Life is Full, God is Good

Since we've been back from POC, I (Chad) have probably thought every day about updating our blog with some news. But between the pile of work at the office that stacked up while I was gone at the orientation course, the added responsibilities that I've had to take on due to shortage of personnel, the active family life that we have with friends over most nights, little parties and get togethers, and my weekend outings, I haven’t squeezed in a blog post for quite some time.
So this morning in between cleaning up from last night’s party, making a nice omlette breakfast for the family and then going to some yard sales, I think I have enough time to upload a few pics and talk about what’s been going on in the Michael family lately!
POC (Pacific Orientation Course) is a guys paradise! I absolutely loved traipsing through the jungle with Papua New Guinean guides. Indiana Jones style with bush knife in hand, chopping through vines uncovering ancient foot paths that lead to incredible jungle scapes and waterfalls. Basically you spend the first half of your day in class studying language, Melanesian culture, anthropology, PNG history and medical safety. All awesome stuff! Then you spend some time trying out your Tok Pisin with the workmen at the facility before they take you on a hike through the jungle or a swim in the ocean. Basically it’s about the coolest thing I could of dreamed of!

Unfortunately, we were only able to stay for the 6 week course so it was hard to have to leave the 14 weekers there and have to come back to work at Ukarumpa. But I’ve since been very thankful to be back home here in the Eastern Highlands where it’s nice and cool and there is certainly no lack of adventure here.
The kids did just fine at POC, but they are glad to be back home again too. Ruth didn’t really enjoy the heat and humidity, or the hikes, or cooking over fires, or the constant pace of academics and physical exertion, but I’m so proud of her that she cowgirled up and powered through it!
A quick set of highlights from my experience at POC follows:

-          Climbing Coconut trees

-          Climbing Buai trees

o   Beetle nuts (Buai) grow on the top of these long slender pole-like trees without any branches. In fact, at 90kg, I’m too big to go up one because it won’t hold me (I found out through experimentation). However, many times beetle nut trees grow close enough together, that I was able to climb up one and as it would start to bend, I could reach out and grab the one next to it to point it upwards again. Using this ingenious (and somewhat risky technique) I was able to get to the top of these 30-40ft or more trees!

-          Wokim Blin

o   A blind is essentially a wall that is weaved from bamboo that has been sliced down one side and flattened. I actually made a small section about 3ft by 2ft that I brought home with me.

-          Wokim Mat

o   Coconut trees have many uses in the jungle. One is using the coconut palm leaf to weave a mat for sitting on. There is a specific technique that my was-papa taught me during the village living phase that I used to make the mat in the picture.

-          Sumupim Morota

o   Morota is a roofing material made from what’s called a saksak tree. They are really long slender leaf-like this that you fold over a section of bamboo and then use a “jungle rope” called kanda to sew it together. Whenever we made anything, we would go out into the jungle and collect all the materials, which requires a lot of knowledge and techniques for gathering, and then we would bring it back to the village and they would show me how it all is put together. 

-          Wokim Trap

o   The mangis (sounds a little like monkeys and means kids), taught me how to make traps to catch different bush animals (what they call abuse). They were mostly variations of spring traps. We never caught anything, but each morning when I would hike up into the bush close to the village to check them, they had been sprung (or in tok pisin, abuse abrusim trap)!

-          Sutim Kindam (keen-daam)

o   While at the POC center, one of the workman helped me make a supsup (soup soup), which is a kind of multi-pronged spear. So one night while living in the village, we took the coleman lantern I had brought and went out into the bush and found mountain streams that held fresh water kindam (like crawfish),  kukas (crabs), maleo (eels), and pis (fish). I had a great time running the jungle streams in the middle of the night stabbing things! TOTALLY AWESOME!

-          Wokim Bet

o   We made a bench using a special kind of tree they call stick matches, and bamboo.

-          House Win

o   A kind of temporary structure that offers shade and doesn’t have walls.

Now that we’re back in Ukarumpa, the work load at CTS (Communications and Technical Services) is keeping me pretty busy. I can easily see how being a missionary can burn people out. However, I’m holding on hard to my relationship with the Lord and spending time in His word. Spending time with my girls and with friends.
Now changing topics a little, Ruth has some pictures she wants to share so I’ll let her have the keyboard.
Ruth here, here are some pictures of our “new” home.  We moved in right after Christmas but between our “holiday” in Australia and POC we are just now getting them posted.  One of the views from our home makes us think of the great Pacific Northwest with the trees and the fields minus the tropical looking trees of course… 

Meliah''s 10th grade friends came over and brought two WIIs and had them both going at once in the rec-room

The boy's hall

Living room and girl's hall

Another view of the living room

Office

Kitchen

Kiery's room

The stairs to the lower level

Front of ECP, our home.

Tuktuk under the carport by the workshop

Basketball court!

The girls on Easter morning before church

Oh, and Chad playing firefighter during a training excercise

Now as we have celebrated another holiday in this country we are amazed by the culture and the simple things in life.  We enjoyed Easter morning at church (Chad and Meliah at sunrise service) then the whole family at the regular service.  Then had a lunch/dinner with a family that we had met at POC. We had so much fun laughing and telling stories on how God has moved us in different ways to be in PNG!!  God really gets a hold of each person in a very distinct way.
Here are some pictures of Anna while riding horses with friends through the Bai river.

Well, we’ll try to be better about keeping the blog posts coming. We hope to start  talking more about how God is at work in our lives, the lives of others here in Ukarumpa and in Papua New Guinea.
God Bless you all!