Another New Start

After 6 wonderful weeks back home in Wisconsin I have set off to start all over again in Sanford, FL. It was harder than I expected to leave, and I miss my family, my church and my good friends back in Sconi all a-fresh.The drive down was beautiful and blessedly uneventful…other than 1 incident where I locked my keys and my purse in my car and had to call a locksmith to let me back in. IDIOT!
We had lots of help loading & unloading the moving truck – another huge blessing. And – WOW – my apartment in the NTM building is Beautiful!!!First Impressions of the Sunshine State:
*It is HOT here. Yikes. I was expecting it to be a bit cooler, but apparently it doesn’t ever get that cold here. Despite the fact that it was 89 degrees this morning with 100% humidity, Floridians seem to be either unaware or unaffected by the heat. I was wearing shorts & a tank top, wishing it was appropriate to wear less when I walked passed a lady wearing jeans & a sweater…. Ummm… Just because it’s October does not mean the temperature drops around here!
* It seems like Christians “down South” are more open and bold about their beliefs. Everywhere I go I see people wearing what I call “Jesus shirts”. And on Saturday I was exploring Sanford (my new town)and as I was walking through a park I found a group having a little worship service. I sat down in the shade to listen to the Baptist preacher share the Gospel. They also provide a bus on Sundays to pick anybody up and bring them to church… specifically the homeless in the area. I was pretty excited to see such a practical outreach to the community.
I’m working on meeting people, finding a church and getting plugged in. I’m going to a Bible Study tonight, so I’m pretty excited to get to know some fellow NTMers. I start working with Doug & Kara on Monday. I’m looking forward to being a part of their team, and this ministry! More importantly, I'm stoked to be serving my King.

"What are we here for - to have a good time with the Christians or to save sinners?" ~ Malla Moe

Reflections

Now that I’m back in America, I thought it appropriate to take a step back… take a moment to reflect on the 13 months & 5 days I spent living in Papua New Guinea. But how do I sum up an entire year? I could talk about the people I met, the food I tasted, the indescribable colors of the country, the wildlife, the landscape, the smells… but what does any of that matter in the big scheme? The only part that is significant and valuable is what I learned – about myself and God – and what that means for eternity.

Here is what I learned about myself:

1) Physically, I don’t NEED much and can certainly live with a lot less STUFF. And God wants me to be generous with what I do have.

2) Emotionally, I was too dependent on my relationships – friendships especially. And God wants me stop allowing the importance of those relationships to over-shadow Him, and let Him to be my portion.

3) Spiritually, I have a lot to learn about trusting God with absolutely every area of my life and being obedient. A lot to learn about who God is – His Character, His Promises, His Will, His Word. About striving to be the woman He intends me to be. I learned that God has given me an ability to impact others lives… which is a wonderful gift from Him, but also a tremendous responsibility. I need to learn to be careful with HOW I’m impacting the people He puts in my path… how am I impacting this world for Eternity.

I’ve been hearing a lot that I’ve changed. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but I’m hoping most people feel that it’s for the better. Hopefully I’ve grown. It would be a shame to spend a year serving the Lord with my whole life in a Third World Country and come home unchanged.

At the end of my presentation in church last Sunday, my friend Seth asked “How has your view of God changed?” What a great question. I wish I had been prepared for it. I’ve been thinking about it for the last few days, trying to remember what my view of God was before I left last summer. I think He appeared much smaller in my life back then. I think He was someone I called upon more in times of need, but didn’t depend on Him for every decision, every circumstance. How often did I turn to Him only as a last resort, after trying to do it my way first? I think that I didn’t see or understand His heart for the rest of the world until I really immersed myself in another culture… until I heard their hearts and saw their need for Him. I don’t think I understood that He could use me for much, and wanted to use me in brand new ways. I didn’t see my worth, or who I really was clearly. How has my view of God changed? He is bigger than He ever was to me, and I am more in love with Him than I ever was before.

"'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world." ~ William Booth

Just a Wednesday

I decided to do another Day In The Life of Nicky during an ITF program. I’ve realized that some people are very interested in the details of a typical day for me, so if you are one of those people… This Is For YOU! J I didn’t teach any classes today, or lead village exposure… but here is what today looked like. *Warning: May contain intense action sequences.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009: My alarm went off at 6:45am, but yesterday was Goroka Day (leading the students around town all day), and I’m exhausted so I hit the snooze till 7:15. Chat with mom on Skype for a bit. Stupid Skype does not work! Throw in a load of laundry and head up to the dining hall for breakfast at 7:45am.

At around 8:30 I hang up my laundry and check my emails. Rachel calls and asks I can tell the workmeris that she will be gone this morning and they need to clock out with me. Also, I need to check in with them and make sure they are doing ok. I walk down to the ablution block and tell the ladies in my broken Pigin that they should sing-out for me when they are finished for the day, and that I’ll be up in the office. Throw in a second load of laundry and hike up to the office. Rachel also needs me to print out more time cards for her. I have absolutely no idea what those look like or where to find them. I search the network, find something that looks feasible, print out a dozen forms and email her that they are in her mailbox.

The morning is a blur. I get a call from one of the security guys to have Danny give him a call (that conversation is entirely in Pigin, by the way). Danny calls me later and gives me new instructions for the security scheduling for the next Interface program. 1 guy has been suspended for 2 weeks for sleeping while on Night Security, 2 guys have to rearrange what nights they work because they are helping Rich Foster (missionary to the Bena) with Translation on certain mornings. This means I have to redo the entire schedule – an insane puzzle that will literally take me HOURS. First I make a new Security worksheet and Security Instructions document to put into the Security folder on the network so that Julie (my replacement in August) knows what to do next time. I’ll get to work on the schedule after lunch!

In the meantime, Rich Foster calls to find out what the Class Schedule looks like for ITF3. I make a copy of the schedule and email it to him.

Yesterday the official ITF3 student list (and their applications) arrived – Hooray! Now I have to start putting together a spread sheet of student profiles for the staff to look over. I need to show Julie how to do this, so for now I just put together an excel worksheet of the names of each student.

12:30pm – Lunch. Quick run home and hang up the 2^nd load of laundry. Hope it dries on time… it looks like rain. Nate arrives (new NTM Associate who was here last summer as well. He is taking over for Beth in the kitchen while she is on furlough). His luggage did not make it, but he made it safely! Hopefully it will show up on the flight tomorrow. Ah PNG!

1:15pm – run up to the office to open it up for students so they can use computers to email during their free time. 1:30-2:30pm – Staff Meeting in the dining hall (take notes and meeting minutes).

2:35pm back up to the office. A bunch of students are up there on the computers and asking me questions. Start working on Security Schedule. Make an Open House calendar for the students that will be around in between programs, and email it to the staff to sign up for. Show Julie how to make Student Profiles and then start working on them. It’s now 5:00 and I have about 17 things started and nothing finished… but most of these projects will take some time and don’t need to be done immediately, so I’m not stressed. I’ll work on them tomorrow! Time to turn off the computers and lock up the office!

5:05 – go back to my hut and take down all my laundry. It’s mostly dry. Decide that my house needs bit of a touch up before the students come over tonight so sweep the floors & clean the bathroom.

5:30 –Give announcements in the dining hall… “Skit/Talent night is on Saturday so start thinking about how you want to entertain us!” Supper time. Come home to bake some cookies.

7:00 – Campfire. Worship time and testimonies. Yay – I love campfires!

8:00-10:00pm – I have “Quiet House” tonight. Make tea & coffee for the 6 students who come over to read, write letters or do homework. I also use the time to read. I’m at the end of “Mere Christianity”. I really love this book! My cookies turned out awesome by the way. There are zero left. I was planning to shower before bed, but now I’m way too tired. Nigh Night!

Here is one of my favorite quotes from Mere Christianity:
"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

For an Audience of One

Once again, the Interface campus has come alive and it’s as if every one here is bursting with the expectation of what God is going to do in the lives of these young people. We are already 10 days into the IF2 program. As usual, I am running myself ragged. I want to do everything with the students, plus keep up with all of my official Admin duties. I have a hard time just chilling out at home and enjoying any quality down-time. I think the rest of the staff is going to force me to take a nap soon.

But so far things are going well! It’s our first attempt at running a program without Emerson as director, plus Peter (the new bossman) and I had to prep without Janie, while battling sickness, but it all fell into place (Thank the Lord!) I’ve already taught 4 classes, and teach another 1 tomorrow morning. I had major technical difficulties (aka – my powerpoint was possessed) for my first classes, but I remained calm and rolled with it. I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m starting to feel a lot more comfortable speaking/teaching. It probably helps that my friends sit in the back of class and make signs like “You Rock” or stand up & cheer for me. HA! I definitely think the coolest thing about being a teacher is how much you learn while preparing the classes. Not to mention the discussions I’m then able to have with the students during meals or open houses.

It’s also been a huge encouragement to have my friends Curt, Don & Kristina here. They were on my ITF team when I was a student and have returned to PNG to serve in Hospitality (the kitchen) for the whole summer. It’s so much fun having “old friends” around again. Plus, one of the students is a girl that I will be working with in FL. She’s here to experience Interface so that when we are back in the states we can work together to mobilize more harvesters to the field!

I’m leading “Village Exposure” time with this group, and have been in the village with them twice already. On our first trip I made a new friend – Karufe. She speaks English very well, but mostly spoke Pigin because she wants me learn so that I’m able to speak to her people better. She also informed me that she was going to pray that Papa God brings me a “Gutpela Husband” and “Planti Pikininis” (Good husband & lots of kids). Oh boy, sounds like she’s been talking to my mom. During our second trip together, the students were surprised (and by that I mean several of them screamed and almost took off running) by pigs charging across our trail in the bush. I forgot to warn them that the people in the village often let their pigs run around during the day. Ah Culture Shock! Thankfully I teach my Culture Stress (Part 2 in a 2 part series) class tomorrow…

Too often we say, "I have no talent to teach a Sunday school class." "My home is not nice enough to have a Bible study here." "I don't cook well enough to help with Meals on Wheels." "I'm a businessman, not a carpenter. I wouldn't know the first thing about building a house for Habitat for Humanity." When we step out in faith and offer all we have, God will use it in powerful ways. How much is enough? Just what we have when God is with us!

*Photos in this entry were provided by my good friend Curt Sharp

Esra's Village

I spent last weekend visiting my friend Heather at Lapilo. We had LOTS of fun plans. On Friday we were invited to the Numonohi Senior Class mumu. Ah, the joys of hanging with Teens again!The next day Heather's workmeri Esra invited us to her village to have a mumu with her family. What an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime experience!!! We had to hike about an hour into the bush. That in itself was an experience. We had to cross this crazy bridge over the river...
Back on the trail it was seriously muddy, so I OF COURSE wiped out (still working on that least-graceful-woman-on-the-planet trophy). One minute I was upright and looking at the village ahead of me, the next second I was on my bum with a stunned expression on my face. While no one caught the actual fall on camera - here is a pic from a little while later of me walking through some banana trees while touring Esra's garden. You can see some evidence of the incidet, but I'd already gotten a little cleaned up. I was initially pretty covered in mud! At Esra's house we helped peel kaukau, carrots, and stuffed bamboo with chicken & kumu.
Her family took care of actually cooking the mumu for us.We spent the whole morning just hanging out with them in their village. It was such a fantastic opportunity to just BE with the people. We were the only white-skins there, so it wasn't a big show... it was just a normal day. Esra was very real with us, and even talked about the hardships of being a first wife, and sharing her husband with a second wife - something that happens often in PNG. I have met many ladies here who are 1 among several wives. Anyway - enough commentary on the culture.
Here Heather & I are with Esras family. They were so awesome to us! Also, I'm crouched down a little bit for this picture so that I wouldn't look like such an amazon woman. Heather is only 5'3" and she's taller than most of them... you can imagine how gigantic I look.On the hike home, we decided to take a short cut across the river. Esra insisted on carrying my camera because, and I quote "You'll probably fall again". Excellent - I am literally known around the world for my clumsiness. :) I don't even want to think about what is in this water...More Pics of PNG. Oh how I love it here!!!
"I'll be your hands, I'll be your feet. I'll go where you send me, go where you send me
And I'll try, yeah I'll try, to touch the world like you touched my life
And I'll find my way To be your hands

I'll abandon every selfish thought, I surrender everything I've got
You can have everything I am And perfect everything I'm not

I am willing, I'm not afraid
you give me strength when I say ...
I'll be your hands, I'll be your feet. " ~ Audio Adrenaline

A Very Special Day

Wow, I just got back from a very special 4 days on the coast. This may be my last chance to get out of the Highlands and see a little bit more of the country, so I jumped at it. We had an opportunity to go to Madang for a long weekend. Our goal was to get out every day and be with the locals whenever possible, but not in the town. We wanted to be out in the villages on the islands. Time to step out of our comfort zones a bit, use our Pigin to communicate with the people, and experience some real cultural differences. One of the Islands is so small it only had 10 people living on it!

Sunday was our most special time. We borrowed some kayaks and paddled out to an island. There was a small beach there and we arrived just in time to help some people unload a boat full of bamboo!

We continued along the coast of that island and heard some singing. We found a little church service going on so we stayed in our kayaks (not wanting to intrude or distract) but listened to the preaching from the water. From there we headed to another Island. There were some ladies fishing along the way, so we stopped to talk to them and ask if it was ok to go hang out on their island.

It turns out the name of this beautiful place is Leper Island. HA! It’s because during WW2 they quarantined anyone with Leprosy on that Island. Charming. We enjoyed the beach and some snorkeling, and then the boys learned how to harpoon fish from some local guys! They all came back to the beach to show me their catches. (It would not have been culturally appropriate for me to go out there with them). There was a little girl with them named Linda, and I sat with her while she cleaned all the fish the men had caught. Then we played & splashed each other in the water while the guys built a fire and cooked the fish for us. It was so cool to just be with the people.

Oh yes... we ate Dori.

This last picture is sweet Linda, fishing again... just throwing out a line with a hook and some bait on the end. What an awesome day!!!

"Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting...Don't only give your care, but give your heart as well." ~ Mother Teresa

"The soul, itself invisible, is seen by what it does through the body." ~ Johann Albrecht Bengel

Highlands Conference

We just finished up the big annual Highlands Conference on Monday. ITF hosts the missionaries from all over the Highlands for a time of teaching, fellowship, relaxing, playing, worshiping, getting muddy (we've had a lot of rain), and encouraging each other with what God is doing in the highlands of PNG! It was just awesome. I was blessed to be able to attend a lot of the sessions… hearing lots of testimonies & tribal reports. I love hearing what happens in the villages as the Gospel is presented and they understand Grace for the first time. The joy and then the sadness & urgency these new believers have to tell others. It is an example to all of us.

It was great fun for me to meet & get to know other missionaries. There was a couple here – the Palmers – who have been serving in a tribe in PNG for 55 years! What characters! They were a hoot. From that extreme to the opposite – a young couple who’s only been in their tribe for 6 months and just starting their language study. The conference felt like a big family reunion! We had a skit night, lots of singing, a banquet, games, ice cream (oooh, what a treat!)… lots of lingering over meals with coffee and good conversation.

There was an older couple with some specific needs that needed less primitive accommodations, so I gave them my house and stayed in a cabin with my friend Heather. It was a little bit like camping and we had a great time. I also got to experience the famous ITF tradition – Bucket Showers!

During the last couple of weeks I’ve been battling a stomach virus from Hades. Ugh! I was only able to eat small portions, and mostly just rice and bananas and toast. Thankfully, that seems to finally be over. *Thank you all for your prayers about that!* Last night my PNG Family (Beth, the Germans & I) went to town for dinner at a new restaurant as a special treat, and I ate a whole steak! It was my first steak in 9 months… and while it was a PNG steak (definitely not the same quality as back home) I was grinning the whole time. I’m SO happy to be able to eat real food again, and to have a real steak! Now if I could only have some cheese…

In other news, things are starting to come together for me back home. I was able to find the cheapest plane ticket anybody has seen in 10 years, and God provided the funds for me to book it immediately! I also found out that I have a 1 Bedroom apartment reserved for me in Sanford, so I don’t have to do any house hunting. I am in awe of how all of these details have been worked out, through no effort of mine. It was some much needed affirmation that this is what God wants for me. I’ve been struggling with the idea of leaving PNG. But if I could be obedient enough to come here and leave everything behind, then I can certainly be obedient enough to head back to the States. Who knows where this next step will lead?!

“I want passionate feelings to characterize my relationship with the Lord Jesus. Of course, I want to be perfectly obedient to the Lord, but I want the obedience to spring out of a passionate love for him. I want to obey Jesus not simply out of discipline of duty, or because of some reward or fear of punishment. I want to serve Him simply for the joy of being able to please the one I love so much. If discipline is what ultimately drives us in our pursuit of Jesus, eventually we will give up that pursuit. But a man in love, or a woman in love will never quit.... I want my life to be characterized by an unrestrained affection for the Son of God” ~ Jack Deere