Were settling in here in the wonderful paradise that is Uka-Land. Most mornings are quite cold requiring layers of clothing to stay warm, but it warms up to long-sleeve shirt weather when its cloudy, and short-sleeve when its sunny. Some mornings were actually looking forward to the 100 degree heat/humidity that well encounter in Madang during POC... somebody please slap me. We saw some RC planes flying last week, but none this weekend, Im still trying to hook up with that crowd. This is a photographers dream, theres so much to shoot! I took tons of photos at an Ultimate Frisbee game, and then at a volleyball game and posted them on Uka-Web for the members on center to see. We watched a downloaded version of the World Cup soccer game last week. There was over 20 people there, most seemed to be cheering for Argentina. What a fantastic bunch of people here. Dinner last night was interesting. We cook using a gas stove with the flames at the back. Jenny cooked up some delicious-smelling BBQ chicken legs, but when she pulled out the oven rack, I guess some of the juices in the Pyrex pan sloshed to the back of the pan which must have been pretty hot because the whole thing exploded like a bomb! There was glass all over the oven and floor cornering Jenny into the corner of the kitchen. She wanted to pick the glass off the chicken to eat it, but I made the executive decision to throw it out with the glass and we had green beans instead. Medical care here is such that a bowel perforation or esophagus perforation from a piece of glass could easily be fatal before reaching surgical care. I only wish (in hindsight) that I would have shot a photo of it. Were just glad she was safe and didnt get burned. Oh yea, she got grossed out by a flying cockroach in our apartment last night, that thing would have even given King Kong the willys. It met its demise with the heel of Jennys hiking boot. Sorry, no photo. Oh yea, we also have a hissing beetle that frequents our back porch, the girls love playing with it which basically entails flicking it to make it hiss. Yes, I got that on video! We finally got to the finance office this morning to get money transferred from our personal account in the states here to pay for the house were buying here on center. If things go well, were excited to move in on August 1st. Its about 130 square meters of living space. A small house by American standards, but very nice for Uka standards. One of the modifications Id like to eventually do is to install a pair of solar panels on the roof and tie them into the grid. That way on sunny days the meter will spin backwards. Once we determine how much that affects our electric bill, wed know how many panels it would take (on average) to end up about even on electricity. With the cost of it 3-4 times that in the states, we were told by a solar expert here at Uka that it pays for itself in about 5 years. Will we be here that long Papa God? For those not following our blog site (spudracer.blogspot), we took our first adventure off-center this past weekend, about 200 yards off-center! To save internet time and cost, please check out the blog, lots of photos there! Its an interesting story. Each day gets us closer to leaving for our upcoming Pacific Orientation Course. We tried to sign up the girls for a flight on a Kodiak last week Friday, but it appears theres only one seat left on the plane. Jenny and I were going to take public transportation to save money for the house, but now it looks like we ALL may end up on the bus. Its a long (7-8 hours) BUMPY, and exhausting drive with a small risk of theft en-route. But our God is bigger than anything we may encounter on the road! Once we get there, well FINALLY be reunited with the Nies, a wonderful family we came to know as we did our Intercultural Communications Training at JAARS last summer. They just sailed their sailboat all the way to Hawaii and will be flying the rest of the way to Madang for the POC course. Its going to be the adventure of a lifetime! Thanks to all our partners for getting us here. We started our orientation at the clinic this morning with Drs. Helen and Jeff and learned a lot. It seems the clinic is no longer doing many medicine trips off the center to the villages because there is simply insufficient funds for such trips. If anyone out there has unlimited pockets, I know a good place to invest in the lives of hundreds or thousands of nationals. One more thing, a person like Tommy Woodard (with his skill sets) from Lifeway Church would be a God-send to Ukarumpa, but dont tell him! Hes on our support team!!!
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 03:12:16 +0000
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