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….

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.

The Secret of Contentment

“Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being that you desire? Don’t you often hope: “May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fill my deepest desire.” But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment, you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless,always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know hat this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burnout. This is the way to spiritual death.” –Henri Nouwen in Spiritual Direction

Do you think it’s possible that life lessons just keep cycling back in order to keep us humble? For me, the temptation to be dissatisfied with life creeps up on me in very small ways, particularly when exhaustion threatens to take over. Here are some of the ‘if onlys’ that I’ve had kicking around in my head the last couple of days…

If only…

I had this extra kitchen appliance to make my cooking-from-scratch easier

my twins were a little older and not so toddlerish, I wouldn’t feel like I’m constantly saying “no!” “stop!” and “come here!”

Ben weren’t away, I wouldn’t have to deal with the rat running around in my house.

I had a purposeful job to do (besides stay at home mom) I would feel more fulfilled and less like I’m running in circles.

I could figure out childcare, I could exercise and lose some baby weight that I’ve been accumulating for the last 12 years!

Ben and I communicated well every day and were of one mind spiritually, mentally and emotionally

And the one that gives me a lot of thought: If only my personality was completely different, I would have better boundaries with people. In short, I wish I could trade my NF for an ST. (cf Meyers Briggs)

So to counteract spiraling into self pity, I will list what I am thankful for:

I am thankful….

for my daughter, who flipped tortillas on the stove, leaving me free to roll them out more quickly

that the twins are having a nap, the first time in a few days! And they won’t be two forever. Pretty soon I’m going to wish that they were small and crawling into my lap again!

that friends loaned us a rat trap. My oldest son set it, and killed the rat that we caught this morning.

that I GET to stay home with my five children. Our organization does not force me to work outside the home—since I have the freedom to choose, I choose to be home with them!

that my house has two flights of stairs that I am constantly going up and down. If I don’t have an exercise program, at least I’m getting some exercise in here and there!

that I have a husband who loves me and cares about my well being. Although we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, we are learning how to communicate better all the time.

that my life is full of people I love and care about and who are patient with me as I learn how to function better in community life.

THERE! I feel much better, and grateful that I am here, with a few toddler-free moments to write this blog post! A few moments ago, before I wrote this post, I was feeling very sorry for myself over some fairly trivial things, and now I am feeling the presence of God washing over me.

Twins: the best and hardest two years of my life!

The past two and a half years have been the best and hardest in my life. When Jacob and Jenny Beth joined our family, there were times when I thought I was going to die of exhaustion. I remember being afraid to go to bed at night knowing that one of them would wake up shortly for a feeding. I struggled with fears about continuing to live cross culturally and taking care of five children at the same time. Could we really return to PNG and live in a village??? Was I going to fall apart once we got there?

Other twin parents comforted me by saying that these two little ones wouldn’t be little forever. And they were right!! At the time it seemed like forever stretched out in front of me…but here we are, 2 ½ years into this journey and I’M STILL ALIVE!

I’ve been thinking about our twins recently as I have learned about a friend who is expecting five babies. FIVE. I thought having two at once was difficult. My heart just goes out to her!

So here is why having the twins has made these last two years the BEST in my life:

1) I’ve had to work on being less codependent with everybody I know and more careful about caregiving with friends in a healthy way. If I am falling apart, I can’t take care of the family God has entrusted me with. It makes Ben’s life difficult if I get so wrapped up in other people’s problems that I can’t function. I am still learning about this and constantly working on balance.

2) My older kids have become more compassionate and sensitive to other people’s needs since having two little siblings to love. Yesterday Jacob broke a glass window pane, cutting his fingers, and both of the older boys rushed to his side to comfort him before I could get there.

3) Ben and I have had to work together more just to survive. I saw myself as a pretty independent person before Jacob and Jenny Beth came along. I didn’t like to ask for help—I liked being the one giving it. But suddenly, I couldn’t do it all. I have learned to depend on Ben much more these past few years, and he has come through for me! Sometimes I start to wonder if I rely on him too much for emotional support and he assures me that this is healthy for a marriage. He should be the one I can confess anything to. I love that guy more now than I did before. J

4) I’ve had to rely on God as my shelter more. Sometimes when I think about each of my five kids, I wonder if I am enough. But then I realize I don’t have to be. That’s God’s work.

Lately the two year old tantrums have been exhausting, and even more so this week since Ben is gone—I think they miss him and don’t know how to articulate it. I’m adjusting to new stages my kids are moving through and praying for wisdom for Ben and I in our parenting (next year our oldest will officially be a teenager!!!) My prayer is that God will help me love them well and stay sane in the process.

Confessions of a missionary wife: embracing the spectacle…

Ellie, Noah, Jenny Beth and Jacob with their village friends and spectators…

One of the things which feels ‘normal’ to me is people staring at me. As an MK growing up in Indonesia, I often had people pinching me, laughing at me and calling me names from a distance whenever I left my house. I came to Papua New Guinea thinking that I was used to all of that. The one thing I wasn’t prepared for was to see it happen to my children. (At least the pinching and pulling hair is not a problem in our villages—we always have a huge crowd of followers whenever we leave our house.) During village stays, we stay inside our house a lot because of the demands of living…cooking everything from scratch, doing chores with minimal modern conveniences and of course homeschooling. However, sometimes in the afternoon, after the twins have their naps, we take a walk outside. If I feel too lazy to go out, I still push myself to do it because Jacob inevitably declares, “I want to run!!” So off we’ll go to a small courtyard where he and Jenny Beth run in circles or take off down a path to another hamlet. One afternoon when we had a particularly large crowd following the twins everywhere, I thought I’d just embrace the moment and get it on camera. I took the above picture and all of the kids crowded around to see it on the little LCD screen. Notice how Ellie and Noah protect their little siblings—it’s really sweet!

As I reflected on that afternoon, I thought, some things, like getting stared at and being the center of attention, can be extremely annoying. But if I am not too annoyed to think straight, I realize that this is one thing that comes with the territory. I can use the opportunity of having a captive audience to speak a kind word or even share my love for Jesus. I just have to look past my own personal level of comfort. It doesn’t mean I’ll ever enjoy being the spectacle but I can live with it because I’ve chosen to be there. And I have a place (my house!) to retreat to when I need a little privacy. (Although a mom of five children rarely gets privacy anyways!) Seems like most things in this life we’ve chosen end up being about balance. How much of myself can I sacrifice without crossing onto the side of insanity?! It’s not an easy question but it is one that constantly pops up when I deal with cross cultural living. And now as a mother, I am often looking for signs in my children, of when their comfort levels have been pushed too far. Thankfully they have become attuned to their feelings and can usually articulate what is going on. One day at a time…

Unplanned vacation

If you live in PNG, you might be able to relate to this rather typical story. This is the Land of the Unexpected. We live with a mindset that we will rarely have things go according to plan and it really helps us to adjust our expectations and accept what comes our way.

On Tuesday we left Ukarumpa, knowing that we would be looking for a car to take us to the village since no one cut our airstrip over the Christmas holidays. When Ben called our friend Gabriel Lazarus who runs a PMV (a car that people pay to ride on), we found out he was already making a run that day and would be willing to pick us up the day after.

We gratefully took the opportunity to sleep whenever we could, and had a chance to take the kids to a hotel pool for a swim and lunch with several other families here.

Meanwhile, we had a phone call from one of our translators, Dominic. We found out that some young guys cut him with a bush knife outside a store in Aitape. When he went to the police to report it, they locked him up in jail! Thankfully they didn’t take his phone away so Ben was able to talk to him several times before his battery went out. We assured Dominic that when we got to Aitape we would visit him and do what we could to help him get out. Ben also called Dominic’s new wife Clarice and prayed with her.

The next day, 8:00 am came and went, and no car, but it is not unusual for people to show up late here. Even 2-6 hours is within the normal range for us, and we don’t even worry at that. Thinking the car would arrive at any moment, I gave away the fridge food and stripped the beds so that the lady who works here could wash them. We made sandwiches and filled up water bottles and packed up the diaper bag. However, night came and I had to go ask for more sheets from the manager. Over the next 24 hours, Ben made multiple phone calls, and we discussed leaving in the middle of the night, even, if the car showed up. Still no car.

At this point, I did start feeling anxious, because I had packed and unpacked everything several times and didn’t know if I needed to get food for our family or not. Plus I didn’t want to be a burden to our friends here, who had graciously provided three meals already!

We sent out an e-mail update asking for prayer for Dominic and for our car situation. A few short hours after we sent that out, Gabriel called us! He said his car had broken down and he was unable to come before the end of the weekend. Since the bush road goes through the jungle and over 32 rivers, and it is a rather difficult journey, we decided we would rather wait for Gabriel and go on Tuesday with the two men who are coming out with us to record the book of Luke.

And so we wait. But we are grateful:

• We have heard second hand that Dominic may be released today or tomorrow.
• The guest house here has space for us to stay these extra days.
• We have been able to catch up with old friends
• Jessie and I went to town and bought food for the next 4 days. A friend here was surprised to hear that we were able to get what we needed without having to fight crowds or deal with theives on a Friday afternoon.
• We have had time to REST and RELAX.
• Ben and our teammate Jessie are still able to get translation work done.
• We have had good phone reception to contact several of the translators and others in Aitape who are dealing with Dominic’s situation.

A friend of mine asked me yesterday, “are you stressed?” I do have to say that from when we were supposed to leave and until we heard from Gabriel that he wasn’t coming, I was starting to feel anxiety percolating. During the night and through the next day, every time we heard a truck we wondered if that was the one for us. However, that passed quickly when we learned that we would go on Tuesday. Our concern for Dominic is high, but he is not giving up, and his council member is involved in obtaining his release.

So we pray.

We don’t know why there has been a delay but underneath it all, I know that God has put this unplanned vacation in action for a reason. Maybe there will be some significant challenges in the village and we need all the fortification we are getting in these few days of rest to deal with them. Or maybe the road has been bad or there have been rascols (bandits) the past few days. I guess time will tell! For now, I sit here, under a ceiling fan, drinking cold water from the fridge, and feeling very grateful.

Christmas Pic

L to R (Jenny Beth, Ellie, Jacob, Josiah and Noah)

In my last post, I mentioned losing the Christmas pictures Ben took. He found them on a wayward SD card just now, yay!

Transition and Voluntary Displacement

R to L: Jacob (age 2) Josiah (age 12) Noah (age 10) Ellie (age 8) and Jenny Beth (age 2). Our kids are becoming transition experts!

And so we circle back to one of my favorite topics, Transition. This topic comes up very often in our lives because we have two homes: Arop: where our translation work goes on, and Ukarumpa: where our children’s school is and Ben advisor checks translation and participates in academic training.

On Tuesday, we plan to leave for the village. We bought food for the next five weeks, and our kids loaded up their backpacks with books and games that will keep them occupied for their time in Arop. I dehydrated ground beef, green onions, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, green peppers, corn, and black beans in an effort to make sure we have enough food out there. I bought canned goods to take as well: peanut butter, tomatoes, ham, and peaches, for instance. Noah and Ellie’s teachers worked over the holidays to get their village program ready (we homeschool so that our kids will stay in sync with their classes here.)

So why do we do this to ourselves? A week long camping trip is fun. However, packing up everything you need for weeks at a time is difficult at best. Fun? Not so much. At least not for me. Especially when I know I will be homeschooling and cooking lunches for 9 people for over a month.

It’s pretty simple.

God’s Word.

The Onnele (Wolwale, Rombar and Goiniri), Arop, Sissano, Malol, Ramu, Sumo, Pou and Barupu people have only portions of Scripture in their own language. Ben’s role as a translation advisor is getting them closer to having the Bible.

And so we press on. Usually I don’t mind working through transition. Wait a minute. Let me revise that. To tell the truth, transition is often unsettling and disorienting for me. It can be most painful in times when I have no choice in the transition. However, it is still hard even if I have chosen it. I used to think that some day I would be able to go through a transition with very little effort. Now, I realize, it’s going to be hard no matter how long I am a missionary. I can either pretend I’m fine or I can let myself feel badly for the duration of the transition and use that time to learn something. Even though times of transition have been some of the hardest in my life, I have felt closer to God specifically in those times. C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

I found myself falling apart at small things this afternoon. Some of the Top Deal Breakers were: losing items that I needed to complete a task, cleaning an impossibly messy kitchen and finding out that the digital pictures we took of our kids at Christmas are lost. As I noticed my little “I’m not coping” bells going off, I realized, I am in transition. This too will pass. In a couple of days, I will be in my village, focused on cleaning out the spider webs, cochroach poo and rat proofing the food we brought.

A couple of days ago, the words of Henri Nouwen once again spoke straight into my situation. This term “voluntary displacement” is a new one to me, and it gives me hope, that this painful cycle of transition really does serve a purpose…

“In voluntary displacement, we cast off the illusion of ‘having it together’ and thus begin to experience our true condition, which is that we, like everyone else, are pilgrims on the way, sinners in need of grace. Through voluntary displacement, we counteract the tendency to become settled in a false comfort and to forget the fundamentally unsettled position that we share with all people. Voluntary displacement leads us to the existential recognition of our inner brokenness and thus brings us to a deeper solidarity with the brokenness of our fellow human beings. Community, as the place of compassion, therefore always requires displacement.”
–The Dance of Life…Weaving Sorrows and blessings into One Joyful Step by Henri Nouwen.

He gives and takes away….

David Emil, age 8

Our hearts filled with sadness when we heard this morning that David Emil died. In the past few weeks, we prayed for God to heal him. He is the first son born to Emil and Alexia. Emil is one of our translation advisors, and is the Papua New Guinean leader of our project.

Emil took his son to the hospital in Aitape when the lymph nodes on his neck were swollen. The first diagnosis was tuberculosis; however, Emil thought yesterday that David had some kind of other sickness, which he called “infoma.” (We wondered if it was “lymphoma.”) He was working on a plan to get David to Madang to a specialist, but the only way to get there would be by boat, leaving Wednesday at the earliest. Ben made phone calls and sent e-mails to try to figure out how to help them do this. However, this morning, we learned that the trip would not be necessary, as David went to be with Jesus.

When Ben talked to Emil on the phone, he told him that we would pray that they would experience God’s presence in their lives during this time of trouble and that they would somehow know his peace. Emil responded by saying something like “yes, I was really worried for David, but he had so much pain, he really needed to rest. He is resting now.”

Today, when I told my children about their friend David dying, it was hard to comprehend. They kept asking why the doctors in Aitape couldn’t help him, and why he couldn’t get to Madang for more help. It reminded me of how much we take for granted with our medical services–even we missionaries have the option of a medevac to Cairns if we need it.

I decided to rest while the twins napped this afternoon, and while I prayed, the song Blessed Be Your Name by Matt Redman came to mind. I hope I will have the chance to play it for Emil and Alexia when we get to the village next week. My prayer for them is that they will be able to say “blessed be your name” in the midst of this tragic loss.

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away

You give and take away

My heart will choose to say

Lord, blessed be Your name

Thoughts on sleeping from a tired mom….

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jacob and Jenny Beth when they were babies.

Last week I took a break from Facebook, blogging and all other forms of online social networking. I had a couple of days where I would fall apart at the slightest thing and I was trying to figure it out.

I think being a woman makes life complicated because sometimes we can’t figure out the ‘why.’ We just know that something is wrong. Granted, we as a family had multiple things on top of our normal challenges of living cross culturally:

• Ben has more work than he can physically do in a work week now that he is the project leader…he barely has time to do translation advising.
• We are planning a village stay in early January. Following Christmas, the store will be closed until the day we leave, so I have to buy all the food and supplies we need for five weeks this week.
• We have had four men working for two weeks on our haus win, which means that I cook them huge meals (think “feast”) and multiple coffee breaks each day.

Over the weekend I went to bed early each night (sometimes before my kids) and rested while the twins napped. On Monday, I woke up early with Jacob and realized I felt better! Even figuring out food for our next village stay didn’t seem like an overwhelming task.

I know this is a rather mundane blog post, but seeing that it made a huge difference in my state of mind and heart, I thought I’d write a post about it. SLEEP.

I remember when the twins were first born, I didn’t get more than 45 minutes of sleep at a time. I felt depressed and feeling paranoid about things, and at the time I did internet research on sleep. I learned that sleep is vital to maintaining emotional and mental health.

So often I rob myself of sleep because the evenings is the only time during the day that I have kid free time. In order to get alone time, I have to wait until 9:00 or 10:00 to start whatever it was that I wanted to do, including watching a movie with Ben or whatever. I am now realizing that I am going to have to make an adjustment to that so that I can maintain at least a small measure of sanity. Sleep is an allusive thing to a lot of us moms with small children, and we need it so badly!