February 11. The Lord delighted us with another warm and mostly sunny day, although the winds were strong and cool. We praise the Lord for the faithful ones who continue to come to the meetings. Mike and Dallas were late so Daddy asked Titus to take charge of the singing and prayer time. It was a blessing that Gibson asked prayer that they would take heed to the things that are being taught. During the first meeting, Daddy taught on church membership; and in the second, he finished up the acrostic B-A-P-T-I-S, covering I (independent) and S (only the saved are church members). The men spent a lot of time again after the meeting, discussing what they are learning. After a late nap, there was just a short time to work on school lessons and have a bath before supper. This evening, after washing dishes, I printed chapters 47 and 48 of Pidgin Genesis, two chapters I somehow had skipped when I printed out the book of Jenesis for proofreading. Then it was time for evening snack before starting work on the quarterly newsletter.
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February 8. Another chilly, cloudy day. Praise the Lord for His help in school, and for Sunny’s help, too. I don’t know how long Lawrence will stay in class. (Please pray for someone to be able to be a teacher to Lawrence to help him with his needs to that he can learn as well. He needs extra one-on-one attention, but Mom is not able to do this and teach the other students as well.) February 9. The same weather pattern continues. Praise the Lord for His help, strength, wisdom, direction, and encouragement throughout the day. February 10. The Lord blessed us with sunshine and blue skies today. Anna Jean came early, as usual, and did the laundry. Then she cut up some very tiny carrots which a young boy had brought yesterday, along with the green onions he had brought, and the uxai (a somewhat starchy vegetable with a flavor slightly reminiscent of corn) that Sakias had brought us several days ago. It all made a nice veggie medley. After she swept the floors, she had coffee and bananas. Then she was ready to leave as she had been called to help teacher Solomon dig a new garden. Wan and Mike came and got the top shelf cut an nailed onto the top of the cupboard in the meeting room. Now they need to put on doors, but will have to wait until after Daddy’s trip to town when he’ll buy hinges and latches. Dallas did not come today because he has a bad boil. After my prayer time, I wrote a short e-mail to Pastor Ogle and sent him the January progress report. And after Anna Jean left, I went outside to soak up some of that nice sunshine; but Daddy was able to get a connection with C&C so I didn’t stay out very long because I didn’t want to miss spending a little time with our daughters. After we said good-bye, I got busy getting journal notes ready to send to them. Finally got them finished this afternoon and attached them to a short e-mail for C&C shortly before supper. This evening, I made up word books for the students to write their spelling words in and printed them out before our devotional time. After devotions, I cut them to size and stapled them together. February 5. A cool overcast day with rain the first part of the morning. Back to school today. Anna Jean came to be my helper. Gideon was late, but I hadn’t let them know that we would be starting five minutes earlier. Gideon and Cornelius did well, but I can see that Lawrence is going to have the same troubles he had when he was in first grade. The afternoon and evening were busy going over lessons for tomorrow, making up some math practice pages and printing them along with some word and phrase flash cards, cutting up the pages of flash cards, re-proofreading the progress report after Daddy proofread it and making some additional corrections, having devotions together which included proofreading a chapter of Pidgin Genesis, printing out a sermon outline for Daddy. February 6. Another cloudy day with bits of rain and bits of sunshine. The clothes got partly dry outside and then had to be hung in the house to finish drying. The morning was spent teaching; and in the afternoon, I took down some of the clothes, folded them, and put them away; wrote lessons on the chalkboard and lesson plans in my notebook. I was having a hard time, however, thinking of ideas for continuing review of phonics. February 7. We went to bed under a starry sky; but long before morning, rain was falling from the stars. :-) Rain continued into the morning, and we wondered if anyone would show up for lotu (church meeting). Praise the Lord for the few who came. Phinehas led the singing and prayer time. I was delighted to see Phinehas’s interest in taking notes so I made sure he had a good piece of paper and my clipboard to help him. Daddy taught this morning on the first qualification for an elder (or bishop) - desire: “If any man desire the office.” After lotu, the men had a lengthy discussion about the difficulties of outreach and whether to or how to continue in that ministry. Daddy encouraged them to let God lead and not to let the devil use his tricks to hinder God’s work. The men (Mike, Dallas, and Amos) did decide to go on to Tainaraba today. Wan came, and he worked on the meeting room, blocking off the big spaces below the roof on the west side to keep rain and wind from blowing in. Phinehas stayed and worked on the back gate, replacing rotten parts and putting on stronger hinges. There was no school today, but I was busy in the kitchen most of the morning before and after lotu — having my Wednesday morning tea and quiet time before lotu and breakfast afterward; then getting ingredients together to cook and add to the pumpkin to make soup for dinner. There was a little time in between to work on lesson plans for the next couple days. Gave more time to that this afternoon. This evening, I finished up some school materials that needed to be printed, and printed them out before our devotional time together. February 2. The Lord brought us rain during the night and gave us a rainy morning too. This afternoon was hot and sunny with clear skies. Praise the Lord for His help this morning in finishing the printing of all the reading worksheets. Then Daddy and I went for a stretch outside. It was quite warm and humid out and still mostly cloudy. The worst part was the ferocious mosquitoes. There are so many this year. We wish someone could come and spray around the village like they used to do years ago. This is the first year in a long time that the mosquitoes have been so bad. After our walk, I started getting attendance sheets and grading sheets ready for printing. Then I turned the rest of our chicken gravy into patties for our dinner. After nap, I made up a job chart and printed the attendance and grading sheets, the job chart, and a memory verse chart (made up last year) besides the bank statements for Daddy to work on and an outline from an Adrian Rogers sermon. Before supper, I swept the schoolroom before mixing up tuna and cutting up a cucumber for supper. While dish water was heating after supper, I washed the schoolroom floor, and Daddy dried it for me. Then I washed the dishes; and a little while later, I took a bath before evening snack. February 3. The Lord gave us another warm, mostly sunny day. Yes, it was another busy day too. Anna Jean came early, as she usually does on Saturdays, and did the laundry. She couldn’t finish refilling the buckets right away because the water was dirty, and then the water stopped. Daddy had her call for Amos, and he went up to check the water for us. He checked a join that people usually open and water was coming fine; but he checked the next join down, and no water was coming. So it appeared that somehow dirt or something was in the line somewhere. We just had to wait for it to work its way loose. Later the water started running again, sometimes dirty and sometimes clean. After hanging out the clothes, Anna Jean swept the floors, put the 10KG bag of flour in the flour bucket for me, and filled up the salt bucket. After her snack, she went outside and spent the rest of the morning digging out weeds and bad grass. After breakfast, I got the bed made; reorganized some upper years school books into two smaller boxes as the one box they were in was too heavy to handle, got out crayons, pencils, and New Testaments for the school students, and washed the school students’ desks and chairs as well as my own desk area in the schoolroom. Daddy had made contact with C&C via Skype and was talking with them so I went and joined him for a while. Then a message came up that Martha (Dad's sister) wanted Daddy to call her so we signed off from C&C temporarily and called Martha. She needed someone to talk with as her health condition is worsening and the doctors are going to be getting together to see what the next step should be. So she is facing the possibility of not having much longer to live. We are thankful that she has a firm confidence in the Lord and His plan for her life. Daddy prayed with her before we signed off, but she wants him to be available as much as possible so that she can talk with him when she needs to. After that, we reconnected with C&C and talked with them a while longer. In the midst of all that, I had a snack and tried to work on school stuff; and the men (Wan, Mike and Dallas) were here the second half of the morning until after 1:00 working on the meeting room cupboard so we were back and forth guiding them and checking to make sure they were doing things right. We did manage to fit our dinner in in the midst of running back and forth. After all that, I was pretty tired by the time we finished eating so got ready to take a nap while Daddy was helping the men finish up and clean up. This afternoon, I did finish getting everything together for the first day of school. Then there was a little kitchen work to be done — make yogurt, boil water to heat honey so it could be poured into the honey bear, fix a pot of rice, seaweed, and tuna so it is ready for our dinner tomorrow because Sunday is very busy with making pancakes and having two meetings. This evening, the rain has come again, prancing across the roof and moving on, only to return again and again as the lightning flashes and the thunder roars. February 4. Mostly cool and cloudy today. A good group present for the first meeting, and a few of them were early or on time, and others arrived not too much longer afterward. In the first meeting, Daddy covered the importance of baptism following salvation. There was a much smaller group present for the second meeting, but they were those who really seemed keen to learn. Daddy covered the work of every believer as priest, and the two offices of the church being elder and deacon and the two ordinances being baptism and the Lord’s supper. There was a good amount of discussion and questions following the second meeting. It looks like some of the men are finally doing some serious thinking and realizing that most of the ideas that have come here from churches in town have no Scriptural basis. No boys’ meeting this evening. It appears that some of the boys were looking to Nehemiah to lead them; and since Nehemiah started going back to another church, he stopped coming. A couple of the boys (Elias and Dave) do help Mike and Dallas carry Bibles for outreach. This afternoon I worked on the progress report and finished that this evening. Am thankful for the Lord’s help. January 31. A foggy, rainy morning. We were thankful for some sunshine peeking through the clouds later in the morning. Had a good group here for the meeting. Daddy taught briefly on what the church is and is not and started talking about church leadership. Afterward, I had my breakfast. Had had a couple cups of tea beforehand. Mike started the work of putting a last coat of paint on the chalkboard. Wan and Dallas worked on the cupboard in the meeting room. Daddy and I were both up and down, back and forth, with eating and little jobs, while we were overseeing the workmen. Daddy also got in touch with C&C for a while and then with Martha. We were thankful to get in touch with them as we hadn’t been able to make connections for a while. Since it was 10:00 before I finished breakfast, it wasn’t long before dinnertime. I went for nap before the men left, and Daddy came a while later. The men have finished the frame of the cupboard and now need to put on the plywood. Dallas came to us upset about something that [had happened]... This news upset me as well—a work of Satan to keep people from reading the Scripture and knowing the truth. In the afternoon and evening, I worked on reading lessons. February 1. A new month already. The day started busy and continued busy. It was late when I woke up. I guess Daddy figured I needed the sleep so he did not awaken me. There were five bananas left in the cupboard, all VERY ripe. They needed to be thrown out or used for something right away. I peeled all five bananas — VERY mushy but not rotten. Three of them went into a bowl for banana cake, and the other two went into the blender along with some popo (papaya) to be whipped up with other ingredients for a smoothie. After I drank my smoothie and read my Bible, I mashed the bananas in the bowl and added other ingredients for the banana cake. While the oven was warming up, I gathered together all the trash to be taken out and burned. Stuck the cake into the oven and took the trash outside. Enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air for a while after getting the fire going. Shortly after I came inside, the cake was done. I let it cool a few minutes and then enjoyed a piece for the rest of my breakfast. It was worth waiting for. Then Daddy helped tape down the rest of linoleum that didn’t get done the other day. During those hours, I also did a couple other small jobs. Then I started prayer time, made the bed, wrote an e-mail, wrote in journal. Shortly before dinner, Mike came with Nehemiah, Elias, and Dave to get New Testaments to take to Tainaraba. Praise the Lord for helping me finish the job of setting up several weeks’ worth of reading worksheets this afternoon and getting a start on printing them this evening. I had just finished supper when Susan came, and Penuel with her. Penuel’s body is quite swollen, and thus far, the TB medicine hasn’t helped any. He has to take it for five more months, but they are praying about a way to take him back to the doctor before then to see if there is something else they can do for him. He has a hard time walking up the mountain because it is too hard for him to pick up his swollen legs. Even though we were happy for Susan’s visit, that made our evening late once again. Now I’m ready to say good-night and fall into bed. Hi, all! I'm sorry that I have missed some journal notes. Starting here with the ones from February. Thank you so much for your faithfulness in praying. This and That with Little Labors of Love
January 29, 2024. A sunshiny morning after the rain yesterday evening and through part of the night. Went outside for a while early this morning. The flowers are very overgrown and need lots of attention. I wonder who would know how to do a good job maintaining a flower garden. Afterward I worked for a short while on math lessons. Then we had snack, and Daddy helped me lay a piece of linoleum on the kitchen floor on top of that which had become very faded-looking and had many taped-up places where the ooqdi (the wood used to make the floor boards) had broken through. I put eggs on to boil while we were working, and we had lunch at noon because there wasn’t time to make our dinner. After nap, I worked just a short while on math lessons. Then kitchen duty called so we could have a good supper. First, I scrubbed a kaukau (sweet potato) and five potatoes and cut them up into small pieces to boil for mashing. The masher was laid out along with butter, milk, and salt and pepper to go in the potatoes. The chicken had a fair amount of blood on it so needed to be washed first. It also had lots of bone and fat, and some skin, too, so it was quite a job cutting off the meat. An onion was cut up to go with the meat, and all the seasonings were laid out to add to the meat. Gravy mixture was prepared as well. Along with all that, I made a pitcher full of spinach soup. Daddy was shaving and washing so I also had to answer the door a couple times while I was working. It was a hot afternoon, and the kitchen was especially hot, making the sweat pour out of my body. I was thankful for The Lord’s help in this labor of love and to be able to sit down together and enjoy a good meal when it was all ready. There was quite a mountain of dishes to be washed after supper, a job which created more sweat, so I was very grateful for a nice bath shortly after washing dishes. By the time bath was over, I only had time for a vitamin drink before our devotions together. It took quite a while to proofread chapter 31 of Jenesis (Genesis) so it was 9:15 before I got to fix and eat a half mugful of oatmeal and then tie up work in my computer before shutting down and getting ready to climb into bed. Now that it is bedtime, the Lord is sending us light rain, and there is thunder in the distance. January 30. After we went to bed last night, The lightning flashed at the window with intense brightness which we could see even though the curtains were closed and we were in bed with our eyes shut. Thunder followed fairly soon after each flash, and the rains poured down out of the heavens. By morning, the sky was partly clear, and the sun was soon to shine, only to disappear by mid-morning, covered over with thick clouds. Anna Jean washed and cut up a pumpkin. I finished setting up math lessons; and after Anna Jean left, Daddy and I went outside for a while. Then I started printing math lessons, but the ink tank gave me problems so I had to finish the printing on the Canon. This afternoon, I did backups because my computer has been acting up, and I don’t want to lose anything. And this evening, I scanned practice pages and worksheets for reading class. During our devotional time, we continued checking Jenesis. After a hot, humid day, the rain is now pouring down and beating furiously on the tin roof. |
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