We have finished most of our major traveling. We only spent one week in Fort Worth from the time we arrived in Texas, June 15th until we returned back to Texas on Aug. 16th. We put many miles on our van and Josiah was able to get many hours of driving practice. He wasn’t real excited about driving a passenger van but at least it was hours behind the wheel. We are finding that our kids really struggle with directions and knowing their way home after spending the last 11 years on an island ½ mile long and ¼ mile wide. We are working a lot on map skills. We have found that the GPS we use in PNG to find our way around without hitting the reefs with our boat has been VERY valuable as we travel cross country.
It has been a joy to catch up with family and old friends and even to meet relatives that we have never met before. We are so thankful for the time to reconnect with family and friends. Now that we are back in Texas we are trying to make sure our kids have opportunities to make friends and feel a part of life in the USA. This will be helpful for them when the time comes for them to transition back to life in the USA after graduation. Bethany has joined a volleyball league and will be taking dual credit classes at the local community college. All of the kids will be part of a Homeschool co-op every Friday. We are looking forward to meeting new friends and getting to have class together with other students one day a week. We also hope to let some of the kids work on musical instruments and sports. Linn is just hoping to keep up with the rigors of taxiing kids all over the metroplex. We know many of you have been doing this for years but it is new for us.
We have not heard any news from our tribe in PNG. We did hear of pirates stealing a boat near our island so we are hoping that is not an on-going issue! There have been many earthquakes in PNG since we left. We do not think any of them were close enough to us to do any damage.
We hope to return to PNG in January. Please pray with us that we will be able to tell in the next month or so how Josiah is doing at school and be ready to commit to return airline tickets. We want to be here for our kids as long as they need us and we also want to continue on with the ministry with the Tigak people. Also, we would appreciate your prayers as we share about the work among the Tigak that we would have wisdom in sharing with supporters, potential missionaries and kids of all ages.