Sunday Morning

As I am writing this, most of you are hopefully tucked nicely into your beds, sleeping soundly under the gentle hum of your air conditioners and will awake tomorrow morning and head off to church. You will probably encounter some stress as you shower and dress and feed your household, especially if you have 3 young children and only solitary Sunday shoes for each one. Or if you happen to have 3 daughters and one is crying in the corner because her sister's dress "spins" better than her own. I may or may not be speaking from experience here. Anyway, none of these were our problem this Sunday morning, however. This morning, we awakened refreshed from a good night's sleep because it rained all though out the night which was our way of "sleeping soundly to the gentle hum of our air conditioner" (air conditioner provided by God, that is). But, it was still raining when it was time to leave for church which caused a dilemma. You see we have to take a sturdy truck to church because the one we usually attend is down a long muddy road that has a stream flowing across it. This isn't normally a problem but the truck that is covered is broken, and we weren't sure what to do. We finally figured out that since we had been here for a month now, we were all slightly slimmer and could squeeze our whole family into the cab of one of the smaller trucks! Thank you Lord for all that sweating! It now served a Holy purpose! Well, as we start down the road to church we are quickly stopped by a barricade of policemen and realize that the annual "Wewak Iron Man" competition was well under way, and all the roads were blocked off for the bicycle portion of the event. So, we decided to turn around and go to a closer church that was not blocked off. It was a nice service, especially since it was still cloudy and cool outside, and there were backs to the "pews" in this place where our other church simply has small wooden benches that are close to the ground. We still don't understand every word of the sermons, but we are getting more and more everyday, and we enjoyed singing "How Great Thou Art" in Pidgin which is "Yu Bikpela". We definitely could have just stayed home and worshiped as a family, but church is a nice time to mingle with locals who are believers and a get some great language exposure.

This was not our first experience with "crazy Sundays". In fact this one was quite mild compared some we spent in China where we had to walk a mile to the bus stop, ride a bus for an hour. Get off the bus, and wait for at least 15 minutes for a taxi (they are always harder to get on weekends) and then go another 10 minutes after that. When it was raining- we just got wet because we loved going to our "Foreign Fellowship" and it was the only time we could see many of our friends. There is just something about meeting with a body of believers when you are in a foreign place that is very comforting. It is a reminder that this earth- no matter where we live on it- is not our home and we will only be completely comfortable and "at home" when we leave it. I have worshiped with believers in Haiti, El Salvador, China, and now New Guinea, and there is nothing that makes you feel the "unity of the Spirit" more than worshiping with brothers and sisters from another culture- especially if you are worshiping in a language that is not your own.

Anyway, I hope you have as great of a Sunday as we did, even you can't find all of your family member's shoes. I will close with this picture of a travel booster seat that we brought for Mia when she gets a little bigger. It has been sitting on a shelf in our kitchen underneath the microwave for a month...and this is what it looks like:



Yes, that is mold people. So far we have found it on this, JMG's backpack, and our stroller. We were told it will soon be on everything. Oh Joy. So, my question is, should we...

A. Throw it away

B. Try to salvage it with soap and bleach

C. Move to Siberia.

I 'll give you a minute to think about that. Just get back to me when you decide.