Waiting...

I am not very good at waiting. And it seems like I have been doing a lot of waiting for the past 8 years of my life. Waiting for a wedding, waiting for babies, waiting for funds to come in, waiting for planes to arrive, and the longest wait has by far been waiting on moving into a tribe to help bring the gospel to an unreached people group. And now that I am in the country of Papua New Guinea and have learned the national language (so that I can learn the tribal language) and I so SO close...but...yet...waiting still. We are now in the process of choosing a place to go, and though the Lord has given us some direction towards this, His biggest direction for us now is...you guessed it...wait.

It is so hard to wait, though, harder than it has ever been because now we have seen people...

And places...

And things...

That tug on our heartstrings and make it all the more difficult to wait. But I was reminded in a Beth Moore bible study recently that God is not INACTIVE in our wait. He is working. And working for His will, His purpose and it is, and always will be good. So knowing that I am waiting on God and not waiting on a people, or an event, or a circumstance, gives me peace. Peace to know that my times are in His hands (Ps 31:15) and that the times of these people with whom I will soon live are in His hands. People that He created in His image. That He loves, and longs to redeem.

Donald is Dying

Hi again. Just thought I would write a little update about what has been going around here...

1. My mom came on May 5th, so I have been trying to spend as much time with her as possible since it had been 367 days since I had seen her which has left little time for blogging. I am sure you understand.

2. 3N1 and the other guys from our team are on a 4 day survey trip to check out a tribe to see if it is a good fit for our team (or any other team for that matter) to go into soon. These are exciting times people.

3. On May 9th we celebrated our 1 year anniversary here in PNG. The celebration included doing laundry, scratch cooking, doing dishes from said scratch cooking, my husband packing for a trip, and lots of sweating. Basically, a normal day.

 These are just from breakfast and lunch, people!

4. Last, but most certainly not least is that, Donald my crazy skin rash, is finally dying. Below is a picture of what it looked like a few days ago. Now imagine that all down my stomach and into my belly button. Oh and on my eyelid. Yeah. Donald was kind of a jerk. But I started taking some steroids and now he is finally going away. We also figured out that he came from the juice of a certain type of mango that I carried around, and it is very similar to poison ivy. Apparently a lot of people are allergic to them here. Needless to say- I will not be touching those mangoes ever again!

Sepik Crud

The region where we live in Papua New Guinea is called the Sepik. It is a big, hot, humid swamp. It breeds lots of weird diseases. This rash is affectionately know as the "Sepik Crud". It is known as this and not as its scientific or medical name because know one knows its scientific or medical name. Nobody knows what it is or how to treat it, but missionaries here have been getting for years.

I now have this rash all the way up my left arm and on my stomach. It itches. It burns. It looks disgusting.  I have put every cream under the sun on this thing and it just keeps on spreading. It woke me up in the middle of the night last night  and said,  "Just give up with the creams already. I will leave when I darn well please, oh and my name is Donald by the way, nice the meet you. " ***There is a chance this may have been a dream***

So, I just thought that since Donald was now a part of my life I should introduce him to you. I mean it would be rude not to right???

Proof

I just thought I would post this picture today just in case you thought I was kidding or exaggerating in my post yesterday. This kid is CRAZY!!! How does she think of this stuff? She is only 19 months old!

Can I order that baby sized straight jacket now???

Also, you should know that I am now on twitter. Please notice the little box at the top right. I did that all by myself, thank you. No applause necessary! You could follow me on twitter if you can figure out how. I have not gotten that far yet. Sorry bout that.

HELP!!!

Hi. Remember me? I write this blog. Sometimes.
I have sort of been MIA lately because as you know from 2 posts ago, we have formed a tribal church planting team. So now, 3 nights a week we are meeting together to discuss lots of stuff that will hopefully help us in the future. I will sum those meetings up with a one word quote from Will Ferrell playing George W. Bush, "Strategery".

I have been busy with that, but also busy with this...

Please note that she has pushed the chair over to this shelf so she could climb on it and get all the things down that I have purposefully placed out of her reach (or so I thought). Also this week she has discovered that she can pull stuff off the top of my kitchen counters when I am cooking, like plates full of naan bread, and extra large kitchen knives. She is into EVERYTHING. Her destruction is as ubiquitous as Angelina Jolie's leg at the Oscars! She drinks toilet bowl cleaner and jumps into swimming pools without warning (thank you inventor of arm floaties!).

So, I have very little time to do anything else, but watch this little precious angel like a sniper watches Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Un. I need H.E.L.P!!

Any moms out there who have little dare devil destructos who would like to give me advice I would gladly take it...even if it is a link to baby sized straight jackets. I am one more entire-toilet-paper-roll-in-the-toilet-bowl away from that step!

***Before you judge me for taking her picture before getting her down, please note that this is the sixth, that's right, SIXTH time I have pulled her down from this position this weekend. I am pretty sure she has this mastered.