A Pineapple Kind of Christmas

The New Year is here and one more "Hepi Krismas" ("Merry Christmas" in Melanesian Pidgin) has come and gone so quickly.  As much as I miss my family back home at this time of year (ok, at ALL times of the year!), there's just something about PNG Christmases that I love.  Maybe it's the lack of commercialism that keeps things simple, or the packages that come bringing smells and tastes of home.  Or maybe it's the gift of green onions and bananas that a friend in the village brings when the December drought has made garden food tough to come by and you realize what that symbolizes.  PNG may not be where I was born and raised or where my family is, but it's home.

 

 Each monday morning throughout the year the village ladies bring their fruit and veggies onto campus to market for us.  This is a great source of income for them, and obviously a huge help for us.  Each year at Christmas these ladies collect a huge pile of food that they present to us as a "thank you" for buying from them.  What a special gift, especially when it hadn't rained in so long and we knew they were struggling with their gardens. 

 The men chatting it up before they make several "thank you" speeches.

 

 Each year I look forward to heading out to the SIL (Wycliffe) base about 1 1/2 hours away to check out their Christmas Bazaar.  The drive is far from enjoyable with all the potholes and caved in sections of road, but the scenery helps to make up for that. 

 

 We have to laugh each time we pass this school...not sure I'd be too eager to attend an elementary school with a motto of "No Pain No Gain" and who has to clarify that it's "Child Friendly."

 

 Along with all the other booths of arts and crafts at the Bazaar, PNG citizens sell their usual string bags, paintings, carvings, etc.  But this year I was surprised to see wreaths!  I couldn't pass this up and still haven't had the heart to throw mine out.   

 

 On the way home we stopped off at the Kainantu Pottery Factory to check out what they had in stock.  This area is known for its beautiful pottery, and if you pick out the pieces with a slight crack or scratch you can usually come away with some pretty good deals. 

 

 An employee of the factory works wool into strips for weaving into rugs.

 

 What's Christmas without some cookie decorating, right?

Nikki gets cranking on the dough while her daughter, Sierra, and I start on the frosting.

 

Many hands make light work...and lots of cookies.  From L to R: Thomas, Jephunneh, Sierra, Nikki, Matthias, Brooke, Anna, Me, Edgard

 

December is watermelon season around here, and Janet came by wanting me to try out her first crop.  After cutting them open first, Janet realized they weren't ripe yet and was happy to take them back home and re-use the seeds.  Try doing that at a grocery store back home!

This restuarant in town really knew how to decorate for the holidays.

Us ladies get pretty excited about shopping days in town, especially around the holidays when all sorts of fun new things show up in stores.  Totes stacked up top, ladies crammed inside and we're ready to go. 

 

Christmas in Goroka.  I was actually pretty impressed with this little display. 

 

One of our favorite places to eat in town is The Mandarin for a decent plate of Chinese food.  Pete (and Lesley Doerksen) was the unfortunate driver who had to chauffeur us around all day.

The excitement of the holidays this year also brought some sadness in a great friend and co-worker leaving Interface.  Janie (2nd from left) moved back to the States in December to help fill a huge need for Interface Stateside (after serving 13 years in PNG).  To say she is missed is an understatement, but we were all excited to see God leading and working out all the details for this change in ministry. 

At Janie's going away party, all the staff daughters decided they wanted to be waitresses.

A couple days later and Janie was on a plane flying home.  Bye, Janie!!!

Outside the airport a man tries to sell dried flowers and garlic. 

We love holidays here.  It's a great excuse for us to get together and eat lots of food, play lots of games, and do a lot of relaxing...all day!  The Interface kids help us transform the dining hall into our party headquarters.

No Christmas tree?  No problem.  This poor banana stalk got all decked out instead.

Christmas Eve sports. 

 

At market one week my friend, Julie, (we call each other "Apa" which means "namesake" in the tribal language) gave me a Christmas gift of onions and bananas.  There's something about a gift like this that beats a storebought gift hands down.

 

Home Sweet Home.  My parents' Christmas package was delivered on Christmas morning!

For Christmas Day I invited our three German interns (Matthias, Thomas & Edgard) and Anna (who's helping at ITF for 6 months) for brunch and games. 

None of them had gotten packages from home so I had fun putting together some Christmas "stockings" for them.

 

I don't make a habit of dressing up my dog, but I couldn't resist making Wyatt try on this sweater I found 2nd handing in town. 

 

The week after Christmas I went for a walk in the village with Anna and noticed our campus gate doubling as garbage pick up.  Don't want to find a place to dump your compost?  Just hang it on the gate and someone will be happy to take it home to their pigs.

 

These women are ridiculously strong...if I was carrying that load I'd make it about five steps before passing out.  It's nothing for ladies like Roda, though, who regularly carry loads much heavier than this. 

 

New Year's Eve was, of course, an excuse for another party.  I amazed myself by actually making it till midnight this year.  With no fireworks to celebrate with, we went with second best - a barrell of fire and some aerosol cans (below). 

Kara and I took a muddy walk home after the "fireworks."

I'm not one for making New Year's resolutions (I never keep them) and I don't spend a lot of time pondering what might happen in each new year (things change too fast), but there's something about this "change over" that makes me reflect on my life more than usual.  Over the years there's been a lot of joy and too many amazing memories to count, but that came hand in hand with many broken plans, un-realized dreams, and difficult situations that I never thought I'd get through.  In it all, I am so deeply thankful for the anchor that I've had in Christ, which Hebrews 6 talks about so beautifully.  Christ has redeemed me by His blood, and because of that I have a hope "as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast..."  What an awesome picture of Him holding onto His children as He works out His purposes in our lives and brings glory to Himself.  I'm excited to be going into 2013 completely unsure of what this year will bring, but resting in the perfect steadfastness of Christ.

Happy New Year!