Visiting Piku...

 Today we walked down to Nui kamp to visit Piku and her family. Piku works in the kitchen, doing the laundry each day. This is her husband, Joe and her son, Philip.

 Philip isn't actually Piku's child. But since Joe and Piku only had girls, five of them, they asked Piku's sister to give them their boy. This is a normal practice in this culture. This way, when Joe and Piku are older their son, Philip, will take care of them. All of their girls will get married and go away from home, but the sons are expected to take care of their parents when they are older. So, Philip just arrived in Piku's family a few months ago and hasn't seen too many white people, hence the strange look! :)

 Piku picked a cabbage from her garden to give to us.

And then showed me all around their garden...this is a garden of rice.

 This is more rice that will be ready soon.

 Piku also gave us some green onions.

 And fresh tomatoes!

 And potatoes!

 I think the sun was a bit too bright for me in this picture. :) Piku named her daughter after me so I enjoy giving "little Beth" banana cakes for her birthday so Piku wanted to give me something too... lots of food. :)

On our walk home we noticed the rain coming across the valley. We made it back before the rain! :)

Jacob and Kyma

Our German Shepherd loves attention! Kyma's dog house is right next to our house so whenever someone is coming, we know. :)

Jacob cut my hair!

There comes a point when my hair just gets too long and so I was very happy that Jacob was willing to learn how to cut hair! He has watched Jana cut my hair the last two times. But I was thankful that we also had a book on how to cut hair too! He did a great job! Oh and by the way, the speed square was to measure the three inches that he was suppose to cut off. :)

Ever grill a banana?

 After our Fri night campfire was rained out we thought we could still have dessert... we (Jacob and I, Marco, Diemo, Jonny and Julie) all headed to our house to grill up some bananas.

 Marco's creation.

 Jonny, Marco, Julie and Jacob... have their bananas ready to be grilled.

Jacob's grilled banana... looks pretty good!

Celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving & My Birthday!

 We went to the NTM Center to celebrate Thanksgiving with about 50 other Canadians. It was a fun time together! It happened to be on the same day as my birthday!

 Lots of yummy food!

 Jacob and I, Terry and Rosie, Pete and Lesley, and Julie - fellow Canadians.

 Celebrating my birthday at Julie's house.

Our staff... Sabra, Jacob and I, Julie, Jack and Janie, Pete and Lesley, Micah, Josh, Kelsey and Jess, Diemo, Marco and Jonny.... there are a few more of us but they are at back in the US at the moment.

Cooking classes!

 Marco, Jonny and Diemo... making their own hamburger rolls. :) Jacob and I have enjoyed doing some cooking classes for the guys whenever we get a chance.

 The guys love it when Jacob teaches... here they are learning how to make ice cream!

 Chicken fingers was a favorite!

 And brownies... nothing like good old American Brownies.

 Jacob is also an expert on Smoothies...

 We make smoothies all the time here because we have so much fruit here... this smoothie has pineapple, papaya, sugar fruit and bananas in it with a touch of lemon juice and vanilla. Yum!

Marco, Jonny, Diemo, Julie, Jacob and I enjoying the chicken fingers and chips (fries). A typical American meal. :)

The American Food Container has arrived!

 Rob, the Store Manager at our NTM Center, excited about the arrival of the food container from America.

 Jacob and the Intern guys headed out to load up everything that we ordered from Costco. :) Very exciting day for me as well!!

 This truck was packed to its maxium.. and we there was still more that had to come later!

 Unloading back at Interface.

 Now I should be set for three years or so. :) It was great timing... right before our three largest conferences!

Julie helped us put a lot away... now are shelves are no longer bare. :)

Heading out... Supply run for our Wycliffe Youth Retreat

We wanted to show everyone what a typical day in town looks like for us when we go to pick up all the food needed for a conference... a day in the life of a supply run. :)  First we load up the vehicle with all our boxes and coolers. A lot of times we take our larger truck but we didn't need as much for this supply run.

 Then we are on the road...dirt road for 20-25 minutes, paved road for 25-30 minutes.

 First stop, Bintangor Wholesale... to drop off our wholesale order and check to see if they have everything. We usually come back a few hours later, on our way out of town to pick it up.

 They have a lot! But unfortunately, they never have everything on my list! Usually I am just thankful when they have the basics: flour, eggs, margarine and sugar.

 We place our order and they let us know what they don't have, so I can try to find it somewhere else... it is like a scavenger hunt most days. :)

 And since we are in town, we usually stop into a few Hardware stores so Jacob can check on a few things... You'll notice the name of the store... Hardware Haus, "We have it all!" Hmm.. not sure what their definition of "all" can be, must be different in this culture... because usually we can't find what we need... for example: Philips screwdriver, safety glasses, wood stain...

 We wait in line a lot... Jacob needs to find some oil filters for one of our generators.

 We usually bring in the part we need.. sometimes the pidgin language is hard to use when describing what we are looking for.

 But usually they say, "Nogat, em i pinis". No, it's gone.

 So then we are off to the next store, just to check.

Jacob and Marco, one of our Interns, doing some more waiting... just to find out... "Nogat, Em i pinis"...and they usually have no idea when they will have more.... looks like we will have to try again next time, or see if the port city has any.

 Then we are off to pay the phone bill.

 Towards the end of our time in town we go to this grocery store to pick up our meat order. I usually order the meat 2 weeks ahead of time, this way they have time to order the meat from the port city, if they need to.

 Meet Willi the head butcher... he does quite a good job getting us our meat on time!

 Sometimes during our supply runs we find a surprise! This time we found celery! I know it doesn't look like real celery that you find at home, but it is a nice find! I use it in soups and sauces a lot!

 Time to check out and pay for everything... checkbooks are still very handy over here!

 This is one of our favorite stores because it is the newest and cleanest one in town! And it usually has some of what we need!

 Loading up the car...

 On to the next store... Jacob does a great job as my chauffeur as we travel all over town on our scavenger hunt. :)

 Picking up our wholesale items on the way out of town...

 Now we are full! Just enough space for a few people and we are off!

 PNG Road construction

 On our way home we sometimes stop at the NTM Center store to pick up a few things.

 This time we were excited to see American mayonnaise and American mustard!

 This is my type of store... not too overwhelming because there aren't many choices. :)

 While at the NTM Center we stop to pick up the mail for Interface. Usually it is a pretty empty mail box. Or just mail for our co-workers. :) Hint Hint... we love mail and packages! :)

 Back on our Interface road again... which is constantly being fixed at the moment!

 Jack, co-worker, working on the road.

 Back at Interface... time to put everything away!

Just a few pineapple and papaya!