The Grocery Cart

On a recent visit to the grocery store, as my friend Kristin and I were walking through the parking lot, a grocery cart full of bagged groceries came rolling away from the store and into the parking lot, heading straight towards us. I suppose we could've just taken it to the car, considered it a gift, and cooked dinner with whatever that kind soul had happened to purchase. But then the kind soul would've had no dinner, so we pushed the cart back towards to store, looking in all directions for a potential owner. The only person in sight was standing with his back to us, totally absorbed in obtaining a free pizza sample from the pizza sample guy standing on the curb. We parked the cart behind him, went on to get our own free pizza samples, and watched as he finished his pizza, turned around, and pushed his cart away as if nothing had happened. He had no idea that two random girls had saved all of his groceries from rolling away into oblivion.

You know, I'm pretty sure God does something like that for me at least five times every day. And I usually just keep eating my pizza, totally oblivious of the gratitude I owe Him.

Love the place you're in

I've been back in the US for over two months now and (as might be inferred from the profound silence on the part of this blog over the past two months) life has been moving along at full speed. There are a lot of things I enjoy about being back in my home country . . . being able to pay for all of my vegetables at the same time (with a credit card!) instead of scrounging up exact change for each pile of carrots I want to purchase . . . being able to simply drive to the store and buy new socks if I need them . . . eating moose tracks ice cream . . .

But there are also things I miss about life in Papua New Guinea . . . seeing people I know every time I go to the store . . . being able to walk everywhere . . . eating dinner with friends as a routine part of life . . .

Love the place you're in, that's what I say, because it would be far too easy to spend all your time missing the places where you're not!

If you don't speak the language . . .

I'm sitting in the Sydney airport, on my way back to the USA! Awhile ago, I was waiting to get on the plane in Port Moresby, and there was a flight to Hong Kong that was supposed to start boarding any minute. But just when it should've started boarding, the Airport Announcer Person announced that the flight had been delayed, and that more information would be available in half an hour. Most of the passengers, however, stood up and got in line to start boarding as soon as the Announcer Person said, "Hong Kong", which leads me to believe that English may perhaps not be the language they understand best. After they had all been standing there patiently for quite some time, probably wondering why they were not being allowed to get on the plane, an Airport Worker came out and motioned for everyone to sit down. So they sat down, and all was quiet again. Until the Announcer Person said, "Now boarding rows 22-30 on the flight to Hong Kong." Once again, as soon as he said, "Hong Kong", nearly every person in the room stood up and got in line. Now, this is not such an unusual phenomenon in airports. We all seem to harbour a secret fear that some crafty person will somehow get on the airplane before we do, sit in the seat that was supposed to be reserved for us, and leave us behind forever. But what happened next was not entirely usual. As the entire crowd pressed forward to board, Announcer Person said over and over again, "Rows 22-30 only, please. Ladies and gentlemen, now boarding rows only rows 22-30. All other rows please take a seat. Rows 22-30 only at this time." Announcer Person made a noble effort, but it was all in vain. The crowd continued to press forward, and one could not help thinking that rows 22-30 must be enormous rows indeed if all those people were going to fit in them. And then it happened. Just as Announcer Person was beginning to sound a bit frantic, someone stood up and, without even using a loudspeaker, spoke a single sentence that worked like magic on the pressing crowd. Most of them immediately sat down, rows 22-30 began boarding, and Announcer Person ceased his frantic instructions. What was that magical sentence? Actually, I have no idea, because it was in a language I don't understand. But most of the passengers headed to Hong Kong understood it, and hearing it spoken in their language made the difference between a confused crowd with no idea what they were supposed to do, and a calm group of people who knew exactly what was going on. Witnessing the chaos that resulted when nobody understood what Airport Announcer Person was saying made me think . . . how much greater is the chaos in so many people's hearts because they can't understand what the Living God is saying.

And they just announced my flight, in the language I understand best, so I'd better go get on the plane myself. Next time you hear from me, I shall be on the other side of the Pacific!

Auctions

I had an auction at my house last night. I think I've told you a bit about auctions in Ukarumpa . . . before you leave, you invite all of your friends over to your house and "auction" off everything you don't want to take with you. Everything is free, and the first person to say something gets the item being auctioned. You quickly learn not to make fun of things, after having a few ridiculous items thrown at you because you were the first to open your mouth.

And, even if there are things your friends don't want, somebody is sure to want it because nothing is ever wasted in PNG culture, and very few things are ever thrown away. This morning I put all the stuff that was leftover from my auction out by the road in front of my house. Half of it was already gone by the time I left for the office, and I bet you an ice cream cone that the rest will be gone by the end of the day.

Today is my last day in the survey office. I don't think I quite believe that I won't be back here on Monday morning . . .

Uninvited ants

"Hey, Juliann," my housemate, Joy, accosted me as I walked through the kitchen, "Could you put that sugar in the plastic container? I saw an ant crawling up it." Since Joy was currently in the process of deboning a whole chicken, something I would never even attempt, I was more than happy to take care of the sugar. But when I picked up the bag I saw, to my horror, that the ant had already invited all of his friends, and they had accepted the invitation and arrived along with all of their friends. It was Saturday, so the store wouldn't be open until Monday, and I was very hesitant to throw away all of the sugar in our house, because you really just never know when you might need to make a chocolate cake. So I picked out a few of the more obvious ants, dumped it in the plastic container, ants and all, chucked the whole thing in the freezer and waited for them to die.

They say you go through four stages of bug acceptance:
#1 You see the bug in your food and therefore don't eat the food.
#2 You see the bug in your food, pick it out, and eat the food anyway.
#3 You see the bug in your food and eat it anyway, bug and all.
#4 You see the bug on the table, pick it up and put it in your food for extra protein.

I suppose I've reached stage #3, but I don't plan on advancing to #4 anytime soon!

For sale

Want to have a garage sale without ever leaving your living room? The Ukarumpa intranet "for sale" board will allow you to meet all of your selling-of-old-stuff needs, from the comfort of your own home. Simply send an e-mail to the "for sale board" address, and within minutes your inbox will be flooded with requests from eager buyers, giving you their account numbers and post office box numbers. You can charge their accounts, from the comfort of your own home, by sending an e-mail to the finance office . . . but you do have to venture outside to actually take the stuff to the post office. I have already disposed of quite a few things through this very handy system.

In this we greatly rejoice

"You . . . joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions." ~Hebrews 10:34

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust [and mould] destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust [and mould] do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." ~Matthew 6:19-20

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice!" ~1 Peter 1:3-6

I'm currently in the midst of packing for furlough, and deciding what to sell, what to put in storage, and what to take with me. It's really hard, and quite honestly it makes me feel a bit scattered to have boxes of possessions on both sides of the Pacific. During my orientation course when I arrived in PNG over two years ago people often told me, "Hold your possessions loosely." I think I'm discovering how important that is. What if my books mould in the damp climate while I'm gone? What if everything I have in storage gets stolen? There has recently been a lot of theft in Ukarumpa. A lot of people have had things stolen, sometimes even while they are at home asleep. I don't always feel entirely sure that I will wake up in the morning owning the same things I owned when I went to bed the night before. Just this afternoon my favourite sweatshirt was stolen off my clothesline. Frankly, this is a bit scary. I don't like it. I like my stuff and I would prefer to keep it. But it forces me to ask myself, "Do I really believe that I have an inheritance in heaven that can't perish, spoil, fade, mould, or get stolen?" If I do (and I do), then how can I not be willing to put my earthly possessions on the line in order to let more people hear about the inheritance waiting for them in heaven, that is "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine"? Don't get me wrong, I really really hope that I will still own my earthly laptop when I wake up tomorrow morning. But if I don't, is it too great a price to pay when Jesus paid with His life to bring me and the people of Papua New Guinea home to the New Earth where nothing will mould or get stolen?

Where is normal?

Furlough . . . it's one of those things you always hear about missionaries doing . . . it means they will come speak at your church wearing odd clothes and show you pictures of themselves eating bugs. I have seen many people come and go from furloughs, but somehow I didn't think it would actually happen to me. In thirteen days, though, I will join the ranks of the furlough-goers and set off on one of my own.

It's kind of an odd feeling, really. I am literally counting down the days until I get to see family and friends at home. But at the same time, I've grown accustomed to life in PNG . . . walking to work on gravel roads, simple choices at the only store, calling my neighbours to borrow chairs from them, asking for butter on the "wanted board" when the store is closed on Saturday, and having friends in my house all the time. When I think about going back to the USA, I can't decide whether I feel like I'm going back to normal life or leaving it behind me.

You also might be in Ukarumpa if . . .

. . . you remember that you have invited eight people over for dinner, but you only have six chairs. So 45 minutes before your guests arrive you call your next door neighbours and ask to borrow two chairs from them. And their dining room chairs are exactly the same as yours.

You might be in Ukarumpa if . . .

. . . you are out for a morning run and you see an airplane parked in somebody's driveway.

Boat ride

Speeding down a river in Gulf Province:

Gulf Pictures

To see a few more pictures of Gulf Province, go to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pngsurvey/GulfProvince#

Don't wade in this water, children!

This river in Gulf Province serves as a natural sewage pipe. The bathrooms are built over the river, and gravity and currents do the rest . . .

My soundproof recording studio

On survey, when I'm writing down a list of words in the local language, I nearly always have perfectly ideal conditions. A level table on which to set my recording equipment. A comfortable chair for the person who is telling me the words (and usually one for myself as well). A quiet place, free from distractions or outside noises that might interfere with the recording . . . . You don't believe me, do you? I can tell by your skeptical silence. OK, OK, if you want to know how it really goes, watch the video.

The simple life

Shopping for a watch can be a bit overwhelming. Should you go to Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, J.C. Penny's, or K-Mart? Do you want a digital watch or one with hands? Buckle strap, velcro strap, clasp strap, or that stretchy metal kind of strap? Leather or synthetic? A cheap watch that won't be a big investment, or a nicer one that might last a bit longer? I know, it's SO complicated!

Not in PNG! The other day my (cheap Target digital synthetic velcro strap) watch that serves as my alarm clock finally gave out on me. So I went to the only store in Ukarumpa and bought the digital watch. The other one had hands. And I don't mean I bought the digital variety of watch. I quite literally bought the digital watch, because there was only one. They will probably order another one now that I bought that one. Ahhhh, the simplicity of life in PNG.

Of traffic laws and trees

It had already been an eventful morning in Gulf Province, and it wasn't even lunch time yet. We had set out early in an ambulance that was going to pick up a patient in a village two hours away. To get there, however, we had to pass through a check point established by a local logging company, where we discovered that the guy driving the ambulance had an expired drivers' license and wasn't allowed to proceed. (Don't worry, though, the patient we were going to get was not in critical condition. She had already been treated and was just waiting to be brought back to her own village.) After several hours of searching for someone who had a valid PNG drivers' license and was willing to drive two hours each way, we finally set off again. We hadn't been driving for more than twenty minutes, when we suddenly stopped again, and as I looked out to see what was going on, my heart sank and I quickly hid the GPS I was holding. There was a large tree laid across the road, making it impossible for cars to pass, and on the other side of the tree several people were waiting. For us? I had heard stories of road blocks and hold ups . . . if you make it impossible for a car to get by, it's much easier to make the car stop and convince the people inside to give you all of their money. I had never personally encountered such an obstacle, but I figured my time had come at last.

Don't worry, though! We soon discovered that the tree had simply fallen across the road by accident, and the people on the other side were doing the same thing we were: wondering how on earth to move it. One industrious guy immediately set to work chopping it on one end so that it could be dragged away.

But dragging a large tree off the road is easier said then done. Thankfully, we barely had time to wonder how we would accomplish such a feat when the answer to our dilemma arrived:

And we were off again, driving down the gravel road in an ambulance in search of people who spoke the Kaser language.

This is one way to build your house

Perspectives

For the Scripture Use conference, we wanted to provide the participants with the nicest food we could give them. One morning for breakfast, someone baked over 100 cinnamon rolls! Later that day, I was talking to one of the Papua New Guinean participants and she told me that one guy told her that he thought the breakfast was too sweet and she said to him, "You're supposed to be a missionary! Just eat it!" Perspectives can be so different . . . we tried to honor them with our best breakfast, but maybe they would rather have had boiled potatoes!

We all have different things on our list of "weird food I have had to eat as a missionary". For some people, that list might include grubs and sheep hearts. For others, it might include cinnamon rolls.

Surveyors should not operate cranes

People often say to me, "Oh, I could never do what you do!" Hmmmm . . . that may or may not be true, but when I think about what so many of my friends here do, I think the exact same thing about their jobs. Sharlene is the principal of the elementary school here . . . I would be a truly terrible principal. Joy and Liz go out to a village, play with kids all day, tell them about Jesus and invent educational games and puzzles for them . . . more power to them! Jamie is a pilot . . . any of you who have been around when my nonexistent sense of direction was being exercised will be deeply thankful that I don't try to fly you anywhere. Vico, Chad and Paul fix people's computers . . . the fact that I am one of their most faithful customers should tell you something right there! Donna and Esther teach high school . . . something I can't even imagine doing. Give me a backpack, a mosquito net, and a blank wordlist, and I'm good to go. But if I had to fly a plane, teach teenagers, deal with computers, or run a school . . . well, I would tremble, and you should too. I guess I just think it's cool that we all have such different jobs that are all so necessary . . . and I think it's cool that so many of us love our own jobs but can't imagine doing anyone else's. That's the body of Christ.

(Briefly thought about becoming a crane operator and promptly decided against it.)

Beautifully complicated people

During the New Britain survey, there were four villages in particular that we really weren't sure how to classify. They've previously been classified as one language, but some people seemed to think maybe there were actually two separate languages. Well, just last night I finished comparing the word lists, and two of the villages are very similar to each other, and the other two are very similar to each other, but the similarity between the two groups is kind of on the border. You know, similar enough that you could maybe sort of almost consider them to be part of the same language, but different enought that there are definitely . . . well . . . differences. So how do we decide? Today I'm going to look at some other factors that we always consider, but that are especially important in borderline cases like this. Do the people who speak those languages consider them to be two separate languages or the same language? Can they understand the language spoken in the other two villages? Are there significant grammatical differences? Do people in the area see themselves as having the same cultural heritage, or are there significant cultural differences between the two groups?

In some ways it would be easier if there was some kind of scientific formula that you could run a bunch of words through and it would tell you definitively how many different languages there were. But life really wouldn't be as interesting, would it, if human beings and the languages we speak could be reduced to a scientific formula?

Cooking for the bishop

There are lots of churches in PNG, even in language areas that don't yet have the Bible in their own language. These churches use the English Bible (which most people don't understand) or the Tok Pisin Bible (which is often vague and hard to understand, even for people who are fluent in Tok Pisin). Often, by the time the New Testament is translated into the local language, the churches in the area have been using English or Tok Pisin in their services for so many years that it has become a deeply entrenched habit. They almost start to think of those languages as "church languages", and it can be really hard for them to get used to using the Bible in their own language during church. Sometimes church leaders aren't quite sure how to incorporate their own language into church services, even when people understand it so much better than the "church languages".

That's why we're hosting a "Tok Ples Scripture Use Conference" in Ukarumpa this week. ("Tok ples" is the Tok Pisin way to say "local language".) We invited denominational leaders, pastors, and presidents of Bible colleges and seminaries from all around the country to come and discuss how they can encourage Papua New Guinean church leaders to use the Bible in their local language to reach people's hearts.

For the past two nights, I got to help cook dinner for these people. I quite enjoyed pouring 10 cups of soy sauce and 7 cups of oil onto sweet potatoes and chicken for 95 people, serving pumpkin to a bishop, and making a massive carrot cake involving 22 eggs and 16 cups of grated carrots.

Is there always room for one more?

True or false: This dump truck (on its way to market) is full.

Watch the video to find out!

IN

Our survey office is in this building. It's called LCORE (Language Collaboration, Opportunities, Resources and Encouragement) and it has lots of offices where lots of brilliant linguists work.
We have all been to university, and our jobs often involve solving difficult cultural or linguistic problems. People in LCORE can help you analyze a tonal grammar, identify an uncommon sound, evaluate language vitality, understand a puzzling cultural practice, or use the latest linguistic computer software. Just don't ask us to turn on an electric kettle, because apparently we all skipped that class during our linguistic training.

Our old electric kettle was easy to use. When you pushed the little switch down it turned on, and the little switch flipped back up once the water had boiled. But one tragic day, that kettle broke and we had to get a new one. The first time I tried to use the new one I was dismayed to find that pushing the little switch down did not work. Every time I pushed it down it would immediatley flip right back up. So I began standing there and holding the switch down while the water heated up . . . a bit dull when no one's around, but not that bad if there are people to chat with while you are thus bound to the kettle. One day, as I stood there with my finger on the switch, I asked Anonymous Colleague One if she knew how to turn the kettle on without holding the switch down the whole time. "No," she replied, "The guy who does the yard work showed me one day but I've forgotten." Anonymous Colleagues Two and Three, who were also present, remarked that they had never been able to figure it out either, but that surely there must be a way.

Thankfully, during my switch-holding ritual the next day, the lady who cleans the building happened to walk by and she shared the secret with me: you have to push the switch in! Not down! This discovery totally revoltionized my office life. As in the days of the old kettle, I could now push the switch in and do all sorts of things while the water boiled. And don't worry, I have been faithful to share this nugget of wisdom with the rest of my anonymous colleagues. Just the other day I was chatting with Anonymous Colleauge Four, and in the middle of our conversation he put his finger on the switch and stood there holding it down as we talked. I showed him the technique of pushing the switch in rather that down, and he was amazed and delighted. And yesterday Anonymous Colleague Five pushed the switch down and didn't even notice that it flipped right back up. Today I need to share the magic word with her: in!

So many words!

I'm in the middle of a massive New Britain word list comparison! I've finally finished the extremely tedious work of typing them all up and getting them into the right format for the comparison, and now I'm in the fun part: actually figuring out which words are similar. I took fourteen wordlists during the survey, and I have four more lists from neighbouring languages, and there may be four more to add later on. I'm pretty excited about it . . . eighteen word lists from up to nine different languages! We visited fourteen villages during the survey, and those villages may end up being grouped in as few as three or as many as five different languages . . . this comparison will be one of the things that helps me figure that out! It's all very messy and complicated and interesting and hard and delightful.

New Britian photos

Have a look at some pictures from our New Britain survey! Here's the link:

Picasa Web Albums - PNG Survey - New Britain

Due to circumstances . . .

I'm sure you're familiar with those very professional sounding sentences that we often put in survey reports and other very professional documents: "Due to uncontrollable circumstances, no data was collected in Bubalbok Village." Have you ever wondered what the uncontrollable circumstances were? Professional documents might be a lot more interesting to read if we told the stories behind the uncontrollable circumstances . . .

Due to the arrival of a dump truck, the surveyor did not finish eliciting the word list in Gibidai village, because the entire village climbed into the dump truck and went to market.

Due to the distraction of having a bird relieve itself on the surveyor's clip board, the words for "mother" and "father" were inadvertently not elicited in Koumaio village.

Due to the fact that the people rowing the boat refused to stop rowing, the survey team did not visit Atolok village because the rowers rowed right past it and would not stop.

Due to the unfortunate landing of an exceedingly large bug on the surveyor's hand just as she was marking a GPS point, this point may be marked several metres away from where she was actually standing, because the GPS device may have travelled several metres through the air during the process of removing the exceedingly large bug.

Christmas Eve

Having grown up in the northern part of the US, it never quite feels like Christmas to me when it's warm and sunny outside! Look at all those people wearing T-shirts! But we had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner of cheese fondue (a tradition in my family), using a very high tech fondue pot involving a wok stand and a votive candle. Good friends and good food . . .