Christmas, days of wonder, days of snow, eating good food, family, presents, laughter and maybe superman 3 in the afternoon, if you can stay awake long enough to make it through. Well Christmas this year wasn’t particularly that kind of Christmas for the Flanagan family. We did however have wonderful travels and many prayers were answered, no really! We got to Dublin in plenty of time for our departure (thanks Arf and Dad) only to be offered an earlier flight, we said “yes please” as we thought this would give us more time for a coffee before security. Well if we hadn’t have gotten on that flight our next flight would have been delayed and we wouldn’t have made our connection in London! Our flight in London was the last to leave before the snow delays hit. If we had missed either of these flights we would would have missed our connection and because it’s with all different carriers we would have had to have bought our tickets again! The Lord was looking out for us. We had bassinet seating to Tokyo which was wonderful and then we had six seats blocked for us without request from Tokyo to Port Moresby (a 6 1/2 hour flight)! We had excess luggage but were not charged for a gram of it. Lastly we made our connection in Port Moresby which we didn’t expect, the volcano on our island was kicking off a bit so there was delays causing 300+ people to queue at domestic departures making it impossible for anyone to get boarding passes. Needless to say we for some reason we were moved ahead through the crowds and got our boarding passes very quickly, our flight was only delayed by a couple of hours and before we knew it we were home again. All of these answers to prayers have been so encouraging for us; what a caring God we have.
Anyhow back to Christmas– over the next few days we got settled in, did some food shopping and made up our house with some decorations and got prepared for Christmas eve / day etc. We were just getting used to sleeping in 36 degree temps at night and then Christmas eve arrived and Annika got sick, fever, vomiting the whole nine yards, so I (Simon) ended up getting everyone to bed early and having a meal on my own 🙁 So needless to say Christmas day wasn’t as normal with Annika tired and sick; but Annika did start to feel better by the end of the day. Then it was Simon’s turn to get sick and had the same thing over Christmas night and boxing day. We just praise the Lord that neither of the kids got sick and are still doing fine. There is just lots of stomach bugs here in the tropics and it’s just part of life.
We really feel settled in these last days, have got over jet lag and are feeling healthy. So as we told many of you we would be planning a trip into the Mengen tribe as soon as flights resumed in the new year. We have scheduled a flight into Mengen for the 4th of Jan and hope to be there for a week to get a closer look at the work and chat with the existing team. Please continue to pray that the Lord would lead us clearly and open and close doors accordingly. You can be sure we will have lots of photos and news to share with you on our return. But we wont have email for that week or so.
Please pray:
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1) That we would all remain healthy, especially Nya and even more so Noah, as he is so small – illnesses like malaria would be very hard on the kids.
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2) We would have safety in travel into Mengen and during our stay in the village.
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3) That the Lord would clearly direct us if we are to join the work as we look around and discuss the situation with the team.
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4) That the kids would continue to be settled as we will be taking this trip so soon after arriving.
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5) That Simon could get house plans drawn up for the future building project; that it would be cost efficient and relatively simple to put together. That we would have wisdom to be able to draw up a materials list in prep for housebuilding. This will take a lot of work and research. That we would have wisdom to know how to design a bush house that may allow us to build small at the start but allow us to expand with minimal material wastage later. A good bush house design can save time, money and allow you to stay healthier during your time in the village. Please pray for continued financial provision for the building project. We hope to be housebuilding before the summer.
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Pray we would continue to walk close with the Lord and be an encouragement while we are here in New Britain.
Thanks so much for your prayers; they are precious to us. Remember to let us know how we can pray for you!
Love Simon, Annika, Nya and Noah