Very Crazy Week

Dear Friends, Family and Fellow Prayer Warriors,

This week has been very crazy. Last time I sent out a solid email was two weeks ago. I say solid because last week i went out an email, but i’m not sure if any of you got it. Hotmail decided to change a couple of vital settings on their server which made it impossible to send emails from the Mail program on my computer. last week i spent hours and hours in various internet cafes trying to send emails. i tried different connections, different times of day. Nothing worked. well long story short, I called Apple and they helped me reconfigure everything. It works now. thanks alot Hotmail for this very stressful adventure.

First off I want to say thank you to the group at Jericho Road who is praying for me RIGHT NOW! Its cool thinking of all of you right now praying for me. What a great example of what the BODY of Christ should be. i tell people about my church from america. I LOVE telling them that “church” is not a kata benda but a kata kerja. these words mean noun and verb but i like the literal better. ”Church” is not a “thing word.” Its an “activity word.” Praise God that I have a body of believers that not only believe this as all Christians should, but a body that DOES it. I love you all at Jericho. For all you who do not know about our church, this may give you some insight into the congregation. Today, Sunday the 14th, my “church” is not at “church.” Instead they find it important and even fun to GO and BE the church once a month. So today and yesterday they have been going out into the community and meeting needs of people in the name of Jesus Christ, the suffering servant. There is a group of people right now who are meeting a very important need right now. They are meeting in Kevin’s house and praying for Ari, Ace, Ari’s baby in the belly, and me. Thank you Jericho Road.

So like i said, this week has been crazy. Last Sunday was a fun day. Some village kids and I went out to make a sling shot and catch birds and crayfish. Church was a bummer bummer because the pastors were over an hour and a half late for church. We didn’t wait. Really made me miss Jericho. Well Monday came and started the craziness. After eating breakfast with Ari and Ace I met a friend outside named Nas. I asked him what he was doing for the day and he said he was driving into Wamena. Immediately a lightbulb appeared above my head. I had a brilliant idea that i would go with him and take Ace to give Ari a day off from rowdy boys. When i say rowdy boys I am referring to Ace and me but also to the legion of Papuan children that follow Ace and me. Also, i decided i could get alot done on internet in Wamena. I ran inside to present the idea to Ari and she agreed and the boys of the house were out in 30 minutes off to Wamena. The drive in was great. I drove the truck which doubles as a taxi to help pay for gas. I can now put “Papuan Countryside Taxi Driver” on all my future job applications. HAHA If I do this the Indonesian government will hunt me down for “working” illegally in their country. Ill be blacklisted for sure. ha. So the drive was great. I spent great quality time with Nas, a teacher at Netaiken. He is such a good friend to me. We mess with each other all the time. Its is SOSOSOSO refreshing to be insulted in a loving way by a Papuan. So far i have only had two types of interactions from Papuans. The first is “Your white and you have stuff, I love you! Be my friend!!!” and the other is, “your a westerner and I dont like you so i wont talk to you.” I get MUCH MUCH more of the first than the second. Nas is a real friend for me. Last time Nas and I drove to wamena, the car broke down in the middle of nowhere. This time it broke down again, but in the city. Praise God. Being in wamena was like running a short distance sprint while carrying a toddler who doesn’t want to be carried. I had more things to do than i had time for. AND i had Ace. I appreciate Ari in a new way now. She is a great mom. So i dont need to get into details because i already said this at the top. Wamena was stressful. I came with things to do and i got nothing done.

I came back from Wamena very emotionally tired. I was wired from driving home in the dark. driving to Pyramid in the dark makes Lakeshore Drive pot holes feel like a newly paved sidewalk. Its bad. I jumped right back into classed. They are still hard for us. I have no idea how to prepare a lesson from scratch. theres no internet so i can’t research during the week and my weekends in Wamena are PACKED. I wake up every morning thinking, ” Hmmmm, what should we do in class today.” In high school I was a TA(teachers assistant) for Matt Dominguez. I helped him and saw how he did things but i didn’t learn HOW to teach. This is a whole new ball game for me. One homework assignment Ari gave the students was to write a story using pronouns. One student wrote a story about how much the class appreciates Air and me. Ari cried when she read it and it touched my heart as well. Whether this was true about the whole class or not, she made it clear it was true of her. I know that we are not teachers and we are not here for long, but its nice to know when someone appreciates us. We cant change Papua or even a Papuan in a month, but maybe we can nudge them in a good direction.

We are really connecting with the students. We love them so much. I told a student that i liked him the other day and later during the growth group meeting he shared how much that meant to him. He said that no one has ever said anything like that to him. His family and friends never affirmed him. To hear that a guy all the way around the world not only loves him, but LIKES him! I call myself a Christian and Christians should love one another, but liking someone is different. God calls us to love our enemies but im not sure if He commands us to LIKE them as well. Its hard to like someone while they are causing you to suffer. I didn’t know it at the time, but that comment has opened a door into this students life and has produced a relation that is richer and deeper than it was before i said it. This is one example of many. We love it here. Everyday the students ask us when we are going to leave and everyday I find myself adding days to our departure back to Sentani.

One upsetting thing in my life (pat) for this week has been my relationship with the village kids. All week there were only two kids who came and wanted to spend time with me. I asked them on Wed if everything was ok and they didn’t know why. On Friday Melison had a story. He told me that on thursday, Opiar killed a huge bird and they all wanted to eat it. Melison said,” Why dont we take it to show pat and he can eat it with us?” Opiar responded with a vulgar and offensive comment about me. Melison asked if he was mad and several kids answered yes. OK, so there are three possible truths here. 1. Melison and Mikel lied to me so i would like them better than the other kids. 2. Melison or mikel told the kids a lie about me and made them hate me, again, so i could pick them to be my favorites. 3. I did something unknowingly to offend them and thus palang or block in our relationship. Friday night i went outside to get something and i noticed ONE keen (hiking shoe/sandal) was missing. I couldn’t help but replay the dozens of comments i get from kids daily about how nice my shoe would be for making the leather strap in slingshots. This has been hard for me. I cant get far without those keens and they have served me well for almost three years. Pray that God gives me wisdom in this situation. I need it.

Our plans are to stay at Netaiken for another 3-4 weeks. we were planning on going back to sentani in one week but we aren’t done yet. Next week on saturday i am hiking down to the Balim River with my growth group. there we will “make fun.” Im wondering what this means because when i ask what they do to have fun at the Balim River, they dodge my question. Its either because they don’t understand what i am saying or because they are plotting evil against me, like surprising me and throwing me into the freezing cold water. We will have to see. Either way, I will absolutely love it. After that we Ari, Ace and I hope to go to Bokendini to visit Ari’s Uncle Scotty and his family. He is starting a school very similar to Papua Harapan but done VERY differently. It will be good for us to see these two different methods. We both love and respect Scotty and his wife Heidi. They have been influenced us alot in our decisions since we have been married. I here the roaches are bad there. Im a little scared. We both hate roaches. haha.

In addition to everything above, please pray for our health. Ace has bad diarrhea. He also isnt getting enough vitamin C and Protein. We bought some things this weekend to help with that but please pray for him. He is SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSO happy here. You wouldn’t know he is sick unless you change his diapers. we have so much great video but we cant upload it because of internet. You all will have to wait 2 months. Ari is feeling sick alot. Partly because she really is sick and partly because she is pregnant. Also, her malaria medicine makes her throw up. Pray for that to be easier. Its very important for her to take. Also keep praying for my foot. Im off crutches HALLELUJAH!!! My foot is week, please pray for strength.

Thank you all for keeping up with our trip. We really feel your prayers. I keep saying this again and again only because it is made truer and truer each week. This will be a hard place to leave.

I hope this email gets through!!!!,

Pat

Below the pictures is a list of photo albums. they are all public so you can see the pictures even if you dont have facebook. Enjoy