Bits and Bites....

We've been in Canada for a week now. It's still cold... If you factor in the difference in humidity we are experiencing temperatures approximately 25 degrees lower than those we are used to. The kids aren't real keen to play in the outdoors (current temp-7C). Indoors the temperatures are about 15 degrees lower than we are used to. Only Aidan appears completely unaffected and is at times clad in only a pair of shorts... Oh to be so warm blooded...
I have decided that for our first month here I will not look at the price of food, but simply buy the foods we enjoy eating (within reason of course). It is so hard to shop here and not simply purchase everything!
Good news from Papua. Ritha's mom was released from the psychiatric hospital and was more cognizant. They are working on convincing her that returning to her home town is the best option for her. In the meantime she is living with Ritha. Awi and Rode are scheduled to return to Ritha on Saturday. The entire time they have been at Awi's bio-mom's place Awi has been sick with unhappiness. So they have decided that she is too young to be separated from her mom (Ritha). What an answer to prayer!

Blessings...

The kids on the plane as we left Sentani (or rather bounced our way into the air) and then me with Ibu Tati.

Some of us are handling the cold better than others....

Christmas day we attended church in the morning and it was lovely to see all the folks again and attend a service in our native tongue. Then we headed home, had some lunch and then went for a walk at Mill Lake Park. It is such a beautiful park to visit. The kids loved the playground as well! Following that we headed out to Yarrow to visit with family. We enjoyed a delicious dinner together with the families of two of my siblings, Henry and Karen and Aunt Mary and Uncle Morris and their kids. So fun to have a Christmas dinner with family! Then we gave the kids their gifts. Excitment! This morning it is very quiet in the house as everyone is playing with their new things.

We are so blessed! There was a group of folks who got our home here set up for us and then provided us with some food. We have a vehicle to use thanks to our good friends C and P. We have been so well taken care of and we want to thank all of you who helped out!

Canada....

Well, after about 15 hours of flying time, we arrived at Vancouver International airport, a whole 45 minutes early, and were met by our friends Chris and Pearl and Aunt Mary and Josh and Amanda. So fun to be met by loved ones!
It is really cold here... Today we went out to get coats for the kids and buy long pants for those that didn't actually have any... We never wear long pants in Papua except for that one week each year that we spend in Pyramid! We also visited the Superstore.... The kids couldn't get over how huge the shampoo bottles are! They were overwhelmed by all that is available there.
We were also successful in obtaining new drivers licenses. Thankfully we were not required to do a road test.... whew.... Today we insured the vehicle that we will be using and it sure feels good to be independant! We also got a phone, phone number and the internet to work...
We are still jet-lagging a little. It's after 11pm and I don't feel tired in spite of a broken sleep last night...

Bandung!

I am sitting in the airport hotel in Jakarta. I can't believe how fast the internet is!! Am I really still in Indo???
On Thursday morning we flew to Jakarta where we were met at the airport by our old friend Santhi and two friends of hers. We, and the driver, so that's 11 people, crammed into a 7 passenger van and proceeded to make our way to Bandung. It took us about 4 hours to get there because the traffic was insane and then to top it off we had to get off the highway at one point to get gas and to do that we actually had to drive a bit... Needless to say we were all a bit pooped by the time we reached David and Santhi's place. Well, actually, it's David's dad's house. It's a home designed by Frank Lloyd-Wright. Very spacious and airy and beautiful.
Then next morning we borrowed David's mom's van and driver and visited Ibu Tati, the lovely woman who took care of Marc and Brynne when we were in language school. The look on her face when she saw us made the entire trip worthwhile! She was sooo excited! She gave us all a bottle of pop and fed the kids chips. Pop is not cheap for people here so that was a special treat for us. Then we did some shopping. I was only able to find clothes for Marc and Brynne. Then we visited the kampung where we used to live and saw our old neighbours. They were also very excited to see us. Unfortunately we ran out of time and couldn't visit our other helper. We spent some time with David and his family at a mall called Paris Van Java. There we lost Aidan and I was having visions of him being kidnapped and ransomed.... But he had just been distracted by a tv screen while we walked on and then he thought we had gone to the car so he went to the car, found we weren't there, and went back into the mall crying. David and Santhi's friends found him and brought him to us.... It was soooo time to go home. The next day we went to Bandung Electronics Centre. This is a crazy crazy place. I don't know exactly how many stories hight it is, maybe 6 or 7 and there are electronics shops galore on each level! At the top is a food court. Due to the fact that it was a long weekend in Bandung, the traffic was insane! The patience of our children was sorely tested. On Sunday we were able to worship at the church we attended for the entire year we lived in Bandung. It was neat to see the folks there again.
So tomorrow morning we are scheduled to fly to Vancouver. I am very tired and ready to get back into a "normal" routine again. It was great to be able to visit Bandung and our friends there again. David and Santhi and their parents hospitality was great! We are so thankful for their friendship. It was also fun to get to know their little boy Ethan.

Bits and Bites....

We are down to the wire here folks. In just one more day we will leave our home here in Sentani and head out to the bustling metropolis of Bandung. The plan is to spend the weekend with our good friends David and Santhi and see our old house and neighbours and helpers and of course, try to find some winter clothes at the outlets. Then on Monday morning we will head out to Vancouver and arrive on Monday only a few hours after we've left... so to speak...
Today Ritha, her sister, and another brother took her mother to the "Rumah Sakit Jiwa". This, literally translated, means: house of sick souls. Ritha's mother had not eaten or drunk for about 4 days and had begun speaking to mosquitoes and lizards. Then she disrobed down to her undergarments in the street and barely avoided being beaten to a pulp. That is what you do to mentally disturbed people here, you beat them. Sadly, Ritha and family had to tie her up in order to be able to bring her there. There's no ambulance to call here... Let's pray that she receives the help she needs at this hospital. I've heard mixed stories regarding this place, but truly, there is simply no other option for her right now.
Tonight we had Christmas dinner with our Sentani family. It was a lovely evening with really great food and a really great chocolate fondu following. We are seriously going to miss our Sentani family when we are on furlough! Love you guys!

Bits and Bites....

As I sit here bundled in long pants and a sweatshirt in my a/c'ed bedroom with a controlled temperature of 24 C, I shiver at the thought of our imminent arrival in just over one week at Vancouver International Airport. Brrrr....
We have been getting things ready to leave. Basically that means making lists of the things we need to buy and throwing out all the things too broken to use anymore or so worn out that we would turn up our noses should we take them out of the cupboard after a six month hiatus... And people, that's a lot of stuff...
Hugo just threw out his work shoes, totally finished. This morning I dried myself, or at least attempted to dry myself, with a towel sporting a huge hole in the middle (I had no choice, they all have huge holes). Mikah's long pants are looking more like capris everyday. She's now taller than me... Brynne owns only two pairs of shorts that don't have holes in them... Buy some here you say? Ummm, girls clothes here are terrible. They're mostly made of plastic materials and are limited to short skirty-type ensembles and blousy-type tops. Simple shorts and t-shirts, especially those without garish pictures or sayings, very hard to come by.
In the meantime, life here just keeps going on. Awi's biological mother was supposed to arrive today to take Awi back with her. She wants Ritha and Rode to come too. But Ritha does not want to go. She sees no point in "celebrating" Christmas there under the circumstances and then being forced to see Awi call another woman mother. Awi does not want to call this woman "mom" but she may be forced to. So Ritha was considering allowing Rode to go alone and I strongly suggested she not allow this to happen. I fear that if she were to allow Rode to go, she'd never get her back. I feel really bad for leaving at a time like this.
Yokben is doing better. I checked up on him the other night and he proudly showed me that he had only two doses of his meds left, exactly the right amount. He was also in awe of how well the tylenol from Canada helped his head feel better.... Thanks again for that big bottle Jane! The local stuff is just not as good! However, now Yokben's dad is quite sick so his older sister, whose house he lives in (Nelfika's mom) went to Wamena along with Nelfika.

Update...

The saga with Ritha's mother continues. Yesterday she came to our neighbours house saying she wanted to give some stuff to her daughter. She was not let into the yard of course. So she stored those things, a noken, bag with papers and Bible, and some gardening tools and boots, in our yard! Our neighbours guard was there and he knows this woman well and he brought her to the main road and paid a motorcycle taxi guy to bring her down the hill. So Ritha came up later and go the stuff and brought it to her home. Apparently her mother had returned since that terrible episode on Sunday and began yelling at Ritha's husbands (he passed away 2 years ago) sibling saying that she had killed her brother making Ritha a widow.
Today she was at the market telling people that she was angry about how the situation on Sunday night was handled and that she was going to get together some of her relatives and they were going to make some trouble for our neighbours. Yikes! Hopefully by now most people realize that she's got mental issues... Most of her relatives here are sick of dealing with her and want nothing more to do with her. However, people from Wamena are easily riled up and coaxed to do destructive things for no real reason. Therefore our neighbours have hired a day guard now in addition to their night guard.
Ritha and her siblings are feeling very stressed about this situation. They don't know what to do anymore. We've suggested that they contact their mothers siblings that still live in their home village and tell them that they need to take care of her as she has proven that she can't live here in peace. Please remember this troubling issue in your prayers!
In other news, Yokben is sick again. This time he has malaria Tropika +3. That's pretty bad. +4 is the worst. I think he waited too long to come to me again. On Monday afternoon I made a blood slide and brought it to the best slide reader in town. Then that night I brought him some Quinine and explained that if he didn't take the pills as he's supposed to and for how long he's supposed to, he will get malaria again. The problem is that Quinine has some really nasty side effects like your head feels as though it will explode and you become deaf or you hear traffic constantly.

Life...

Evrin and Britany

We have lived in this country for nearly 3.5 years now and by this time we feel we've experienced much. Many things that have made my heart sad. Tonight however, we experienced something that made my heart break. I have written a number of times about Ritha's mother. She has been causing problems for Ritha and her brother and sister time and again. Yesterday she came to our home saying that her daughter, not Ritha, was not going to come to work. Hugo told her that she didn't work for us but for our neighbours. Hugo gave her this information without realizing that Ritha and her sister have kept her workplace a secret so that their mother would not come and bother her there. She went to our neighbours and started ranting about her daughter and was escorted off the premises. She then returned this morning again and was again escorted away. Tonight however, she returned after dark and began yelling and crying at our neighbours gate. She removed her shirt and was not wearing anything underneath. She lay on the ground and was ranting incoherently about being accused of killing 10 people and wanting to see her daughter because she heard she'd been killed. There was a lot of wierd things exiting this woman's mouth. We really didn't want to call Ritha and her sister for fear that this would make things worse. The police were called and didn't answer the phone (so helpful...). Finally, a coworker went to the police and brought them back. Throughout all this she continued to rant and people came including kids, to watch the scene unfold. I told the mothers a number of times to take their little children home as they did not need to see this. They all agreed but no one left.... The police were unwilling to pick up the woman as she was unclothed. Finally Ritha and her siblings came and in spite of the mother insisting on seeing her daughter, she did not aknowledge her arrival and kept saying that she wanted to stay right where she was and would the police just kill her right there. Then she asked her son to kill her as well. He's 14 and in his anger kicked her a couple of times. It broke my heart to see Ritha and her sister trying to calm their mother down so that she would go into the police vehicle. They managed to get her shirt back on, thankfully... It took a number of men, including Hugo, to get her to the vehicle but they were unable to get her in. They wanted to handcuff her, but the handcuffs were like play ones that you can open without a key! Ugghh... Eventually she agreed to go home so they could talk things over. They walked down the road a bit and then she finally agreed to go into the police car. Ritha and siblings also went in and they brought her home. I asked the police what could be done about this situation as the possiblity of a reoccurance seems pretty high. He just said, well call us again then. That's all we can do. So what might need to happen is that we keep our gates locked at all times. Not a nice thing to have to do... Please remember this family in yoru prayers.

Today I took photos of Ritha and her girls. I wanted to do this for her before Awi is taken.

On Saturday we had the annual MAF Christmas program. Hugo sang together with all the guys who work in the hangar. There were speeches a sermon, singing and then finally after 2 hours, food. The kids were very hungry and very restless by then...

In the second photo is Ziporah. Her dad is the flight scheduler for MAF and her parents also go to our church. She is quite a character....

In the next photo is Evrin and his precious little girl Brittany. Evrin is a licensed mechanic who has gone to America for training. Brittany is not their first child but she is their only living child. When we lived here six years ago, Evrin's wife Ninksy was pregnant and they had a six year old boy with Down's Syndrome. During our time this little boy died of meningitis. Then they had their daughter and at first she seemed fine. But as she grew she began to be cyanotic. She had a hole in her heart. They brought her to Makasar for surgery but they said they couldn't do it as she was too little and so she died as well. You need to understand that in their culture there is a sense that the parents must have done something to make this happen. The burden that these two people carried was very great. So it was with great joy about 1.5 years ago, that they had Britany. She is a healthy, happy little girl who brings much joy to her parents.

Marc is 6!!

Today our youngest son turned 6! It is hard to believe that it is already 6 years since he was born here in Papua. What an adventure that was! We had a quiet day as Marc will have his party on Saturday to accomodate his school-going friends. I let him and Brynne put the little guys on the cake and they buried them! So it was a holey cake... Today was a windy day so we had a hard time keeping the candles lit so he could blow them out! Close the windows? Don't have windows to close in the front or back of our living area. Our house is very open, in fact it's almost like living outside.... Well, with screens on all the windows... Marc was very excited about his new swimming goggles and Garfield comic books.

The Christmas season has officially begun! Today there was a bakar batu (baking stones) across the road from us. I heard the pigs squealing as they were slaughtered... That and loud music for most of the day. Some of it was techno music and some of it was the MC singing Christian songs off-key.

Today is also the anniversary of the province of Papua being given some autonomy. Basically that means more money stays in province than used to. The local leaders also have a titch more control than before being given this "autonomy". In years past there have been some uprisings on this date, but I think things were quite quiet today. Maybe the bands of soldiers travelling around all night played a part in that.

In the middle of the night our airconditioning began beeping like crazy. That usually means that it's not getting enough power to get the compressor going. Which means that the power is browning out. Sure enough. Just before noon things had been repaired and everyone had power except us. That's a tough pill to swallow... Hugo went down to the hydro office after lunch to let them know. They said they would check it out. By the time he was about to come home from work we still had no power so he stopped in again. By dark, 6:00, still no one had come. Hugo called a few times and finally at 7:00 someone came. Turns out, there was a loose connection on our hydro pole... ugghh... Well, I hope we saved a lot in electrical fees because of it...

This morning we also said good-bye to our dear friends Jan and Dini. They are returning to Holland for their annual 6 week furlough. However, they are only returning to Papua for a couple months before going home for good. We will sure miss them! They were such a blessing to us and we learned so much from them!