God must not be done with us...

After eating a lot of rice and top ramen all week we decided it was time to go on a little fishing expedition to see if we couldn't catch us something better to eat. We, along with Lazarus, Agus, and Nirmala fished the ocean and the pond/river nearby and then slept out on the beach under the stars. We didn't catch much, but it was an amazing expedition nonetheless.

First, we tried our hand at fishing the ocean. The boys propelled this log into the water for us to use as a boat out to the coral rocks where we fished from.
As you can see, the ocean was a little rough that day, which made things very interesting, and not very fruitful in the way of fishing.

The little black dots on the right are our heads as we were swimming out to the coral rocks. I will not include the story on my blog, because I don't want to hear the scolding, but I will say that I had an experience with the waves and the coral that would lead me to believe that God is not done with me yet.

Nirmala, Agus, Lazarus, me, and Joerg. We had a great time that night exchanging stories...funny ones, serious ones, testimonies, etc. It was a great night around the campfire.

And I have never in my life seen a sunset like there was that night. God is a brilliant artist. Could you have made anything this surreal?

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I titled this post, God must not be done with us, partly because of a few frightening moments I had in the ocean, but also because we later found out that the pond we were fishing in had crocodiles. Papua is full of all sorts of those kinds of surprises, but oh well...God must not be done with us yet.

Some random shots from SP...

We had a fantastic 2 weeks out at SP11. We worked hard, played hard, and had a great time doing it.

Dinner...need I say more?
Joerg drew this picture the first week we were in Indonesia, and when I filled my plate it was just too perfect.

Okay, so I did actually make to the clinic here this week. We were only there for a couple of hours, but within 30 minutes some guys brought in their friend that a tree had fallen on his head. I was able to jump right in and help, and I was glad to be back in action. I have not done too much in the way of nursing here this time. I do have quite a few pictures of me with the patient, but they are gory beyond reason. I am sure his skull was broken and there was just a little too much blood to post for the faint of heart.

A lot of our work has been on this school. It is right next to our house, and it is where I sleep at night. It is a kindergarten and they teach the kids Indonesian, English, and about God.

You may not be able to see it real well, but yes, Dan, for you, this kid is wearing a batman t-shirt.

Taigei (Part 2)

On the other side of the mountain from Taigei was the village of Tridaga, and this was our greeting when we arrived. A lot of people here have never seen a white person, or very few at best, so we pose for a lot of pictures on their cell phones, shake hands with lots of folks, hear lots of “goodbye misters”, and get lots of folks who just want to touch us.
We went out on the lake in this boat that was totally awesome. They drove us around the lake and at some point I asked Joerg where we were going and he said probably a 3 hour tour. I don’t know how many of you are up to date on your Gilligan’s Island, but their 3 hour tour didn’t work out so well, so I said that I hoped that that wasn’t the case. We did get caught in a storm out on the water and we were all so cold by the time we got back that we were numb…but our “3 hour tour” ended much better than theirs. A quick sit down by the fire and a hike back up over the mountain helped to warm us right up.

We did have another huge rain storm as we were coming down the last of the mountain which made the last of our trek a little treacherous and I have a pretty good scar to show for it. I fell off the last of the fences that we had to climb over…go figure. The rain also made for a really interesting journey out of Taigei the next day. Most of our trail was under at least a foot of water. That’s where this picture of Joerg hiking up his high waters came from.

After hiking to Taigei, over and down the mountain, over and down the mountain again, and hiking out from Taigei, we were unpleasantly surprised to find that our taxi had not come for us, so we started walking back to Manokwari. There aren’t a lot of cars out that way, so we didn’t have a lot of options. We ended up walking a good distance to the next village, where we did eventually meet up with a taxi to return us to town. PRAISE GOD. I was doing a lot of praying on that road. I really didn’t have much desire to walk all the way back to Manokwari…it would have taken a lot of endurance and I’m pretty sure my legs would have fallen off.

But because there aren’t many vehicles out there, as many people as possible piled in. You have to understand that this vehicle is one of those with the 2 front seats, the back seat and one of those squatty truck beds. At one point we counted 21 people on board, 7 inside, and 14 in the back. We were part of the 14. This is a picture of a Papuan seat belt…just hold on to the person in front of you. Seriously, the entire ring of guys that were sitting on the rim of the truck bed were all holding on to the guy on either side of them. It was pretty hilarious.

The missing photos from our time in Taigei...

Well, I know we sort of disappeared for a couple of weeks. We have been out at SP11 these last 2 weeks having a great time. But I have to start with our trip to Taigei. As you might remember, I left my camera in the taxi after our trip, and by a miracle of God, I got it back. So here are some photos from our trip to Taigei.

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Taigei is up in the mountains and it is actually cold there. We left the house here in Manokwari at 3am and took a taxi to the end of the road and then hiked another 2 hours onto Taigei. It was 6am, 52 degrees, and we were barefoot in the mud…it was COLD. There is apparently no middle ground here temperature wise.

First off… I have heard several comments about going barefoot here, but YOU try hiking in this in flip-flops and then we can talk. Believe me, I’m a sissy little white girl with sissy white girl feet, and if I could have kept up with the boys in my flip-flops…I would have, but it was too slippery to do anything but kick off the sandals and suck it up.
This is Joerg, Hengki, Lazarus, and Agus. It was a weekend with the boys. For a girl with no brothers, it has been interesting learning to live with these guys the last few weeks.

Taigei is beautiful. In some ways it reminded me of a little bit of home. All of the mountains, a little drop in temperature, and their main staple food there is potatoes (YEA!!!!). And, to top it off we had piles of pineapples. I loved Taigei. It is a beautiful place with very friendly people.

The second day in Taigei we hiked over the mountain to the lake on the other side. I liked this picture because it gave a little perspective to the incline of the mountain. I was a little slower than the boys, but I did alright for hiking that sucker barefoot.

This is looking back over the village of Taigei from the mountain. It is always awesome to hit the summit of any mountain, but it was awesome reaching the summit of the mountain that day…I think for me it was reaching a summit of my time here in Papua. The start is always hard. But, we are finally hitting a place with our language where we are able to joke around with them and lead them in devotions. It’s still not pretty to listen to for sure, and we are definitely still playing charades with them, but we really are able to talk with them, and that has been huge.

This will be brief...

Thanks to everyone for your prayers. I did get my camera back! I will hopefully be able to post pictures tomorrow, but for now you'll have to settle for the quick update. We have been out at SP11 for the last 2 weeks, and have had a fantastic time. We did a lot of projects there the last 2 weeks...most of which ended up with me wearing a lot of paint. We also went fishing and spent the night on the beach with some of our friends here. Plans have changed since the bombing in Jakarta, and Ron will not be coming, so we are still waiting to hear what the next couple of weeks will hold for us hear. I will post more later. Love, Jen

Taigei

I'm sorry that this post will not include any photos, my camera was a casualty of our trip and I am currently trying to get it back from the taxi it was left in.

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We had a great trip out to Taigei this last weekend. We left Manokwari at 3am (I was not too thrilled ) and from here it is a 4 hour drive up into the mountains to the taxi stopping point. From there it is another 2 hour hike to the village of Taigei. Because the mud is knee deep at times, and because we only had flip-flops (long story) we hiked those 2 hours barefoot. Taigei is up in the mountains so it was only 50 degrees when we were hiking which was refreshing after the heat of Manokwari, but made for some really numb barefoot hiking.

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The next morning we headed out from Taigei to hike over the mountain to the lake and the village of Tridaga. I also scaled this mountain barefooted which was a little less pleasant because it was definitely a little more rocky, but flip flops were way too slippery for the steep incline, so in the long run I went with cut feet over a broken neck and I think it was a good choice. The lake was beautiful and it was a very good time with the Sol people, Hengki, Agus, and Lazarus. We swam in the cold lake and went out on the boat and got rained on...it was just like Idaho.

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It was really a highlight of my time here and I have lots of pictures if we can get my camera back. I hope to be able to share more with you later, but we are leaving for SP11 in about 2 hours so I will have to post more later. In Christ, Jen

And the world spins madly on...

I realize this picture got a little small in adding it to the blog. But, for those of you who are wondering where exactly in Papua we are at I found this poster in Edy's office. Manokwari and SP11 are both in the big yellow spot on the "bird's head" of Papua. (SP11 is on the left of the spot, and Manokwari the far right of it, they are about 2.5 hours apart by bus.)
This is Helmi (another of the bible students from Jakarta) she fell asleep on my shoulder on the bus on the way back from SP11.

Clearly, I am not exciting because the next morning this is Joerg falling over in the car next to me. I cannot believe that he slept through that journey...our taxi driver was crazy. He did comment when he woke up that if we were going to die on this trip that that ride was probably how we we were going to go.

Sunday was not for the faint of heart. We were woken up at 5am to be at the church in Manokwari for a "prayer" service at 6am. The prayer is in quotations because, everything here is so formal that they don't just have a prayer and finish. We had worship, prayer, offering, a condensed sermon, more worhip, and more prayer. From there, we drove out to Wariori, which is another area that YMP3 ministers in (about halfway out to SP11). Every now and again, their churches join together to share a service together, so we went to church a second time. This church has indoor and outdoor seating and we sat in the nosebleed section outside. The service was 3 hours long and there wasn't an ounce of wind. I had a thermometer on my clock and it held at an even 97 degrees for those three hours. Church here is about survival of the fittest.

Actually, Sunday was all sorts of different things for me, from the ridiculousness of riding in a death taxi out to fry in the sun, to some more real moments. There are some truly genuine people here that will be gathered together with us some day in God's presence, and I was really struck by that as I watched believers from Manokwari, together with those from Wariori praising the name of God.

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But a really special moment occurred for me that night back at the house. We often have devotions and Edy asked me if I wanted to share what was on my heart. That night, what was on my heart was Honduras. As you all have probably heard, the Honduran government was overthrown last week and there is a lot of uncertainty and unrest right now. It fell right before the USA celebrated their independence day, and right before presidential elections here in Indonesia. I was reminded of Isaiah 40 when God says that the nations are like a drop in the bucket. We often rely on nations and governments as things that are sure and certain, but ONLY God is sure and certain. It was awesome being able to express something real with them, and of course there was a little victory too in knowing enough Indonesian to really communicate my heart. They have a tradition of praying at the same time out loud at the end of devotions and listening to Indonesians praying for my friends at the clinic in Honduras half a world away was something awesome that I can't even express.

A work in progress...

Well, aside from our hike up the mountain and another journey to the beach, we have also kept ourselves busy this week building a fence at the school next to our house.

Joerg, Agus, and Lazarus went out and brought back big bamboo poles for us to make the fence with. Agus and Lazarus are 2 students from a bibleschool in Jakarta that were with us these last two weeks.
This is Agus and Joerg shaving the outer layer of bamboo off before we added it to the fence.

This is me also shaving the green outer layer off. You cannot tell, but I am using scissors since we ran out of knives.

This is one section of the fence.

And here you can tell a little bit fo the work that we have already finished, but it's still a work in progress.

Hiking to nowhere...

We took another side trip this Friday out to Wamnowi and went hiking.

I'm not sure how much I've commented on the Papuan sense of time, but as it stands here communication (especially with those of us still learning the lingo) of things and timing of said things does not appear to be very highly valued. Let me explain how plans work here: Originally we were going to hike to Kaibar and it was not far. Then, it was far and too expensive, so we changed our plans to go to Wamnowi with Martinus instead. We were going to leave on Monday, hike out to Wamnowi and come back in on Tuesday. On Monday we found out that Martinus was not at SP11 so we decided to go maybe Thursday or Friday or maybe not at all. Thursday night Martinus returns and tells us that we are going Friday morning. The next morning we take a truck and drive to the bottom of a mountain. After an hour or two of hiking, I am talking to one of the kids and learn that we actually passed the village of Wamnowi in the truck and we are actually on a hike up the side of a mountain to apparently nowhere. We were so tired after our journey to nowhere that instead of staying the night in Wamnowi we ended up heading back to SP11. That is how plans go around here, you learn to roll with it or your brain will explode.

This picture is a side note. I have had some of the most ridiculous heat rashes since I have been here. This particular one was everywhere and this picture does not quite do it justice. I ended up benadryl-ing myself into a stupor. It was the only way to go.
Okay, back to my journery to nowhere. I thought you all would appreciate the integrity of the bridges here. Keep in mind that we are riding in the back of a dump truck. You're in quite a pickle if you don't line your tires up right.

This is at least hour 2-3 of our hike. We were a little toasty at that point. The Indonesian way to deal with sun/heat is to wear long pants, long sleeve shirts, hats, and towels...I totally don't get it.

This little buddy of mine stuck with me on the trail for a good minute or two. He kept landing on me and I couldn't quite seem to shake him off my armpit, so instead I captured the moment. I must have smelled like a pretty daisy after all that hiking.

Dinner Guests

I know there have been a lot of blog posts about the food here, but honestly, it's for good reason.

This is a picture of Joerg trying the intestines of a chicken. To date I think that we have had intestines, liver, brain, wings, and eyeballs of various meats and we have eaten cow, chicken, fish, goat, bats, chicken balls (whatever those are), tofu, and dog. What will they think up next? We are pretty sure that if it is in anyway edible, they eat it here. We will be walking home from the beach along the side of the rode and they will pick what seriously looks like weeds to me, and when we ask them they say it's vegetables.
This guy is sitting on the bench next to Joerg, he stopped by during dinner.

Joerg and I have been content to live off their cuisine, but also thought that it couldn't hurt to share some of ours with them. This is Joerg making doughnuts. We have also made fish tacos, pizza, and steak for them. A cow died in the field near here so Joerg helped them butcher it and we made some killer steaks on the fire here in the house. It was the best meal I've had in ages.

I don't know what you do with your toddler when he might wander off at the beach, but here they half bury the kid in the sand.

I met this lady here on the beach. People at the beach always want to have their picture taken with Joerg and I. I think they might be pretty disappointed when they find out we aren't famous, but oh well. I actually talked to this lady quite a bit. She is from Timor and was just visiting family here for 2 weeks, but I was able to share with her that I knew Jesus and was here learning the language.