From Brisbane Australia to Arop Village

The skin cancer was about the size of a pea on the outside, but as you can see from the picture, it went a lot deeper inside!

We are safely in our house at Arop village. Since I haven’t had much time to blog in the past few weeks, I thought I would write about my travels all in one go.

Just a little tidbit that I found amusing at the beginning of my trip: when I went up to the checkin counter in Port Moresby, the computers weren’t working. Both of the checkin guys slid down behind the counter. Most of us standing in line could all see the tops of their heads the whole time (!) I wanted to get a picture of them but decided against it I thought they were hiding from the shame of not being able to serve us yet. Incidentally, I wasn’t worried at all because we still had over two hours before the flight was supposed to leave and it looked like no one else had been able to checkin for that flight either. They eventually got it working and we all checked in.

I arrived in Brisbane later that day and met my big sister Jenny at the domestic terminal. From there, we took a taxi to the Wycliffe flats and spent the weekend talking, eating, shopping and sleeping. I haven’t had that much kid free time just to hang out with another adult in 14 years!! It helped that it was one of my favorite people.

On Monday I dropped off Jenny at the airport and my friend Lilah and her husband Lyall picked me up. They hosted me for the rest of my time in Brisbane and believe me, they fed me well the whole time. It was fun to stay with people who love to cook and eat spicy/flavorful food!

Lilah went with me on the bus to my first doctor’s appointment so I could go again myself the next day. It worked just like she told me it would, and I found the staff at the hospital really helpful. The first day was just a checkup, where I met the doctor and he told me about the procedure I would have. The second day was the actual Mohs surgery. From what I understand, they took a little bit out of my forehead, and tested it while I waited in the waiting room. They called me back in for another round of removal. After the second testing, they said it was all gone, and that they had cut through the fat layer into the muscle and took about 2.4 cm circumference out of my forehead. I ended up sitting in the waiting room for a cumulative of 3 hours and was really tired by the end. That day I didn’t have much pain at all, so I rested on my own and took a bus back to Lilah’s. However, I accidentally got on the wrong one. Thankfully Lilah set me straight before I ended up on the wrong side of Brisbane!

The next day I took a taxi to the next appointment because it was in the city and at a different location. This time, they had me put on a hospital gown, slipper socks and a cap. When I got to the operating theatre, they knocked me out. The next thing I knew I was really drowsy and nauseated and could barely keep my eyes open. Another friend Keiyeng came and picked me up from there and took me back to Lilah’s, where I ended up sleeping most of the day.

I didn’t think that I was anxious about any of the procedures except that I didn’t sleep very well Monday night through Wednesday. Thursday I started sleeping much better and I realized it was because I didn’t have any more appointments hanging over me.

I did miss my family intensely during those days, especially when Ben would send me a message asking to Skype because Jenny Beth was crying for me. He told me that the twins both learned how to pray by themselves while I was gone as well. However, I knew that this opportunity to rest was a big blessing to me, so I made an effort to focus on that during those days.

Friday was a splendid day because Cori, a friend of mine from college, had Lilah book me a massage—this was my first spa massage ever! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards, Lilah and I went shopping and had one of my favorite things, Subway sandwiches, for lunch!

Over the next two days I was able to shop some more at a spice shop and Ikea and have fish and chips with Lilah, Lyall and Lyall’s mum for mother’s day.

I left Brisbane on Monday, the 14th. The checkin line at Virgin Pacific took an hour, so I had 15 minutes at the gate before boarding (a little too close for comfort in my book.) When I got to Port Moresby I couldn’t find my bag. It looked like everybody else had found theirs. Eventually I realized someone had taken it off the conveyer belt. Phew!

At this point, I started feeling a little panicky because I only had 2 hours total in POM to get to my flight to Wewak where I was planning to meet my family before leaving for the village together. I saw that they had checkin signs for different flights so I texted Ben “I think Air Niugini is more efficient than Virgin Pacific!”

This is where it got not so funny….I got up to the counter finally and the lady told me “just go over there.” So I went to another counter where another lady was being trained and seemed to be very confused about filling in the computer forms. People were putting their tickets/passports on the counter and being served so I spoke up and said “I’m going to Wewak.” They looked up at me and told me “the plane is full” I replied (a teeny bit on the loud side…perhaps a bit teary too?) “I have to get there today!” I didn’t have anything organized in POM in case I was stuck there. So they took my passport and weighed my bag, telling me that they couldn’t give me a boarding pass until I paid overweight charges. I had 7 kilos more coming into PNG than I had domestically. I ran over to the overweight baggage counter and when the man finally was able to help me, he kept clearing and retyping the numbers over and over into his calculator to find out 23-17. By this time I was so nervous that I blurted out “my plane is leaving in 15 minutes!” He finally got the receipt made, I paid it, and ran back to the counter to get my boarding pass.

The story doesn’t end here folks…I walked up to the open doors and asked “is the flight leaving for Wewak?” A lady told me “yes! Hurry, go to gate 10.” Well, there was no gate 10 marked anywhere, and I ended up going all the way to the end, and started getting on a plane. A man who had been in line behind me told me that I was on the wrong plane because he was too! I guess being the loud white woman made me memorable that day?!

So I made it to Wewak, and had dinner and breakfast the next day with our good friends there…and pretty soon it was time to greet my family at the airstrip. Jacob and Jenny Beth seemed a little dazed when I saw them, maybe they were wondering if I had disappeared forever while I was gone. They kept asking about my owie and did I see the doctor. Then Jenny Beth told our friend Chris who was the pilot that day, “dat mine plane!”

We got back to the Wycliffe center in Wewak and found out fairly quickly that the car that Ben had booked to take us to the village couldn’t pick us up after all. He ended up finding two other cars and told them that he would go on whichever one arrived first. At 2:00 pm, one showed up. We put all our cargo in, and with the exception of having to wait while they changed a flat with the spare from our car, we were off.

The trip itself was probably one of the hardest trips I’ve ever been on. We were on some pretty hard seats for over 7 hours on very bumpy bush roads. I spent a good deal of the time trying to absorb the bumps for Jenny Beth and prayed that my backside would just fall asleep. By 9:00 we were all feeling exhausted so Ben asked the driver if we could please overnight in Aitape. He agreed readily and Ben found out that we could stay at a guest house. I am so grateful for this, because after a good night’s sleep, I didn’t feel like leaving Papua New Guinea for a more comfortable existence. I often find that things look so much better in the morning, especially after a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs made by our teammate Jessie. J The kids, Jess and I took a little walk to a small grocery store and bought snacks for the journey and also to the market to get some kau kau (sweet potato), cucumber and tomatoes for our first couple of meals in the village.

The next car ride was only 1.5 hours, and Ben had secured the cargo so that it wasn’t falling on him and Jessie like it was the night before. Also I had bought a pillow at Papindos to sit on so the bumps didn’t affect me as much.

As we were driving, I told my kids how I was proud of how flexible they are. The night before I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and wondering how they were faring. Apparently they did much better than I did, because Noah blurted out, “it’s fun to be bounced around!” During the night when we were travelling Jacob (2 ½) kept looking out the windows and looking for stars. He said “I’m painim stars!” (finding) He would then sing his version of “Twinkle Twinkle” and proceed to get mad whenever the trees would cover them. Jenny Beth did well and stayed happy as long as she had Jessie’s fleece wrapped around her in some way.

When we arrived in our village, we walked a short way from the car to our house. Even before the twins saw our house they started shouting “dat mine house!!” It really warmed my heart to know that they knew where we were going. Noah and Ellie were fantastic about looking after the little ones while we swept out the cobwebs and wiped down all the shelves, counters, tables and bookshelves.

This afternoon, Jacob woke up from his nap crying and covered in sweat so I said “let’s go outside and you can have your drink out on the veranda.” While we sat on the steps of our house, four different ladies came up to us at different times and said hello and chatted for a bit. In all of my 10 years here, I haven’t had that many ladies purposefully come over to me and initiate a conversation in such a short time. (Well, one stood and smiled and let me ooh and ahh over how big her baby had gotten! She’s not much for talking but she does have a beautiful smile.) I know it might seem like a small thing, but I think God gave that to me today to encourage me that people are noticing that we are here and are glad for it.

Tonight Ben is working on getting printed copies of Acts ready for our consultant and the mother tongue speakers who have come to help in the checking process. I have to say I am really grateful to be here, sitting underneath my mosquito net with my incision healing nicely, and the ability to use the internet in the village. J I really feel like the whole experience of me getting the skin cancer removed and the pieces that fell into place along the way evidenced God’s mercy to me and to my family as well. I have never seen Ben so happy to see me as he was yesterday, after caring for our five children on his own! One thing he said was “it’s hard to think about yourself when you are looking after so many other people.” (He almost forgot to pack his own things for the village). That made me smile. He gets motherhood!

Tomorrow will be a flurry of unpacking, pulling out homeschooling materials for Noah and Ellie, cooking and chasing down the twins and mopping our very dirty floor. But I will at least start the day grateful (I hope!) for all of the things God did for me these past two weeks!

If you made it all the way to the end of this saga, I’m impressed, I didn’t mean for it to be this long! Thanks for listening in….

baby oil, tanning and skin cancer…

I debated writing out the whole story of how we learned that I had skin cancer. I finally decided that if one person reads this and wonders if they should get a mole or a funny spot checked then it’s worth putting this out in cyberspace.

Back up to my teenage years. Do you remember when we slathered ourselves with baby oil or some other kind of burn inducing agent in order to get a good tan? I remember doing it often with my sisters and friends. We believed that the browner we got, the better we looked. Back in those days, we didn’t know the things we know now about skin cancer!

A few years ago, I asked a doctor about a spot right in the middle my forehead, right on the hairline. He said “let me measure it” and then told me we’d keep an eye on it.

On our last furlough, as another doctor filled in my ‘Pre-field Health Forms’ (ie the ones we need to be ok’ed to come back to PNG) I asked him about this spot. It was scabbing over and itching by this time. He explained that it was skin damage and proceeded to freeze it off for me. That was two years ago.

For a while I didn’t notice it anymore. However, it developed into something else. I would annoy me because it would scab over and bleed profusely if I bumped it or got it wet in the shower. I kept putting off a whole doctor’s visit just for that, believing that it was still skin damage until a couple of months ago when I had to go to to our clinic anyway for a toe infection. When the doctor looked at it, she said that our other doctor here would probably want to look at it and possibly biopsy it.

As soon as he began the biopsy, he told me with certainty that he believed it was skin cancer. He mentioned that the location of this spot is one of the most common places for skin cancer. He said I would probably have to go to Cairns or Brisbane, Australia to get it taken care of. Oh, and one side note: my next door neighbor was the nurse assisting the doctor. That is one of the ‘funny’ things around here, we live with the people who take care of us.

We waited five weeks for the results, and my doctor called to tell me I had skin cancer. However, if one is going to have skin cancer, this is the kind to have…it is basal cell carcinoma. Even after I heard it was skin cancer, I wasn’t really sure how serious this was. My first inkling came when I asked if I could wait until my parents visit in June and travel to Australia with them. No, he really wanted me to get it taken care of as soon as possible.

So here I am a few more weeks later. I have three appointments set up, for May 8, 9 and 10, the final of which is a Mohs procedure. Apparently I will be ‘put under’ for this. The two things I am most looking forward to is: I get to stay with a close friend, and my big sister will be flying up for the weekend to hang out with me.

Stay tuned because tomorrow I will post how all of this makes me feel.

Decisions, guilt and doing the right thing…

This week has been an emotional one for me personally because of a decision that we had to revisit.

The Plan seemed like a good one: Ben goes to the village for three weeks, while I stay at our regional center of Ukarumpa. The reason the family didn’t go with him this time mainly centered around difficulty in traveling. Being on jungle roads which are muddy and slippery for hours on end did not seem like a good option for the kids and I, so I volunteered to stay here in the comfort of our Ukarumpa home. Not only that, but Ben and his translators were making a push to get through Acts and if he didn’t have us there to distract him, they could make really good progress.

Having Ben away has been difficult, not because we have had any major things go wrong but it’s just regular life that can get exhausting. It’s the ‘normal’ happenings which require my attention and concentration and with five kids, it feels like I’m dealing with something all day long. I am tired and I miss my husband, who I rely on to help make the steady stream of decisions that rush at me throughout the day. With our pre-teen I’m making more emotional/mental decisions, whereas with the two year olds it is more physically demanding.

The original plan was for Ben to come home, stay for a week, and then go back to Wewak for 2 ½ weeks for a Dictionary workshop that our team had signed up for. We have three or four translators going from our project plus some literacy people in addition to Emil and Jessie who are advisors.

Last week I came down with a sinus infection and for various reasons had a couple of sleepless nights. I think it took something like this for me to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to cope with Ben going to the Dictionary workshop only a week after he returned from being gone for three weeks. Since he was away, my option was to e-mail him or Skype chat, so I chose chatting. It was a really hard conversation to have, but I knew that I needed Ben to be home or else I might have to be medevac’ed out of here. Although it was a bit of a shock at first, he agreed and arranged for the team to go without him.

On top of living cross culturally and dealing with hard things about living in community, if my sanity starts cracking, I won’t last long here…there are definite triggers and I know when the alarm bells are going off. So I’m following the advice of a good friend and doing the right thing and learning to live with a little guilt.

I won’t lie to you, I feel like the weakest link in the chain. For many of us missionary women, if we find that we need to STOP or CHANGE plans it is painful to admit, because we don’t want to be the reason that The Project isn’t moving forward. I feel enormous pressure from the people who fund our project. (ie supporting our national translators) What if they find out that it’s my fault that we aren’t progressing? What if I’m just being a big wimp and I really should be able to handle it? Since I have had these thoughts recently and I have heard them time and time again from my friends and colleagues, I thought I would put it out there so that you can pray for missionaries who are making these same kinds of choices. Yes, we are trusting God. Yes, we are doing so prayerfully. But we are still human and have to deal with a lot of human emotions when we have to say “enough” “I shouldn’t do this” or “I really need a break.” Thankfully the friends who I confided in this week affirmed the things I was saying (and so did Ben!) so the angst only lasted a few days.

Sea travel and hiking for Ben today

Ben took this picture with his camera phone on the last boat trip out of the village…

Today the road is bad (you can drive about 1.5 hours but the rest of the road is impassable). Ben decided to catch a 2 hour boat ride from Aitape, which will take him as far as Waroiyn, and then he will hike 2 hours to get to our village. Yesterday they could not take him because of the strong winds. It took Ben nearly nine hours on bush roads to get as far as Aitape from Wewak, after waiting nearly a week for a car to take him. In the past few months, travelling to and from the village has become very difficult for our family because both of the government owned airstrips we have used in the past are not being cut and the dirt road in and out of the village is soupy. At least when Ben is travelling alone, he considers it to be an adventure and he doesn’t mind the hours on the road (or water, as it is today!)

Here’s one to show what the road looks like!

Waiting beside a river , because the water is too high to drive through. Ben says that the water covered his ankles in the front seat of the car this week!

We are in the process of ordering life jackets for our kids to reduce the risks of traveling by sea; however  even if we can go by sea next time, the road travel is still an issue, at least between Wewak and  Aitape. Please pray that we will find a better solution to getting in and out of our home in the jungle!

Journey to the Lagoon…

As the translators wrapped up the Acts revising and Luke recording workshop, we asked our Arop friends what the road situation was like. Everybody we talked to told us that four-wheel-drive trucks couldn’t get in and out of the village. The dirt roads had become soupy. A huge truck blocked the road as well.

We began to brainstorm about our next options. We could walk to the lagoon and take a boat out to the Bismarck Sea to get to the town of Aitape, where we could get another car to take us to Wewak. Ben and I realized that although this had been a possible exit plan, it only lived in the idea stage. Our old life jackets had disintegrated, so it wouldn’t be safe for our children. Taking them out onto the open sea through a narrow inlet called The Otto (named after Otto von Bismarck, from the colonial days), where boats are known to capsize didn’t seem like a wise thing to do.

At one point, I asked, “Can we ask the Samaritan Aviation guy to come get us in the float plane?” A few years ago our director came to visit our project via this plane equipped with pontoons. Our managers in Wewak contacted the pilot and he was willing to pick us up, despite the fact that he usually only delivers medicines and flies patients in life threatening medevacs! He was concerned about the wind, so we began to pray for good weather.

(all photos by Dan Bauman, who came out with us to record Luke with Andy Weaver. I am grateful because I was too busy to take any pictures myself!)

Back to the wee hours of that Saturday morning…

We woke at 4:00 am set out around 5:30…I hadn’t slept all night just for the sheer excitement of the day ahead of us. “What if it rains while we are hiking,” and other questions kept rolling around in my head. That’s me carrying Jenny Beth on the left and Kenny (Sissano translator) on the right. Thankfully most of us had flashlights or headlamps to get us through that first part of the journey.

This swamp was my least favorite portion of the hike…we were up to our knees in the mangrove mud and had to take our shoes off in order to get through it. I had a couple of ladies holding up my arms to help me. I felt humbled, but grateful for their help!

Surprise of all surprises, in the middle of the jungle there was this large escavator submerged in the mud! It was brand new and working its first ever job when it got stuck.

We all breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when we came upon this path…this meant that the muddy swamp walking moments were over.

Here is Andy Weaver and Ben walking across a log bridge… notice the hand rail…sometimes we don’t have the luxury of something to hold onto!

Upon arriving in Wauroiyn, the village nearest the lagoon, we were able to rinse off our muddy feet and shoes.

Ben shaking hands with our friend Rosa, one of the ladies who helped us carry our cargo on the hike.

From Wauroiyn we took a boat down the long narrow stream to get out to the lagoon…

The lagoon appeared before us, calm and peaceful… perfect for the plane to land!

And the float plane, in all its glory landed smoothly!

Mark Palm, the pilot, greeted us. Jessie, the kids and I flew with Mark to Wewak, while Ben, Dan and Andy went on this small boat to then find a car from Aitape to Wewak. Their journey took over 14 hours!

The rest of our journey that day was a little more normal for us. We landed in Wewak and met up with the managers there who gave us cold drinks and snacks. A few other friends who live there came by to chat while our older kids played with friends. Then our pilot friend Chris came and picked us up and expertly flew us home to Ukarumpa! As I think back on that day, I can only be thankful for Jessie traveling with the kids and me, good weather, airplanes that worked well, gifted pilots, and willing friends who fed us. God is good, all the time!

Journey to Arop…

Our plane landed at our first destination, Tadji, on the way to a translation and recording workshop in Arop village in January.

The road was good except for this spot…

…and this one.

Finally we arrived in Arop, where we have just a 5 minute walk to our house.

Home sweet home!!

Once we were in Arop, Dan Bauman (pictured above) and Andy Weaver began recording the book of Luke with our translators while Ben and Jessie worked with them on refining Acts. I cooked everybody’s lunch and homeschooled the kids…it was busy but very productive!

(Photos by Dan Bauman and Jessie Wright–thanks guys!)

A great place to grow up…

Day 2: I love raising my kids in Papua New Guinea!

Jacob ‘talking’ with an Arop boy. No toys needed for fun with friends. Just dirt and rocks.

Jenny Beth watching a lady fill up her water jug outside our house. The twins love watching ducks, dogs and chickens go by as well.

Ellie playing with friends in the village.

When the Arop kids get together to play a game, Josiah and Noah often join in. This particular game was frustrating because the girls kept winning!

Josiah joined us in the village after spending one week in a children’s home (hostel) in Ukarumpa. Having him there enabled us to make it to the translation workshop in time.

When asked why they like living in Papua New Guinea, Noah said, “here you don’t have to wear shoes all the time.” Josiah added, “I don’t get to stay in a hostel in the U.S.” Both boys commented that they like living close to the majority of their friends (although they miss the friends they made while on furlough.) For my part, I am thankful for the simplicity of life here. Much of the time, our kids are out of doors. They are also really good travellers, going to and from our village to our mission community. Sometimes they have to wait 2-4 hours at an airstrip or in a town, waiting for a car without any entertainment but themselves. In addition, I love watching them with their missionary aunts and uncles and am grateful for the input these adults have in their lives. I think they are starting to develop good strategies for handling transition and relating to people of other cultures. Although “home” is a hard concept for a lot of MKs (missionary kids) I think our kids would agree that Papua New Guinea is where they are deeply rooted and they love it here.

Goroka and Back

We made it to Goroka and back today, and Noah’s passport renewal application was successfully lodged. We are so thankful to the U.S. Consular who frequently goes beyond the call of duty to make herself available to those of us who live a long way from the capital city of Port Moresby.

The most dramatic event of the trip today was slamming to a stop to avoid hitting some goats that chased each other into the road. Crowds of people were seen in the towns and along the highway. They will be celebrating 35 years of Papua New Guinea independence on the 16th.