Shells

Wednesday, April 29
Bought a BIG crab today at the market...so big that we had to put a rock on top of the pot to keep it from crawling out. They didn't have any fruits or veggies today, but the seafood here is amazing and inexpensive. Aaron has been working on installing the screens. The house sits on a hill, so he has to balance the ladder on a box to install the screens on the back of the house. The kids have been bringing home these amazing and really big shells. When the neighborhood kids found out that our kids liked the shells, they began bringing shells to our veranda by the armful. I finally had to say "vausa" or enough!

Thursday, April 30
Decided to turn off the fridge because the solar cells aren't doing well. We are back to living with no electricity or oven or washing machine, but I'm thankful that we have a great house and running water (if we pump it to the roof often enough!). People have been asking us since we got here when we were going to start hiring a house girl, I think now is a good time. The chief's wife, Janet, went around Marulaon and asked if anyone was interested in helping us. She brought me a list of eight girls who will work on a trial basis. I can choose my favorite or continue to rotate them. I visited with her about how much to pay and told her that I thought Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings would be plenty. I know my Pijin is bad, but somehow she understood that I meant I wanted to have the girls come for three days at a time. So, now we will have someone come tomorrow, Saturday, and Monday for her first trial run.

Camping out again

Tuesday, April 28
Everybody keeps asking us when we will start school with the kids. I decided that since most of the unpacking was finished that it was time to start today. Still have a couple boxes of odds and ends to sort. We ran out of gas today, so we'll switch the fridge to electric instead of gas. Time to start cooking over the open fire again. The chief and his wife built us a nice place to cook under the house.

Monday, April 27
So quiet now that the neighborhood kids are all back in school. We received some electrical cords yesterday when the Bikoi stopped at Marulaon, so now the radio (and hopefully e-mail) works! We were literally trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Made some flashcards and Sarah drew pictures to practice language learning with the kids as part of our school day. I selfishly chose foods so I can practice for market on Wednesday. Barnabas has stopped by a couple of times today. He brought some faluk (greens), and I asked him to stop by later to try them on top of pizza. Barnabas is an older man on the translation committee and Katherine absolutely adores him.

Saturday, April 25
All of the local kids came back yesterday from school on another part of the island. The singing in the church is amazing when everybody is there! The church is concrete so everything resonates. The kids played baseball and jumped rope under the house. Since the school age kids are gone during the week, this is a great chance for our kids to make friends.

Sunday, April 26
The first bell rang at 5:15 this morning, 50 times again. The second one rang around 6:15, and church began around 7:00. After church during the announcements, the chief announced that we were now full fledged members of the community. We are honored and anticipating being able to bring food to the next community gathering. Several people brought food by today, some yummy cassava pudding (lelenga) and some fish.

Kaful

Thursday, April 23
Still sorting through all of the boxes. The chief's wife brought back our plate with some eggplant and some small green peppers. Later, Moses brought by some more green beans. We have fallen into a little bit of a routine. We wake up to a beautiful sunrise over the ocean, and Aaron goes to pump the water up to the roof while I start the coffee. We have our Jesus time (hopefully the kids don't wake up before the bell around 6:30). Aaron heads over early to the morning prayer service so he can have some time alone, then I bring the kids over. A few mornings, I've stayed home, but sometimes one of the big kids will go even if I don't. The men and the women sit separately, but the kids can sit on either side. After morning prayer, we eat breakfast and tackle more cleaning. The kids alternate between bringing buckets of water up for laundry and playing with the village kids while Aaron and I continue to unpack. We try to eat an early supper because evening prayer starts around 5:30, and we want to have time to snuggle with the kids and clean up dishes before it gets too dark. Knowing that the bell will ring early in the morning makes it easy to go to bed early!

Friday, April 24
Benjamin went swimming and fishing with the boys today. Last night, the next door neighbors had the generator running and played American Country Western music until midnight! What do you think about the huge crab ("kaful")a neighbor brought us? It was still alive and it filled up the sink.

Wednesday, April 22
Market day! Marulaon has just begun holding their own market, and I am so thankful! It's only once a week, but it will provide us with some fresh fruits and veggies I hope. The ones we brought with us are almost gone. I learned lots of helpful phrases today, like "I would like...", and "How much is it?", and "What is this?". Sarah and I drew quite a crowd as we tried to buy a little something from everybody. We bought a citrus fruit (molokita), some green beans (bin – how funny is that!), some steamed taro pudding (lelenga), chinese cabbage (faluk), and taro (umalau). I passed on the crabs, though! Two different ladies brought us fresh tuna this morning, so tonight we will eat tuna, papaya that we brought with us, and the chinese cabbage and taro that I bought at the market.

The church has a beautifully carved podium. It is a frigate bird in flight with an open Bible on its back. The services have already been translated into Lavukaleve, so we can follow along. Sarah and I are beginning to be able to sing along (since they sing the words more slowly than they speak them) and recognized some of the tunes.

Sea Urchins

Tuesday, April 21
We went for a walk on the Southern side of the village today. The sea urchins on the lagoon are beautiful. The kids who live here have been great to help us learn new words and phrases. Katherine still isn't sleeping well, so we aren't either. We took some banana bread to the chief's family tonight. Aaron got the washing machine to work!!! It was a treat to have clean clothes.

Grubs

Monday, April 20
We awoke at 6:00 to the clanging of the bell – 50 times, I counted. Turns out, the priest was in town for the day, so this was a special morning prayer with communion. Today, we began the monumental task of cleaning and sorting. I can't tell you how thankful I am for the family that came here before us. They made lifelong friends here, and we hear about them frequently. They also left many of their personal items here, and we need to sort through those. The washing machine doesn't seem to be working, so I will wait another day to do laundry. We brought enough clothes to last until tomorrow before I have to wash. Some of the guys began digging the hole for our kitchen and shower drain. They uncovered HUGE grubs which they pulled out. Not sure why...

Marulaon

Sunday, April 19
Aaron and I awoke around 4:30 because of anticipation, Katherine followed shortly behind us, and the big kids were up around 6. We headed down to the wharf a little after seven after saying goodbyes to our SITAG family. Thankfully, we were accompanied by the director, and another family met us at the wharf to help us load all of our bags. We loaded the house stuff yesterday, but our "carry-ons" (backpacks, ice chests, etc.) still took up a lot of room. Later, I'll have Aaron write about his adventures in leaving some things in the van.

Our ship, the Bikoi, goes out west once a week. It stops at Marulaon on Sunday afternoons, and picks up again on Tuesday nights on its way back to Honiara. The ship was scheduled to leave at 9, but by the time we arrived, it was already packed to the gills. You just find a spot wherever you can fit you and your stuff, so we walked around the ship for a little bit until we settled on the bottom deck at the back. I've been told that lower is better when trying to avoid seasickness. We had packed peanut butter sandwiches and bananas, so we ate lunch as we passed the tip of Guadalcanal. Behind Sarah, notice the lady who brought her own hammock as well as a parrot.

We were happy to find that one of the carvers we know, Percy, was on the same deck. Some of you will be happy to know that I've asked him to carve some more of those beautiful bracelets (like the one we gave away on the blog earlier).

We arrived at Marulaon around 3:00, but couldn't find anyone waiting to pick us up. The Bikoi anchors offshore and small canoes pull up to the side of the big boat. Some women were selling cooked fish and green coconuts to drink (a great rehydrating fluid!). Turns out that Marulaon hadn't gotten our message about the day we were coming, but eventually two canoes showed up, and then the circus began! We had sooo many boxes to unload that the ship's crew began laughing about each one and describing what was inside. My sweet husband did a great job of packing and labeling! The kids and I (and lots of boxes) loaded into one canoe and headed to the shore while Aaron stayed back and waited for the rest of our belongings.

Everyone pitched in to help us. We were fairly self-conscious about the amount of stuff that we brought to this beautiful place, though. Shortly after everything was piled in the house, the bell for evening prayer rang, so we quickly ate some trail mix and headed next door. After the service (largely in Lavukaleve, or "language" as it is called in the Solomons), we were told that the community wanted to welcome us. So after a few minutes we headed down to the beach where we were presented with six chairs in which to sit and face the village (who stood). We listened to a welcoming speech by the chief, Leonard, several ladies presented us with garlands of fragrant frangipanni, and then the singing began. Beautiful! They sang a welcome song, and then broke into a raucous dancing and clapping as each one filed by and shook our hands. It was fabulous! We walked back to the house in the dark (thankful that we had brought a flashlight), and I quickly cooked up a batch of boxed mac & cheese courtesy of some friends in Kansas. It hit the spot. We fell into bed wooed by the howling of the dogs and the twinkling of the AMAZING stars. "Deep in the heart of Texas" ain't got nothing on Marulaon!

We're Back!

We've been trying to post since we arrived in Marulaon, sorry it hasn't worked. We decided to come back a week early. I'll catch you up on our stay in the village after we eat breakfast.

Spring Beauties

Psalm 121

We will pass these mountains as we boat out to Marulaon. They are just across the bay from our home in Honiara.

Psalm 121 is one of Benjamin's memory passages this year for school. I've also been chewing on it as part of a Bible study (thanks to a fabulous group of ladies at Woodland Height Baptist Church). This psalm has become more real to me as we prepare to travel, again, and as we are living (for the first time ever!) near majestic mountains. I look out the window at the mountains of the Solomon Islands, and I am reminded that the same God who created these mountains and the vast Pacific Ocean is the God who watches over me and my family. He protects each step of this amazing journey. Nothing can reach us that hasn't already been sifted through His fingers and allowed to come our way. He strengthens us and enables us to be victorious on this adventure of life.

So long, farewell...

This is the last post from Honiara for a while. If the radio works (and we think it will), we will be able to post from Marulaon. If you don't hear from us for a while, assume that the radio didn't work! Just a reminder, when you e-mail us, please keep your messages VERY small. No forwards or attachments. I won't be able to check any of your blogs while we are away. But I am looking forward to catching up with you when I return to Honiara! We are soooo thankful for the technology to keep in touch with each of you while we are away learning a new language and beginning to make new friends, and your prayers and care packages are precious to us. I've scheduled a few auto-posts for the next few days. See you in a month!

And the winner is...

Arin, another transplanted Georgia Peach! (Maybe some of you should move to Georgia.)

A quick prayer request, we're having lots of trouble getting our computer and the modem software to "talk" to each other. We would really like to continue keeping in touch with friends and family while we are out in Marulaon. Thankfully, we have great technical assistance here at SITAG. Pray for the knowledge and parts that we need as well as for the wisdom and patience that we need. Thanks!