A happy day

My friends Liz and Joy are coming back to Ukarumpa today!!! They have been in a village doing literacy work and leading a children's Bible program over the past month, but they will fly back today, if the weather cooperates and our little 4-seater plane can get there and back without running into too many clouds. When I talked to Liz on the radio on Monday, she said that they were helping people in the village get the airstrip ready for the plane to land. It is a grass airstrip, so it has to be mowed, but the village's mower isn't working so about 20 people spent an entire day cutting the grass with their bush knives. This is what a PNG bush knife looks like:

Guess . . .

. . . what I'm doing today?

Yes, working in the office again! How did you know?

Today I'm working on editing a survey report to be published on the internet. I really enjoy editing, actually . . . there's something so satisfying about taking out all those unnecessary words and rewriting unclear sentences.

Rhino Beetle

This guy camped out on my front porch for a few days. Hope he never gets much bigger!

Wanted . . .

Well, you must have actually been praying for rain because it has absolutely poured over the last three nights! To me, this seems a bit unusual for dry season, but it is only my second dry season here so I suppose I'm not quite the Dry Season Expert Extraordinaire. I was curious, though, so I posted something on the Ukarumpa intranet "wanted board" to ask whether it was normal to have this much rain during dry season. There wasn't really a clear consensus, but I do want to thank all of you who have been remembering me as you talk to the One who "supplies the earth with rain" (Psalm 147:8) because He has supplied me with the rain I needed to drink!

Speaking of the "wanted board", that is something I think is pretty cool about Ukarumpa. It's a message board on our intranet, and anyone who needs anything can post their need there. Whether you want to borrow a few eggs until the store opens (it's closed on weekends), find someone to help change a lightbulb you can't reach, borrow a particular book, alert people to be on the lookout for something you have lost, or ask a question about travelling through Australia, the wanted board is the place to go. And the coolest thing about it is that it actually works! People seriously check it often to see if there are needs that they can meet. Thanks to the wanted board, I have found someone to fix my blender when it broke, a coat to borrow when I was climbing Mt. Wilhelm (it snowed up there!), and e-mail addresses for people I needed to get in touch with. It's also fun when you can give back and meet other people's needs. Yesterday was a public holiday in PNG for the Queen's Birthday, so the store was closed, and I had an extra packet of cheese that I was able to lend out. But I never would have known it was needed if it weren't for the wanted board! It's just a cool way that we can function like one body and carry each other's burdens in a real way.

Morning Tea

Most days in the linguistics building we really do stop for morning tea! It's a much needed break from staring at our computer screens, a chance to hear what other people are working on, and often good for a laugh. I've noticed that morning tea conversations often turn to cultural differences . . . not surprising, I suppose, since we have had people from Australia, Canada, Colombia, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Switzerland, and the United States, all working in the same building!

A life well spent

Before our Sunday morning Ukarumpa worship service, there are lots of announcements about various things, and people often clap for this or that. But the only times I've ever witnessed a standing ovation have been after announcements that a New Testament translation has been completed. Last Sunday it was announced that this guy and his wife are in the process of typesetting their third New Testament translation!! Can you imagine? Truly, I am in awe of these people who have poured out their lives so that three more groups of people can have God's words in their own languages!

Praying for Rain

Did your mom ever tell you not to waste water? Mine did, and I really did try to listen to her, but I have to confess that growing up with city water in the northern United States this did not come naturally to me. Sure, I knew there were people living in deserts, who prayed for rain so they could have a sip of water to drink, but I was not one of those people and in the world I knew, water was a seemingly infinite resource. The idea of running out of water was as inconceivable as the idea that the sun might not rise some morning.

Well, two days ago the inconceivable happened, and I ran out of water. That's right, I turned on the faucet and nothing came out!

My water comes from the tank you see on the left. Rain water is collected from the roof and piped into the tank to be stored. When my faucets began sputtering and producing more bits of leaves than water, I went out check the water level in my tank. You can tell how high the water is by tapping on the side of the tank, because it echoes where it's empty but makes a dull thud wherever there's water. Sadly, my tank echoed all the way down to the ground. I was very surprised at this empty state of affairs, because dry season has only just begun, and we had daily downpours at the end of rainy season. When I climbed on top of the tank to investigate further, I discovered that the screen over the opening where the water comes in was entirely covered with pine needles and a healthy layer of dirt. Probably very little of those daily downpours ever actually made it into my tank!

Now, do not panic: I did take a shower this morning and I am not dying of dehydration! Thankfully, we do have an alternate water system, in which water is pumped up from a nearby creek, although that water isn't safe to drink. After cleaning the filter screen on my tank, I crawled under my house to investigate the various pipes and knobs (shown on the right) that would allow me to switch over to the creek water. There were three knobs, and no labels, and after trying various combinations of knob turning with no success, I called my neighbor, who told her friend, who called her husband, who told their son, who came over and showed me how to switch it over. Thanks to the creek, I still have a functioning shower and toilet. Thanks to my friends and neighbors, I have plenty of bottles of drinking water from other people's tanks. But now I am one of those people praying for rain!