Exciting Times: The Floor - Part One

You might be wondering how "floor" and "exciting" can used in the same title, but we are a VERY excited bunch of people these days as we watch a new floor being put into our classroom building.  For years our concrete floor has been chipping away and coming apart in chunks and this last month the Lord finally brought everything together for us to have something done about it.  When Hank (above left) & Marg Demark (parents of  my co-worker, Lesley (husband Pete, above right) Doerksen) found out about the sad and desperate state of our floor, they decided to kill two birds with one stone and come visit their family and also put Hank's years of experience to use re-doing our floors.  We are so grateful to have them here, and it's been amazing to see our classroom slowly transformed. 

The classroom is the building at left (my home sweet home is on the right).  The middle building is another staff home. 

Here's the floor during an Interface program.  Doesn't really look too bad but there wasn't a level spot in just about the entire building. 

Weeks before the Demarks got here the guys had been doing a pretty good job of ripping up the floor.

Buka and Morobe doing some damage.

All that torn up concrete got shoveled into a pile to be used later to help on our roads.

The crew. 

 Hank hasn't been here long and, true to character, already has a great relationship with the guys.  Here he shows off Samson's huge muscles.

Rain water had (unbeknownst to us) been building up in a huge pool behind the classroom, causing huge areas of white mold to grow up inside. 

After all the concrete was lugged out, the guys began laying down plastic and the old wire mesh salvaged from the previous floor, then building the framework for the first section of new concrete.

Here's Lesley, Bobbi and myself working real hard. 

We'd gotten this load of gravel months ago, so by the time we needed it it was overgrown with weeds.  I'm sure that was fun picking it all out. 

Months ago we began looking into purchasing cement, only to find out once we were ready to purchase it that the country's only supplier had shut down.  We knew that this project was in the Lord's hands and that even in a country with no cement God could easily provide.  We decided to all pray about it for two weeks, until our next staff meeting.  Two weeks passed, and at the meeting we discussed how there was still no cement but we would continue to trust the Lord to provide.  We had all just left the meeting and were walking away when Pete came out on the porch and said "We just got a call that there's cement available for us!"  I still get teared up thinking about this and how God provides for His children.  When we pray He doesn't always answer in the way we expect or in a way that we can see, but He does always answer and it's encouraging to experience those moments when He chooses to show you a very obvious answer to a specific prayer.   

 Kino (middle) was spouting off some Tokples (tribal language) to me.  They know we can't understand them (we only talk together in the national language, Melanesian Pidgin) but they get a kick out of trying and seeing our awkward faces.  Heti (left) whispered the answer I should give, which resulted in a round of happy comments from all the men.

 

 

 The first section is poured.  Very exciting!

 

 

The Interface staff - all the ones on campus, anyways.  In two weeks there'll be three returning staff and two new families added. 

Thank you so much to those of you who have prayed for and given towards this project! 

Keep your eye out for more floor updates and the final result! 

Goroka

I'd like to take you on a little journey called "Shopping in Goroka."  Long gone are the days of hopping in your car and running to the store for some milk or that one ingredient you're missing for supper.  Here, grocery shopping is an all day affair.  To start with, we're 40 minutes from the nearest town of Goroka, so we don't make the trip often.  We try to plan a "supply run" every two weeks but depending on our schedule it can be a lot longer than that inbetween trips.  Thankfully, the main mission center (which has it's own little store) is only about 25 minutes away and we make two trips there each day to drop off/pick up our school kids.  The store is only open on Mondays and Thursdays, so sometimes we give a list to the "school bus drivers" (aka the missionary men) to pick us up any "I need it now!!" items. 

Becaus a trip to Goroka takes a whole day, we always make sure we're remembering everything we need.  A checklist might include:  Mission Checks, P.O.'s, cash, water, hand sanitizer, toilet paper (you never know), cards to play while you're waiting two hours for a meal, snacks, food coolers, comfy shoes for walking in, mud shoes for the veggie market, umbrella for rain, a hat for the sun...basically everything short of a tent and sleeping bag.    

We travel about 20 minutes on this dirt/mud road...

...and another 20 minutes on lovely stretches of highway such as this dodging people and animals. 

Usually on the way into Goroka we stop at the main mission center store to buy things we know we can't get in town.  Food here is a mix of food bought bulk from town, or shipped from Australia and the States.  Treats you can sometimes find here are Cheerios, Nutella, American mustard, and Parmesan cheese.

Welcome to Goroka.  The pink "odd shop" is one of our favorite Second Hand Stores. :)

Aerial view of the Goroka area.

Our first stop in town is always the veggie and fruit market.  We are so fortunate here in the cool Highlands to have perfect growing weather for fruit and vegetables.  The weather is perfect...the parking lots aren't.

Here's where those mud shoes come in handy.  Optional, as you can see.

Beside the market (and behind the hardware store) is the place to go to buy yourself a chicken.  Because you never know when you'll need a live chicken.  You can also see fire wood for sale on the left. 

No matter how busy our day is, there's always time for Second Hand shopping!  This is my personal favorite - "Bikpela Klos Stoa."  And in case you're not fluent in Malenesian Pidgin, that says "The Big Clothes Store." 

No change rooms so a camera helps.

Your local Toyota dealership.  You have your choice of a White Landcruiser or a White Landcruiser.  Tape deck included.

Papindos is usually our next stop.  Cooking can be daunting when you first arrive here, not having all the ingredients you're familiar with back home.  But it's fun to try new things (often with names in languages we can't read) and discover great substitutions for the ingredients you're used to.

Rice, anyone?

Your choice of colors in laundry soap.

One of our favorite parts of the day - lunchtime.  This day we decided to eat at a "Kai Bar," one of dozens of similar eateries around town where you can usually find fried chicken, fries, rice, and other quick meals on the go. 

No shirt, no shoes?  No problem.

Pacific Gardens is another place we love to eat.  It's out of town in a quiet area with great food.  This is where the deck of cards comes in handy, though.

Look, another White Landcruiser!  That ones ours (Interface's). 

In a typical afternoon downpour, any place with a roof is instantly packed with people.

Loading our supplies into containers strapped to the roof.

Vendors line the sidewalks in one section of town selling everything from string bags, baskets and bows and arrows, to fossils, paintings...and in this case high heels and men's loafers. 

  

Security guards.

When our day starts at 8:00am, we're happy to finally be home by 5:00pm - usually exhausted, dirty and with an infamous "Goroka headache," but home!