Village Highlights

I know our kids will get tired of it some day ("aw, mom, do we have to share our highlights again?") but Mark and I usually debrief together after a trip (often on the flight home), sharing our highlights with each other. So I'll let you in on our discussion after our time in the village.

A few highlights:
-Burger night. Our host family likes to experience American traditions with us, so we took our turn in the kitchen to make mini burgers. The meat we found in town was about 60% fat, so we ended up with deep fried teeny patties. Our host mother, after taking a bite, complained "this tastes too much like meat" and proceeded to douse them with red curry powder. After the initial shock, I actually had to agree with her. Curry makes everything better! :)
-Birthday boy. Mark celebrated his birthday with our host family. We got sodas and vanilla ice cream from town (which was like white soup by the time we got it, because the freezer at our host home is the temp of a fridge) and made Root Beer floats... a big hit as usual. Mark got noodles, his Asian favorite. (see photo)
-Baby on the way. We had some great heart to hearts with our host brother, "Kenny" and his new wife, whose son was born last Saturday. It was wonderful to share about parenthood and depending on God in a new way through its challenges and joys.
-"Betty." I had some good conversations with Betty, my closest Lono friend who got married during our time in the U.S. It's amazing how we can connect across the miles and cultures.
-Abe the Babe. Of course, Abe was the star of the show. He did really well with the heat (thankfully it was rainy season) and smiled on cue to all our new friends and fam. His nap schedule did some interesting revisions, with the roosters under our room waking us up at 5 am or earlier, but he's back to "normal" now.

The challenges? washing by hand definitely kept me fit, with all the baby laundry. I never was so happy to see an automated spin cycle as when we returned! Of course there is the spir. battle, which affects us on multiple levels. Baby care was a bit challenging at times, with different views here on what a good parent is (first and foremost, a baby must never cry) but we did our best to adapt and our host family did their best to understand us.

I can't neglect to mention God's wonderful provision for us in possible housing when we return to the village in August. We looked at some possible houses to rent but they were less than ideal (concrete blocks and in the middle of speakers of different languages). We felt in our heart that where we wanted to be was with our host family, near the river. Well, they graciously offered to allow us to build on their land, behind their house. So we may have our own little house on stilts! We'll build it simply (but creatively to maximize space) and give it back to the family to use when we finish our time there. We also see some open doors for doing dictionary work, so are working on our plans and budgets now. (You can lift up that process).

Happy Resurrection Day to all of you on the other side of the world. We plan to celebrate at St George's, the Anglican fellowship we attend here. A choir is coming from Singapore for the weekend, and it should be a special time of declaration and celebration. We will miss you all!

(Click on the picture below, and select slide show view for captions of our photo album).

Village Visit