talked and finished the evening with a couple episodes of NCIS.
There you have it...a date night in PNG. The girls were walked home at 8:30pm and hopped right into bed!
God is Good.

Bone cave hike!

With our MVNU friends and some of the newer missionaries here on station, 21 of headed out at 11am, Sunday for a hike. This is us in the back of the flat bed truck, ready for our journey.
It was a slow start. When we got to the drop off the car point, a church, they were just starting the sermon. Quickly, someone went to go get our guides and they arrived about 45 minutes later. Then we were waiting for a guy who went back into the church service because he said he would watch the car. After about 1 1/2 hours, we got started.

What a fun hike! There was a narrow, shaded trail and a few river crossings, amazing trees and flowers, and beautiful mountains. About 40 nationals decided to go with us, so we were around 60 people traversing the terrain. Needless to say, it was a leisurely walk, because every little bridge and hard crossing, we all had to stop and wait.

After about 1 1/2 hours of hiking, we got off of the nice trail and into a trail that was about 2 inches of mud. The above picture is a very steep hill where we were all stopped for a bit while we took part in a very cultural experience.

I had convinced Scott to go along with us to the trip. I had a great time and Scott said he enjoyed being with me. We all got back to the station about 5:30 pm.

Perspective

Tuesday, at surgery, I was chatting with a lady who was going to have surgery.

So, this lady said she had 3 kids. I asked her the ages of the kids...she paused...
"Well, my first child died. My second child is grade 3. And my last child died."

I asked if she knew Jesus and prayed that he would continue to help her carry this burden of her children dying. She responded with...

"My suffering is nothing compared to what Jesus suffered!"

Monday morning....

I know it is still Sunday night in the states, but in PNG, it is 10am, and it has already been a crazy morning.
6:30 AWAKE
7-7:30 BREAKFAST, EMAIL, INTERNET, COFFEE
7:30 SCOTT TO HOSP
7:45 GIRLS TO SCHOOL
8:00 LIVY AND MAMA DRESSED
8AM NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS START COMING BY
8-8:30 START LAUNDRY
MAKE BEDS
START BISCUITS
FEED COCKY
PICK UP LIVING ROOM
SET OUT CHICKEN TO THAW
PLAN SUPPER FOR TOMORROW (COMPANY COMING)
SWEEP PORCH
FEED NEIGHBOR'S CAT
IMAGINARY PLAY WITH OLIVIA INVOLVING FLOWERS AND A MUD PUDDLE
PICK BERRIES
CHARGE A CELL PHONE FOR A FRIEND
(many PNGers have a cell phone but no electricity at their house)
LET COCKY OUT FOR AWHILE
HELP OLIVIA IN BATHROOM
GO OUTSIDE
FREEZE WITH DREAD!

This cute, harmless looking bird just cut through my friend's cell phone charger cord with his beak!
My heart dropped, I just stood there!
Scott will be home at lunch and will help me know if there is anything to be done about the cord. Of course it is different than most cell phones cords, so we can't just give the friend ours.

I now have a cockatoo for sale! Any buyers? He's going cheap!

MVNU

There are 12 students and their professor here from Mt Vernon Nazarene University. They are here in PNG during their J-term and getting a class credit for reading books and journals (and more that I am not aware of).
They are an amazing group of people and I pray that they will hear His voice and leading while they are in a different country.
They don't get any ipods, Internet, movies, tv and no contact from home. The Prof's goal for the students is that "they fall in love with the people of PNG".
The team is right next door to us, so we get to be around them a lot! They have blessed us already, and still have 2 more weeks of being here!

OR patients

Isn't this lady the cutest thing? She has bright, white hair and is just beautiful!
A couple weeks ago, she came in and we took off a softball sized tumor from her head/ear.
Thursday, we did a skin graft to that area.

She only speaks tok ples and I don't know that local language, so we just smiled a lot at each other and used the OR staff to translate.

This is an 11 year old boy's leg. Yes, that is bone that is showing. Dr Jim took out the dead bone and we are praying that the leg will heal with God's touch, lots of antibiotics and the skills that are at the hospital.

Just another day.

Thursday was an ordinary day, doing cases in the OR, when Dr Bill comes in to let us know the hospital is closed. Jan 1st, we hired a new security company for our hospital and station security. The previous security were local people with no training or experience.

It seems that the previous security were upset by some issues where they thought they were being cheated by the hospital, so they took over control of the main gate. Which means they displaced the new company and were in charge of the lock and key on the gate.

The hospital was closed until the matter resolved a couple hours later and then was reopened. Pray for our leaders of the hospital to keep making hard decisions that God is leading them to make.