{"id":526,"date":"2010-11-21T10:09:10","date_gmt":"2010-11-21T14:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/?p=526"},"modified":"2012-01-03T06:38:07","modified_gmt":"2012-01-03T10:38:07","slug":"our-first-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/2010\/11\/21\/our-first-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Our First Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSC05961\"<\/a>It was four weeks ago, today, that we arrived in Papua New Guinea.\u00a0 We are so thankful for the grace of God shown to us in many ways this past month.\u00a0 As you have prayed for us the Lord has\u00a0encouraged and challenged our hearts and continues to stretch our faith in Him.
\n<\/a>
\nNovember is always an exciting month for our family with three birthdays to celebrate and Thanksgiving to look forward to. We have celebrated two of our three November birthdays so far.\u00a0 Benjamin and Silas both enjoyed simple yet special birthdays.\u00a0 In fact, it has been refreshing to be forced to think simply and practically when it comes to birthday gifts and treats.\u00a0 Our Thanksgiving celebration will also be a more simplified version of what we are used to.\u00a0 There are no turkeys in our part of the country, but there is plenty of pumpkin and\u00a0sweet potato!<\/p>\n

Language Learning<\/span>
\nWe have two weeks of official\u00a0culture and language study under out belts, but we are still feeling our way along in this process.\u00a0 Our language learning is centered around culture events.\u00a0 So we have to get out into the community and participate in\u00a0life as it is happening in order to get a good grasp of how people communicate here.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a difficult strategy to follow as a family, and requires a lot of planning and flexibility.\u00a0 This is the part that has been the most demanding for us so far.\u00a0 Once we are out and participating in community life we find it easy to learn and the PNG people eager to teach.\u00a0 You can pray that we’ll continue to work out the kinks in our routine to accommodate this culture and language learning strategy.<\/p>\n

Culture Events<\/span>
\nIn the past two weeks we have managed to get to the local market with our neighbor, Elizabeth.\u00a0 She sat with Missy afterward and helped her to compile the information that she had gathered.\u00a0 Elizabeth is a natural teacher and seems to be willing to do this more with Missy!\u00a0 Praise the Lord!\u00a0 We also made it down to the place in town where we buy our bread and spent time with the people there in that community.\u00a0 Missy was, again, able to get some good language exposure.\u00a0 Benjamin attended a graduation that was held just across the street from us.\u00a0 He volunteered to take pictures of the ceremony as a favor to our new friends there.\u00a0 There were 10 speeches and he was gone for nearly five hours that day!\u00a0 Talk about language and culture learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We’ve also attended one of the local churches here in our neighborhood, and have made some good contacts there.\u00a0 One of the ladies is going to be spending time with Missy this week in language study.\u00a0 The next culture event plan\u00a0is to visit a community close by where traditional basket weaving is done.\u00a0 The more we can get out into the community the better.\u00a0 But we really need wisdom to know how much is too much, and what is not enough!\u00a0 Praise the Lord for experienced consultants to give us input.\u00a0 Pray that we would have the tenacity that it takes to absorb and learn from this new culture.<\/p>\n

All the Rest<\/span>
\nWhen we are not\u00a0in language learning mode, we are in homeschooling mode.\u00a0\u00a0Each week has been a little different and\u00a0mixed with challenges and\u00a0success.\u00a0 Pray that we would be realistic with our expectations, and yet consistent and productive.\u00a0 So far Missy and the kids have done exceptionally well.\u00a0\u00a0When we are\u00a0eventually in relax mode we have the beach to enjoy, and great co-workers to spend time with.\u00a0 We have also really enjoyed\u00a0getting to know the\u00a0different church planting teams who have been out in town\u00a0with us on break.\u00a0 It is\u00a0so exciting to hear what the Lord is doing in these previously unreached areas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We have so much to be thankful for.\u00a0 We are\u00a0so thankful for each of you praying for us, giving sacrificially\u00a0to us and loving us over this great distance.\u00a0 We are so thankful for the unchanging Word of\u00a0God that\u00a0we posses in our own language.\u00a0 What an encouragement the Word has been to our hearts\u00a0these days.\u00a0 We are so thankful for\u00a0our\u00a0heavenly Father who continues to meet our needs and the\u00a0Spirit of God who has comforted our hearts.\u00a0 We are so thankful for the Lord Jesus who is with us, behind us, before us and bearing us\u00a0up each and every day.\u00a0 What would we do without Him?<\/p>\n

Benjamin and Missy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was four weeks ago, today, that we arrived in Papua New Guinea.\u00a0 We are so thankful for the grace of God shown to us in many ways this past month.\u00a0 As you have prayed for us the Lord has\u00a0encouraged and challenged our hearts and continues to stretch our faith in Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1054],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-the-very-latest-news","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/benjamin-hatton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}