A Sight for Sore Eyes

A couple weeks ago a nasty strain of conjuncitivis was going around Lae. Almost every family in our church was affected by it, as well as many from the kid's schools. Jonathan was the first in our family to get it, but he managed to recover in just a couple days. Ian and Karlyn, however, both got hit pretty hard. Especially the first couple days, their eyes were swollen, weeping, and at the worst of it, the whites of their eyes were completely red. Although the worst is definitely over now, both of them still have some red spots on their eyes that are slowly going away. It is extremely contagious, but thankfully Caleb and I didn't get it. Probably thanks to the constant handwashing and sterilizing that went on around here! Poor Shiana VanderHeide who happened to be staying with us that week also got it and missed a day of school (although I don't think she minded that too, too much and Karlyn enjoyed the company:)).
Here are the two patients. Pretty pitiful, eh?!

It is dry and very hot these days. We have gone some three weeks without any rain and that really heats things up around here. But then finally God sends rain again and we enjoy a cloudy day or two and some cooler temperatures. I say 'cooler' because it's less humid, but really it's still 30 C!

Our first day of rain after a dry spell, and our crazy kids put their goggles on for a bike ride in the rain!

...This is Jonathan's new bike that we shipped over from Canada.

(I'm not sure if you're following this blog, but just in case, thanks again, Mr. Brian, from Magnolia Drive!).

And of course Karlyn is happy with her 'hand-me-down' from her brother!

When it doesn't rain we complain about feeling the heat more, but at least we still have plenty of water to drink (and it's purified at that!), to wash our dishes and clothes, and have a cool shower after a long hot day. And even our kids will spray each other down with the hose sometimes--actually I feel guilty that we can even do that. Readily available water really is a luxury. Most of our national friends living in the settlements collect rain water to supply their drinking, cooking and washing water. So you can imagine that when it doesn't rain for a few weeks, they find themselves short, which is why rain tanks such as these pictured below are so valuable and necessary. This is a new tank that is being installed on our church property and will serve to supply water to our church community and the broader community. We were able to purchase it through donations that came from the churches in Western Australia. This is our church group, saying, thank you, everyone!

Speaking of water, here is our Caleb, presiding over us, as he sits in the new baptismal font for our church, which happened to be at our house for a few days before we brought it to the church!

Many of the people from the Sepik province here in PNG are gifted in the area of wood carving. And when a few large trees were being cut down right outside the gate of our compound, Ian noticed a group of these carvers gathering there. So he went, with a drawing in hand, and asked a couple of them to carve the font. Although he gave them some artistic freedom too!

Sorry I got the order of the photos wrong, but here it is in the earlier stages.

We hope many will be sprinkled with water from this font as they are baptized into the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Or, seeing as our 6 month old fits in it no problem, maybe newborns could be fully immersed:)!