A day in the life...

Many of you have been asking me what my “typical day” looks like. HA! I’ve been at ITF for nearly 6 weeks now and have yet to experience a typical day. Honestly, my job title of Administrative Assistant is not really accurate. We are thinking of new title options for me. But it doesn’t matter, my job is to be a servant – so I do whatever needs to be done. For the last couple of days that includes such glamorous tasks as sweeping, dusting, moving bedding, organizing a workmeri calendar, getting a package ready to mail, making a sign for a garbage can, packing up curriculum, and yesterday I was conscripted to the Poop Patrol. We have 15 German Shepherd security dogs on campus, and we have a youth retreat descending upon us this weekend, so needed to clean up poo. Yuck! But it had to be done, and a group of us worked together on it.

Here’s what today looked like (remember – not a “typical” day, but probably typical of what a day before a conference might look like):

6:15 am– rise & shine! Throw on my “dog clothes”, start a pot of coffee, take care of the 2 dogs in my charge, have some breakfast, devotion time, respond to a couple of emails

8:00 am(ish) – head down to “the circle” (of cabins). Heath & I are in charge of logistical mattress moving and getting the beds ready for the conference. Here I am moving a mattress:

Here I am trying to communicate with and instruct the workmeris about what needs to be done… in all pigin. GAH! This was good for me because it forced me to use the language in every day life. They loved it! They told me that now I am a real Pisin Meri.

After mattress moving, I headed to the classroom to clean the Media Room. It was SO GROSS in there! Everything was covered in dust, dead bugs and gecko poop. So I dusted, tidied up, and vacuumed. As you can see, the vacuum did not work extremely well... It’s only morning, and I’m already covered in dirt and sweat!

Here is Andy cleaning out the cobwebs in the classroom (I'm glad that I didn't have that job!)

12:00 pm – Lunch *sigh of relief*. Usually Beth, Andy & I have lunch together on Beth’s porch, but because of our schedule we are having supper together instead. I have an hour to eat and relax a little bit… I used most of it to chat on line with friends back home! :o)

1:00pm – It’s thundering and started raining. Good thing we got those mattresses all moved this morning! Made new phone directories to post all over campus. Worked on Generator, school run, on-call & phone schedule for next week. (it stopped raining by the time I had to distribute the new phone lists). Emailed the dentist at Lapilo (my friends the Tiedjes – who I met at PFO) to make an appointment for Andy who has a terrible toothache.

3:00pm – time for more manual labor… met Andy & Heath in the classroom to set up and clean 120 chairs for the conference. Then went back to the office to send out some more emails (follow up emails to the ITF alumni), and try to arrange the dentist appointment again. Sent out final schedule for approval

5:15 pm – took a nice hot shower and got all cleaned up! Had some quiet time and did some reading.

6:30 pm – dinner at Beth’s. We had pork stir fry and fresh mango for dessert. This is the first time I’ve had the mango here, and it is DELISH! Could the fruit here be any more tasty?!

7:30 pm – headed to the Mixter’s house to play games with them. They have us (Beth, Andy & I) over to play games about once a week or so. They’re a fun couple that are the same age as I am, with a little girl named Adonai. Earlier this evening, Adi came knocking on my door to show me a huge moth she caught. Very cute!

I have such a lovely PNG family.

And now I’m back in my hut and about to get ready for bed. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?! I know it will be something totally different (as far as job duties anyway). I’m pretty excited for the retreat this weekend. It will be nice to have so many people on campus, and to work with Youth again.

"In the Kingdom of God service is not a stepping-stone to nobility: it is nobility, the only kind of nobility that is recognized."