1 Week Down!

Life has been going good here in PNG! Our house, Primerose Cottage is really cute. The only slight annoyances are that before we arrived our solar hot water heater broke so they put in an electric water heater. The only problem is that it doesn't create that much hot water so we have been taking lukewarm showers. The only thing is that for the past 3 days, our water has been turning brown in the evenings. By morning and most of the day it is clear so we don't really know what causes it. It has been raining in the evening so we think that maybe the rain is stirring up the dirt in the bottom of the tank but we aren't sure on that. Amy isn't adapted enough yet to drink brown water so we have been making sure we fill up enough water in the morning to last the whole day.

We have been here a week now and not starved yet! We have had dinner at other missionaries houses 5 times now. The other nights we made homemade tacos with homemade tortillas (you can buy tortillas in town for about $13 for 12), homemade waffles with homemade syrup, hamburgers, and loaded baked potatoes. Amy even made homemade cookies twice already. We only get groceries once a month so we are trying to figure out how to balance not eating all our vegetables in the first 2 weeks and not waiting too long so that they spoil. Our meals will probably get more unhealthy the closer we get to the next shopping day. Thankfully, we haven't had any shortage of fresh fruit though. There are more pineapples on the station than the missionaries know what to do with and we have enjoyed bananas, oranges, lemons, passionfruit, and applies. Unlike when I was here last time, they have really nice shrink wrapped New Zealand apples in town for about $3.50 for 6.

This weekend we had some fun. On Saturday, we went to the Hagen Show (a cultural show where different tribes dress in traditional outfits) to get Amy some cultural exposure. It was pretty fun although we got sunburned. We took pictures and will try to post some. Unfortunately, since a lot of traditional outfits involve a lot of nudity, most of our pictures are probably inappropriate to post. Saturday night, one of the missionary kids, Josiah Radcliffe, hosted a showing of the Fellowship of the Ring extended edition so a lot of missionaries gathered to watch that. Sunday afternoon, some of the MKs and a couple adults went to the river to go tubing (floating down the rapids in a car tire inner tube). I didn't do a very good job showing Amy how to steer so she hit quite a few rocks and didn't like it that much but she said she would go again once I teach her how to control the tube better.

Today, we went to Hagen again (our 4th time in 1 week, bleh!). For those that don't know, Mt. Hagen is about an hour a way and it is a very tiring experience to go which is why we try to only go once a month to get groceries. We took some volunteers to the airport who were leaving and then went into town. Some missionaries ladies had to shop but Amy and I had go come along because we had an "interview" to open a bank account. We basically sat in the bank office for a full 2 hours while the guy put all our information into the computer and barely talked to us. Then we signed about 10 papers and were done but at least we got our bank set up. I found out today though that about 2 years ago, they started making new 1 kina coins with are smaller and they stopped making the 1 and 2 toea coins. Now, no one, not even the bank will take the large 1 kinas or the small toea coins. We brought a bunch of those with us so they are now worthless.

I casually mentioned to Harmon (the field director) that since we have time before school starts that it would be fun to take a week to do a language study somewhere. He offered to fly us to Dusin (a remote village in the mountains) and the field would pay for it. Amy and I talked about it and we decided not to do it. We thought the money could be better used somewhere else. Also, Amy felt too much pressure since the language study would mostly be for her and if for some reason she came back and didn't know pidgin, she would feel bad. We may try to go somewhere cheaper though like Mandamil (a mission station run by missionaries from Switzerland) since we can just drive there.

I feel bad for Amy because I kept telling her how nice the Papua New Guinea weather is and it just happens that we showed up during the coldest and wettest dry season they have had in a long time. The first 5 days we were here it was overcast and raining most of the day. Since they, we have had 2 sunny days but both days it still rained in the evening. The missionaries said that it has rained pretty much every single day since June and this is the dry season! It is also getting into the low 60s every night so we have been sleeping in sweat pants. Last year, during dry season they had a 3 month drought without any rain so I guess this is better than that.

This weekend I got to eat my first stick of sugarcane in a long time as well as some fresh peanuts which I love. School starts 2 weeks from today so in the meantime, we will be preparing for the coming year, working around the house a bit including getting our garden started, and possibly spending a week in the "bush".

Thanks for all your prayer and support so far! We have only been here a week and we can already feel God working in our lives! We appreciate all the financial support you have all given us and I was hoping some of you might prayerfully consider a request from some of our fellow missionaries. My former roommate from college and his wife have been volunteers in PNG for the past 2 years. They feel God calling them to return as full time, long term missionaries. However, due to budget constraints, they Nazarene church is not able to send out paid missionaries at this time. Therefore, in order to go as full time missionaries with the Nazarene church, they have to raise their own support. It is a tremendous amount of money to stay on the mission field and they are prayerfully trusting God to provide for their needs.

They are looking for 50 people to partner with them and be willing to donate $50 a month. Some people may be able to give more and maybe a couple people could get together and donate $50 together. Many people sponsor a child and this is only a little more than that. Prehaps a church could make this an extension of their ministry. If you feel led to donate or if you simply want more information about their ministry, you can visit their fund page at http://web.nazarene.org/goto/thompson.png. Through this page you can make a 1 time donation or have a monthly gift automatically withdrawn. Thanks for prayerfully considering this request and thank you all so much for how much you have already given to Amy and I.

We Made It!

For anyone who hadn't heard yet, we made it safely to Papua New Guinea. None of our flights were delayed and we made the entire trip without any road blocks. We just got internet in our house today but we have been in the country now for 3 days. So far we have spent our time putting away our stuff, meeting the local people, and cleaning the school I will be teaching at. Yesterday we went into the nearest town, an hour away, to buy our groceries for the next month.

Amy's assignment here is a little more clear now. She is being asked to teach Math to the grade school children. She will be teaching 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grade math every day until 11:30. After that she will probably spend the afternoons helping at the hospital either working with the nursing students or doing community health care. That part will become more clear as time goes by. There is another teacher who is try to come here by the end of October and if she makes it here, Amy will probably be able to work full time at the hospital.

School doesn't start for a couple more weeks so in the mean time, we plan on getting ready for the school year, starting a garden, finding ways to ministry to the people here. I am trying to convince Amy that we should take next week as a "language study" week and go live in a grass hut somewhere. I am not sure she is convinced yet!

Thanks for all your prayers and support thus far. We will try to have pictures up on our website soon for you all to see.

On the Journey,

Stephen Hollenberg