last post in png!

Tomorrow we fly away from PNG, but not to home yet. We will be a week in Australia first. The last two weeks have flown by.

Last week Tuesday morning through Thursday afternoon was the youth camp. It was out at Opalai, a village about an hour away. They have a big house with several small rooms that all the campers and interns stayed in. We had 43 campers, with a good mix of church kids and non-church members. Marcus taught 2 out of the 4 big “lessons” and Logan and Leslie Williams each took one. After each lesson, the campers divided into their groups and each of us led “group discussion” which in this culture basically means the leader talking because they’re so shy. I had the oldest girl group, and they did talk a little bit. None of the missionaries stayed there overnight so we were basically in charge. We had some organized games and team building activities, and lots of soccer and volleyball in-between scheduled activities. Overall it was a good time. After the last session we had a time for them to ask questions individually to the group leaders. One of my girls, Jacinta, asked me “how many times do you have to be baptized?” We talked for nearly half an hour…I’m leaving out so much about youth camp but that will have to do, for my sake and yours.

Friday we did some souvenir shopping and that night had dinner at the Reeses. They told us story after story about their time at Harding (they were there 8 or 9 years ago I think). Diane told hilarious stories. The best one is that at their wedding, instead of kissing at the end, they gave each other a high five!

This week has been our “dis-orientation” week. Tuesday we hiked several hours up a mountain to a point on the ridge that the Allies used as a look-out point for all of Milne Bay in WWII. Then we hiked back down to a gorgeous waterfall. Coming down it was very steep and very muddy and we had jam our walking sticks into the ground for every step and even so we were slipping the whole way. Our guide, Wesley, was a man from Gama village. He got lost a couple times and by the time we got back to the main river we were all exhausted. The rest of the hike was down the river over huge boulders and slippery rocks. I kept thinking of how much my brother would have loved it. That night Gama church had a goodbye dinner for us.

Wednesday we went out to an Island, a couple hours from Alotau. Leslie, Tate and Thomas fished most of the time, but the interns stayed on the island and played on the beach. There was several islands in view from our beach and it was absolutely amazing. We came back Thursday night to delicious Mexican food Loopie made, icecream, and hot showers.

It’s so bizarre that we’re leaving tomorrow!

Prayer requests: Safety and harmony in Australia.