A few pre-village pictures…

“We’re ready to go swimming mom!”
Jacob loved the beach so much he said to Ben, “can we go to the sand and water place again, please daddy?”

I think the thing that I love the most about going to the beach is watching my kids do the things I loved to do as a child. My parents took us to the beach for family vacations a lot…and there’s a deep satisfaction when I see my kids enjoying the beach too!

I love sitting by the sea, it reminds me of how I would soak up the sound of the crashing waves and breathe in the salt air when I was at school in Penang, Malaysia. Creation helps soothe this tired momma’s soul.

We ‘took’ Ben out to an airconditioned restaurant for his birthday lunch. I think food tastes better when I don’t have to cook it!

“Happy Birthday Ben!” We had a hard time finding him something for a birthday present…except that at the last minute, we did locate some Asian Pears (his favorite fruit) in Papindos! We have NEVER seen them here in PNG before, ever. Ah, isn’t it the simple things that make life good?

Having a little time to rest/recuperate in Wewak gave us enough margin to be ready for another village stay.

In the weeks before we left our home in Ukarumpa, we had back-to-back conferences and meetings. The day we had planned to leave, Jacob ended up with a double ear infection, so everybody went on the flight without the twins and I. When I arrived in Wewak with the twins a week later, I had a sinus infection and could barely eat because of the pain. Ben decided to delay our arrival to the village, which turned out to be a really good decision for the whole family. He took us swimming nearly every day, either to the hotel where we’d have lunch and swim, or to a beach close by, also near a hotel where we could order drinks and fries if wanted. (Eating out is a HUGE luxury for us, because we have to travel to a major city or town to find a good restaurant. I loved having a break from cooking everything from scratch! I think it had been a whole year since we had ‘eaten out’.)  Ben even had time to do the rest of the shopping for the current construction project,  a small feat in itself if you’ve ever been to a hardware store in Wewak. The only bummer about the week was missing our boys Josiah and Luke (our intern). Josiah had to return to school the day I arrived, while Luke went on to stay with a village family, as was prearranged before we left Ukarumpa.

Stay tuned for a blog post by our daughter Ellie, who thought that a trip to a waterfall was the highlight of our stay in Wewak….

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