Today was a busy day. A good day, but a busy day. Many, many people were here today for a variety of reasons and my mind struggled to keep up with who everyone was, where they came from, and why they were here. We, the Claasens and us, were faced with a number of different requests today from various peoples for various things. I am very thankful that Nate has spent a year already in this culture and was so much more prepared than I to respond appropriately to each thing that came up. It was a learning experience and, just like sky-diving, you free-fall until you figure out how to pull your parachute. Today was my first time sky-diving in Pal and I think I came out unscathed. And now that I’ve experienced that much more of Pal culture, next time I’ll be free falling less and floating gently with my parachute more. One of the things requested of us we have not given an answer to yet so please pray for wisdom in this matter. Also, please pray that we would respond wisely every time we are faced with decisions to make especially since many times we do not fully understand the issue as we do not yet fully understand Pal culture. Pray that God would be glorified and His Kingdom built here. We have a great relationship with the Pal people, thanks to our teammates who came before us, and we desire that everything we say and do will only strengthen that relationship.
I’ve figured out how to compress pics so that I can get them up on this blog from the tribe and our snail-paced internet, so there should be two pics with this and more coming with each new blog post. Enjoy!