Wow, tonight we had quite a talk with our guard Y. He'd gone to Wamena with his wife M and returned divorced from her... I had heard some of the story from Ice as M had been living with her for the prior couple months. So Y came back on Friday, bearing some fresh veggies for us. While he was gone, his brother in law had come up to me at the mall and expressed that Y had done some terrible things and that he had told Y that maybe he wouldn't be working for Pak Hugo and Ibu Erica anymore. That got my goat. Um, since when did he become the boss??? Originally, he had been working for us but then he decided to try to become a government worker and took off to Wamena and Y, without being asked, filled in rather permanently. What we didn't realize was that Y has been giving his entire paycheque to the brother in law and would recive only $10 for the entire month that he had worked!! Their pay is just over $1oo. So the brother-in-law has been controlling that money! Well... We wanted to talk with Y about what happened with his wife and about the brother-in-law etc...
The story went something like this:
So I married my wife and I had to pay 13 pigs for her. We had a good life and then we had a baby boy. When he was three months old he got sick and died. A couple months later I moved to Sentani. A few months later my wife joined me. After a few months she wasn't pregnant so I asked her if she had done something so that she wouldn't get pregnant again. Like use black magic or take pills or something. She wouldn't answer me. I tried to talk with her about it but she wouldn't listen to me so I stabbed her in the thigh. She moved in with Ice's dad and then I talked with her family and I paid her 500,000 rupiah which she shared with her uncles and she moved back in with me. We lived good again. Then she went to Jayapura without asking me and wouldn't tell me where she went. So I got mad and I hit her again. She moved back in with Ice's dad. After a while she moved back in with me again and things were fine. Then another time she went to Jayapura and met her brother-in-law and he offered to marry her. I don't know if they did anything but I was mad so I went to our house and I didn't hit her but I broke 2 plates and a bowl. Then we were sitting and talking and Ice's husband and dad came and punched me. They took her to live with them again. After that she wanted a divorce. So we went to Wamena and I talked with her family and we divorced. She said that she's sick of having to carry a knife around me.
I informed Y that Biblically, stabbing your wife in the thigh was really unacceptable. I told him, that as a woman, if my husband stabbed me in the thigh, I would be very afraid of him! Maybe always afraid. I feel very sad that this couple didn't really have the chance to repair their marriage. He told us that he is going to church again and that he is working on his relationship with the Lord. We have told him that we want him to be our guard/yard guy and that we will talk with the brother-in-law and let him know who's boss. A fun thing to look forward to doing...

On Saturday the Dutch couple working here with the CVO and R the nurse went to Ibu N's home village and were able to bring back two girls to stay with her at the hospital. They went to the hospital together with Ibu N's sister, her daughter and Ibu N's 8 month old child. The reunion was an emotional one and R feels that the sister has had a change of heart and maybe will visit more often and take more care. N was mentally much more allert and was doing a lot better. An answer to prayer!