Category: Uncategorized

It’s back-to-school season! The girls are already in their fifth week of classes, and the boys have started a new semester at Liberty after arriving early to help the new MKs acclimatize to college. Chris and I are the dorm parents for this year, so the house is full again with the addition of five […]

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 […]

At 5 am on New Year’s Day we boarded our first flight back to PNG, leaving both boys behind this time. We arrived on Saturday afternoon, and within 24 hours I had developed a fever that would eventually get up to 104 and render me useless for the next week. I spent the first week […]

We’ve been in the States for six months. By the time we fly back to PNG in a month, we’ll have slept in 16 different beds, spoken at 11 churches, visited many supporters, and lived in 3 different houses. We’ve been able to experience 3 of the 4 seasons and visit states from the east […]

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 […]