All Posts

Apparently, when your kids are in college or are playing high school sports, the summer ends in early August. Micah and Cole left for college and are settling into Liberty University as roommates, Micah for his sophomore year studying music and Cole as a freshman studying English education. Maisie and Bailey are well into their […]

In the Pal tribe, there are no separate words for “house” and “home.” Saying to someone, “That is my house,” would be the same as saying, “That is my home.” But if I were to ask my Pal neighbors, “Where do you live?” I think they would be very confused. They might think, “Where do […]

When we lived in the bush, we hiked everywhere. The Pal people don’t live in one or two main villages; they live in fifty tiny villages spread all over the mountains. From our house, we could hike for about 45 minutes in either direction and reach 10 of them, but for access to any others […]

Chris and Micah have been gone for 5 weeks now. No one in our family has ever been apart this long before. Micah found a job and is working full-time, and he’s traveling around seeing friends and supporters with Chris on his days off. He will be starting at Liberty University in about a month, […]

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 […]

Well, I’m not sure what happened, but it’s not May anymore. In fact, it’s not even June anymore. So I’m definitely behind in my blog posting. But because we spent the past three weeks in the bush, I actually have things to tell you now instead of just posting end-of-the-year pictures of the kids. Pshftsh. […]

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 […]