Around the World in 14 Days

I look back over recent months and am amazed that just six months ago I was living contentedly at Interface, oblivious to the fact that in just a month I'd be packing up my home, in three months I'd be leaving my ministry and in six months I'd be on my way back across the world to live in Canada.  What an incredible 4 1/2 years it's been!!  And truly, what a privelege it was to live and serve in PNG. 

 

 I got to spend one last Canada Day in PNG with good friends.

 I knew that saying goodbye to my "baby," Wyatt, would break my heart, but God provided such an amazing new home for him (beyond my prayers and expectations) that I couldn't help but be so happy.

 

 I spent a morning in the villages around Interface saying goodbye to friends and was thankful for one last hug from my village papa, Judge Peter.

 

 I'm going to miss these trails.

 I couldn't believe the awesome chance God opened up for me to fly to the coast for a few days to say goodbye to some previous Interface co-workers who were back in country.  It did my heart good to visit with Janie Miles again, who'd left Interface in November.

 Jacob & Beth Devine (with their new baby Jonathan) had left Interface last year for nine months, not knowing when they left that they'd be returning to a closed campus and a new ministry and home in a completely different place.  Without going to the coast I don't know when I would have seen them next.

 

 Big smiles and bittersweet hearts at the Goroka airport. Five months ago myself and two other Interface families were joking about travelling home together through Hawaii, but amazingly enough the joke turned into reality!  Pete & Lesley Doerksen with their three kids and Drew & Bobbi Scholl and their four kids have been the greatest travelling companions.

 

 Our travels took us first through the Philippines for a three day layover.  A picture's worth a thousand words.

 

 I really enjoyed catching up with old friends from when I lived in Manila six years ago.  Here I am with my Ate Cynthia whose joyful attitude and love for the Lord have long been a blessing to me.

 Three days in Manila and we're ready for the next leg.

 Just a little excited to be on the way to Hawaii.

 Lugging luggage for 12 around the world was not so fun. 

 

 This may look like just any old meal, but having not had any of it for years made it a delicacy for us. Endless choices of deli meats, cheddar cheese, non-stale chips and real milk! *sigh of happines*

 We took a walk along the beach the next morning for breakfast and coffee.

 This is exactly how we felt about being in Hawaii.

 Gorgeous views of the Na Pali coast.

 It was so windy we had to fight to keep our balance!

 Hanalei Bay.

This trip across the world with great friends has been such a gift!  Our emotions over the past months have run high, and we've grown even closer as we've hurt, cried, prayed, and learned to praise the Lord together through it all.  In a situation that tempted to ruin our trust in the Lord, we've come through it only with a deeper confidence in the goodness of our God who cares enough to bring us through difficult times to grow us and mold us and make His strength more perfect in our lives. 

 

"Taste and see that the Lord is good."

A Farewell

We've been gone from Interface for over a month now, and all of the staff have been living at the main New Tribes Mission center about half hour away.  We were surprised to have to leave a lot sooner than we'd expected due to an increase of theft on our campus.  We ended up having two days to pack all of our final belongings and move out, and needless to say we were overwhelmed.  How do you pack up your lives in two days?  Because we left so quickly we weren't able to say goodbye to our village friends, so a few weeks later we went back to the Interface campus to put on a huge day of celebration to thank the village community for their part in our lives. 

 

Part of celebrating here is making a "mumu," which is, in essence, food cooked in a huge underground steamcooker using hot rocks and water.  We anticipated feeding hundreds of people so we made two mumus consisting of 1 cow, 2 pigs, 20 chickens, 5 cases of lamb flaps, hundreds of sweet potatoes and several bags of greens.   

 

 Some of us headed out to Interface a day early to help with the preparation.  There aren't many more times that I'll get to enjoy this incredible view.

 

This is the start of one of the mumu pits.  A fire is started and then rocks heated up.

 

The cow was brought in from a local cattle farm. 

 While the men worked on prepping the mumu pits and the cow (they were up all night working on it), the women began working into the night peeling sweet potato and cooking bananas. 

 Little kids wielding sharp knives aren't unusual around here.  This girl was helping her mom peel bananas.

 In the morning we awoke to see one of the pigs heading to his fate. 

 The hair is singed off before preparing the meat for the mumu. 

 

 Poor chickens didn't know what they had coming.

 Celebrations are decorated big with traditional decorations of banana trees and other flowers.  And balloons, of course. 

 Women and men started trickling in carrying greens to either cook in the mumu or build it.

 

 One of my favorite girls in the world, Mopo.

 While the preparations were being done we had a program planned which was MC'ed by a teacher in the village.  There were speeches (lots and lots of speeches) by Interface staff, village leaders and many others, and Drew Scholl performed a few of his own songs including a song he wrote for the village.  We thought the people would be honored by the song and love it, which they did, but a large group of ladies began crying and wailing in the middle of it to show their sadness that we were leaving them.  The song was a hit, though, and the people quickly adopted it as their anthem.    

 The final meat and veggies are put on the mumu.

 After being covered with its final layers of leaves and dirt, water is poured into pieces of bamboo down onto the hot rocks underneath.

 A few hours being cooked like this and the food will be ready to enjoy.

 A group of our closest friends and employees covered themselves in dirt to show how sorry they were for us leaving.  We considered this a day of celebration to honor our village family, but they saw it as a day of sadness that we would be leaving.  They were honoring us by their sadness as we were them by the celebration.

 We figure over 600 people showed up for the event. 

 Nikki Ray, Lesley Doerksen, myself and Bobbi Scholl - not just co-workers, but family.

 It's ready!  Layer by layer the mumu is taken apart and piles of piping hot food are laid in piles for everyone to eat. 

 

 Once school was out all the school kids flooded onto campus to join in the events.

 

From 7:30am to 5:00pm we sat, talked, cried, laughed, worked, and waited with our friends.  By the end of the day we were exhausted, but so thankful for such a great day to remember our friends by and to say goodbye to our Interface home one last time. 

 

Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to serve in this amazing place.