Exciting news!!!

A few days ago I was on Skype with my daughter Josie in Indonesia and she told me she had a birthday present for me for next July 11! They are expecting a baby #4 !!!! Yeah and Praise the Lord. Please be praying for them as she has been having all day morning sickness. Her ministry is running the guest house plus looking after 3 children. Please pray for Josh as he has extra responsibilities helping with the kids and also has been running a fever.

EARTHQUAKE

Here we are again. 3 weeks have passed by and we have had some more interesting experiences. On Nov22 we were invited to a family from Belgium for thanksgiving supper. There were 2 other guests besides the host family and us. We had just completed the main course when the house started to shake. We were having an earthquake!!! We got up from the table and went to stand outside in a somewhat safer place. We could see the light standard swaying back and forth and also they had a one story water tank for catching rainwater, and it was sloshing over the sides. It was a pretty wild ride.... After a few minutes we went back inside and enjoyed our dessert. The next morning we heard it had been a 6.1 on the Richter scale. We have not heard of any damage but apparently this was the strongest earthquake the missionaries here remember having.

Week one in PNG

Our first week here has gone by very quickly. We only have 6 weeks left and so much we would like to get done. The first couple of days were spent setting up our household, getting an account set up,going into the nearest town and going to the veggie market(not exactly the Piggly Wiggly) although there usually are some live pigs present, running around!!!! We also got reoriented to life in a third world country,Roosters crowing at 4:am, the smell of all the cooking fires in the air,( and many other smells to numerous to mention). We have been invited to various missionaries homes for meals and visits. We have also been interacting with the national people and refreshing our language abilities (or lack thereof). Yesterday Margaret had the privilege of giving one of the national people employment by having her help around the house. Her name is Lita and she is a single mother. She has to support a 4 year old daughter by herself. She also has a garden and sells produce at the local market. She grows guava, pineapple, sweet potatoes,and Tapioc. Her home is a 25 min walk from here. She drops her daughter off at a local" school", then she comes here to work and after work she picks up her daughter and walks home and works in her garden. Having this lady come into my home gives Margaret tremendous opportunity to learn more about her culture and beliefs. It also gives Margaret the opportunity to show her Christ's Love. Please pray for us as we interact with these people that we would be a good testimony of God's Love for them.

continuing timeline

When we got to Australia we only had 3 more flights to go. We had to spend 1 night in Sydney before we could continue on.
November 5 2007
6:10 am we left for the Sydney Airport when we got there they told us the International flight we were to take with Air New Guinea had been canceled and we had to go on a domestic flight with Qantas to Brisbane. Then at Brisbane, we had to take a train to the International Terminal, where
we boarded an Air New Guinea flight to Port Moresby. At Port Moresby we had to clear customs after some confusion as to the procedure. When we cleared customs, we were hurried off to the Domestic departures terminal again. We sat and waited for a time, making that connection in plenty of time, but at the same time we didn't know whether our flight was for sure going to depart for Goroka. Our host, Aaron Jex, showed up in a couple of minutes to take us to Lapilo, and to the
home that we were to enjoy for the next 2 months.

Timeline

October 31,2007
3:30 AM We got up to leave for O'Hare airport.
8:05 AM We departed from ORD to LAX (LA).
10:33 AM We arrived in LAX good flight.
11:30 PM (LA time) we find out we can't get on that flight. (1:30 central time).
We go to a hotel for the night and are wondering what God has in mind for us. The hotel is a Travelodge minus any frills and any space (when we put our luggage on the floor we could not walk in the room.SMILE. (99.00)usd
November 1, 2007
We called a friend in Canada who informs us that there is more money coming then we were aware of and we should do whatever we needed to. So we went online and found some reasonable tickets with Qantas Airline for November 2 11:10 pm LA. time.
We take the shuttle back to the airport and find where we need to be the next day and return to another hotel for the same price and this time the hotel is amazing and the service is even better so we enjoyed a nite and half a day and then back to the airport.
November 2 2007
11.10 PM LA time we board our 14 hr flight to Sydney Australia.
8:30 AM Nov.4 we arrive in Australia. (We have crossed the international date line and so we have lost a day. The flight was great we got a row of 4 seats to ourselves so Margaret could lie down and sleep. PTL Wow how awesome.
Back to a hotel to wait for our flight to PNG.
Only three more flights to go. YEAH I will continue this report tomorrow!!

We have arrived

We arrived here in PNG safe and sound Praise God. Our trip took a few twists and turns but over all everything went very well. We are pretty jet lagged today so the brain is a little slow. We will be posting pictures real soon. Thank-you to everyone for all your prayers and gifts. Please keep praying that we would be a blessing and that we would glorify God in all we say and do.

Here we are again just a few hrs later and God has provided for us to purchase a ticket to fly to Australia with Quantas airline. We will be flying out tomorrow nite at 11:33 pm. Praise God for his provision. Last nite we slept in a rather dumpy hotel for a ridiculous price, tonite we found a really nice hotel for a very reasonable price, and it has a great Mexican restaurant down the street so we had a delicious lunch/supper. We are praising God for his faithfulness and thanking all of you for praying and also giving.

Dear praying friends, We are in LA waiting on our flight to PNG. We are flying standby for this flight and could not get on last night so we are waiting on the Lord. Please pray for us to get on tonight. WE NEED A MIRACLE!!! My prayer before we left was that whatever would give God the most glory. So I think I set us up for this SMILE.