Today and Yesterday

We said goodbye to Dad and Mom today...always a difficult thing to do. How quickly we grew to love having them around and now the void is felt. It left us feeling a bit blah today--and even the skies were grey and overcast--rather appropriate, we thought! Karlyn cried over and over again on the way home from the airport, "I don't want Papa and Nana to go..."! It is hard to say goodbye, especially since it may be a year or two before we see them again. But the Lord gave us so many special experiences with them as we shared our life and ministry. Those experiences we'll remember and hold onto!

Yesterday afternoon (Sunday), we walked down to Biwat Settlement where Dad had helped put in the water tank. The men had finished the job off nicely while we were away. The pipes are all hooked up, coming from the roof of the house down to the top of the tank. They also put up sheet metal as a bit of a protective barrier around the tank--they previously had a tank in the community and it was wrecked by drunken young men and their bush knives. Hopefully, this metal fence will prevent that from happening again. Here are Dad and Mom and some of the thankful people.
Many of the people were not around as they had crossed the river to attend a community meeting on the other side. Most of the people living in Biwat are from the Sepik province, and in another town about 2 hours from Lae, their fellow Sepik relatives are in the middle of tribal warfare with the Buang tribe. The Sepik people there have been forced into hiding, fearing for their lives, many of them taking refuge at a forestry company. The Buang tribe is trying to avenge the killing of one of their young men. It is chaotic; it is frightening and terrorizing for the Sepik people in that area, but also for the ones here in Lae. The meeting was held for them to discuss how they can help and they plan to send some donated clothes for the displaced people. There are also rumours that our governor is going to force all Sepik people to leave the settlements of Lae and return to their own province. Not sure if this will really happen, but if it does, of course this would cause more chaos, protests, and bloodshed. Please pray with us for peace and a resolution to all of this fighting and uncertainty in the lives of the Sepik people.

At least the children seemed oblivious to the stressful times, as they splashed and played in the river! It didn't take long for Jonathan to get in there with them!

These two girls had dug a small hole in the dirt and were trying to flick their marbles into it.

I fell in love with this little one. Her name is Charlotte. Isn't she adorable?