November Update

November has gone so quickly and we haven’t posted as many blogs as we would’ve liked. Our first month back in PNG has been good. Things are going really well and we are thankful to be home. Here are a few interesting things that have been happening… I hope this doesn’t get too long!

-WATER– We were a bit concerned about our water situation since we are not connected to the town water supply yet. Therefore, we rely solely on rain. We have a huge tank, so as long as it rains every couple of weeks, we are just fine. But dry season is approaching, or so we thought! Usually by this time of year it would be quite dry, but there have been some cyclones in PNG that have caused us to have lots of rain the past few weeks. (And when it rains, it pours!) We have been thankful for the rain. However, there have been lots of people in other parts of the country who have lost their gardens and homes due to the cyclones. An ironic part of our water story is that the town water has been shut off many hours each day because it is dirty and they are trying to resolve the problem. So, we are faring better than most people right now and have been able to share water from our tank! Craig and Hannah are pictured playing in the rain. (Well, Craig claims he had to go and fix some flooding problems in the yard….)

-YARD WORK – When we moved into our house, we never really had time to do any kind of landscaping, planting, etc. But because of the wonderful help of some amazing people, our yard actually looks great! Two Christian sisters, Pastola and Susan, have put in HOURS (without us asking!) to make a garden and upkeep it. We came home to beautiful flowers, pumpkin, greens, bananas, papaya, and more. Pastola has 10 children living in her house right now and often walks down to our house with many of them just to weed our yard. Hannah is pictured with Kylie doing some work outside.

-THANKSGIVING – We enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast on Saturday with our teammates, the Reese and Williams families, and a couple of other American families in town. We were even able to track down a turkey in the capital city for the occasion. (I’ve never seen a turkey here in Alotau.) We had the works – turkey, gravy, potatoes, cranberries, sweet potatoes, rolls, dressing, pumpkin and pecan pie. . . it tasted like a real Thanksgiving meal! Hannah is pictured with our thankfulness turkey we made at home.

-CHURCH – Hannah has become quite attached to some friends from church and always wants to go. As I was putting her in the truck after church on Sunday, she said, “I want to go to church again.” Two girls from church, Garimea and Doreen stopped by our house to play with Hannah one day and she loved every minute of it! Just an interesting fact: these two girls walk about 1 ½ hours to church each way every week.

- KIDS – Hannah loves to play outside and read books. She also loves to watch Dora. Her potty training is progressing well. Caleb is already 4 months old. I love his giggles. I better stop writing for now. This wasn’t supposed to be a novel!

The Kids

HANNAH is such a good big sister. She loves to play with Caleb and tries to make him smile. (It doesn’t take much to get a smile out of him.) She is currently getting potty trained and doing a great job. I never knew that this would be so much work. Craig says potty training is like leadership training … it’s a whole lot of work during the process, but later it saves you all kinds of time and work. What a great analogy! Hannah’s Aunt Teri gave her some stickers as rewards for going potty in the toilet. She especially likes the airplane stickers. (Thank you, Aunt Teri!)

Hannah is also learning to pray. The last few nights, this has been her prayer: (and I quote…) “Dear God, thank you for this day. How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high. Like a diamond in the sky. Thank you for Mommy and Daddy and Caleb.” (Yes, one of her very favorite songs right now is “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and it’s reflected in her prayers!)

CALEB is growing so quickly. He definitely looks healthy. J Everyone here says he is fat. (Compared to the children here I guess he is!) He is sleeping really well. He’ll sleep for a 7-8 hour stretch at night. We can’t complain about that. For the first week or so after we arrived in PNG, Caleb was pretty fussy. Maybe it was the change in climate or diet (his Mother’s diet, of course) – we don’t know – but he seems to be doing better now. He is a happy boy and we are so thankful to have him. He’s starting to giggle now and he looks like he is trying to roll from his back to his stomach. It is such a blessing to watch our children grow and change.