down the dusty road

I won’t go into all the subtleties of how this term originated or came to general usage on the Ukarumpa International School Secondary Campus, but sufficient to know that

face-WASTE-ed adj a state of extreme exhaustion, usually following a period of extended consciousness and inversely proportional to amount of time spent unconscious, a stronger form of wasted

So anyway, for the next to last youth group for the senior class, we assembled at the primary school campus, which like my very own HS campus, has a fence around it. We spent the night burning our class notes from the year, watching movies on a massive screen, provided by use of a projector, and hanging out. We played a bunch of primary school games, such as Red Rover, Freeze Tag, and Duck-Duck-Goose. We had massive fun, and I stayed up all night, except for about an hour between 4 and 5 am. (That would be why I am face wasted!) Not a bad way to spend a Sunday night, Monday morning, actually.

I will hate to leave my friends, all fourty others in my class, a great group of guys and girls.

Some things last but for a season, but their glory remains undimmed in memory.

Sadly, my time in Papua New Guinea will soon be at an end. I have 14 school days left, and that includes weekends. Finals start this Friday, and I graduate on the 21st.

Saturday, the 25th, I mount the steel wings of Air Nuigini and fly away from my tropical home and family, both natural and spiritual. So many friends, so many memories. God has been amazing, and given me/shown me so many things this year. I have been blessed 200% more than ever before.

I can’t believe it, and I don’t want to leave, but I must.

Time changes all things, and the past glows with the times we must never forget.

The StormRider

its 2215 I am slightly depressed I need sleep Buenas Noches

Being on an island in the Pacific Rim means two things: lots of fruit and earthquakes. Last night we had a pretty strong earthquake here in the highlands. We were watching Return of the Jedi and the building started swaying a bit, then rocked in a rather disconcerting fashion. It did not last too long. Go here to read about it. To give a little more info, we are about two hours drive (though closer geographically) to Goroka.

Papua New Guinea: Land of the Unexpected

-S’rider

extremely sarcastically “I love track and field!”

Umm, yeah. Today and yesterday was the annual Sports Day at Ukarumpa International High. The entire student body gathers cough-is forced-cough to compete in various track and field events. You sign up for preferred events, but a mandatory competition requirement of two may put you in other events to accomodate those athletes that train for specific events.

My brother, Zach, ended up running a total of +6000m of races (including the 3000m, the 1500m, the 800m, the 400m, the 200m, and various relays and team races). Not being a runner myself, I nevertheless signed up for the 100m and the medly relay. I was entered into the medly relay, but instead of the 100m found myself, instead, in the 110m hurdles.

“HURDLES???” I asked myself. How did I get into the hurdles? Me, who abhors track events whenever possible, and who’s idea of running and jumping involves a brick wall and hungry tiger evasion, was slightly distressed. Nevertheless, I made the best of my situation and sought out the senior girl who held the current school record in the hurdles. Rachel agreed to train me, as much as is humanly possible. After politely laughing at my lack of skill, she informed me that it would be better for me if I just jumped naturally and ran, instead of trying any technique.

So sports day came, and at 1313 (how lucky for me!) I ran a heat of the 110 hurdles.

Will wonders never cease? Aparantly not. I won my heat by about a metre, and placed fourth over all. I knocked over a total of zero hurdles, and flew over them with the relative grace of a…well, nevermind….I did my best and was satisfied and was happy to spend the remainder of my time cheering for Zach who won just about every race he entered. (Except for two, if I am not mistaken.)

Oh yeah, the medly relay is an 800 metre race in which two guys run 100m each, another runs 200m, and the fourth runs 400m. I was picked to run the 200m stretch and did so with a minimal amount of difficulty. Breathing afterwards, however, took some amount of skill, time, and sheer determination that I found hard to muster. I finally found some oxygen and was restored to full mental capacity without loss.

So yeah, I competed and now I am done.

Em Tasol

-the Hurdling StormRider

The past weekend we had our annual Banquet. Held each year for the Junior and Senior classes, the parents of the students transform our Teen Centre into the most amazing far away place in which we visit a multiplicity of booths and eat a fabulous dinner. The decoration of Teen Centre is placed around that year’s theme. This theme is decided months before hand and is not revealed to the students until they enter the building, and in some cases, it is not easy to discern immediately. Last year (which I was not here for) the theme was “Time Travel” and Teen Centre was divided into several different “time zones”. One was Ice Age, one was the 2025, and there were several others. Dinner was held in a “Southern-style” atmosphere. After dinner, the parents and other community members from Ukarumpa put on a play for the attendees, in which a humourous reference is made to each of the seniors. In all, an extremely fun evening, and the Ukarumpa version of a prom. The guys ask out the girls, we dress up in fancy dresses (the girls) and suits (the guys) and shine up our cars, with which we try to be creative (this year one guy pulled his date to Banquet in a wagon, another came in a dune buggy, and two couples were brought in a helicopter that landed on a nearby basketball court), and arrive greeted by the community which is lined up to watch us.

(more…)

Living in a third world country is never short of experiences that would frazzle the common American. We here in Ukarumpa were shortly without internet and phone connections for about a week. Some power surges had taken out some circuits and fried some boards in the computers in Kainantu, the closest city, and thus our connection was severed. It took technichians working all week to repair and reconnect the comm lines. During that time we were unable to check email or call outside of the centre. During that same time, if the same happened to American, they would be in a state of considerable distress, I imagine. However, we missionaries bore up under the strain quite well. One of the blessings about living in Papua New Guinea this past year has been to rely less on man-made things and more on God. We never know when or why or connections may be down, or our roads impassable, or our planes unflyable, but we always know God will be with us. Comforting, eh?

Btw, I did not mean to insinuate that missionaries are any better than the average American (I was an average American), but just that we have learned to live under much different situations and have learned to adapt to many things many American’s do not have to face.

But no fear, we are back (for now) on the world wide web…

-A Rhino Beetle