On the Homefront - February 2024

While Aaron and Katherine were in the Solomon Islands, I stayed busy visiting Grandma.

and listening to books like Awestruck, which strengthened my resolve to do things like getting outside in God's creation and building community through hospitality.

My sweet friend, Gayly, came through town and was willing to meet me for a quick supper stop before she continued on the road. She is a faithful friend, indeed, even visiting us in Marulaon Village.

I diligently cared for Katherine's zoo while she was gone, and none of her animals died :)

Chemotherapy treatments continued, as I counted down towards the final one on Memorial Day weekend.

My mom and I took walks with her buddy, Roxie.

My Grandmother's little sister turned 80, and it was a joy to attend a celebration honoring her.

My cousin, Luke, had an apartment fire, so he moved into our house. I really appreciated having somebody else around while the rest of my family was overseas.

Luke is a photographer, so we took a sunrise trip up to Petit Jean State Park.

Fueled by a thermos of hot chocolate, we soaked up God's handiwork as the sun made the Arkansas River glow. Then, we hit the trails for a different kind of beauty.

Finally, on the day Aaron and Katherine were scheduled to return to Arkansas, 

I got to play my cello for a wedding at the church where I grew up.

The bonus to this wedding? Olivia was a bridesmaid, so I got to spend some time with her, too!

I hadn't worn concert black in a very long time, and it felt so good.

Thankfully, after the wedding I got this photo from the weary travelers on their way home, and by the end of the day, they were safely tucked in their own beds again.

"I suggest we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people but because we are proud, arrogant people.  The Christmas story -- the one according to Luke not Dickens -- is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.  We prefer to think of ourselves as givers -- powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to employ some of our power, competence and gifts to benefit the less fortunate.  Which is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas.  There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were but as the receivers we are.  Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we -- with our power, generosity, competence and capabilities -- had little to do with God's work in Jesus."  ~Williams Willimon

We're beginning to catch our collective breath after a whirlwind week of celebrating Christmas.  Listening to Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" while we travel is a Christmas tradition in our family.

Bits and Pieces of Life in the Village

Saturday, October 24

Aaron spent the last two mornings walking through more of Matthew with catechists from our church district. Walter excitedly made the connection that Jesus is the key between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The turnout was sparse, but I enjoyed making gingersnaps for the studious men. I especially like gingersnaps made with the local coconut oil we can get here. We made enough cookies to share with the ladies who met to sew together. I also took some thread, yarn and a requested crochet hook along with a plate of gingersnaps.

While in Baisen Village earlier this week, Aaron received most of the gospel of Luke, handwritten in pencil. Part of my contribution to the project is typing manuscripts. This one is going to take me a long time, partially because Luke is a very long book, and partially because I’ve never typed for this translator before, and his handwriting is unfamiliar to me. There are also long sections where he has erased and written over the erased sections, so sometimes I struggle to read the corrections. I’m thankful to have a little bit more time to help Aaron, now that our kids are older and more independent.

Katherine loves to swim with her friends here. She has learned to ask about the tide before she goes in the water. High tide brings all of the critters and the trash, a few weeks ago she found all of the tiny jellyfish in the water and subsequently went through lots of hydrocortisone cream. Low tide makes it easier to enjoy all of the beauty underneath the water.

We recently had some unexpected excitement. Aaron was paddling over to see Ezekiel, and the girls and I were doing school at home, when what looked like a huge C130 rumbled through, flying very low, directly over Aaron. It cruised back and forth, up and down, and we watched it for a long time as it made its way east over the Russells. Later, we got an email from our director including an article about planes from Australia helping the fisheries department look out for illegal fishing in the Solomon Islands. We don’t have any airports in the Russells, so a plane caused everyone to stop, look, and holler!

After Thanksgiving

I bumped into one of my orchestra students at the gym the day after Thanksgiving. We did pushups together :-)

Olivia and Connor joined us after they shared Thanksgiving with his family in Oklahoma. We discovered Spotify's shared jam and laughed ourselves silly while decorating for Christmas.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I got a text from my favorite berry farmer, David. He said they were about to harvest the sugar cane before the impending freeze and invited us to come over and get some. My tropical kids were super excited about the prospect of sucking on a piece of sugar cane.

Some of our favorite little people came over to visit. We sure do love the Davis family.

The Playmobile nativity set and the Christmas book basket experienced small hands to kick off Advent 2025.

My cousin, Luke, had a birthday during Thanksgiving break, so he joined us for lunch and a birthday cake after church. The first Thanksgiving after we were married, Aaron and I went to the hospital for the waiting room party that is traditional for my side of the family. We stayed up most of the night waiting for Luke to be born and partying with my grandmother.

Sarah wanted Olivia's baby to know her voice, even though Aunt Sarah will be living on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. So she made sure to talk and sing to the baby as much as possible.

Faithfulness

"So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'" 

Luke 17:10

"Gami si na nabulu tavetavete mo.  Na mami tinatavete tugo mo si taveti gami." 

(Luke 17:10b in Roviana)

 

Thirty-three years of faithfulness.  Integrity.  Attention to detail. 

Our evening filled up with laughter and celebration and stories of God using our dear colleagues Jim and Carolyn.  This sweet couple would tell you that they are only servants, doing what God has called them to do. 

Quietly, they have poured themselves in our family since the day we met them.  Jim and Carolyn have a heart for training and mentoring, and story after story confirmed that SITAG has benefited from their diligence and their wisdom and their love for the Lord during their time in the Solomon Islands.

After the feasting and the silly song and the stories that made tears spill down my cheeks,

 

we gathered round our friends and prayed God's abundant blessings on them and their trip back to America for typesetting.  I'm encouraged to follow their example, to be a faithful servant as I daily go about the duties that the Lord has assigned to me.

 

Wednesday, December 25 - Christmas Day

Olivia got home at 2 a.m. again after the caroling finished. Her share of the gifts was a couple of betel nut, so she gladly donated it to a friend. The bell rang dark and early, and we rolled out of bed with sleep still in our eyes. Since the priest was still making his rounds through the villages in our district, our Christmas morning service was short and sweet. Olivia sang with the choir, as usual, and tried to stay awake with all of the other sleep-deprived choir members.

After church, everyone went home to put the finishing touches on their contributions for the “family meal.” Chief Hensi drew names to match families around the village – three in a group. Our family combined with Luke and Siloda, a young couple expecting their second child, and Chief Hensi and his family. Hensi told me that our family’s contribution was every kind of bread and cake we could make, especially banana cake. And lots of black coffee.

We decided to go with a “Christmas Tradition” theme with our cooking. So I made julekage for a Scandinavian custom, pumpkin muffins for my mom’s Christmas morning standby, and banana cake for the Marulaon favorite. I thought that the julekage, with its mixture of dried fruits and lack of sugar, wouldn’t be popular, but Hensi would have eaten the whole loaf. I snuck him several pieces to take home for himself.

Our friends brought amazing fish and lelenga/cassava pudding and pineapple and rice and motued pork. We enjoyed every bite. Our Christmas here looks so very different from our Christmas in America. One of my friends asked me if we celebrated Christmas in America with dancing, too. After we had all filled our bellies, the speeches began. Of course, none of this happened quickly. Church got out around 7:30, but we didn’t start eating until after 10. And the speeches didn’t begin until midday.

After the speeches, the dances began. Olivia learned three different styles: action choruses, custom dancing, and island dancing. And each type had a change of costume. Katherine also worked hard to learn a few dances with a different group of young ladies.

I’m so proud of how much our kids (including Sarah and Benjamin in previous years) have been intentional about being involved with the community and spreading their time among the different family groups in the village to avoid favoritism.

Big feast days like this are a great opportunity to interact with all types of people because most go “home” for Christmas regardless of where they live during the rest of the year. Watching multiple generations interact is so sweet to me. And I love getting to visit with people with whom I don’t normally rub shoulders.

Everybody enjoyed the wide variety of dances. Some were very old, traditional Lavukal dances with singing, and the ladies wore grass/bark skirts, wrapped a banana leaf around their top, and carried a “bow” covered in chicken feathers.

Some dances were accompanied by prerecorded music with a much more modern sound and more modern clothing and accessories. Some were just goofy and had everybody laughing.

After spending Advent in quiet reflection, today certainly radiated celebration. As the sun went down, the community party wrapped up. Our family could hardly keep our eyes open, so we went to bed even earlier than our “early to bed, early to rise” time, thankful for the quiet evening.

Candlemas

We won't be able to make these beeswax candles to celebrate Candlemas, however you can order them and try them out for us! As we eat breakfast, we'll read Luke 2:22-40 as a family to remind the kids of the story of Simeon and Anna.

Our Christmas decorations came down on Epiphany, but I'll still read this poem by Robert Herrick to the kids:

Down with the resemary and so

Down with bays and mistletoe;

Down with the holly, ivy, all

Wherewith ye dressed the Christmas hall...

We'll dine by candlelight tonight as we await the groundhog's weather prediction in the States.

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter will take another flight.
But if Candlemas be clouds and rain,
Winter's gone and won't come again.

We have clouds and rain this morning - that predicts more water in the rain tank and clothes that will take a little bit longer to dry on the clothesline.

Eye Health

I should have gone to the eye doctor in December.  It had been a year, and my aging eyes were sending me distress signals.  But we decided to wait until May when we planned for the whole family to go to Brisbane for all of our routine medical exams.  My eye doctor in Brisbane has been taking care of Benjamin and me for many years, and we really like the work they do!  But then the Corona virus hit, and our plans to spend time in Brisbane wilted.  So my eye health has been on my mind a lot lately.

All of the pondering about my physical eyes and how to take good care of them makes me think about my spiritual eyes, and their development.  All throughout scripture, God is at work.  Sometimes people had eyes to see, sometimes they were blind.

And Elisha prayed, "Open his eyes, Lord, so that we may see."  Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.  

2 Kings 6:17

Then their eyes were open and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 

 Luke 24: 31

God is still at work, and sometimes I'm blind, too.  Open my eyes, Lord, to see situations and people with Your clear focus.

Friday Favorite Five

This is the technology version of Friday Favorite Five.  Don't laugh, I'm slowly learning more about technology and how to use it!

1) I'm super excited about the Coral Sea Cable System coming slowly but surely to the Solomon Islands.  You can follow along with the progress.  We will certainly be keeping our eyes on the exciting developments.

2) Persuasion podcast has become my go-to for thoughtful listening when the kids are outside playing and I'm chopping veggies in the kitchen.

3)  Zoom.  Our Friday began with a meeting of our SITAG (Solomon Islands Translation Advisory Group) colleagues from around the world.  I can still hardly believe that this actually worked!  True, "your internet is unstable" did pop up from time to time.  But I was reminded that one of the best parts of this job is the AMAZING colleagues.  People I trust, people who love Jesus, people who have become my adopted family.  Hearing their voices and briefly seeing their faces from places like Dallas and Brisbane...just made me fall in love with what we do all over again.

4)  Continuing the technology theme..."Tips for the Tightrope of Social Media" really struck a chord with me.  Written with ex-pats in mind, this sentence caught my eye: 

"Overseas workers walk a tightrope of daily social media use. This tightrope can be uplifting and fun. It can also be scary and devastating." 

 Good reminders for me as I easily and quickly get isolated in my own cultural setting.  I would love to hear feedback about social media and how you perceive what we do through the lens of the social media platforms we use as we live life in a fishbowl.

5)  Partners in Bible translation.  What does this have to do with technology, you may ask?  Everything!  Technology is not only changing the face of Bible translation, but it is also making more partnerships possible.  This morning, after our Zoom meeting, we walked down the hill to our regular morning tea break.  However, today we had ice cream and prayer (the perfect combination for encouragement, IMHO) for the departing Jesus Film team that has been working with several Solomon Island languages for the last five weeks.  One day, we hope that Lavukaleve will have the book of Luke completed so that we can also show our friends and neighbors the Jesus Film in their heart language.

One of our favorite ways to serve SITAG is to pick up incoming (or drop off outgoing) colleagues at the airport.  After lunch today, our family drove along the bumpy roads (weaving around the dogs looking for a cool place to lay) and finally made it to the top of the airport to cheer for one of our Canadian translation advisors.  That doesn't have anything to do with technology, but it is a great way to finish up our first week back in the Solomon Islands.

A Widow's Mite in Memphis

On July 27th, we were honored and humbled to again worship with Highland Heights Baptist Church in Memphis.

This sweet church loved on us for four years while Aaron attented seminary, and they continued to love on us while we attended GIAL in Dallas.


Now they are sending us off generously with lots of hugs and prayers.

Thanks to everybody who came to the beautiful reception to encourage us!

We are so thankful for you guys.

Luke 21:1-4
As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “I tell you the truth,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”