Birthday

Well, today is my birthday! I have to say that I never thought I would ever spend a birthday doing what I did today. First, I went to a village church in the Gadsup (pronounced God soup) people group. It was a great experience getting to worship our Lord with people from all over the world. I recorded some of the singing during the praise time if you’re interested.

Gadsup Worship

The message was given by one of the “youth” from a church group visiting from Goroka. An interesting thing about the youth in this country, is that they aren’t necessarily people who are younger. It seems that a youth is anyone who hasn’t married or hasn’t had kids, or sometimes, you can still have a youth who “is” married and “does” have kids, but they are still considered a youth. I haven’t quite figured out the rules on this one yet. But basically you’ll see people who are likely in the late 30’s or 40’s who are still part of the “youth group”.

Today, the focus at this church was out of 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 on how God uses the foolish to shame the wise and the weak to shame the strong. The speaker told the stories of Moses, Joseph and David. How God used them in powerful ways for His purposes in spite of their shortcomings. It was actually very inspirational.

The church we attended

The youth who delivered the message

Another interesting thing about how they tell stories here in PNG culture, is that they often will tell it at twice, back to back. So you hear it once, and then they tell it again, and you think to yourself, didn’t he just say that? And, in fact, he did just say it, but he’s telling it again. Sometimes the second time around, you get a few new pieces to the story that you weren’t told the first time. It’s all very interesting.

Once we got back to the center, we joined up with a few other folks and headed into Kainantu for lunch. There is a hotel with a restaurant there that is open on Sunday afternoons. We all enjoyed a wonderful meal and had a great time chatting and sharing our experiences here in PNG.

Towards the end of the meal, the rain started to come down. All the seating is outside at this place. At first, we thought maybe it wouldn’t be too bad and we kinda just ignored the drops. But soon it turned into a down-pour and we were forced to gather up our stuff and run under the covering where they prepare the food.



Huddled under the covering.




Moments after we got under the roof as the storm hit.



The storm was coming down in buckets, and sideways, so even under the shelter we were all getting soaked. We waited for it to lighten up a little and then made a run for the car. Any of us who had managed to stay somewhat dry before we headed for the car ended up getting completely soaked by the time we got inside.

Fortunately the trip back to Ukarumpa was uneventful. Meaning the bridge was still there, and the road hadn’t completely washed out. There is a patch of road where it’s just about 7 feet wide and a huge pit that washed out on one side and a steep bank on the other, so that’s a bit scary with big torrential rains and gushing streams pouring all around. But we made it home safe and sound (and wet).

But now, I have a nice cup of coffee, am in dry clothes and relaxing in my kitchen, watching the rain pour outside. Ahhhh.