January 29. A very cool, cloudy, and damp day with strong, cold winds. Daddy kept a fire going in the wood stove. Sunny came and did laundry and swept floors. While she was here, a man from Aziana named Mipino came by to say “hello” to Daddy and me. He took typewriter training at Lapilo years ago and later helped Mike H with typing the Scriptures and Bible stories in the Aziana language. Now he is busy downloading Scriptures onto people’s phones. Mike came, and he and Daddy moved the battery light from the office into the schoolroom as there was not enough light in there on the east side of the room. Young Rahab came with Mike. She was fascinated with watching her father work and also watching me use the printer. Most of my day was spent at the computer and printer. Proofread and added a little extra material to two World View lessons. Then printed those and also the students’ new Revelation lessons which I had finished getting ready last night. Then I punched holes in all the lessons and put them in the students’ notebooks. This afternoon and evening, I made a new to-do list and started writing part 3 of the English studies in Revelation. January 30. Overcast with strong, cold winds again. Another day for the wood stove. Praise the Lord for its warmth! After breakfast and quiet time, I washed and sorted greens and set them aside to drain a while. Got the pressure cooker ready for them and cut up an onion into the pressure cooker too. Then I wrote a couple short e-mails and started on a lengthier one which I put in the drafts to be finished later. Then I went and cut up the greens that I had washed, putting them into the pressure cooker and then setting them on to cook. While the greens were cooking, I proofread the first elder/deacon lesson and started adding a few study questions so I could get it ready to print out later. Just as we were getting ready for nap, Pastor Nuanda came by so we spent a little time with him before having our nap. After nap, I cut up a popo and then worked more on the e-mail I had started in the morning. Back to the kitchen about 4:30 to make some tortillas for my supper. First thing after supper was bath while the house was still pretty warm. Then I finished the e-mail, printed out the teacher’s copy of the elder/deacon lesson, wrote in journal, did dishes, made blanks for student copies of the elder/deacon lesson. January 31. The chilly, windy, overcast weather continues. The fourth day in a row now for a wood fire. After breakfast and quiet time, I did a little crocheting this morning which I hadn’t done for several days and took more time to pray while doing so. After that, I found pictures to try to send to Connie who had asked for pictures for an overview of this past year. Time went so fast, I didn’t realize it; and when I looked up at the clock, it was already 11:00. I hurried to the kitchen to wash and peel potatoes and yams and put them on to cook for dinner. Mashed taters and yams today. This afternoon, I proofread the last of the lessons on making outlines and put it on the flash drive. Took it to Daddy’s computer and printed the teacher’s copy, and also printed the students’ copies of the first elder/deacon lesson. Then changed the answers on the outline lessons and put blanks instead so those lessons are ready to print for the students. This evening, Graham came to visit for a while before he goes off to town tomorrow. After that, we listened to a sermon from Ambassador by one named Nick Stelzig. “And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac dwelt by the well Lahairoi.” Genesis 25:11 God blessed Isaac, and even after his father’s death, he dwelt by the well of the living God. He remained true to God even as his father had done. We may draw nigh to the well of living water through the blood of Jesus Christ, and there we may dwell in Him and He in us. “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” Ephesians 2:13 “And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” I John 3:24 “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” I John 4:13 As God blessed Abraham, and as God blessed Isaac, He will bless us too if we remain close to Him, if we dwell by that well of living water, the well of the living God.
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January 27. The Lord sent us rain late yesterday evening and on through the night. We are thankful for a little sunshine this morning, peeking in and out amongst the billowy clouds in the sky. This morning, I did manage to get a short e-mail written after an hour or so. Had just started writing when Susan came to visit. She came with a request for me to teach her to play the keyboard. I hated to have to tell her no, but my time is already filled to overflowing. We talked for a while about her family. Last night, their second son, Ahmisi, was saved so they are hoping to see a change in his life. Also learned that Jonas has come down to Aiyura from Lae (where he has been working) to see about enrolling in school again for this school year. She said, too, that Korin has a back problem and spends a lot of time in bed, not even going to church. Sounds like, from her description, that his spine is misaligned and he has a pinched nerve that sends pain down his leg. I advised her to have him try doing some light exercises to try to strengthen and realign his spine. Was about to get back to writing the e-mail when Wan came. He is working on the roof above the office today, putting new silver paper on as the rats had ruined the old silver paper. They had to take the roofing iron off in order to remove the silver paper and put new on. Since they are putting longer pieces and overlapping them better, we trust that will keep some of the cold air out of the office too. Anyway, when Wan arrived, we had to move all the computers and printers out of the office so dirt and stuff wouldn’t fall on them. Then we covered the desks with plastic to catch as much dirt as possible and eliminate a big clean-up job. We are thankful for Wan’s help and also that Dallas came along to help him. How much better the ceiling looks! And no draft blowing in over the top of the wall now! Thank the Lord! And there was hardly any mess at all that fell into the office. After they got started working, I was finally able to get back to the e-mail and finish it. Then, praise the Lord, Daddy was able to send it out. After that, I did a little Bible study, wrote a bit in my journal, and spent some time on the Revelation lesson before dinner. Continued work on the Revelation lesson off and on in the afternoon and evening; and at 7:45, I finished the lesson, thus completing the final lesson of the Revelation series in Pidgin. Praise the Lord for all His help! January 28. The day was cool, damp, and cloudy. Daddy kept the wood stove going most of the day. After breakfast, quiet time, and a time for walking, I got journal notes ready to send to Connie and then wrote an e-mail to the girls with the journal notes attached. By then it was time to fix some uxai and make some hamburgers for Daddy’s dinner. This afternoon, I looked over our reading lesson for today and spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening proofreading the next Revelation lesson that the class is ready for. It was quite a long lesson, but I finally finished the proofreading and got a copy printed out for the teacher. Now I am working on changing answers to blanks so I can print the student copies in the morning. After school this evening, Daddy talked with Mike about considering training to teach the missions course next year. Mike promised to pray about it, and said that he had already been thinking about it. “54) And they did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him, and tarried all night; and they rose up in the morning, and he said, Send me away unto my master. 55) And her brother and her mother said, Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go. 56) And he said unto them, Hinder me not, seeing the LORD hath prospered my way; send me away that I may go to my master.” Genesis 24:54-56 We should not be surprised, when God prospers our way, to find that Satan will try to hinder us from fulfilling the work that our Master has given us to do. We must recognize the work of the enemy and carry through to completion the mission that the Lord has given us. January 25. The morning was busy although I never did get to the computer to work as planned. I did write another e-mail. Trimmed some of the extra flag tracts that hadn’t been done yet. Sorted out a few things in the cupboard in the entry and put the extra tracts in there. Went outside for a stretch in the sunshine and pulled a few weeds. Amos and Mata came to visit for a while. Made a small pizza for dinner to use up the leftover spaghetti sauce. After nap, I cut up a couple popo that were in need of attention. Part of the popo went into a popo crisp, and part went into a container raw and into the fridge to hopefully keep it fresh enough for eating the next few days. Then it was time for classes. While Daddy was teaching, I did get some time to work at the computer, completing another short section of the final Revelation lesson. Also had supper and did dishes. (Daddy had his supper while I was teaching my class.) “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” Isaiah 65:24 January 26. Praise the Lord for sunshine this morning after the thick fog had passed through. Praise Him for Judy’s help this morning too — doing laundry, sweeping the back porch which had collected quite a bit of mud, and peeling and cutting up kaukau and a pumpkin. The morning was still busy for me after breakfast and prayer time. It took a while to get all the ingredients into the pot for the soup. Cut up the kaukau and pumpkin into smaller pieces first. Then cut up and added mushrooms, onion, and apple. Also added water, soup mix, carrot powder, bouillon cubes, butter, and seasonings. While the soup was cooking, and after it was done, my time was given to working on the Revelation lesson. Am really concentrating on getting this last lesson finished. When it got close to dinner time I opened the pot of soup and blended up some for our dinner, adding a little extra water to cool it down and thin it down and some milk powder to make it creamy. Then we sat down and enjoyed a nice bowlful of soup. Even though I had added only a pinch of chili powder, the soup was spicy hot. I was surprised that Daddy ate all of his, but he did. We added crackers to tone it down a bit. I thought that PNG chili powder would be hotter than what we get in the US so was careful to add only a pinch. We bought the chili powder when we were just in town as I was running low and the old chili powder had started collecting moisture. Hadn’t planned to open the new one today, but the old one had collected so much moisture that it was unusable. The soup did taste really good though, and we hadn’t had soup for quite a while so it was a nice change. This afternoon and evening, I did more work on the Revelation lesson. Also continued reading the book Lait I Kamap long Papua New Guinea (Light Came to Papua New Guinea -- history of missions in Papua New Guinea) with my class. January 22. Sunny came a little after 7:30 this morning to wash clothes, sweep floors, and clean Daddy’s town shoes. Later in the morning, Elijah and Nehemiah came to cut more firewood. This morning, after breakfast and quiet time, I put a clean sheet on the bed and made up the bed, wrote a couple short e-mails, did a little Bible study at the computer, went out for a short stretch in the sunshine, made a new journal notebook since my current one is nearly full, prepared uxai to go with our dinner of leftovers. This afternoon and evening, I worked more on the Revelation lesson that I started yesterday. Only Mike and Dallas came to school, but only to tell us that they needed to go and be with the rest of the class and their families for a court case that was going on. Mike and Dallas are going through some very difficult times. Please be praying for them. All that is going on reminds me of Job 5:7 which says that “man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” This evening, the Lord is sending us another heavy rain. January 23. After the big rain last night, Graham came by to visit. We were thankful to see him come. I had spoken to him at the door a couple days ago when he brought his phone to be charged, asked him how he was doing spiritually, and let him know that I pray for him. He said he would come back and talk to us some time. It was probably around 8:30 when he came. He seemed happy to be with us, and said that, when he told his parents about coming to see us, they encouraged him. We asked him about his salvation and he felt sure he was truly saved. He said that he and most of the other boys pretty much stopped going to church when the church tore down the house church and didn’t have a place to meet and only had Sunday morning meetings. They didn’t decide as a group to do that, but it just happened that each of the boys decided on their own. We asked him if he or the others left church because of us, and he said “no.” He was happy to find out that we still thought of him and wanted him to come around and spend time with us. Graham is going to try to find a school and go back to school next week but asks that we be sure to pray for him. We also pray that he will find a good church near whatever school he is accepted at. He still has to pay the rest of his tenth-grade school fees in order to get his certificate and know if he has to repeat any tenth-grade classes or not. Our time together went so fast, the next thing I looked at the clock, it was already 10:00. But about that time, heavy rains started falling again so we waited a while for them to subside so that he could go home. We waited until 10:30, but the rain was still pouring down in buckets. So we gave Graham a couple blankets and a pillow and let him sleep in the spare room. It was about 10:45 before we got to bed. I was over-tired and could not get to sleep. I finally got up and had a little bite to eat because I was getting a bad headache. It was mid-night and still raining hard. I don’t know how much longer it rained after that because I didn’t look at the clock again for another couple hours. Had apparently gone to sleep for a while sometime during those two hours. Even though I didn’t sleep well last night, I was still up by a little after 6:00. Graham was up a little after we were. He went home and came back later to cut the grass on the north side of the house. Wan came a bit later and patched up more leaks on the roof that manifested themselves during last night’s rain. He also made steps going down to the generator shed as they had long since washed away. I felt pretty tired most of the morning so my concentration wasn’t the best. I did manage to get one e-mail written. Got the song book and the first volume of Kamap Bikpela onto a flash drive to go to Daddy’s computer later for printing. Spent some time on Revelation lessons too. Was thankful for a good long nap. Felt much better afterward. Praise the Lord for helping me finish the section of the lesson that covers Revelation 21. Started on study questions on that part this evening as that needs to be done before going on to chapter 22. Kaipo and Sonkenda came by early this evening so Sonkenda could get some reading glasses. We had bought ten pair in town as the price was good at Papindo and they even gave a discount. Sonkenda had said before that he needed some so I had let Kaipo know that we had gotten some. He was excited about getting them and also took a copy of Genesis/Exodus in Pidgin and a story card showing that one way to know God is through creation. We were thankful for the opportunity to be able to give them a little bit of God’s Word and add some thoughts concerning their spiritual need. Although they listen, and express appreciation, they do not seem to understand that the true message is different from what they get in the SDA meetings. They are such a nice couple, but, oh, how we long to see them saved! January 24. Rained quite a while in the wee hours of the morning until about the time we got up, but not such a hard rain as the night before. No rain today. I did not go out walking this morning as I had bad stomach cramps after breakfast which were worse when I was standing up. I did a little crocheting, had extra time for prayer, did some Bible study, made the bed, folded the clothes, proofread music lessons and outreach lessons and fixed up the outreach pictures a bit. After dinner, I went to nap with the hot water bottle. It did a lot to soothe the cramps. In the afternoon, I printed the music lessons, outreach lessons, and outreach pictures. Punched holes in the lessons and got the outreach lessons put into the students’ notebooks, but didn’t get the students’ music lessons in yet as I printed them later (after adding blanks where they will be writing answers). This evening, I finished Revelation chapter 21 and am now ready to start the last chapter. Then we enjoyed our time to sing and share the word and pray together. January 20. Again the day was dry and very warm. After breakfast and quiet time, I folded clothes and did a little crocheting. Then I started setting up journal notes to be sent to Connie. Took a little stretch break and cut up popo — some to be made into popo crisp and some for eating raw. Back to the computer to work more on the journal notes. Then Daddy and I went out for a stretch in the sunshine. A few more minutes at the computer to finish the journal notes and get them put onto a flash drive to go to the ACER. Around 11:30, I started preparing spaghetti and meat sauce for Daddy’s dinner; and about 12:15, we were ready to eat. This afternoon and evening, I finished up the Revelation lesson I’d been working on. Praise the Lord for His help with that. Have just one more lesson to go. Nuanda came again during school time today and brought two of the church men with him so that we could explain about having the school under the authority of LIBC, the purpose for it and the meaning of it. They felt it was important to bring a couple men with him as witnesses so they can let the other men know exactly what is meant by having the school under the church. January 21. Back to rainy season this afternoon. Heavy rains came from the north this time and rained in around the north window in the schoolroom. The house became quite chilly this evening. This morning, I wrote an e-mail to C&C and sent them journal notes. We were thankful for sunshine so we could get outside a while. Started on the next Revelation lesson and worked on that off and on the rest of the day. In the culture class I’ve been teaching, we are now reading the book on the history of missions in New Guinea. The students were asking if the ships in the early days had engines, and if they had airplanes then. We read about Australia taking over German New Guinea after World War I. Amos started telling about the skeleton of a war plane that crashed into the mountain near Mobutasa. There were bombs on the plane, but the plane didn’t explode and the pilot and whoever else was on the plane didn’t get hurt. They ran away, but they told the people not to touch the bombs. However, people from Mobutasa and Okapa looked at the bombs and thought the metal would be good for making axes. So they decided to try cutting up one of the bombs to get the metal. Needless to say, a number of people from both Mobutasa and Okapa were killed. Another time Itansa and Putasao and other men from Owena found a cartridge from some kind of firearm. They wanted to see what would happen if they smashed it so started beating on one end of it with a rock. The cartridge exploded and tore up foliage in its pathway. The men said they “lost their spirit” but nobody was in the pathway of the explosion so nobody got hurt. January 18. A dry season type day. Elijah and Nehemiah cut firewood this morning. I spent a good part of the day working on the Revelation lesson that I’d been trying to finish. Still have a bit to go. Back to school today after three weeks off. It was good to see all the students again. Discussions today brought much heaviness to my heart, however. When the students went on outreach week before yesterday, there were no people around; but one of the older men (about the age of Mike and Dallas’s father) told them they didn’t want them coming any more and disturbing them from doing the things they want to do. He said they don’t need another church over there; yet the men didn’t go to start a church and never said anything about starting a church. They only went to preach the Gospel. The man said the people of the CLC church told him they don’t want the men to come anymore. The three men did spend some time with Novi, teaching him. Novi attends the CLC church, and he said he had not heard anyone say anything about not wanting the men to come. We encouraged them to still go and minister to Novi. “8) Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9) Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. 10) But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. 11) To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 5:8-11) January 19. Another dry season type day. Judy came around 7:00 to do the laundry. We changed laundry days from Wednesday to Tuesday and from Saturday to Friday so the girls won’t have to wait until after lotu to come do the wash. By then it gets quite late, and the clothes don’t get dry early; or, if it rains, they don’t get dry before the rains come. Wrote an e-mail this morning, but again spent most of the day trying to finish up the Revelation lesson. Took a break mid-morning to spend some time in the sunshine, pull a few weeds, and do some pruning of some of the plants and flowers. (There was another difficult situation as well, but I’m not free to share the details of that here. Please keep praying. Satan wants men and women and children in Owena just like he wants them in every other country. But God is greater than the devil every day. Please pray, pray, pray! Thank you.) |
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