How to Make Brownies 101

Each year we have three German Interns come to Interface for 10 months as part of the Free Social Year program in Germany.  They're trained in different areas of maintenance around campus (electrical, woodworking, mechanics, etc.) and are also involved in some discipleship with the Interfac staff men.  This year Jonny, Diemo (Dee-mo), and Marco have joined our Interface family and we love having them around!  A great benefit to all of us is how well they all knew English before the came.  Every year I think, "THIS is the year I learn German!"  And although I'm picking up bits and pieces here and there I've got a loooong way to go. 

Another area we like to teach the guys in is cooking, since for many of our interns this is their first time away from home.  My co-worker Beth (the chef here at Inteface) and her husband Jacob have taken on this task and once in a while I'm invited to enjoy whatever meal the guys have concocted.  This particular day they were learning how to make chicken fingers and potato wedges...some good North Amercian food.  I have to laugh when the German guys call chocolate chip cookies "American Cookies." :)

A first for Diemo - homemade brownies.  They were good!

Jacob always takes it upon himself to teach anyone wanting to learn the fine art of Smoothie making.  I have to admit, he's got talent and I wish I had taken notes.  Here he used pineapple, papaya, lemon, vanilla, yogurt, milk and bananas. 

Time to eat!

Different Skin...Same Family

Today a group of us had the privelege of driving an hour away to join in on church with the Fellowship of National Bible Churches (FNBC).  Years ago a tribal church was begun by missionaries amongst the Yagaria here in the Highlands.  Over the years that church has grown and expanded into a thriving body of believers who have begun their own church plants in neighboring areas.  The last Sunday of every month believers from several different denominations within FNBC get together so we decided to take the small group of believers from our local Bena area to the service to hopefully encourage them.   Often at meetings like these the speaker will say, "Our skin is black and your skin is white, but in God's eyes we're all one family." :)

The national believers unload after arriving at the FNBC base.

This base used to be an old New Tribes Mission training center.  I remember re-painting that building on the left when I was in High School!

Me and my buddy Kelsey.

This little guy wasn't born too long ago (to a couple from our area) and this was my first glimpse of him.  In Papua New Guinea it's customary for several people to give different names to newborns.  Often the parents will ask a missionary who they're particularly close to to name the baby for them, so one of my co-workers named this boy Daniel (fitting, as his brother's names are Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego).  His family then gave him the name Paulina (yes, that's right), and another lady in the village named him Spencer. 

Not sure how hundreds of people keep their flipflops straight, but we all seemed to go home with our own.

There's little Daniel again with his mom, Anita...he had a few cameras on him 'cause he was just so cute!!  (I just noticed the guy's shirt in front of him "4 da las time...no pain, no gain")

After the service we all talked outside for a bit. 

Me and my close friend, Janet.  My heart is heavy for Janet when I so often see her making choices that don't honor the Lord and are harmful for her and relationships around her.  Then I remind myself that the believers in our Bena area only have portions of the Bible so far in their own language, have had very little teaching recently (the missionaries in their village left on home assignment and the believers have had a hard time continuing on with the teaching) and are much like new believers.  Please pray that I would know how to encourage Janet and others like her.

Judy is a friend of mine from the FNBC center that I like to touch base with whenever I'm in the area.  That's her son with her...in the pink dress. :)

Here's Janet with her son (Barney) and husband (Heti) along with Anita's baby.  Heti is one of the main teachers in the Bena church and could use a lot of pray for this responsibility that's on his shoulders.  Often tribal churches will thrive until the missionaries leave on home assignment and the believers realize how much they were depending on the missionaries instead of the Lord.  It's a tough transition for them and they are often easily pulled back into their old ways.  As easy as it is to depend on man, we know that we have the Holy Spirit who is our Guide, our Counsellor and our Encourager...we would love for the Bena believers to truly grasp this!  Janet talked to me after the service today and said "Today I really understood what was said...I've been looking into my life and wondering about some of these things and today I finally got it good."  Praise the Lord for the understanding that He's given.   We long to see the believers here grow and understand more about the amazing life that they have in Christ, and we're encoruaged by each little step they take. 

A Close Call...

If you read my previous post about the incredible control the people here have over their fires during burning season (most of the time), these pictures that I took yesterday along our fencline are what I'm talking about:

Rainy Season Arrives

September 2011

October 2011

There are two seasons in Papua New Guinea - rainy and dry.  Although, the weather has been so inconsistent in recent years that it's hard to distinguish the seasons anymore.  During dry season the people in our area get busy burning their fields and gardens for two reasons that I know of - it's a great alternative to "mowing the lawn," and it helps replenish the ground for their gardens.  A few weeks ago our valley was filled with the smoke of these fires, occasionally burning right up to our fence line. You can hear the crackling of the flames like they're next door.  It's a mystery to me how they control the fires, but they rarely get out of hand.  One day we were driving into town and noticed a fire burning on either side of the road, which was odd since they're usually more controlled than that.  A couple days later one of our language helpers came to work sheepishly saying that she had gone to burn some garbage a couple days earlier and the fire got out of hand and wiped out the entire area where she was living and jumped the road.  Thankfully her house wasn't touched and not too much damage was done that couldn't grow back and she was able laugh about it. 

It's Just Protein

Every year around August or September, around the time of the first rain after dry season, we get swarmed with thousands of Muna Beetles.  It's tradition for all the kids from the village to run around campus trying to catch as many as they can...and the Interface staff get in on a bit of the fun, too.  Why the frenzy to catch all the beetles?  Well, a little bit of oil, a bit of salt and pepper and it's a pretty good snack...or so they say.

It's fun to see the kids all running around laughing and chasing the beetles.

I collect plastic bottles all year to pass out during Muna season. 

A branch or a towel is the perfect tool to knock the flying beetles off balance and grab them off the ground. 

Who needs a bottle?

A little bit of beheading and pulling off of limbs, and they're ready to throw in the pan.  Rumour has it they taste just like popcorn.  I've never been brave enough to eat one myself, but our students always love being able to go home saying they ate a bug. :) 

Calling all bug lovers

Over the years I've discovered that all things get put on hold for me when I see a new or unique bug/insect.  I immediately drop what I'm doing and run for my camera before my photo op disappears.  Since many of you may not share this same love, I've created a seperate page for all my new finds.  Check out the bugs of my life link on the right if you're interested! 

From America, With Love

Although we all cook for ourselves at Interface, we also have a main kitchen where we feed the students, missionaries, and others that use our campus for retreats, conferences, etc. throughout the year.  Although most of what we really need can be found in town here, the prices would be exorbitant for feeding the amount of people that come through Interface, so we occassionally order bulk food on containers that come from the States.   Beth, our chef, does an incredible job of planning everything that we need, food-wise, for years at a time, and she orders a food shipment once every 2-4 years.  Needless to say it's a bit like Christmas when the container finally arrives. :)  This week our first shipment in three years arrived and we had fun discovering all the good stuff inside!

Unloading and organizing truck loads of food...not so fun.

All the food is first brought into the kitchen warehouse to be counted and inventoried.

Beth is pretty happy to have a stocked kitchen again!

Beth counts all the inventory as Utu, Rose & myself stock the shelves.

One of the benefits of the kitchen ordering bulk food is that we get to order personal items, too. :)  Here's a few of the treats that I got to stock up on myself. 

Red Pepper!!!

This is only the second red pepper I've seen in PNG in almost three years, and it got me pretty excited. So much so that I even paid the equivelant of almost $2 for the thing. Might not seem too exorbitant until you consider that a normal green pepper is only about $0.25 or $0.35. Was it worth it? Mmmmm! That same day I also found Cheerios and Macaroni & Cheese...what more could you ask for?

Going Tribal: New Ireland 2011

One of the main goals of our Interface program here in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is to expose students to what it means to be a missionary and how you would go about planting a tribal church. Each program, as a culmination of all they’ve been learning in the classroom, we take them into a tribe where they’re able to see an actual church plant in progress. This is often the highlight of our students’ times here in Papua New Guinea as all the “facts” they’ve been learning are suddenly a reality. In July I had the opportunity to co-lead a team of six of our students into a tribe in New Irealnd for seven days. Although I've been into many tribes in PNG, this is one of the only times I've seen a church plant in progress and it was a real eye opener for me, and a huge encouragement. 

We took a two hour plane ride from the Highlands up to the Island of New Ireland.  From there 10 of us crammed into a double cab pick-up with all our luggage and travelled two hours down the coast before heading up into the mountains for just over an hour.  We couldn't resist the ocean water and blue skies so we had to make a few stops along the way!

Brian, Ashley, Jake, BK, Fallon & Tiffany were the students along for this trip (two other groups of seven students went elsewhere) and we had a lot of fun together.  

After 1 1/2 bumpy hours up a broken-up limestone road, our home for the next week came into view.  There were three missionary homes, and ours was the one on the right, visible here.

The scenery took us from palm tree-lined beaches to tree fern-covered hills.  The tree ferns gave it such an eery feel and none of us would've been suprised if a dinosaur had torn out of the bush.

 

This lady was peeling taro (a root vegetable similar to sweet potato) with a piece of shell.

Two of the missionary ladies hosting us spent a lot of time with the students showing them around and helping them get to know the people and the life of the tribe.

We tend to ruin their gardens more then help them, but this lady was kind of enough to let us try our hands at planting taro.  In the Highlands, if you help in the gardens more often than not they'll replant it all when you leave. 

We took a walk down to a local "watering hole" where the water comes fresh out of a rocky hillside.

I was the cook for our week in the bush and it was a fun challenge to feed up to 15 people every day.  The main kitchen at Interface had done the majority of the prep work for us already beforehand, which was a huge help!  After supper, our evenings were usually spent with the missionaries.  They would role play different scenarios that you might face as a tribal church planter, and the students were challenged to work as a team to figure out how they would theoretically deal with each situation.  They all got a real taste of the joys as well as the hardships that are faced in this kind of work.  It was a stretching experience for all of us, although I was sometimes thankful I had the excuse of hiding out in the kitchen to clean up! 

This is a new church building built by a different denomonation who is wanting the missionaries to come teach them through the Bible.  This small group of people left their former church because they no longer agreed with what was being taught.  It was pretty bold of them to leave the way that they did and it's exciting to know that they'll soon be hearing the true talk of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice that brought us life (the teaching starts in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and establishes a foundation through the Old Testament before introducing Christ).  We got to sit in on one of the pre-teaching sessions while in the area. 

Two women, who are now believers, do a skit to clarify a point.

There are a small handful of believers in this area, but they are faithful and committed.  We got the chance to sit in on one of their teaching sessions.  One of our students was trying to encourage them by saying, "You are so blessed to have the Word of God and to know the Truth."  One of the believers gently responded with, "It's not enough to know the Truth, you have to believe it."  They were a solid group!

Listening to the teaching.

When North American believers get together, more than likely we'll talk about sports or movies or what we did that week.  When these believers get together all they want to talk about is the Lord and His goodness and grace in their lives.  Makes you really re-evaluate your priorities. 

Our trip into the tribe had ended and we made our way back down to the coast, making a pit stop at Cathy's Eels.  Pretty much one of the neatest things I've ever experienced.  For a $2.50 "donation" and a can of Besta Tuna (for the eels...they're picky eaters), you can stand in a river and pet wild eels.  

 

There must have been atleast 10 of them that showed up and they would slither through your legs and loved to be pet!

We were all sorry we only brought one can of tuna as the eels didn't stay for long.

We had an extra day at the coast before flying back to the Highlands so we enjoyed some time at the beach.

A quick trip to the market completed our tribal adventure.  Those are live crabs wrapped up on the ground. 

As we were all talking about our trip on the way home, we realized that the first things that came to mind were the "cool" things that happened like petting eels and snorkeling.  Those were the things that had been the most immediate fun and brought on the quickest memories.  But we encouraged eachother to hold onto the more long-lasting memories - the testimonies that the believers gave of their hope in Christ, the encouragement the missionaries left with us to be obedient to Christ no matter where He leads because He is ALWAYS faithful (their lives being true examples), and the reminder of how much Christ has saved us from and how powerful His grace is that He would choose to love us and use us as we put our faith and trust in Him. 

There's lots more pictures to see HERE if you're interested!