Bits and Bites....

Hugo is in Wamena until Friday. They have about 4 planes that require his attention and as two of them have their engines out, it's more practical for him and Rudy, national worker, to go there. So that leaves me a single parent until Friday.
Mikah has joined the middle-school soccer program here. That means that each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday she has practices. On Fridays they also have a game against another team. Sometimes its the boys middle-school team...
On Friday and Saturday I attended a women's retreat put on by one of the other org's here. I slept over there in a dorm, used by Papuan students during the week, with some friends and we had a great time together burning the midnight oil to the smell of mothballs... It was a fun time of learning and fellowship.
As you saw in an earlier post, I had taken some photos of our guard and his wife and brothers and uncle. While I was taking their pictures, a neighbour woman wandered by and asked if I would take her photo as well. So I did, not really knowing who she was, only observing that she was wearing what we would consider a nightie... After I had printed the photos, Ice saw the photo of that woman and had a little panic moment. That woman happens to be the mother of the girl that was killed earlier this year. The one who has said that as long as she is alive, Pak Mitre's children (Ice and her sister) will have no children... Ice's sister, out of fear for her life, has left the area until her boss comes back from furlough. This isn't over by far....
Ice however, seems to be doing well health-wise. Let's pray it continues this way.
Our friends J and D were interior for two weeks. They used the MAF floatplane to get to the villages that they went to. J taught some courses to the elders of the churches there. D had put together a little "course" for the ladies about the B*ble. D hadn't told the ladies ahead of time that she had something for them because she wasn't sure if they would be interested. But they were! She had 30-40 ladies and their nursing babies come. First she taught them a very simple song of Haleluj*h and Am*n. It can be sung in canon. The women were very shy to sing but as they went on they became more and more brave. In the end they performed the song in front of the church facing the men! You have to understand that this is totally new for them. In the meantime, J had taught the men the same song and had them also sing it. In the end they sang it together! It was a beautiful thing!