Election

It is election time here in Papua New Guinea, and since I know it is an election year in the U.S. I thought I would share some things about elections that we can all relate to.

You know how all the candidates dress up in fancy western clothes, but then parade around the street with people wearing traditional tribal dress who dance and beat drums. Yeah, that is one of my favorite things about an election year.

Also, you know how you NEVER see a commercial from a candidate on the one TV channel that you have, but you see commercials from said channel asking the candidates to please advertise with them? That is so annoying right?

There are also those commercials urging everyone to go and vote in English, although some people have a hard time with reversing "L" and "R" which makes watching these people say the word "election" on TV a little awkward. 

And finally the most annoying thing about elections is when the candidates drive up and down the streets of town (sort of like Frosty the Snowman, but not right through the traffic stop because there is no traffic stop, in fact I have not seen a traffic light in over a year) yelling, honking, and giving away free beer. I know you hate that too.

Alright, folks, that's it! Happy Election Year to all you people out there in The Land of Abundance! Wear an "I Voted" sticker for me! (in a few months of course)

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!