So I had the honor of helping a brother out recently. I started writing all about my trip with Aaron Wade to Sivauna, where the Wades are based to translate God’s Word into the Mamusi language. However, Aaron beat me to the blog, used all of our best pictures, and said everything better than I could have. So, I highly encourage you to check out Aaron’s post about our time there:

goteamwade.com/2020/02/04/aarons-village-visit/

Aaron’s friend Robert and all his family were elated to see Aaron again.

It wasn’t long after we arrived that food started showing up on our porch.

Deluxe Dinner

Taro was assuredly at every meal. This night we ate like kings with a little bit of everything. Clockwise from the “cooking banana”: kaukau (ambiguous sweet potato), kumu (ambiguous edible leaf) with mystery meat and quinoa (imported, thanks Aaron), and taro (the most dense of all foods created by God).

Everyone is interested in all our tasks

Meet Loretta—too cute!

Aaron was doing our laundry and drew quite a crowd

My constant companions

Our porch was surely the hottest hangout for the 10 and under crowd.

If there is any picture that exemplifies what my time looked like, it’s this one. These cuties would show up after breakfast and watch me work until dark.

...and they were eager helpers!

The kids were elated when I let them rip off the old screens. Jonathan even helped put the new ones back on.

Roof Day

Aaron and I spent the morning cleaning gutters, solar panels, and adding screws to the roof. After hauling numerous containers of water up the 20' foot ladder, we ended our time by installing a hose on the header tank for future cleaning. Yeah, we should have done that first… Here’s some fuzzy math for you: cleaning dirt off of half the solar panels yielded 4-5 times the power output!

Sunday School

I love this building. It’s where the kids had Sunday School among other things.

During church, I noticed that the kids were suddenly interested in the ceiling. If you look closely, you can see where a 4+ foot long snake decided to shed its skin and leave it hanging in some acrobatic feat. Also, the church banner has been constructed of local leaves combined with some student’s math homework.

Bugs, lots of bugs

Much of my time was spent combating the creepy crawlies. These mysterious formations were left on wood shelving from the inhabitants that lived within.

Two doors completely lost their lives. One of those fell right off the hinges. Thank you termites.

The Mother Ship

God blessed us to find this termite condominium the day before we left. I’ve never seen anything like it.

God’s majesty in the smallest of things. I can take pictures of bugs and flowers all day long—really. The Lord’s attention to detail is just captivating.

Not for the faint of heart

Aaron was greeted one evening by what I would have called a giant spider in the shower. We caught it and showed it to our village family and they described it as “a little kid of another spider.”

Then all my kids saw it as a challenge to bring me the biggest bugs they could find. Especially spiders.

Yeah, unfortunately this tarantula was found inside the house :-O

On the way out

I had to take a picture of this bridge. It did hold our car, and it did have much water flowing beneath it. I can’t explain how either statement is true.

Reunited

Back with the Wade family in Kokopo, the boys and I go for a swim. Simmering volcanoes ominous across the bay.