Author: Chris Hostetter

School is out and Chris has spent the last three weeks in the bush. The girls and I joined him for the first week, and then we came back to town and worked on moving. Again! It was our fifth move in the past 12 months, and we are all looking forward to being settled […]

Looking back, I see that I have only written three blog posts since school started in August. Sorry about that. Apparently, when you become a teacher, you enter some kind of time warp and the days go by much faster than they did before. Well, that means there’s lots to tell, so let’s get to […]

A big name is a big deal in PNG. Giving someone a big name is like praising them, or affirming their status in the community. To “down” someone’s name is to slander them and hurt their reputation. Nobody likes that. In Pal, they say, “Muni ngongo epc toalogo.” (“We will make his name big.”) This […]

Last month Chris took a short trip into the village to see how things were going. He was encouraged that, for the most part, things are carrying on fine. The community has plans to build a new church/school building with a tin roof, so Chris helped them organize the transport of the sheets of tin, […]

The kids’ summer vacation is dwindling. Friends are returning from trips to their home countries, PE uniforms are being handed down to the next sibling, pages are being ripped from last year’s notebooks so they can be used this year, and the days of sleeping in are numbered. I have been working on getting my […]

The Pal church is having its first real test. Since we taught them the message of the Bible in 2014, hundreds of people have professed faith in Jesus and have been baptized. Church attendance has been consistently good, and Bible studies have continued to happen weekly. There hasn’t been any large-scale persecution of believers; in […]

Have you ever wondered what it takes to translate the Bible into a previously-unwritten tribal language? No? I’m going to tell you anyway. Step 1: Move into a tribal village, learn their language and culture through lots and lots of conversation, and write an alphabet for their language so that you can write it down. […]

First things first: It was Bailey’s 12th birthday yesterday! Which means that I was up until 10:30 the night before making tiny elephants out of pink and gray icing to put on the cupcakes that she made for her class. I thought they looked a bit pitiful, but she thought they were cute so we’ll […]

I am taking advantage of the time difference between PNG and the States to get this last post of the year done. From where I sit, it is already January 1st, but as long as I post this before 4 pm, it will still count as December in the US! Last night we all stayed […]

This is the time of year in which I always get the most homesick. Right about the time when everyone in the US starts complaining about Daylight Savings, I am reminded that there is snow on the ground at my parents’ house, there are Christmas decorations up in all the Targets and Walmarts, and our […]