Off to the Bush!

The time has arrived for us to head out to the bush! One of the most exciting parts of this internship is our opportunity to go live in two different villages for a few weeks, both to speed-learn the language and to encourage the nationals and missionaries who live there. We've been packing like crazy (we have to bring everything we're going to need, including food and bedding and clothing and toiletries and kerosene lamps and coloring books for the children and laundry detergent and clothespins and batteries and about a million other things), so we're finally ready to hop on the plane and fly out.

All of this packing has given all of the interns plenty of practice interacting in the market and all of the stores around town. I can remember the day back in the States when our intern coach said she was going to send us out to the market alone on the third day, and we all panicked. Now, going out to buy fresh produce is no big deal, and I look forward to visiting our normal stops in the market. The market is an exciting place, with dozens of people sitting next to their produce, spraying it with water and fanning the flies away to attract customers. There's something really special about buying food from the people who grew it - it feels much more personal than buying food from the supermarket, where the food has probably passed through a dozen hands. We usually visit the market once a day, as we're responsible for all of our meals and we like things fresh.

This weekend was very good for me. On Saturday, we took time for Sabbath (a discipline that is particularly difficult for me), spending the day with a missionary family around town and then watching a movie in the evening at our office. On Sunday, I went to my first ever PNG church service, which was a very interesting experience. The seating was divided by gender, and the service was a mixture of Pidgin and English. The preacher spoke about God's call to Abraham, how he had to leave the life he had established in order to follow God into unknown places. It seemed very timely for students on a missions internship! I feel like the church service may have made me more homesick than anything else we've done, simply because the songs and faces were so unfamiliar to me. I think time helps more than anything, as familiarity never comes quickly. Fortunately, on Sunday evening we attended a gathering of all of the PBT missionaries, and it felt much more familiar. We sang familiar English songs, we watched a video about what God has been doing in PNG, we were prayed over, and we took the Lord's Supper together.

The Lord's Supper was particularly impacting to me. I've become guilty of getting so distracted by all of the details of mission work - all of the packing and language learning and sunscreening - that I had lost sight of the purpose of all that we do: Jesus died for our sins, and that is very good news. We are sharing the words of life with people, bringing light into dark places, and it can be easy to forget that when you're trying to remember what the Pidgin word for "egg" is (it's kiau, by the way).

Today was a long day of final preparation. I made two purchases that were particularly exciting for me. The first was a machete, which I'll need for our time in the bush (I believe I'll mostly be using it to hack vines and open coconuts, but I may kill a tiger or two while I'm at it). The second was a bilum, a small bag that just about every single person in the town carries around with them to hold personal items (for those of you who are wondering, yes, I'm describing a purse. But it is culturally appropriate - even expected - that I, as a male, will carry one too. I'm not gonna lie; it's pretty handy).

From what I can tell, our time in the bush will be very challenging and very rewarding. I would greatly appreciate your prayers especially in this time, as it will certainly be the most physically (and, dare I say it, mentally/emotionally/spiritually) demanding portion of the summer. We feel very confident about what's going to happen, but there are also so many variables we have to deal with (until about last week, we didn't know if the airstrip into our first village was going to be too overgrown to land). Fortunately, God is bigger than our circumstances! He has prepared the way for us, and we are excited to join his work in the villages.