Today...Jonathan turned 4!

Well, our little man is 4 years old already! Hard to believe how time flies. All week Jonathan’s been counting down the sleeps until his big day, and then today as the day went on, he kept asking to make sure it was still his birthday!

The vanderHeide girls came over this morning and became part of the cake-decorating team!

And here’s the finished airplane cake!

Even a big 4 year old needs Daddy’s help blowing out the candles!

His birthday present, imported all the way from Toys R Us, Canada!

And an afternoon swim with a crocodile to finish off our wonderful day.

We praise God for Jonathan and pray that he will grow in his knowledge of the Lord and love and serve Him with all his heart!

Rainy Day

There are clothes, towels and sheets hanging in various spots throughout our house—on the clothes rack, of course, but since we ran out of room on it, there are sheets draped over chairs and tables and hanging from curtain rods. I also hung up a temporary clothes line out front of our house. Today started out as a nice sunny day, and so I didn’t expect the rain that’s coming down now. Hence I washed all the sheets and the towels and lots of clothes!

We seem to be having more rainy days lately, so it must be the rainy season, I guess. Since Lae gets about 5 metres of rain annually, even the locals have a hard time specifying exactly when it is. We’ve asked many different people, many times, and have never received the same answer twice! We understand the confusion--most people don’t typically follow a calendar, and then you have the fact that it rains all the time in Lae, even during the ‘dry’ season! But we have figured out this much in the couple years we’ve been here—-during the dry season, we stay mostly dry, because it only rains at night! (With torrential downpours and house-shaking thunderstorms!) And then during the wet season, it rains at night and during the day. And it can rain and rain and rain. So that’s where we’re at today. Our laundry will probably stay hanging up all of today, and probably tomorrow too, and then unless the sun comes out, it still won’t be dry and we’ll just have to settle for damp towels, clothes and sheets. Actually, in the humidity, things basically feel this way anyway...so what am I complaining about?!

Jonathan and Karlyn always get excited about running around in the rain. Actually Jonathan gets most excited about wearing his raincoat! I guess he’s a Canadian at heart and likes the idea of donning extra layers:) Karlyn, on the other hand, usually refuses, like the day I took this photo. At least she’ll wear her rubber boots though!

Friends

We were recently blessed with the company of some new friends---David and Susan Howard and their 4 children, Katie, Melissa, Samuel and Jonathan. They are Bible translators with SIL/Wycliffe and normally live in their village or in Ukarumpa. However, for the past 4 months they joined us here in Lae, while they were the fill-in managers for the SIL guesthouse. (The usual managers are on furlough--you know, the ones we share the little tugboat with!)

David and Susan are very hospitable people, so they had us over for dinner often! In turn, their boys regularly came here to play for a morning when Susan was busy home-schooling their girls. Their family also regularly attended our church while they were here. It was really nice to have them as part of the fellowship. We will miss their presence there, and also the commotion their Jonathan (not our Jonathan, of course!!) caused when he would catch a handful of baby toads in the middle of the service!!! Actually, more than once, our Jonathan also came home with a pocketful of not-so-alive toads, the poor things!


Here are Katie, Karlyn, Melissa, Jonathan W, Samuel, and Jonathan H!

One Sunday at church, someone made the connection that the language David and Susan are translating is actually the language of our former pastor's wife, Ruth Bouway. We've met many of the people from Ruth's village and it is amazing for us to realize that we know some of the people who will, the Lord willing, be blessed with a Bible in their mother tongue through the work of David and Susan and their national co-translators.

Last week, we said goodbye to them as they left to return to Ukarumpa and their translation work. We will miss them but look forward to seeing them again sometime. We pray for God's blessings over them and their work!

Men at Work

For weeks now, Jonathan has been looking forward to building a mini picnic table with Ian. "We'll be worker men, Dad", he has said many times! Well, this past weekend, they finally set out to build that table. It took them a few hours---well, Jonathan didn't quite last that long--as you can see from the photo, the noise was a little much for him! So after about 10 minutes he ran off to play with the girls and came back to 'check' on Dad every once in a while. For Ian, it was so good to get his mind off our ministry work and some of the stresses he's dealing with right now and just be busy with his hands.

And here's the end product! Just needs a bit of sanding and some staining/varnishing!

Jonathan had to try it out--he's playing with his playdough on it. We haven't decided yet if it's going to stay inside or out. I think Ian might have to build another one...

Good Friday in Lae

Wishing you all a blessed Easter!

Here are a few snapshots from our worship service on Good Friday. Whenever we have a 'special' service (Christmas, Easter, Profession of Faith), anyone who wants to has the opportunity to present an "item" after the service. Usually a song, often sung in their mother tongue, which for most is not pidgin. Two groups of Sunday School children sang, as well as the Women's Bible Study, and these three girls you see here.

Yeah, Ian and I sang too. During his sermon, Ian had shared the story of when the hymn, "It is well with my soul" was written--after the author lost all four of his daughters to the Atlantic sea. As we remembered Christ's death on the cross for us, this verse was so powerful: "my sin--o the bliss of this glorious thought--my sin not in part but in whole, was nailed to the cross and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord o my soul."

After the service, we enjoyed donuts that some of the women had made--they stayed up almost all night making 300 of them!! And then, some played volleyball and others just sat around on the grass, storying with one another.

It was a wonderful way to celebrate our Lord Jesus' saving work on the cross!