Happy Thanksgiving!

…from all of us to all of you.

We are looking forward to a house full of family and friends, turkey and all the fixin’s, and generally spending the day in gratitude to our great God and being reminded that EVERY day is a day to be thankful!

Here are some of the things that we are particularly thankful for this Thanksgiving…

• The people that God has placed in our lives. Family and friends, new and old. One big way we get to show our love for God is by our love for people and the Lord has given us so many opportunities to do this, especially lately. Our hearts are just bursting with love, joy, and compassion for the many relationships He has blessed us with… and not just the ones that have endured over the years, but also the ones that, in passing, last only moments.
• The refilling of our ‘cups’. I must say that over the last couple of months our ‘cups’ have gone from dry and empty, to increasingly full and overflowing. As we have had time to rejuvenate as a family, and as a couple, and to really think, talk, and pray, the Lord seems to be gradually unfolding what the future may hold for us. This has really taken time. Our God is so good, and we are so grateful.
• Our Father’s provision. A HUGE priority for us since we have been back to the U.S. has been a road-trip to our home church and supporters in Montana but unfortunately the funds just haven’t been there, until now. We have been blessed by the generosity of others whom the Lord chooses to provide through. So now we just need to work out a date!
• The Potter. He is the potter, we are the clay. We are in His hands. We have experienced in a very real and personal way how the Potter’s hand shape us and mold us for His purposes.
• The artistry of our Creator! We got about eight inches of snow this last Sunday and it has turned our world into a freezing cold majestic winter wonderland! The temperature hasn’t been above freezing all week so the trees, roofs, and cars are still cloaked in snow which makes for quite the snow-scape… something we have not seen for a LONG time.

We hope and pray that you have an overwhelming sense of God’s love and hand in your lives, and an acute awareness and deep sense of gratitude for how He is at work in your life and the lives of those around you.

Love to you all,

Jim & Tania

an EARTHQUAKE, a LESSON LEARNED, and more...

[This is actually being posted quite late, but for those of you that don't get our emails...]

Hello Friends,

We have had two weeks now since we got back to the US. What an adventure it has been!!! I know many of you track us on Facebook and already know a bit about the last couple of weeks, but if not, here is an update…

Feel free to skim of course, but for those that want the juicy details, here goes.

First of all… the EARTHQUAKE!

On what we thought was our last day in Vanuatu, we were all geared up and ready for what we thought would be the coming 24 hours of traveling. We had said our ‘see-ya-later’s’, checked our baggage (after a losing argument over excess baggage fees), boarded the plane, and were waiting patiently for take-off. The plane began to move as we started our taxi to the runway. Then it REALLY began to move… in ways a plane is not supposed to move! It felt like the worst turbulence I have ever felt, the only thing was that we were still on the ground. Many passengers guessed that it might have been a flat tire or something. After waiting in puzzlement for a while the captain came over the intercom to report that Port Vila had just experienced a massive earthquake. We found out later that it was a 7.8 only 40 miles from Port Vila… the biggest earthquake that any of the locals we talked to had ever experienced. Eventually, because of several aftershocks and not being sure of the soundness of the plane or the runway, the captain decided to cancel the flight. This left about 200(?) passengers literally standing on the tarmac wondering where they were going to sleep until the next morning when the trip would resume. Most of the people we talked to as we were waiting had not even been to Vanuatu, they were just on a connecting flight -  from somewhere else, going somewhere else… boy were they in for a surprise!

To make a long story short… Jim stuck around the airport with the rest of the passengers to take care of the details (he also got to serve as a Bislama translator between airline staff and all the irritated English speaking passengers), and our teammates rallied to help us out with food and just making sure we were taken care of (thanks again L & H).

Basically, we got a super luxurious little mini vacation out of the whole incident. The airline was responsible to make sure we had food and lodging (the house where we had been living was completely inhospitable and moved out of by this point). Of course there are not Motel 6’s in Vila so we got put up in this amazing resort, super fancy dinner included. The kids hardly knew what to do with themselves… “Mom, what fork do we use?”, “Why do I have three glasses?” This place was seriously top end. And we were totally able to enjoy it, because we weren’t paying for it! To be honest… in the beginning I was a bit irritated by the whole event, but then when I found out I got to enjoy the lap of luxury for a little while, that took the edge off =)

THEN there was the rest of the trip…

In spite of the fancy washer/dryer combo in the hotel holding our clothes hostage (seriously, the door of the washer is self locking and would not let us get our clothes out until it cooled off enough, which was taking FOREVER!) until we found the emergency access panel – which had obviously been used by many guests before us, we eventually did make it to the airport in the morning, and on time.

We got to the airport and waited… and waited… and then we boarded the plane and it took off.

We were supposed to make a connection in Fiji the day before… which of course, we had missed. We thought the flight from Fiji to LA was only a couple of times a week and that we were going to be there for a couple of days, but thankfully that was not the case. We were on a flight that night, with only a 9 hour layover! We weren’t able to leave the airport because we had all our baggage, but we found things to do. When the time came to check in for this leg of the trip, we already had well over 24 hours into this trip and we had not even crossed the Pacific yet, and the airline again gave us a hard time about our baggage. Now, I will admit, it was a mountain of baggage. But we were moving overseas. AND, we had thoroughly researched the baggage allowance and did all we could to make sure we were within the limits! Our bags made it on the plane, and we went through security, and then waited for our flight.  After being away for a while it was kind of crazy how hearing the words “Due to heightened level of security, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security …(blah, blah, blah)” was actually kind of welcoming. Crazy, I know. So, after the body search (yup, you read that right, a… girls in this line, boys in that line… behind closed curtains kind of search. Thankfully it wasn’t a strip search, hahaha) we boarded our flight.

There was a KEY LESSON to be learned in all of this…

For all of our previous trips I was always faithful to pray for our trip… safe, smooth travel. No problems with baggage. Connections and everything on time… But this time I really slacked. I had not covered this trip in prayer like I usually do. By this point in the trip I really felt like God was saying, ‘So you think you can do this without me, huh?’ Not that I thought we were doing this without Him, He is always there and watching over us. But, He wants us to pray, to rely on Him. But I hadn’t been praying and we were exhausted, a few hundred dollars in the whole, tired from hours and hours and hours spent waiting, stressed about whether or not we would get seats on connections or have to wait for days, the list goes on…

At this point, I confessed to the Lord my lack of diligence in prayer, asked forgiveness, and PRAYED.

We were still tired, and ready to be at our destination. But the rest of the trip went VERY well. We made it to LAX. Customs and the transferring of baggage went very smooth – too smooth in fact. We had just enough time to grab a Starbucks, and make a phone call to Jim’s mom who would be picking us up in Seattle, and then we were on our next plane. We arrived at our destination exactly 24 hours after we were supposed to… a 24 hour trip turned into a 48 hour trip, and a very valuable lesson was learned.

BACK in the U.S. of A.

That night we drove back to Jim’s childhood home (his Mom’s house). The next day we went out for some ‘non-Vanuatu’ clothes. You know… shoes (other than flip-flops), jeans, new socks and undies… the basics. Within our first 24 hours we enjoyed a churro from Costco, a take-and-bake pizza from Papa Murphey’s (for old times sake with Jim’s mom), and REAL chocolate ice cream (nobody does it like America). A bit of advice… be ever-so-thankful for the abundant and cheap (yes I really mean cheap even though it doesn’t feel like it when it is what you are used to) choices that are available here. I know we didn’t realize how much is here, and how blessed we are in the US, until we went overseas and saw the contrast. Our poor are filthy rich compared to others around the world. I know these economic times are hard, but perspective is a good thing.

A CAR!

On day 2 we went car shopping with my (Tania’s) dad. This IS something we had really been praying about, and a lot of you had been praying with us. That God would lead us to just the right car for our budget and needs. I was expecting (but hoping not to) do a bit of shopping to find just the right deal. However… it only took us only about 4 hours of beating the pavement. Yup, 4 hours. My dad had been keeping an eye on the vehicle market for us, and we had scoured the internet and newspapers for what was out there so we would recognize a good deal when we saw one, and then God led us to what He had picked out for us. We got a Mercury Mountaineer (a small SUV) that will give us plenty of room for the coming road-trips and the hiking we like to do. It is in really good shape. I will attach a picture. It doesn’t get the gas mileage that our old Honda Civic got but it does have leg room for the kids, who are much taller than they were two years ago. =)

REINTEGRATING

The transition has gone very well. We were a bit concerned for Grace because it was very hard for her to leave her friends, but she is doing very well. We have really been enjoying taking these last couple of weeks to just focus on family. The timing is good as we are catching the last few weeks of the cousins summer vacation. We have had fun BBQ-ing, rooting for family at the races, floating down Satsop River, tubing at the lake, hiking way up into the hills for a 360 view of the South Cascades, and picking berries – all with grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews… we have missed each other.

THANKS

Thanks for praying with us about this trip and transition. If you are in our area (WA or MT), we will be seeing many of you shortly.

PRAISE & PRAYER points…

PRAISE

·         That no one was hurt in the big earthquake in Port Vila even though there was quite a bit of property damage, that grounded our flight

·         That even though there was a bit of a hiccup in our travel plans we were able to make it to our destination only 24 hours late

·         For the lesson learned in all of it… always pray, and do not give up!

·         For the provision of a really good car for our needs

·         For a pretty smooth reintegration/transition back to family and our home culture

·         For 16 years of marriage! We just had our anniversary

·         For many other answered prayers

PRAY

·         For the decisions and work that lie ahead

·         As we begin to reconnect with all of you guys… our churches and supporters

·         For the new school year that is starting (we are enrolling Grace in a virtual high school, and are working on plans for Josh)

·         That we would all experience a great closeness with the Lord over the coming weeks/months

Love in Christ,

Jim & Tania and the kids.

Life in the Village - Part 2

Gretchen, Tania, and Laura doing laundry

In the last post I left off with a promise to continue telling you about life in the village.

Every day was filled with chores. Not as many chores as there would have been if we had been growing and preparing all of our own food, as the villagers do, but still there were chores, such as laundry... by hand, of course. It was actually kind of fun to learn how to do laundry this way. As a bonus, it is really good exercise!

Filtering water.

As a precaution against illness, we filtered all our drinking water. The water situation in this village is actually really good, and eventually our bodies would most likely to be able to handle drinking the water unfiltered (it is rainwater collected into cisterns), but for now we filtered everything. The whole trip was a big enough shock to our sytems as it was.

Anyhow, enough daily drinking water for ten people meant a lot of filtering. However, this never ceased to be a source of entertainment for whoever happened to be around at the time. Quizzical looks were answered with a lengthy explanation of what we were doing, why, and how. =)

Josh's first attempt at making 'simboro'

As I mentioned before, we did not prepare our own food. The community has divided the people in the area into five groups. I am not sure if it is purely family groups or what, but it seems to be for the purpose of organizing responsibilities. At least that is what the divisions were used for this time. Each group was assigned certain days to provide food for our team. We were there for 10 days, so that means each group cooked for us twice. Sometimes we got to help, and that was really fun.

We got to learn how to make banana laplap, which we learned is a trademark food for Ambrym. Laplap comes in many different 'flavors'...  taro, yam, manioc, etc. I have learned that banana laplap is my favorite. In the photo to the right Lena is teaching Josh to make something like a cross between laplap and a spring roll, simboro.

To make simboro, first we scraped out the inside of green cooking bananas (like plantain, no they are not sweet). Then a little bit of the resulting mush is wrapped in a leaf of island cabbage. The little roll is then put into a pot like you see in the picture and then covered in freshly squeezed coconut milk. Then it is cooked until the rolls are firm. All in all the flavor is really not bad, certainly an island kakae (island food) favorite for some in our group.

A typical evening meal.

A typical meal for us...
(LEFT: beginning in the lower left and going clockwise)
banana laplap with pumpkin and coconut cream on top (YUM!), rice, ramen noodles with island cabbage (in the covered pot), chunks of boiled yam, and island cabbage in coconut milk (also a major favorite)

To be honest, I was a bit worried about the food. I have had a few, lets just say 'queezy', experiences since we have been here. But the food, WOW, it was really good. The only problem was the amount of it.

Culturally, to be polite, we really should finish all the food they bring at each meal. After all, there is no way to keep leftovers, and they work so hard for everything they have. The thing is... they would bring so much! We tried, and we tried, we stuffed, and swallowed, and stuffed some more... at each meal. We never had any hope of actually finishing what they brought at any one meal, but we tried to at least put enough of a dent in it that they would know that we liked it and would not be hurt or offended. After each meal, we shared what we had left with the various families that were nearby. That seemed to be okay, and sometimes very appreciated.

Grace, Gretchen, and Laura on clean-up duty.

When meals were over, it was time to do dishes. We were very grateful, a few days into our stay, to find dish-soap available at one of the village 'house-stores'. Many families in the village sell little things like mosquito coils, toilet paper, and laundry soap from their homes. This was a nice blessing for us to have these things available.

On this day (BELOW), Esther, after she spent a very long day away at her garden, let us help her get some ror (wild cabbage) ready for supper. This is some really tasty stuff. It is gathered along the banks of the rivers.

Here are a few more pictures...

Esther squeezing coconut milk over the wild cabbage.

My attempt at cutting firewood with a bush knife.

Shelly lets me help her pluck a chicken.

One chore I can't leave out... first aid. Joshua was a frequent recipient, but we also got to share our first aid with many of our new friends (sorry, no photos of that).

There is one brick oven like this in the village, owned by John (not pictured). He baked bread every day, and shared some with us for our breakfast every morning that we were there. Sometimes there was peanut butter or Vegemite on it. Ok, all you Aussies out there... 'plug your ears'... by the end of our stay, I was actually craving the Vegemite! For all you Americans out there wondering what Vegemite is... don't worry, you are not missing out ;) - (just kidding, to all my friends 'down under'). Vegemite is an Australian household staple that is super salty and packed with vitamins, it is just a little hard to get used to.

So, that gives you a bit of an overview of what chores and meals were like for us. This last photo is our whole group, minus Laura (behind the camera) and plus Lena and Ellen who joined us for super since it was our last day in the village.

I think next time I will share with you some pictures of cool cultural stuff. Until then...

Get the Updates we don't post on the blog...

Email us at jim.n.tania@gmail.com, tell us a little about yourself and that you would like our regular updates, and we will keep you posted!

Life in the Village - Part 1

Our stay in the village was filled with time spent with new friends. Really, our purpose this time around was just to get to know people and get a feel for village life. Our new friends were delighted to share their lives with us during those short ten days. Here are a few pictures that might help you get a feel for these beautiful people and what life in the village is like...

The first week that we were in the village school was out because the teachers were away for some teacher training. That meant there were always kids hanging around our place.

This little piglet was a frequent visitor as well. He is somewhat of an orphan. He was found and caught out in the bush (the jungle). Now the person who caught him keeps him tethered near their house and he is really rather tame. He is on his way to growing up to be one of the various pigs in the village who are always lingering on the outskirts ready to snatch up any discarded scraps and half coconut shells. 

We knew we would have lots of time on our hands, and everybody loves games, so between everyone on the team we brought with us Uno, SkipBo, and Memory. The games made for a fun way to stay busy for the kids and adults alike. They also made for some fun language learning games to help us learn some numbers, and quite a few card game related phrases.

The people of the village work hard, and I mean hard. During the day, most of them are busy in their garden's growing their family's food. We didn't get to make a trip to the garden this time around. I think they were concerned that either it would just be too hard for us to make the hike (about an hour and a half straight up), or that we would just get in the way. When they go they are there all day.  If they aren't at their gardens they seem to be busy at the copra plantation harvesting coconut to export as a way to earn money. There are also a couple of guys that run the local co-op store. Otherwise, it seems like the only adults seen in the village during the day are either sick or are looking after babies. Below is a picture of Iris with her little one slung on her back.

This little guy (above right) is Joel - pronounced Jo-el. If you have seen any pictures of kids in Vanuatu, you know that kids and bush-knives go together. You see it all the time, but it is still hard to get used to the idea.

You know how we learn about how the native Americans use every part of the buffalo? Well, here in Vanuatu they make use of every part of the coconut tree, or so it seems.

Right near our living area was this coconut tree that was leaning quite a bit, and maybe was rotting a bit toward the stump...? I am not sure. But for whatever reason chief Olekon thought it would be best if they just cut it down. So the Chief went at it with an axe...

These guys' job was to make sure it fell in the right direction. 

They are using a huge, long bamboo pole to push it over....

Down came the tree.

And then the fun began.

 

It became a bench...

The fronds were hacked off and became material for a fort. 

If you look close you can see Josh inside of it...

It became material for headdresses (nothing traditional, Josh just made this up)...

...material for weaving...

Here, Selly is showing me how to weave a ball. Nothing functional about it, just for fun. She has her little one, Robin, slung on her back.

Josh got a lesson in weaving the fronds to use as walls to make a better fort...

You can see how the new walls really spiffed the place up. 

Josh felt that this was the best fort he has ever made!

The fallen coconut tree became the popular hang out spot...

Did you know there is more to eat from a coconut tree than just the coconuts!? Josh's friends showed him how to get to the heart of the tree for a succulent snack. It tastes kind of like the end of a shoot of grass, sweet and subtle. 

We made so many new friends! One of them used fronds from the coconut tree to make each of us girls a fan. I got pictures of everything else so I don't know why I didn't get pictures of the fans, but I didn't. So those I will leave to your imagination. 

The kids here don't have much in the way of what the typical Western kid would think of as toys. But, as you can see, that does not stop them from having fun. Besides the coconut tree there are all sorts of things to have fun with. For example...

 ...tie a string to a butterfly and take it for a 'walk'!

Have you ever seen such a thing!? So cool!

There's volleyball...

 

And, what young boy in his right mind wouldn't have fun running down a chicken for supper! They didn't use the bow that you see here, although Josh would have been happy to. The chicken is chased and then stunned by hitting it with a throwing stick so that it can be caught. 

The kids seemed to have a lot of fun showing off the traditional sand drawings. The fine black, volcanic sand makes the perfect canvas. 

The village kids would draw in the sand and then Josh would copy them into his journal which was as entertaining for them as it was for him...

  

The girls tried to braid Gracie's hair, but it was just too thick. 'A' for effort... on Grace's part too. She was trying really hard to not let them see that it really hurt. She is such a sport!

Life in the village is not all fun and games of course. There is a lot of work to do. But I am going to leave that for next time.

- - -

People have asked how our kids liked the village. They really seemed to love it. They are tough. There are always kids to play with and things to do. That can be a good thing, and a bad thing. There are always kids to play with and things to do. We didn't get much in the way of private time during our stay. That aspect was hardest on Grace when she was sick for three days. She had a fever and felt really yuck. All she wanted to do was sleep, but that was a little difficult with little eyes constantly peering through the windows. It was difficult for her to relax without privacy. It was so sweet, though, to see how concerned they were for her. When she and I stayed behind, while the rest of the group went to a neighboring village to eat, I am pretty sure every family in the village brought us food and made sure we were taken care of!

That could be considered an underlying theme for this trip. We were taken care of. There were certainly concerns and apprehension before we left, but there really was no need for any of that. Our great God took care of us. He went before us. He planted in the hearts of the people the desire to look after us. I really felt cared for the whole time we were there. I thank the Lord for that.

Anyway, until next time...

More on the Amrym trip from our Teammates...

One great thing about having a team is that all of you get to hear about the work from multiple perspectives. Here are some links to what our teammates have posted about our recent trip...

Here Gretchen does a great job of telling about the first half of our trip:
http://richardsroad.blogspot.com/2010/07/our-north-ambrym-trip-volume-1.html

And here is her Volume 2:
http://richardsroad.blogspot.com/2010/07/our-north-ambrym-trip-volume-2.html

From Laura, on learning how to live in a village:
http://psalm96three.blogspot.com/2010/06/learning-how-to-live-in-village.html

and on island food:
http://psalm96three.blogspot.com/2010/06/island-kakae-food.html

And this isn't all. So if you want, you can spend some time checking out the other stuff they have on their blogs. Hopefully you will enjoy the various perspectives.

. . .

The Grand Tour

One of the things I (Tania) was most curious about before we got to the village was just what it would look like. Where would we be sleeping? ...showering? and, eh-hem ... you know ... ?Also, what would the village look like? So, to give you an idea of our setting, let me take you on a bit off a tour.

This is the house we stayed in. It is actually the parsonage, but there is no pastor at the moment so it was available for us during our stay.

In this picture (above) you are looking at a sort of courtyard. When people come to storian (visit), this is where we hang out. It is sort of like the 'living room'. The bench to the left is our 'couch'.
You can also see the rain catchment tank there on the right. Toward the bottom of the tank is a spigot for getting water. This is what we used for washing dishes, clothes, showering, and filtering for drinking water.

Here is another picture of the front of 'our house' but just pulled back a bit.

To the left you can see another spigot which is the other main source of water (besides the rain tank). It is gravity fed from a water hole way up in the hills somewhere. There are several water access points around the area that draw from this water hole. Use of this water is regulated so that the pond doesn't run dry. We are told the hole dries up around Christmas time (the hot season).

You can also see our dish rack there on the right in the foreground. Us girls were having to squat on the ground with our dish washing basins to wash the dishes which was really hard on our backs. Then Chief Olekon built this rack for us like all the other women in the village have. We were very grateful. It made doing the dishes so much easier.


This (above) is the backside of the house. There on the left, sort of behind the trees, you can see the corrugated tin side of our swim house a.k.a. 'the shower'. Those spiky looking plants in the foreground are pineapple plants. No fruit right now though, not the season for it.

Below is a better picture of the swim house. The sides of the swim house come up far enough to cover everything from the neck down, pretty much. Still you have to stay aware in order to maintain modesty.


Here (below) is the inside of the swim house. The bucket in the lower left was used to haul water to fill the basin you see on the shelf. To shower we used a small plastic container (maybe it was an old peanut butter jar?) to dip water from the basin to get wet and to rinse and such. You get the idea. Most of the time to cold swim was refreshing... most of the time. Believe me, we were ready for warm showers when we got back. The weather was pretty warm, but it is still the 'cool' season.


Ok, now lets go for a little walk...


Above is a picture of the church building. Beyond it you see a bit of a grassy field and then in the distance behind the trees you see a yellow house. That house is right next door to the one we were in. Behind us (from where I am standing to take this picture) is where the toilet is...

And here is our toilet. It was relatively nice for a bush toilet. It had a concrete floor rather than the alternative of wood or bamboo which would have been really dirty and super scary to try to get business done. Here is the inside...


Ok, back to see the inside of the house.

We take off our shoes as we come inside...


First thing as you come in the door is our eating area. Here is Laura with the Richards kids and Grace enjoying some lunch...


Then on to our sleeping quarters...

This is my bed. We were so excited to arrive and find that our hosts had provided a foam pad with sheets, blanket, and pillow for each of us! It was clean and comfortable. Here is Jim's bed...


And Grace & Josh's room complete with mosquito net...
(We were all taking Malaria preventatives, plus burning mosquito coils, plus continuous application of mosquito spray.) Lord willing we will not come down with malaria (it has an incubation period of several weeks). There was at least one nearby case while we were there.


Back outside to see more of 'the neighborhood'...

above: us girls outside in our 'living room'

There are lots of dogs around. They are used to hunt wild pigs (more on that later).

This one isn't wild. He is a friendly little piglet that was around a lot while we were there. He reminded us of 'Wilbur' from Charlotte's Web.


Underneath the mango tree (above) is a popular place to meet, visit, sit with kids, do various little work tasks, etc. The same goes for just about any mango tree. There is just something about them. They are a nice, very cool (literally), place to hang out.

Below is one of the local roosters claiming his territory from the rooftop of the cookhouse that goes with the house we were staying in. Traditionally, while us westerners have all our living quarters under one roof, here they spread it out. The cook house (or bush kitchen), eating house, bath house, and toilet, are all separate from the sleeping house.


Here is the dish rack outside the bush kitchen of one the neighboring houses.


And another neighboring house...
(you can see the smoke from the cooking fire making its way through the natangura roof of the kitchen house.)


And finally, if you take a walk down to the beach here is an example of what you would see...

That is all for now. I hope that gives you an idea of where we spent our time on N. Ambrym . More to come later...


. . .