This week has been both wonderful and challenging.  We are learning a lot about doing ministry and investing time in our family and marriage. It’s really exciting and hard and we love it.

We have been helping out in the classrooms: speaking english and helping them practice pronouncing things that sound the same, like “LOVE” “LAUGH” and “LOAF.” As funny as it is to hear Papuans say, “I am in loaf with her” they really want to learn english as fluently as possible, and we’re the best candidates to do that up here. All of the teachers are teaching english as a second language, with english BEING their second language. Though they’re doing great, it is still easier for a native speaker to hear what sounds right with pronunciation and sentence structure.

Yeah. We’re doing great. We love it in the mountains. Every day after class, we eat lunch as a school and then everyone goes off to do their afternoon chores. Cutting the lawn, working in the vegetable gardens, finding rabbit food (rabbits are for food and income, not cute cuddly pets) washing dishes, preparing for dinner and cutting firewood are some of the chores they all do. Sometimes we help out but on the days that we can’t participate, Pat has made friends with the local village kids and they have come up with many things to do together. The last three days they spent making a crayfish trap out of bamboo and mesh and plastic string. The kids LOVE him and he loves them. He comes in for dinner after spending all afternoon with the kids breathless and wired from having his “extrovert batteries” charged. He is really great at being their friend and not letting them get away with bad attitudes or unfair playing. In a very male-dominated society, Pat is teaching these boys to be “gentlemen.” Instead of pushing the girls out of the way when looking at pictures on the computer, Pat makes the boys make room for them and speak politely. Instead of rushing ahead of an old woman burdened with produce from her garden, Pat makes the boys help her up the hill and step out of the way politely as she passes on the narrow trails. They bring him offerings of different jungle delicacies. Water lizards (Werer), cicadas, spiders, creek shrimps, all kinds of jungle fruits. Maybe some of you have seen the pictures, Ace and Pat both thoroughly enjoy these.

Ari spends her afternoons with the girl students. There are about 60 students total. Only 9 are girls; Elizabeth, Annie, Yati, Jane, Eriana (Rina), Fenny, Yorina, Novita, Mia and Nilam is the wife of one of the 3rd year students. It’s great to connect and make relationship with them. Most highland Papuan girls are expected to be wives, mothers, pig raisers, garden makers and harvesters. So when girls have the opportunity to be educated, it opens many doors for them. They ask questions, they have dreams, they expect to marry educated men and raise educated children… I love talking with them. I’ve also been connecting with old friends. Or, more like my old friends’ younger siblings. Lots of my girl friends are married and have their own kids, most live in the city or other villages with their husbands. Almost all of my boy friends are gone to live in the city. Many have died-from AIDS, from being involved with the freedom movement. It is humbling to think of all of these little kids-siblings of my friends-growing up and possibly coming to the same fate as their older siblings. Where is the hope? Getting teachers to stay in schools to teach these kids to give them a chance at the future is a start. Maybe this could be OUR future; giving these kids opportunities or at least choices to make.

Ace is doing really well. He’s pretty tolerant of people pinching him and goggling at him. In Indonesian, there’s a word that they use: “gemas.” Gemas is a noun-cute and a verb-pinch on and kiss, in English we say “i’m gonna get you” in Indonesian the closest equivalent is “i’m gonna gemas you.” He loves the freedom he has up here. He can walk out into the yard and go where ever he wants and climb on anything and the local kids are always present to entertain him and comfort him incase he falls or decides to wander a little too far. Ha! I was commenting to someone how bored he’ll be in America because he doesn’t get this kind of freedom or attention in the US. He is as fascinated with the local fauna as his father is. The lizards, the bugs, the dogs the goats and pigs… The Dani family dwelling is built in a semi-confined area with a central “kitchen” for everyone to use. The pigs are kept in the kitchen building at night and fed. We were visiting a friends house around dusk when all the pigs were returning from their foraging. Ace was exhilarated! He squirmed in my arms wanting to be down on the ground with the pigs… until they started squealing to remind us that they were hungry. That kinda freaked him out. All the way home he pointed at pigs in the distance and imitating their squeals, “wrhee, wrhee, wrhee…”   We went to church this morning, (sunday) and unfortunatly the pastors did not show up.  we didnt stay too long but it sure made us thankfull for our home church, jericho road.  Thanks Jericho for being who you are.  My heart continues to break for these kids im meeting (This is pat now).  i hear countless stories of kids whose parents have died.  many dont go to school not because they are lazy but because they dont have parents to pay for it.  Please continue praying for us and these kids.

The students have been split up into “growth groups” and we are each hosting/leading one. Ari’s group is: Yorina, Jane, Fenny, Mia and Nilam. Pat’s group is: Samuel, Demas, Karl, Max, Peleng, Peter, Robert, Hengri, Joshua, and Kiel. Please pray for US. (big US=not just Pat and Ari. everyone in the group)

We Love You All So Much,

Next update will be on saturday,

Pat and Ari

Prayer Requests:

Ace – he has had diarrhea since we got here. It’s yucky and it makes his butt sore.

Growth groups – pray that God will be present in our meeting times and that they will be Spirit led

Family and ministry balance.

A student-Eranus-his mom died last week. Pray for him and his family and for us in relating to him.

Pat

I woke up late this morning because i was up late putting the pictures on facebook.  grabbed a banana and flew out the door, well, if hobbling on crutches can really be called “flying.”  i got to the clinic early but only 15 minutes early.  ”Flew” to the radiology to see NO ONE waiting in line. “YES, one burden down”  i say to myself.  walking  to the radiology building(thats right, no need to fly, im making good time) i see a papuan man on a bike.  it was a nice bike and i day dreamed using it for one of my chop shop bike projects in the states.  i didnt know who he was or where he was going but i wanted to talk to him being that i was early and may be  waiting for several more hours.  i told him in indonesian that i liked his bike and invited him to look at my laptop and see my bikes in america that i have built.  after seeing my bikes he asks me about my foot and i tell him.  he told me in indonesian, quick, lets do it now before this place opens.  when it opens there will be alot of people and i will have to wait for quite a while.  i said, do we need to wait for the xray technician? and he said, “i am the xray technician”  wow, great.  i got my xrays taken at 7:55 he developed them and i had them in hand by 8:10.  when i went to pay he only charged for one.  huge blessing.  money is tight right now because the insurance is still deciding whether or not to pay that 4000 dollar surgery.  it frustrates me that they made it so easy to GIVE them money but make it so very difficult to RECEIVE the money.  anyway, we are awaiting response from the doctor now.  i doubt i will get that response before i leave to go back so you all will have to wait two weeks to hear if i could walk now or in two weeks.  kind funny timing.  thanks for your prayers thus far.  the xray was to my knowledge and a nurse here from america in decent quality.  pray that the jakarta doctor agrees and can make a quick and accurate decision.  I took some pictures of my experiance so here you go.  maybe if i can, i will come to wamena to update you when i get news but its a long drive so probably not.

Pat

xray Adventure

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2117323&id=194308908&l=a5626b8062

Pat

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2117252&id=194308908&l=8e691067ba

Pryamid first week

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2117245&id=194308908&l=5f9261ef56

Pat

-Pat

Writing emails and getting them sent is very hard right now. We have been planing to get to wamena for the last week. we were supposed to leave this morning actually, monday morning, but i have been sick since thursday. i woke up today feeling 100% healed from that bout of whatever it was, bad fever, upset stomach, aches all over, the works. also, i had thrush after my surgery from the strong antibiotics, and that lasted all the way up until my fever started. as soon as my fever and sickness was over i got a rash up my arm and down my side. i feel like an old person, i have to take so many pills every day. 2 bone calcium pills, a garlic pill, an oral liquid thing for the thrush, ibuprofen for foot swelling. its intense. well we couldn’t leave today but now that im not so sick we will buy tickets for Wednesday. we have been getting food here because its SO expensive interior. because of its location EVERYTHING is expensive, about 3 times the price compared to here. just to give you all a reference, gas there equates to 10 bucks a gallon. here is about 2.50 to 3.00. we are excited to get there though. there is so much need. we will fly into wamena and then a friend will drive us out to a place called pyramid. its an amazing place. Ari actually grew up there. we will be in pyramid most of our time but will be traveling back to wamena every wednesday and to a place call bokondini for the last 3rd of our trip interior. netaiken is a school in pyramid. it is similar to the school we have been helping with so far call ttip but do to its location, has a few more setbacks. we hope we can truly be a help and not a burden here. having native english speakers alone should be HUGE because they have none and their primary educational focus is english. on wednesdays we will go to wamena to help aki logo with his kids home. supposedly the structure is a bit different so we will fill you all in when we get there. for those who don’t know , basically this man is a papuan who works with street kids and gives them resources to come and bathe, eat, do homework, work on computers etc… In bokondini we will be with Ari’s aunt and uncle. they run a school there and is very much the same idea as papuan harapan but done in a totally different way. Scotty’s (ari’s uncle) school has the school out in the village where the kids live were as papua harapan has the school in the city and flies the kids in. right now both of these schools have elements that attract us and repel us so we want to experience both first hand to feel out those differences. Tomorrow which is tuesday night for all of you is when we should here back from our insurance. please pray that they pay for the surgery or that God will provide this unexpected cost. im nervous but i know i shouldn’t be, so i am working on getting rid of that. we should be in the interior for 4-6 weeks. internet will be VERY hard, even harder than it is now, so you may not here from us for a while. please continue in prayer because it is felt. everyday i pray God that i have people like you to lift us up before the lord. so keep doing it, its working! We love you all!!!!

Pat

Prayer Requests On monday the insurance company will tell us whether or not they will pay for the surgery.

Our good missionary friends got robbed at knife point the other day and had three ipods several cell phones, backpacks and other things stolen. after confronting the adults, the four men went up the river where two high school girls were. they grabbed the girls and dragged them to opposite sides of the river. at that point one of the male adults got up there in time to say “Let those girls go!” in dani, the heart language of the assailants. miraculously, as if he had an authority up river he did not posses downriver when he tried the same words, the men let go and fled. Gods spirit was there and thank God nothing worse happened. please pray for the 4 robbers that they too felt Gods spirit there and were truly affected by it. also pray for everyone affected by the robbery. in all, three adults, several high school boys and 2 high school girls.

Family health!!!