And life goes on...

It's been a while since I've posted a wordy post...
Last week we were in Pyramid for our annual MAF family conference. Pyramid is a village in the Baliem valley situated at an altitude of about 5,000 ft up. So it gets fairly chilly there at night... well, chilly for us coastal folks... A long time ago one of the other missions built this centre and we have used it for many years. It's a great place to go and enjoy spending time with your fellow workers. The cabins are very rustic, privacy is minimal, all food is cooked on two large wood stoves, all all drinking water is boiled first leaving it with a distinct smoky flavour, and when it rains, there's mud, mud and more mud. But, there are hot showers (water is heated up in drums by a fire underneath), we don't have to cook or do dishes, there's American candy to buy, there's VBS for the kids, teaching for the grownups, lots of singing, and lots of fun!
On Monday the weather started out not so great so the flights coming to and from Wamena (10 minutes flying, 1.15 hours driving away) were delayed. Plus all the rain we had made the airstrip in Pyramid muddy forcing us to reduce the loading on our caravans which meant extra flights. Then we got to Wamena and found out that the local carrier we were going to take to Sentani had mechanical problems on one of their aircraft and the airconditioning was broken on the other (or something like that). That combined with the bad weather earlier in the day just made things really delayed. So we waited and waited in Wamena and the guys in charge of our flights kept going to the airport and talking with the airline people there. I went and got some food for us (a mistake as I am now on Cipro because of that food...). Finally, they got us on a flight. Because we weigh more than locals do, they couldn't take as much cargo and as the back half of the plane is people the tail was getting heavy so they moved a couple very large local men to the front row and bumped Christiaan and I a row back. Marc had to be on my lap and Brynne on Hugo's in order for us all to fit on. There were 40 of us. Then we took off and quickly realized that we had the plane with the broken a/c... It was a sweaty 38 minute flight...

* In the meantime Ritha's mom is causing problems again and is now saying that Ritha is not a good older sister to her younger siblings (a sister of 20 and brother of 15) and that they should live with her. Ritha apparently has too many rules in her house. Rules like, you need to be home by 9:00pm and, if a boy takes you out, he needs to pick you up from the house so I can see him too; don't drink or smoke; you need to do your chores... Doesn't she sound terrible?? Ritha is one of the most responsible locals you will meet.
Today they had a meeting with her mother about this issue and her mother brought some very loud mouthed friends with. They didn't want to hear about how she didn't take care of Ritha and her siblings at all when they were young. Then during the meeting, the mom burns Ritha's sister on the cheek with her cigarette!! Can you believe it? The conclusion of it all was that the kids should live with their mom and that the sisters boyfriend has to pay money to the mom so that he can date her!!! Ritha and her sister aren't sure how that happened and what the point is... I suspect her mother has a mental illness, well, actually, we're pretty sure she does, and what she is really after is money. (Remember, a few months back she tried to stab Ritha's sister but the knife was dull...) They had waited at their house for a while to see if the mom would come to collect the kids but she didn't so they came up to our house for a bit. Today happens to be Ritha's daughters 10th birthday. This girl is actually the daughter of Ritha's husband's (for those of you who don't know, Ritha's husband died mysteriously 1.5 years ago) younger sister, but has no idea that she was adopted... What a birthday for her. At least she got cake, I made her a chocolate cake yesterday and gave her some clothes today. My heart just goes out to this little family just trying their best to live their lives to God's glory but having to deal with a lot of painful stuff along the way. Please remember them in your prayers!