Last Thursday, I invited the farm leader’s wives over for a cooking class, using the Master recipe from The New Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg. (Completely worth the money, seriously, no kneading, and 5 minutes to make the dough! I am NOT paid for this endorsement). There were 10 people there, including 3 children and me. I made the dough the night before so it was nice and chilled like its supposed to be, but showed them how to make the dough (which really does take 5 minutes) and did the food network switch-a-roo. They thought it was totally cool. From the same batch, we made rolls, Cinnamon rolls, pizza (which we ate for lunch), and, since most don’t have ovens, Naan, which I made in a fry pan. After our demonstrations and sampling, the women discussed how they would use the one oven that they had between them. One of the women in the class came up and chatted after church on Sunday, and that was the first time in a year she has volunteered to talk to me. There is something to be said for making friends before you try to get the Word in (pun intended, haha).
Here are some pictures of the farm where we live, about 15 minutes outside of the city, and a 35 minute drive from where we work in Port Moresby.
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| The view from our porch on the farm, to the right. |
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| The view of the tree right outside our apartment |
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| A view of the farm from the road. The black building is the church and literacy training center. |
In Papua New Guinea, nothing goes as planned, and
by-the-seat-of-your-pants is a given.
This past Saturday, I spoke at a Unity Foursquare Church’s
women’s luncheon. I arrived on time, and was told to “take a ride and come back
in an hour, because we’re not ready.” The luncheon topic was “you’re precious”,
so I played the song “Flawless” by MercyMe, which they plugged into the sound
system but the words were completely muffled, so I interpreted them to my
interpreter, and my interpreter gave it in Pisin. I spoke to them of grace and
how God sees us through the eyes of the cross. I talked about how we can walk
in the Spirit, and so not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, as opposed to walking
in the law and trying to be good enough to be saved. Here, it is common for the women especially, to beat themselves up for not being good enough. They light up like Christmas trees when you tell them that they are wonderful, which, of course, they are!
Sunday was Graduation Day for 33 of the boys that went through at least 14 months of our farm program. They are the worst of the worst from the streets of the city and the villages. They come in with usually a grade 3 or less education, often no English, few skills, addictions, criminal histories and more. We feed them 3 meals a day, give them vocational training, literacy classes, and help them get jobs. It is a very disciplined and rigorous program, and probably only 60% make it through to the end. The graduation was part of the church service, which went from 9:30 to 12:45, and included skits by the boys, awesome worship, testimonies, and cudos to all. The boys are proud, but nervous about making it out there in the big bad world! We are working on exit strategies to make the transition easier and more successful for them.
We are blessed to have an air-conditioner in our bedroom. It
makes the difference between being grumpy from tossing and turning in the
humidity, and being rested and ready to go, but we would stay even without it.
Our neighbors up at the farm burn everything, which seems to be a cultural
norm. Pillars of smoke abound everywhere, even in the city, and I’m allergic to
smoke. The air-conditioner filters some of it out, but that means it gets
clogged with dust and ashes very easily, and my bedroom got coated with dust.
The walls, the furniture, the drapes: everything was coated with dust. Monday,
a woman from the nearby village of Tubusereia came to help me with my more
physically challenging chores, like washing dust-coated windows (every room in
the house has at least one full wall of slat windows, and the bedrooms have two),
mopping, and washing the curtains. Everything here is very expensive, except
labor. I give her a good wage of about $8/half day, about twice a month, plus I
always send her home with odds and ends like food and treats for the kids, and
feed her and her kids breakfast and lunch. She has no electricity in her house,
no toilet in her house, no refrigerator, and cooks outside over an open fire.
Today, I came into town with Steven for my weekly Bible
study at City Mission’s Haus Ruth, the women’s shelter we run. I made my
photocopies at the office, and then got in the car for the 5-minute drive to
the shelter. Halfway there, we had to
turn back, because the road was completely blocked by people waiting to get
gas. Apparently, there is a fuel shortage due to the oil company have a dispute
with the government over taxes. There is no estimate as to when the dispute
will be settled, which means we may end up unable to drive back and forth to
work. It is a 35-40 minute drive, each way. The electricity has gone off about
5 times already this morning, but fortunately it has come right back on again.
We’re not always so lucky at the farm, so they have a generator to back it up,
but it runs on GAS. No gas, no backup, maybe spoiled food? Ah well, such is
life here in PNG! We won’t starve: there
is lots of food grown on the farm, and though it is usually for the boys that
we serve, I’m sure they’ll share if we run out…
So, instead of teaching a class, I wrote blogs today. And
that is my slice of life!
