So I thought that while John was away on a building repair trip on the coast that we would document what a typical day looks like for the rest of us here in Ukarumpa. Maybe in one of the next posts we can do what a day for John looks like. Waking up to the mountains — starting to peek their sleepy heads out of their blanket of clouds.
I take a moment with God and my coffee to enjoy the beauty and quiet before the day gets underway.
Millie is usually the first up, and comes to help me hang out the laundry.
Next we are off to the market to buy our produce from some of our Papua New Guinean neighbors.
This is the hill we have to hike up and down anytime we leave the house. There have been many a child to just lay down and cry on this hill... we have been here for months now and I still feel the burn as we hike it.
At the top of the hill we take a moment to catch our breath and to say, "Hello!" to one of the Guard Dog staff, the security force here on center.
And even higher up the hill we reach our house (note the joy!). This is the home we are renting from a family who are back in the states right now. (still praying that God provides us a home of our own here!) That strange thing on our roof is our solar water heater (yes, cloudy days = cold showers) and the giant tuna can in our front yard is our rain water tank (half of it is buried).
Our loot from market, ready to be soaked and cleaned. All this has happened before 8am, and now we are ready for breakfast, which is usually oatmeal and whatever fruit that we have on hand.
Millie goes to a preschool class two days a week and on most days we walk with this awesome family. Meet the Wades (all but Aaron, the dad). The Wades went through our recent Pacific Orientation Course (POC) with us and they are Bible translators. They were even on the same flight as us from Los Angeles to Australia, but we didn't know it! We have partnered with the Wades as a support team for their translation work (in a nutshell, we will help them with all kinds of needs and details that they can't handle when they are coming/going and living in their village), so you will be seeing much more of them in posts to come!
Time for school for the bigs now.
At 10am we stop for tea, popcorn, and language lessons from this sweet lady, Rose, whom we adore. She lives in nearby Ukarumpa village.
We pick Millie up from class, come home for lunch, and take a rest time. Then it's time for some fun! A favorite pastime for the kids is "sledding". Just grab some cardboard, head to the nearest hill, and go for it! There are plenty to choose from here. Who needs snow?
Most afternoons Nori ends up making something creative... that girl just drinks up craft supplies.
I just started ukulele lessons from Katie, another former POC student with us, who works in language survey. I know you appreciate this great photo I got of her, LOL.
This is Mesley; he takes care of the yard at our house every week. He also happens to be an amazing artist and teaches some special classes on wood carving at the upper school. Banner likes to hang out with him in the afternoons when he is here.
Normally this would be part of John's day, but being that he has been gone we still have to take care of this dirty business. The girls are excited because i finally got the trash lit and burning... and then we took the food scraps to the compost pile. It's amazing that even in the middle of a drought the flowers grow like weeds in PNG!
Millie helps me take the bread that has be rising all day and pop it into the oven. Then we shake up the yogurt we made, so it will be ready by breakfast.
As a wonderful treat, Sam and Marita made us dinner! It was this super yummy Aussie dish that all the kids had seconds and thirds of. Sam works with John and is pretty much a genius with big diesel engines, welding, and can make or fix anything. Marita works down in the clinic and anything that comes from her kitchen tastes great. When we want fierce competition for game night, they are the ones we call. They are serving a 6 month term here which is dwindling down, so we cherish the time that we get (which exemplifies every relationship in our missionary life now...).
Banner helping me clean the dishes from the day... we try to only wash them once a day with the drought going on still... please keep praying about that!
Nori replenishing our water so it can be fresh and filtered for the next day. Then its off to bed, so we can get up and do it again tomorrow :)