MV Doulos

Last weekend the OM ship MVDoulos sailed into port in Alotau.

It had already stopped in a couple of ports in PNG, but I was glad to have the opportunity to see it! The Doulos has the worlds largest floating bookstore. They also have 300 staff and crew on board, who go out into the community each port they stop at. They visit schools and churches doing teaching and ministry, and they also do some community improvement projects. There are also seminar/conferences and classes offered on the ship.

People stood in line for a long time to have the chance to come on board and check out the bookstore!

We were all excited for the opportunity to visit the bookstore as we don’t usually have access to the variety of books that we would in our home countries, and it gets REALLY expensive to ship books! We started off by attending a Women’s Conference that was offered on board. It quite nice. They introduced some of the ladies on board who were dressed up with traditional clothing from their home countries (I think they said about 50 nationalities on board!) and then there was a time of singing, a skit, and a woman from the Netherlands shared about some of her experiences in her 6 years with OM and how important it is to take time to invest in other women—older and younger.

Then we got to go on a tour of the boat…even down into the engine room!

We ended with a trip to the bookshop, which was quite good sized and just packed with people!! I was a little daunted from too much browsing just by the crush of people, but did find a few things to take home with me. We also found a nice unabridged English dictionary that VITAL has been needing, but haven’t been able to find/ship here, so that was really awesome.

Thanks to Karla Sligh for these pictures! I was so sad to discover that I had forgotten my camera!

Geckos

Chirp, chirp, chirp

 

That was never the sound I imagined would come from these little guys!  I will often be sitting in my kitchen and see a dark flash skeetering across the white wall—a gecko on his way somewhere.  They are amazingly fast and can run through the tiniest crack between cupboard and wall.   Most around here (Alotau) are about 4-inches long, though in Madang and Ukarumpa they were much bigger—some 8-10 inches. They are also quite shy about being photographed, thus, this funny photo.  The other evening I was getting ready to put away my dishes from the dish drainer, and noticed a little baby gecko…running across my “clean” dishes.  I guess maybe it’s a good thing that the cupboards have doors, so I don’t really know all that goes on inside!

rhinos

This is the closest we get to rhinos around here. A rhinoceros beetle.  This fellow was so big I couldn’t believe it.  I tried to photograph him with something to give you an idea of his size.  He got flipped onto his back and was waving his legs around for quite some time before I took pity on him and flipped him back over.  I guess he was so tired from his little ordeal that he let me snap a few pictures before he ran off.

drinking sugar

I saw this sugar cane in the market on the weekend and thought it looked yummy!  I had my first sugar “drinking” experience in the village last fall—at least that was what they called it.  Some of you may be familiar with the process. You cut a stalk of sugar cane, and cut/peel the hard skin off with a sharp knife.  Then you use your teeth to chew/yank off a hunk of the bark/pulp/string stuff in the middle. You chew on it, “drinking” the sugar juice and when there’s just pulp left (i.e. it’s not chewy/juicy anymore) you spit it out.  I have a bit of trouble doing this in public, as mom drilled into me that “what goes into your mouth does not come back out!”  But I enjoyed it in the privacy of my kitchen this weekend, with no one to watch me - hee!

my back yard

One more short post.  I wish that may camera was a bit better at getting sunset colors, but I still think this picture captures the idea.  I am just amazed when I stop to appreciate this  view from my porch!

maps

I love maps. I found this really cool one on the Ethnologue website, and it has marked all of the know languages of PNG and grouped them by language family.  Pretty busy map, huh?  The current number for total languages in PNG is over 820!

 

Here is another map of PNG, for those of you who don’t have the country memorized yet (hee!)  I’m currently living on the southern tip of the country, in Alotau, which is the capital of Milne Bay Province (outlined in pink on this map).  Just for reference, my POC (orientation course) was on the north coast, in Madang.  Ukarumpa, where I lived over Christmas, is more towards the middle of the country, in the “highlands”, and is located a bit south-east of Goroka.  Just as a reminder, PNG is around the size of the state of California.

Quote of the month

I heard this quote in a sermon recently, and liked it so much that I put it on my computer desktop where I could be often reminded of its truth:

 

"Had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, Divine Love would have put you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances. And if you had the choosing of your lot you would soon cry, 'Lord, choose my self will for me, for I am pierced through with many sorrows.' Be content with such things as you have, for the Lord has ordered all things for your good. Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your own shoulder. It will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work to the glory of God. Down busy self, and proud impatience. It is not for you to choose, but for the Lord of Love. Trials must and will befall, but with humble faith to see, love inscribed upon them all, this is happiness to me." ~ Spurgeon

Celebration day

Since this VITAL module celebrated the completion of the first full book, the Gospel of Mark, translated by the 7 language groups that participate in the New Testament VITAL modules, we had an extra special course closing celebration.

VITAL has access to a boat that is used to pick up and drop off the course participants. We were able to get permission to take the boat out on a short trip across the bay to a place called Wagawaga.

photo courtesy of Don McIntosh

photo courtesy of Tuula Kaija

photo courtesy of Tuula Kaija

There we had a little BBQ,

photo courtesy of Tuula Kaija

people were able to do some snorkeling (there is the remains of a WWII boat with some beautiful coral and fish),

photo courtesy of Karla Sligh

and play a game of Frisbee. This was a great way to celebrate, close out VITAL module #9, all the while developing relationships in a more relaxed situation.

photo courtesy of Joanna Frampton

photo courtesy of Karla Sligh

I got some teasing because of my 50cent glasses...they just make me laugh! Here I am enjoying our special treat, chocolate cake ~ mmmmmmm

last week of VITAL

Having completed the first draft translation of the book of Mark, the last week of VITAL, Feb 26-29, the participants spent working on consistency checking and back translation. The consistency checking includes checking for consistency in spelling and looking at each occurrence key words such as God, angel, baptism, cross, etc. and making sure that they were translated consistently (or if not, that there was a good reason). Back translation is when someone that has not been involved with the translation, takes that translation and translates it “back” into English (in VITAL, we used the literacy workers that were already on site, but who had not helped with the translation of these portions of Mark). This is yet another check to make sure that the intended meaning is being conveyed (other checks are done with advisers/mentors, with groups of people in their villages between modules, and with trained consultants).

Helping one of the language groups with these checks was one of my highlights for VITAL.

photo courtesy of Joanna Frampton

The mentor for this group is a Papua New Guinean man with 17 years of translation experience (on my left, in the striped shirt). He was a part of the translation team for a neighboring language group, and after the completion of the New Testament, he wanted to help other language groups to translate the Bible into their own languages. It was really awesome to get to work with this language team, helping them with the computer and English side of things, and learning more about their language and translation in the process!

small victories

I had never thought about the effect that moving to PNG would have on things that I once thought were simple...such as crossing the street.

 

Because PNG follows the commonwealth driving tradition, having the cars on drive on the left side of the road, that means that the way that I was taught to cross the street in the States (look left-right-then left again) is not the best policy here, as the cars are coming at a person from the right.

 

I spent the first 3 months getting rescued from being hit by my Australian village living teammate.  I finally figured out that I was doing things the wrong way.  But for the last 4 months, while I knew that my tendencies were wrong, when I’ve approached a road I just look back and forth lots of times in confusion, trying to cover all the bases and keep from getting hit.

 

TODAY—a breakthrough. While preparing to cross the street in downtown Alotau, I instinctively looked RIGHT first. Hurray!! There is hope for me yet. Just watch me when I come home though...I’m sure I’ll be really confused then!