As I was out jogging this afternoon, on an incredible fall day, I was thinking about the fact that I haven’t blogged in a while. I guess there’s maybe something about jogging that gets one thinking about blogging. So from jogging to blogging...
We are so enjoying being around family and friends, enjoying the fellowship and getting to know our nieces and nephews again!
Uncle Peter and Liam with Jonathan and Karlyn
Karlyn bonds with Uncle Greg at storytime
And with Auntie Lu
We are also loving the little home we have here and getting out on the ‘rail trail’(tracks and rails removed!) beside our house whenever we can. I’m even jogging 4km a few times a week on there these days. That’s a feat for me, but yeah, a good friend still ran the socks off me the other day (right, Alice?!).
The leaves keep falling in our front yard--and Karlyn falls in right after them!
And then today I went to the library with the kids. Especially after living in Lae where the town library apparently shut down because people were not returning the books, I am so thankful for this resource. The selection of books and videos and dvds…it’s incredible! And yes, it actually works the way it’s supposed to---people do return them! It makes me even more sad that Lae doesn’t have one—the people could benefit so much. Maybe someday.
And even with all of these things we're enjoying here, I often still find myself longing for PNG. Talk about struggling to be content! But actually I’m thankful for this struggle. When we first arrived here, I had a hard time thinking about going back to PNG. I was only thinking about the stress of Ian being sick and the other stresses of life there and thought, I’d rather stay here! But the Lord has helped me work through this and I’m thankful to say that that has changed. Now we just need Ian to get better…and it seems that slowly, ever so slowly, his health is improving. It’s not that we notice improvements everyday or even every week. It’s more like every couple of weeks, or when we compare this month to last month, we realize he has a bit more energy and is feeling less symptoms. And for that we praise God and hold on to the hope that this will continue. We’ve not received an ‘official’ diagnosis yet from the doctors at the missionary health institute, which is in a way discouraging and frustrating, but regardless, the Lord’s in control. The naturopathic doctor, on the other hand, maintains that Ian has a parasite in his heart tissue and a viral infection in his spleen. And this does seem to make sense when we consider his symptoms, so maybe we should just stop being skeptical about homeopathic medicine and believe it! Ian has been taking herbal medication for these things for about 2 months now, so maybe that’s why we’re seeing improvements. Whatever the case, we’re thankful, but have to admit that sometimes we’ve despaired and become discouraged. But here too, we are learning the secret of being content whatever the circumstances! And being thankful that we can serve our God wherever we are!
This week we have a good friend staying with us--Nathan Boersema, who works for Worldwide Christian Schools in Western Canada, and used to work in Nicaragua. He's here for a few days for meetings with his Ontario colleagues. We haven't seen Nathan in years, and it is really great to re-connect. The only sad thing is that Kim and the girls aren't here with us. (Miss you, Kim!) Jonathan and Karlyn have fallen in love with "uncle" Nathan in a matter of days and think he's lots of fun.
Speaking of visitors, we have some Aussies coming over tomorrow. Should be fun! Maybe I'll have to take a few photos and post them, especially for all of you 'down under'!!
