Tuesday, March 31

“Don’t be so focused on getting out of difficult circumstances that you don’t get anything out of them. Sometimes the circumstances we’re trying to change are the very circumstances God is using to change us. So before you take a painkiller, listen carefully to what God is saying during the tough times.”
~Mark Batterson, Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God

Last night, we received an email from the American Consulate stating that if we had any desire to be in Honiara, now was the time to go. Once the virus hits the Solomon Islands, all shipping and all roads connecting to Honiara will be closed. So, we made the very difficult decision to cancel Aaron’s workshop this week and to head back into town immediately. Aaron, Ezekiel, and Belza had a quick, impromptu business meeting underneath our house this morning and made plans for the work to go ahead in our absence.

God graciously provided a ship bringing people out of Honiara to the Russell Islands this afternoon, and we were able to load our cargo and send it on its way back into town. We have more buckets and boxes than usual because we still have 4-6 weeks of supplies that we intended to use here in the village, and we’ve been told that we might have to stay at least six months. Tomorrow morning, we plan to take a three hour bumpy motor canoe ride (about 2 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday) across to the end of Guadalcanal, where our colleagues will pick us up and drive us the 1 ½ hours back to SITAG. We will still get back to Honiara before our cargo! Thanks for your prayers. Lately, it’s been raining almost every morning around sunrise, so we may be in for an early morning shower.

Sunday, March 29

Ezekiel stopped by just after we had finished our traditional Sunday lunch of pizza. He was quickly followed by Mason, the translation committee’s secretary. Aaron joined them on the porch and the three guys worked on details for the translation team’s trip to Mane, a village on the western side of the Russell Islands, this week to continue the work on fine-tuning the gospel of Matthew.

After Mason left, Ezekiel and Aaron moved over to the community hall and worked on Psalm 22. Ezekiel’s nephew, Justin, joined them as they talked through the psalm that features so prominently in Holy Week. Five hours later, they wrapped up, feeling fuller after spending so much time chewing on God’s Word.

Saturday, March 28

“While its true that Abraham considered the facts, they weren’t the focus of his meditation….Abraham didn’t fill his mind with his own weakness and the seeming futility of the situation. No, he filled his mind again and again with the glory of God’s immeasurable power, and as he did, he grew stronger and stronger in faith.” ~Paul David Tripp, A Shelter in the Time of Storm: Meditations on God and Trouble

We’ve had two ships arrive in the last few days and promise to return to pick up our cargo. But so far neither one of them have followed through and come back to Marulaon. So while we wait for updates about COVID-19 and keep our ears open for the throbbing of ships’ engines, we continue to steward the things God has put into our hands.

That looks like diligently finishing up the school year with a 6th and 11th grader, carefully going forward with the adviser checking of the recently turned in Psalms, and faithfully doing our best to be a part of the community.

It also looks like being flexible when people drop by unexpectedly or ask for things or when the bells don’t ring exactly when we expect them to. Through it all, we strive to follow Abraham’s example and fill our minds “again and again with the glory of God’s immeasurable power” instead of focusing on our weaknesses and the things outside our control.

Thursday, March 26

“Both faith and fear sail into the harbor of your mind, but only faith should be allowed to anchor.” ~Unknown

Ships continue to come and go with little to no schedule here in the Russells. The government has said that if a positive case of COVID-19 is reported, shipping will be shut down. So, we’ve prepared some of our heavier things, like an empty propane cylinder, to go back on the first available ship. The less cargo we have to take back to Honiara, the easier we can make a trip in a motor canoe, if needed.

Wednesday, March 25

Olivia and Katherine lined up basket making lessons this afternoon with their friends. Ubiquitous coconut branches provide the basket material.

First, they learned to make the basic “teteka,” then they learned how to use the teteka to create other baskets with different shapes depending on the usage.

My favorite one is a big square basket named “gonu,” because it’s shape resembles a big turtle (gonu in Lavukaleve).

Tuesday, March 24

Within this Christian vision for marriage, here’s what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, “I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!”

~Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage

Living in the village almost always brings extra attacks against our marriage. Even though we anticipate the attacks, they don’t get any easier. So we fight. We fight with the truth of God’s Word. We fight with “stones of remembrance” like those found in Joshua 4.

“He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God.” (Joshua 4:24)

Today we celebrate thirty years of holding hands. We tell the stories of God’s faithfulness over the years. We watch “Hunt for Red October” again. We taste the sweetness of my Mama’s sugar cookie recipe and remember the sweetness of our relationship.

Monday, March 23

Having been made in the image of a homemaking God, whose persistent concern is for our flourishing, the church must share his desire for the world’s habitability – for both the spiritual and material concerns of its neighbors.

~Jen Pollock Michel, Keeping Place

I plopped this bag of goodness on the porch after buying the umalau/potatoes at market. Today, some of the starchy globes will find their way into a big pot, joining slippery cabbage, onion, wing beans, and curried coconut milk. There will be enough to feed the ones who live under my roof as well as enough to share with another family. So, while Aaron forges ahead in fine tuning the book of Matthew, and I type in Psalms, we also offer bandaids and soap and Tylenol and bowls of soup for “both the spiritual and material concern” of our neighbors.

Saturday, March 21

Super proud of my girls! They have jumped into the youth group activities here. Olivia worked really hard to get ahead on her school work so she could carry gravel with the youth earlier this week.

Today, the goal was to tame the soccer field with bush knives, grass knives, and lots of elbow grease, and Olivia and Katherine gave several hours of their Saturday morning to join the effort.

Friday, March 20

Aaron spent the last three days in Sorana Village. Here is his report:

I was excited to be able to do the work in Sorana, which is in the central part of our language group, because the translation project had not had much interaction with the village before. In addition to the translation team, I was delighted to have the village chief and catechist join us in many review sessions. Also, two members of the translation committee participated. These guests, combined with our translators, gave us a good variety of villages and dialects in our checking sessions. WE continued work editing the first draft of Matthew 5-6.

Though the review work can be slow and tedious at times, I always found it a great encouragement that the end result is always a better version of the text. Probably the most exciting part of the review sessions is seeing people have epiphany moments when we discuss a verse and they really understand its meaning for the first time. Matthew 6:22-23 is a good example. After working through the translation draft, I took time to physically “act out” the idea of this metaphor. Once they understood that if the only light you have is “darkness,” then truly, how great is that darkness!

This was the first time that we were able to use a portable solar system to run a small projector and Aaron’s laptop, allowing everyone to easily see the text and facilitating editing. Much better than the big chalk board we’ve used in the past! We plan to meet in a village in the far west of our language group at the end March to continue reviewing Matthew in preparation for a consultant check.

Thursday, March 19

“She sets about her work vigorously, her arms are strong for her tasks….She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes. She is clothed with strength and dignity, she can laugh at the days to come….She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.” Proverbs 31:17, 24, 25, 27

Whenever I’m in America, I look for material that’s cotton, flaunts bright colors, and is on sale. My Lavukal friends are never far from my mind. They don’t have access to sturdy, good quality cloth, and I love to help provide it for them. So does my friend, Gayly, who often sends material and thread across the Pacific. This morning, I attended the 2020 opening of the Marulaon Homelav Association (homelav is the Lavukal word for women).

They are excited to be sharing their skills with each other in the areas of sewing, dying, and flower arranging, and today they kicked off their sewing and dying. My friends were super excited about the material, there was one in particular, a deep, ruby red with white flowers that everyone loved. Sitting in front of everyone and wearing a necklace of fragrant frangipannis is NOT my idea of a good time. I would rather be in the audience, holding babies and visiting with my friends.

But today, I accepted their culturally appropriate way of saying “thank you.” Next time, I’ll be back in the midst of them. I watched the ladies live out Proverbs 31 today as they used one hand to crank the sewing machine and the other hand to guide the material. Washing clothes, going to the garden, cooking supper, minding babies...all those things awaited them at home. No lazy woman can survive for very long here. Yet somehow they manage to bring beauty and color into their lives, reflecting their Creator.

Tuesday, March 17

“When we focus on the world’s values of happiness and success and comfort, we aren’t in line with God’s syllabus for us….In my school of life, the assignments would all be easy, and I could ace the class. God’s desired outcome for our lives is not our comfort but our character, not our happiness but our transformation. His assignments line up perfectly with moving us toward those outcomes.”

~Gina Brenna Butz, “Making Peace With Change”

When we settled on using Sonlight curriculum so many years ago, we had no idea the impact the books and assignments would have on our family culture. So many of our family’s inside jokes are from books we have read together for school, so much of my kids’ academic success is because this curriculum has made them think and taught them to love learning.

But my “school of life” isn’t laid out in a colorful graphic presenting a scope and sequence. My assignments require heart searching and ambiguity. Acing the class looks like keeping a soft heart while navigating the challenges of God’s syllabus for me. But my heavenly Teacher provides encouragement and comfort and perseverance and holds my hand as He helps me work through each assignment.

“...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” Phil. 2:12-13

Monday, March 16

Ezekiel has been working hard on translating the Psalms into Lavukaleve. This morning, he brought Psalms 20-35. Because Aaron is leaving tomorrow to meet with the translation team for the next three days in another village, I asked if I could be the one to convert the precious handwritten pages into a digital format while he’s gone.

So please pray for my fingers as I type patterns that are unfamiliar and for Aaron, Ezekiel, Simon, and Matthew as they meet in Sorana Village to work through as much of Matthew as they can cram into three days.

Saturday, March 14

We tend to think right here, right now. God is thinking nations and generations. We have no idea how our lives are going to alter the course of history downstream, but there is divine domino effect for every decision we make. Don’t underestimate the potential impact of obeying God’s prompts. Those are the whispers that will echo for all eternity!
~Mark Batterson, Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God

Looking forward to watching these two for years to come. Eternal echoes indeed...

Friday, March 13

For almost thirty years, Aaron’s handwriting has been making my heart speed up. A person’s scrawl is as unique as their fingerprint, which is why I love handwritten recipes and old notes full of loopy ink written by people I love (and I have a big stash of both).

During the translation committee workshop, two young ladies from Karumalun brought back a bucket that I sent over full of popcorn. They giggled and pointed inside to show me the folded piece of notebook paper, but they had no idea that those few lines of communication were more precious to me than a Shakespeare sonnet.

Thursday, March 12

We delayed our celebration of Purim until Aaron could be with us. Olivia mixed up the hamantaschen dough with a whisk instead of an electric mixer because of our power shortage, and she used powdered eggs to conserve our precious, few “real” eggs for breakfast.

As a result, the dough was crumbly and tough, and making individual cookies was impossible. Creative Olivia decided to make the world’s largest hamantaschen. Ugly, but delicious!

Wednesday, March 11

Aaron set out paddling for the translation committee meeting yesterday afternoon with Kiko, and Belza and Walter followed closely behind in their canoe. It was funny to hear Kiko holler, “I get to steer!”, kind of like a kid yelling, “I get shotgun!”

Around 11:30 last night, Aaron crawled into bed, and he was out the door to preach, with his belly full of baked oatmeal and coffee, before six o’clock this morning. Our weather must be birthing another baby cyclone, because we’ve experienced band after band of wind and rain. I’m grateful that the Marulaon committee members chose to take a motor canoe this morning, because the seas were really rolling. Our rain tanks are all full, and I certainly love the cooler weather, but everyone’s batteries are empty after four days of clouds and rain. We’ll be using flashlights to read again tonight.

Tuesday, March 10

Before we left Marulaon, I paid a woman to look after our yard in January and February. She didn’t. So when we returned, weeds had consumed the hard work of December, and my tomatoes and peppers had all died. Thankfully, the youth group here is working to raise money, so I hired them to whip our yard back into good shape. I sweetened the deal with the offer of popcorn.

Rain had been falling since before the sun came up, but the youth still showed up. They weeded when the rain slacked off and huddled and shivered underneath our house when the heavens let loose and poured. And I kept the popcorn coming, pot after pot. Ezekiel showed up about the same time the youth began weeding, and he and Aaron worked out the last few details for the Lavukal Translation Committee Meeting which begins tonight. Popcorn enhanced their discussion, too. Five hours later, the yard looked great, and the guys wrapped up their business. It was quite the popcorn party!

Monday, March 9

Marulaon Woman’s Daybook

Just for today, Monday, March 9

On my bookshelf…The Gospel Comes With a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield. So, so good.

From the learning rooms…Katherine has launched into the 1500s, so our book basket contains gems like The Discovery of the Americas by Betsy & Giulio Maestro, Columbus by Ingri & Edgar Parin d’Aulaire, Around the World in a Hundred Years by Jean Fritz, What Makes a Bruegel a Bruegel? by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pieter Bruegel’s Tower of Babel: The Builder with the Red Hat by Nils Jockel; and The Fantastic Journey of Pieter Bruegel by Anders C. Shafer. She’s also tried a science experiment that was a dismal failure for us – blocking part of a leaf from sunshine for a couple of days, boiling the leaf, then soaking it in hot rubbing alcohol before immersing the leaf in iodine. We didn’t get the desired results, but the process was fun!

Olivia’s 20th Century World History studies are immersing her in the 1980’s (one of my personal favorite decades!), and she’s learning about kinetics in chemistry. We’re wrapping up our school year by Easter this year, and I’m so proud of my diligent students!

Creating in the kitchen…we enjoyed yogurt & granola with a huge papaya this morning for breakfast. Market on Saturday was slim, so I’m hoping for an abundant market on Wednesday. Lunch is a chicken & pasta casserole from More With Less cookbook (yay for white sauce to create instant casseroles!), and supper is leftovers.

Outside my window…girls are washing clothes underneath the house. I’m so thankful for their good attitudes and hard work.

A few plans for the rest of the week…Aaron will be attending a Lavukal Translation Committee Committee meeting in Karumalun Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week. He’ll also be preaching early on Wednesday morning. Please pray for the girls and me while we hold down the fort in his absence.

Pondering these words… “The hospitable meet people as strangers and invite them to become neighbors, and by God’s grace, many will go on to become part of the family of God. This transition from stranger to neighbor to family does not happen naturally but only with intent and grit and sacrifice and God’s blessing.” ~Rosaria Butterfield

Sunday, March 8

Lenten Sweet Sabbath

“God’s grace isn’t always comfortable because he isn’t primarily working on our comfort; he’s working on our character.”

~Paul David Tripp, “Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy ”

“Becoming Us” by Beth and Jeff McCord describes my Enneagram 9 self as “an easygoing person, you struggle being in a world that is rife with conflict and discord, which threatens the comfort you crave.” I DO crave comfort, both emotional and physical, and my Creator knows that living cross-culturally reveals my idols. I never get tired of gaping at the sunrise from my front porch, and I never grow weary of hearing reminders about how God is working in the lives of His children.

Friday, March 6

“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

The bells to call the community to penance rang at 6:50 this morning. Aaron grabbed the file and began sharpening our grass knife along with our bush knives in Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear sizes.

As the rasping sound of the file filled the air, Katherine immediately began singing, “Iron sharpens iron...” from one of our old Scripture memory CDs, and I breathed a prayer of thankfulness for the people God has place in our lives to sharpen us.

Thursday, March 5

Objective truth becomes living truth by the power of ascribing – literally, by writing it out. Remember the old classroom discipline of writing something on the chalkboard one hundred times? “I will not dip Becky’s hair in the inkwell, I will not….” The teacher instinctively understood the power of ascribing; she knew that objective truth becomes living truth through it. What might begin as just a faint idea at the back of our minds can be turned into hard resolve and burning conviction through the power of ascribing. ~Mark Buchanan, “The Four Best Places to Live”

When our kids were young, we each made a construction paper car and intentionally “put gas” in each other’s cars with little notes as a form of encouragement. It’s been years since those cars hung on our wall, and we decided that it was time to revive that family custom. Wowzers, do we need it!

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” 1 Thes. 5:11

Writing down encouraging words for each member of our family serves a dual purpose. 1) That little piece of paper with scribbles of ink builds up the person who reads the note and reminds them that they are noticed and loved. 2) Taking the time to think about the good things solidifies those attributes in our minds as we write.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Eph. 4:29

I live alongside some marvelous people. #meatcheato is kind of like an elite club. Nobody else knows what it’s like to experience the lives we lead. Only a handful of people, those who are a part of our SITAG family, have an inkling because they lead similar lives. With the variety of personalities that live underneath our roof, there is bound to be some friction. With the stress of the extra work and the extreme heat and cross cultural living, we can expect even more friction.

There is power in saying something out loud, in speaking truth to ourselves and to one another. Researchers in the worlds of education and psychology call this “the production effect.” Studies have shown that memory is improved by literally speaking aloud what we’re reading, thinking, and studying. The actual retrieval and recall of both past and new experiences, and the relaying of them to someone else further works to etch our experiences and knowledge into our minds. In short, if you really want to remember something, tell someone else about it. It’s incredible to think that God would design us this way, to further draw us into community to speak truth to one another. ~She Reads Truth, Psalms of Rest: The Lord is Near All Who Call Out to Him

We desperately need to read and “hear” those intentional words. And we need to remind ourselves about the really amazing things God has created inside the people who share space with us. Both sides of the coin direct our attentions back to the Creator and focus our hearts and minds on His loving design.

Wednesday, March 4

Yesterday, Aaron, Ezekiel, and a couple of the translation committee members from Marulaon undertook a whirlwind tour of all the villages outside of our church district. I was amazed that they did it in about eleven hours! One of their goals was to update each village about the progress of the Lavukal Bible translation. The other goal was to invite members of the Lavukal Bible translation committee to attend a stakeholders meeting for three days next week in Karumalun.

As I was cooking lunch today, Ezekiel swung by our house to meet with Aaron to work out some details for the meeting his village would be hosting. While the two guys held their business meeting for several hours underneath our house (the best place for shade and breeze), I took a tray down with bowls of cooking bananas and slippery cabbage that had been boiled in coconut cream with curry, alongside a plate of pineapple slices. When the bowls came back up, I discovered that Ezekiel had eaten out the cooking bananas and left the slippery cabbage. Now I know how to take better care of him next time!

Tuesday, March 3

God calls us to practice hospitality as a daily way of life, not as an occasional activity when time and finance allow. Radically ordinary hospitality means this: God promises to put the lonely in families (Ps. 68:6), and he intends to use your house as living proof.

~Rosaria Butterfield, “The Gospel Comes With a House Key”

In each of our three homes, hospitality takes on a different hue. Because our family’s daily rhythms run so differently from our neighbors in Marulaon (we are much more “early to bed, early to rise”, and we eat at very different times), we don’t tend to host meals in our home here. For a while, that made me sad. Then I began to observe the many opportunities God was already giving us to extend nurture to our community. We’ve been back in the village for just over a week, and we’ve already galloped down these roads of hospitality:

---Sharing a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread with the District Priest’s family as a nod to their ministry and service to the church and community.

---Bandaging a wound the size of a half dollar and sending the young man away with soap, another bandage, and prayers.

---Saying thank you to Hensi for his help in getting the water tank on top of the house by giving him a loaf of banana bread with local ngali nuts inside. And watching his two smallest children while he and Aaron worked together.

---Providing a young mama with some Tylenol and prayers, then walking around the village holding her precious three month old to give her a little break.

---Setting aside a little bit of our lunch of curried, milked pumpkin greens and fish and popping a couple of cassava “hash browns” on top to share with one of my friends who has been a little bit down lately.

Monday, March 2

Dr. Seuss’s Birthday

When the girls came in from their afternoon of playing outside, they found a basket of Dr. Seuss books and a bowl of “oobleck” waiting for them.

I forgot to bring any food coloring with me to the village this time, so the Oobleck is white, and we won’t have any “green eggs and ham”.

It’s still fun to play together and to celebrate creativity, no matter how old we get.

Sunday, March 1

Lenten Sweet Sabbath

“When someone speaks in a whisper, you have to get very close to hear. In fact, you have to put your ear near the person’s mouth. We lean toward a whisper, and that’s what God wants. The goal of hearing the heavenly Father’s voice isn’t just hearing His voice, it’s intimacy with Him….The Almighty could intimidate us with His outside voice, but He woos us with a whisper.”

~Mark Batterson, “Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God”

“The Art of Lent” chooses a different theme for each week, and this week we are focusing on “silence.” As our kids get older, finding space for silence gets a little easier, but our home still hums with the rhythm of a lively household. Silence and margin in our days allows us to practice listening and to be prepared when “He woos us with a whisper.”

Saturday, February 29

Before nine o’clock this morning, we bought lots of fresh fruits and veggies and fish at market,

Aaron met with the translation committee chairman, Belza, on our front porch,

Olivia made pancakes while Katherine and I played with Annie and Alfonse on the front porch to keep them out of the way,

while Aaron and Hensi put the new 500 liter tank on top of the house, racing the suns rays as the metal roof heated up quickly.

We haven’t had running water for years here, but we’re hopeful that now we’re getting the system up and running again!