More Hawaii

If you haven't caught on, we really enjoyed our time in Hawaii.  Here's a little more about our time there.

Speaking at kid's camp.

On the first Tuesday we spoke at kid's camp.  We had a beautiful drive across the south part of Oahu to the camp, then had a very fun time speaking to the kids.  The highlight for them was when we dressed one of the young pastors in PNG clothes.  They didn't care that every item he was wearing was from a different region.

Waves on the North coast of Oahu

We went back via a different route along the north coast.  It was a windy day with a very high surf, so we stopped several times to take pictures of the spectacular waves.

Waikiki in the dark!

 

 

 

The only time we could find to go to Waikiki Beach was late one afternoon.  By the time we got there it was dark.  Oh, well.  We had a great time walking along all the stores and the people in the area.  That's our hosts Al and Linda, along with Judy.

I'll try to do one more Hawaii post before moving on to CANADA!

AB

Catchup. Not ketchup.

As promised, I'm going to try to catch up on our travels and deputation.

We took a route home that we've never tried before; from PNG to the Solomon Islands to Fiji to Hawaii.  We did 2 weeks of deputation in Hawaii before travelling on to Idaho and our family.

Scott and Olivia Dooley

The Dooleys took us to the airport.  This is Scott and Olivia.  We successfully avoided overweight charges, got checked in and away to Port Moresby without too much stress.  We spent the night in Pt. Moresby, staying at Mapang Missionary Home.  Early Sunday morning we left for the Solomon Islands.

Airport in Honiara, Solomon Islands

This is our only evidence that we were ever in the Solomons, and not very good evidence, since you probably can't read the sign.  We didn't go through Immigration (so we don't have stamp in our passports), just got off the plane, went through security, waited a few minutes then got back on the Air Niugini flight.

Singers in the Nadi (pronounced "nandi" if you care), Fiji, airport.

This is our only evidence of ever having been in Fiji.  We just went through as transit passengers, so still didn't get our passports stamped.  These young men were there in the airport playing and singing Fijian music for the people waiting in the line for the transfer desk.  After a while I guessed that they were singing Christian songs, based on the fact that some were to familiar hymn tunes.  As I sang along in English I made eye contact with the guitar player, who smiled.  When they finished, he came over, shook my hand and introduced himself.  He confirmed that they were, indeed, Christians, and were from a church there.  What a delightful break in the boredom of standing in line.

Judy with happy little kids at the Living Waters Church of the Nazarene

Even thought it was Sunday morning when we left PNG, we crossed the International Date Line, so it was Sunday morning again when we arrived in Hawaii.  Well, missionaries doing deputation can't waste a Sunday morning, so we got off the plane at 7:30 AM, and were speaking in a church at 12:00! 

This was in a delightful church plant called Living Waters Church of the Nazarene.  They meet at noon, because that's the only time they can get time in the school where they meet (apparently 6 or 7 church groups meet at this school).  They are effective in ministry and evangelism--a significant number in the church are homeless, and many are new believers.  The pastor is R.J. Strickland.  He and his wife were both music majors at NNU, and have a great ministry in teaching music lessons.  In fact, one of the requirements for being in the worship band is taking weekly lessons. 

We don't have any pictures of us speaking there, but we weren't too alert by then.  We were thankful to go to the house where we were staying and take a nap!

More about Hawaii soon!

AB

Update and apology!

OK.  I see how long it's been since I blogged last.  I'm ashamed.  I have lots of excuses, but they probably aren't very interesting to any of you.  Suffice it to say that as we got closer and closer to home assignment time, the harder it got to sit down and do it.  Plus, the internet trouble we've been having at Kudjip made it hard.

Photographic proof that we were in Hawaii.

Well, we are now on home assignment.  We left Kudjip March 12, and flew to Port Moresby, Solomon Islands, Fiji and Hawaii.  We spent about 2 weeks in Hawaii, speaking 10 times--in churches, on the radio, in a preschool, at Bible Studies, and doing a just a litle bit of touristy stuff.  We left there this past Monday evening, flew overnight to Phoenix (no, I don't understand airlines) and on to Boise, arriving Tuesday afternoon.

At the radio station with Pastor Rick Ragle

We have had a few precious hours with Amy and Sam, and with other family.  This morning we spoke in chapel at Northwest Nazarene University.  Tomorrow we will speak to a class (if I can finish this, and organize what we are going to do).  Then Friday we leave for Spanaway, Washington to spend a few hours with Drew and Andrea (our son and daughter-in-law) and then on Saturday we will head to British Columbia for a 2-week district tour.

My assumption is that we will have some free hours while we are in BC, and I can blog in more detail about some of our adventures along the way.

Here's our schedule for BC:
April 3 - Surrey (Guildford) - am,  Abbotsford - pm
April 4 - OFF
April 5 - Langley (Living Hope)
April 6 - Betel/Primera (Spanish Congregations together - location to be determined)
April 7 - Vancouver
April 8 - Burnaby (Como Lake)
April 9 - OFF
April 10 - Kelowna - am, Penticton - pm
April 11 - OFF
April 12 - OFF
April 13 - Nanaimo
April 14 - Port Alberni (Southside Community)
April 15 - Duncan (Cowichan Valley)
April 16 - Esquimalt (9:30 am breakfast meeting)
April 17 - Victoria - am

AB

Letter to a Medical Student

Photo explanation below!

Just this evening  I answered an email from a medical student who wants to come to Kudjip for an elective rotation.  He also asked me for what advice I might have for a Christian medical student in his first year of study.  He said that any advice would be appreciated!  By now, he may be regretting saying that.

Well, at first I didn't think I had any advice, but I thought it was important enough that I should try.  So I started typing.  As I went along, I found that I was sharing some of my strongest beliefs about missions.  When it was all done I was a bit surprised at it. I thought maybe I should share it with a wider group of friends.  I'll edit it a bit for you folks, but other than that, here's what I told him:


Dear _____ :

Thanks so much for your interest in our ministry here in Kudjip.

We need to start planning for you to come here... in your fourth year (or possibly late 3rd)....  We should get you on our schedule as soon as possible, as some students plan 2 or more years in advance.

My main advice for you is to put your spiritual life first all the time.  A medical missionary who is not in the center of God's will is useless, however well-meaning he might be.  God's will first--if that is to be a missionary, don't even think about being anything else.  If not, then don't even think about becoming a missionary.  If God is calling you to be a missionary, then make up your mind now that that will be your life's work until such time as God clearly directs differently.  Don't approach it as "I'll try this out, and if it doesn't work, I'll try something else."  If God calls you to something else, don't feel like that is second-best.  His will is always first-best!

I notice that you said "I am interested in going to the mission feild full-time at some point in my life time."  Interest is a great thing!  But I also noticed you said, "I can [here he listed a couple of other options] or go into missions."  That make me think that at this time you don't have a clear call to missions.  That's OK for now, but if that call does not come, scratch the "go into missions" off your list.  Pray earnestly that God will make it clear.  A rotation at a mission hospital can be a valuable thing.  It can help you understand more about missions.  Sometimes God uses an experience like that to make his will clear.  But by itself it shouldn't be the determining factor in the decision--God's call should be!

I'll boldly barge on into one of the biggest implications of a divine call--romance and marriage.  I don't know how many missionary careers have been scuttled by unwise choices in this area.  If God is calling you to be a missionary, and calling you to be married, you don't have to be the one to work it out--God will lead you to the right woman.  His will in one area of your life will never conflict with his will in any other part of your life.  So if God is calling you to be a missionary, don't even consider going out with a girl who is not called to be a missionary.  Sometimes you hear a story of a spouse who does not feel called to be a missionary, but is willing to be married to one, and says "where you go, I will go".  Maybe that's OK in some cases, but I believe that it is not enough.  When times get hard, if your wife is not convinced to the bottom of her heard that she is under divine mandate to be a missionary, things could fall apart.  It happens all the time.  The wife of our mentor couple told us, "there will be times that your call is all you have."*  (This was a plural "your", as she was speaking to me and my wife.)  If you and your wife don't share that conviction, either your missionary careers or your marriage or both could be in danger.

Well, I didn't realize that I had so much advice to share, and I rambled on longer than I intended to!  Oh, well.  I trust that it will help you on your journey.

If you are interested in some of the day-to-day events or our life, you might be interested in our blog at http://day-in-paradise.blogspot.com/.  In the side-bar there is a blog roll of the blogs of several of the other missionaries here, including some of the docs.

Yours and His,
Andy

About the picture:  All advice given to missionaries about their blog says to include lots of colorful photos, and if I don't put in a picture this will the the third pictureless post in a row, and that would be a bad thing, so here is a cute young mom and her cute little baby with a quizzical expression in it's cute little face.

*  That statement was from Mima Hughes.  She and her husband Ted were missionaries in several Latin American countries, as well as among Cuban refugees in Miami.

Hospital Open

Friends:

I wanted you all to know that the hospital opened this morning at about 11:00.  Things are pretty slow until word gets around that we are open.

The situation is not ideal yet, but enough has been resolved that the staff feels safe going to and from work.  Sister Josina, the nurse who was attacked is doing as well as can be expected.  We expect her to regain full use of her hand.

Thank you all for your prayers.

AB

Pray for Nazarene Hospital

At the moment, the hospital is temporarily closed.  The following is from our security committee:

"Please pray for the Nazarene Hospital as  our  administrative team and the village leaders liaison group are meeting daily to work on issues resulting from one of our national nursing staff being assaulted on our mission station. The nurse is in good condition and is being treated as an outpatient now. The hospital is closed to new admissions and to outpatients until some resolution is reached."

I really want to emphasize to everyone that no missionary is in, nor has been in danger.  We are just doing what we need to do to insure that the hospital is safe for ALL of our staff.

Thanks for your prayers.

AB

Christmas at Tumba

Just when many of you are putting away your Christmas decorations, I'm going to post one more Christmas blog.

The morning after Christmas ("Boxing Day" throughout the British-influenced world) Judy and I, along with Stephen Snell, an American Family Practice resident, drove up to the village of Tumba, to worship with our friends there.  The Tumba Church of the Nazarene is co-pastored by husband and wife Elis and Kopi.   The service that morning featured a big "drama", a term applied to any skit or play.  

The folks here often have a drama as part of a special service.  We've seen reenactments of the arrival of the first missionaries, the early days of the hospital, or scenarios depicting the consequences of sinful living.  Costumes and props are improvised, and usually simple.  Makeup is sometimes used to a limited extent.  This drama was the entire Christmas story.

 

 Pastor Elis greeting Stephen with a big hug.

 This dear, faithful lady can't stand upright, and needs her stick to walk.  Little things like that don't keep her from worship, nor from participating in the life of the church, as we'll see below.

 Since they were expecting us, they had prepared a formal greeting, as befits the arrival of anyone so important as a doctor or a missionary or a visitor from America.  And our group included 2 doctors, 3 missionaries, and 3 visitors from America!

 Pastor Kopi and the folks singing "You are from the USA, we are from PNG, but God unites under the cross".

 All the churches decorate their sanctuaries with flowers, fruit, vegetables and greens every Sunday, but Tumba usually is a bit more elaborate, and at Christmas time goes over the top.

  If you look closely, you'll see candles placed along the edge of this display, quite close to some of the greenery.  I needn't have worried.  As soon as the leaves caught fire, a young boy ran up to put them out.  He wisely blew out the other candles as well.

 It's almost time to start, and almost half of the people have already arrived.  The level of excitement was.... Well, I can't think of anything very funny.  I'll just say that a lot more people arrived eventually.  Notice the little guy in the isle.  He was cute and I wanted to be his friend.  After all, I'm trying to refine my Grandpa skills.

 He was clearly not interested in having me practice on him.  Big white guys are pretty scary!

 This was the day that the people brought gifts for their pastors.  I'm not sure that most of the churches do this, but I was happy to see it, as Elis and Kopi give and work sacrificially, and don't receive much in the way of cash salary.  One of the gifts was the mattress.  You'll also notice pillows and a blanket.

 The time for the drama has arrived!  Pastor Kopi draws back the curtain to reveal the stable.  It is made out of leafy branches, and is decorated with a small (insert dramatic pause and drumroll here)...

  MANGER SCENE.  It's a simple little one that Judy bought in a yard sale in the US several years ago, and gave to Pastor Elis as a gift.  They have used it as some part of the decorations in the church ever since.

 The drama begins with Mary.

 The angel Gabriel (and a few of his friends) come to tell Mary what's coming up.

 Mary is, of course, surprised and a bit alarmed at the news that she will be pregnant.

 Angels, apparently, have pale white faces.

 Joseph, meanwhile, is snoozing over by the left wall on a bench by his dad.  It's his turn to have a visit from Gabriel.  He's upset by the pregnancy news, but resolves to make the best of things and obey the angel's instructions.

 So M&J talk it over, and decide to go ahead with things.

 I have always wondered what Caesar Augustus looked like.  This is one idea.  I'm not entirely sure that I buy into this particular artistic vision, but it's interesting.  I don't know why I don't have a full-face shot of him.  Pretty intimidating, if you ask me.  If he told me to go to my "as ples" (home town) and "raitim nem" (sign my name), I probably would.  Apparently M&J don't see any reason to resist.

 So they head out to Bethlehem (not on a donkey, which isn't biblical anyway), only to find each of several inns have no vacancy.  Every one of the inn keepers looked a lot like Pastor Elis.  Mary is in the throes of labor, as you can tell.

 Finally, one of the inn keepers (who again looks like Elis) offers a "rabis haus" (garbage house), full of the smell of feces and urine of the animals.  Joseph seems to think that this is the best offer he's likely to come across, and books the stable.  The happy couple disappear into the leafy bower.

 Meanwhile, there were in that country, in the back corner of the church, shepherds watching over their flocks.  They in turn get their visit from Gabriel and company.  They head straight to Bethlehem.

 

 There are several new things that I learned about shepherds.  One is that they have a penchant for wearing leafy branches on their heads.  Also, since there are more female actors available than male, many shepherds have to have painted-on beards.

 

 My flash wouldn't cycle fast enough for me to get a good shot of this particular shepherd, but he was played by the same hunched-over little old lady that I included a picture of at the beginning of this post.  She looked like she was having a lot of fun being a shepherd.

 Now, of course, it's time for Herod to do his bit.  This was clearly the award-winning performance of this production.

 Herod was escorted by his soldiers.  Scary soldiers.  I wouldn't want to tangle with either one of them!

 King H awaits his audience with the wise men...

who are on their way, following the star.

  The star was rigged on a pulley system so that it could be advanced along a string overhead to lead the wise ones to the stable.  We won't get into the details of what is strictly biblical here.

 Great crowns, eh?

 The star pauses while the wise men meet with Herod, who is quite distressed about the prospect of a competing king.

 Herod consults his own wise men, and decides to send the 3 from the East on their star-following way, with instructions to return with detailed intelligence.

 The star leads them faithfully on their way.

 Herod, meanwhile, broods while he awaits their return, muttering about his feelings in regard to a baby king being born in his territory.  Even as he does, the wise men sneak out the back door of the stable, circle around the back way, and escape stage left.

 Finally, old Hal realizes that he was been tricked, and explodes with rage.  It scared my right off my bench!

 Gabriel and company make one last visit to warn M&J...

 who in turn sneak out the back door of the stable, circle around the back way...

 and head to Egypt with the baby Jesus.  As a blow for biblical authenticity, this kid is about the size that Jesus probably was when they headed out.

 And the cast gathers for a curtain call and a closing song.  Herod, as it turns out, is quite a good guitar player!

 After the service, they passed out gifts to children who had attended Sunday School and Children's church faithfully throughout 2010.  The gifts that the largest group received were just cups--simple drinking mugs.  But that is a pretty nice gift.  Someone had to come up with the money, go all the way to Hagen, buy all the cups, bring them home, and wrap them.  This church is strongly committed to ministry to the children.

This little friend, so scared of me at the beginning, played his part as baby Jesus, and then watched, not too patiently, as his friends and siblings went up and collected their presents.  He cried, and tried to go up several times.  When his name was finally called, he zipped up to claim his prize.  He was much happier than he looks in this picture.

 The Kopi family--Michael, John, Kopi, James
Agnes and Elis.

They lost little Nensol to meningitis about 3 years ago

On our way back to Kudjip, we stopped for Stephen to photograph scenery, and asked a passerby to take a picture of the three of us.  Stephen is a fine young doctor whom the Lord is calling into a life in medical missions.

A late Merry Christmas, and a not-quite-so-late Happy New year to all of you.  May the Lord bless and guide each of you in 2011!