Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we got to celebrate with my dad's side of the family in Sheridan, WY.  The whole crew stayed and my uncle Mike and aunt Libby's.  We had an awesome time hanging out, doing crafts, and eating of course! We also got to see our friends Rollie and Bev for the first time since we went overseas, which was great!

Uncle John & Aunt Karen, Grandpa & grandma, Uncle Mike & Aunt Libby, Dad & Mom, Me, Houghton, Gretchen, Addy, Gwen & Si.

 Good snow for snowmen!

 

 

 

 

 Aunt Karen & Aunt Libby playing a jewelry game with the kids.

At the Christmas stroll.

 

 On the hayride.

 My Aunt Libby (2nd from R) is in a bell choir and played at the bank so we got to go listen.

 

 

 

 We made jewelry together.

 

 

 Turkeys and deer abound in Sheridan and were walking around in people's yards!

Tiffani in DC

After hanging out with our friends in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, I took the bus to DC to stay a few days with my friend Tiffani. She's an awesome accountability partner and we were able to in person finish out a Bible study we've been doing over the phone all my furlough. I got to meet a lot of her friends from church, share about Vanuatu with her youth group, and attend a very edifying home group. It was a spiritually nourishing trip.

A free picture slideshow by Smilebox

Some of the pictures in the smilebox didn't show up well so I put them in the body of the e-mail here. Sorry so many are blurry!

Thanksgiving pics

Digital collage generated with Smilebox

Graduation

Wahoo, we graduated!  I now have a year of linguistics skills under my belt for ministry in Vanuatu.  I pray it is to the Lord's glory and the good of a people group in Vanuatu!  Please pray for the students from this year that God would enable us to use what we have learned to honor Him and that people would come to know Him as a result.

Great Ocean Road

The "Dodgy D Dorm" dames (single girls at the school) had a last hang-out, going for a drive to see the "12 Apostles" on the Great Ocean Road south-west of here.  It is a gorgeous drive and we had good quality time together.  Had it been warmer I would have jumped in the ocean but it was just a bit too nippy for me.  I'll get my fill of bathwater temperature ocean water in Vanuatu so I'm happy to save myself for that.  :)  Here are some pics from the trip.

Make a Smilebox photobook

Simboro

We spent a day hanging out with various ni-Van friends at Gretchen's place recently so it made picture-taking a lot less awkward. Magreth had planned to come up to Gretchen's place with her younger sister, Jen, and all their kids (Jen's 3 and Magreth's 2 youngest). However, Jen ended up not being able to come at the last minute and the morning they were coming, the father of Magreth's 2 girls showed up and said he wanted to spend the day with them. That happens fairly rarely as I understand it, so he headed out with them at daylight and Magreth met me at the "Christmas tree" by the hardware store (our usual meeting place). Just the 2 of us then walked together up to Gretchen's. SIL is the owner of the properties that the Richards and I are staying in so I got permission 1st to have a friend on the grounds. They have requested that ni-Van friends not be invited into the homes (great temptation for stealing and every expat I know here has had at least one break-in to their homes). There is a small building just down from Gretchen's house that has books and home-school curriculum as well as some toys for SIL missionary kids. It has a tin covered cement porch so Gretch brought some mats down and we sat down there. The building has a toilet too so it was perfect. Tania and daughter Grace joined us for the day too. We played Skip-Bo all morning down there, speaking Bislama and storying-on. Great fun and great fluency practice, as well as something to keep things from being awkward when no one knew what to talk about. I have some other friends I might try the game thing with. It takes the focus off having to come up with conversation topics continually so conversation just flows more naturally.

In the afternoon, Gretch had made plans with Monique (who lives on top, next to her house, she's ni-Van and works for SIL) to make simboro. Simboro is grated root vegetable (or cooking banana) made into a doughy form, then rolled into island cabbage leaves. Here is the process in pictures. Please note that our finished product looks pretty pathetic compared to a ni-Van's completed work. Usually they are tight rolls like little taquito-looking things or really nicely rolled tortilla wraps. Anyway, ours were like little mushy lumps, but they tasted the same so no worries.

Step 1: purchase island cabbage in a rolled bundle at the market, in addition to either taro, manioc, cooking bananas, yam, or kumala (sweet potatoes)

Step 2: open up island cabbage roll, unravel each island cabbage leaf, break them off to just have short stems, and lay them in a pile (Tania and Gretch are our models for this one)

Step 3: peel, then grate the chosen root crop/banana (we used wild yam). Add a small amount of water to the bowl you are grating it into (notice this step and the ones above look an awful lot like laplap making) Here are Monique and Grace using the "rasras" (grater) to grate "waelyam" (wild yam)

Step 4: using fingers, mush up the gratings until it comes to a doughy consistency

Step 5: here's where this whole deal starts differing from making laplap - clump some of the doughy filling onto an island cabbage leaf and roll up the leaf into a bundle

Step 6: layer in a pan

Step 7: milk a coconut and squeeze the milk onto the rolled simboro

Step 8: boil until done (Monique was out of firewood so instead of using her firepit, we just used the gas stove-top).

Step 9: add a grub to the top as a garnish Step 10: ha, ha - who believed me on step 9? If I had you going there, you have to let me know. :) They do actually eat grubs here, but not (I don't think) in simboro. I haven't tried one yet but I'm sure in the village when we're all out of peanut butter and dehydrated ground beef, they'll be looking pretty tasty... The grub is one some ni-Van kids found out at Brad and Amber's place. They were playing with it and came to show us so we had to take pictures. This is Josh's hand holding the huge thing. He's Tania and Jim's boy. The real step 9 is eat (the simboro that is)! It's pretty good.

Tania, Grace, and Gretch plus the 3 kids went up to Magreth's family's place (to her sister, Wini's) to make laplap the day before we got together with Magreth for all this (above). Grace isn't afraid to snap shots all day long so they got some great ones of the whole laplap making process, many a lot better than what I posted a month or so ago. If you want to check out her pics, go to this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/KennerUpdate/MifalaIMekemLapLap02?authkey=2Uq_qvL6toA Enjoy! Sometime when I'm not falling asleep on my computer I'll type up here why I didn't go with them and some cultural notes so if you're reading this right after I post it, check back in another day for "the rest of the story..." :)

Team Time

Team time is now a scheduled affair so we are making priority to get together regularly to just build friendship and to fellowship, as well as to discuss issues and make decisions. All the guys on our team headed out to Tanna island (south of here) on Friday. They are doing survey work there to check out any possible future ministry options but they are also helping SIL/Wycliffe Bible translators Ken & Mendy and visiting translators Eric and Michele in a different village. Ken and Mendy's family (they have 4 children: Caleb, Hannah, Abby, and Kate) were on furlough back in the States for awhile, then came back to Vanuatu and bought a much-needed truck to take to Tanna. They are unable to get out to their village without transport and the vehicle they were using before was continuously breaking down and finally died. They came back to Vanuatu the same day the Richards and I flew in so we actually met them at the airport in LA back in August! The idea was for them to buy the truck, get re-supplied to head out to Tanna (propane, food, toiletries, school supplies...), then send the truck on a ship to Tanna, fly over and meet it at the warf and get back into their house in the village. Unfortunately, they had to experience some serious ni-Vanuatu culture, something they are very familiar with by now but it was new for us to see. The ship had repair issues and for several weeks the family was told it would be ready the next week, no, the next week, no... Weeks turned into months and further repairs were made. All legitimate (the crane that picks up containers to set them on the warf fell through the rusty ship and down into the ocean - kind of a big problem...) but frustrating none-the-less. Months later (from 5 August to now!), the ship is fixed, was packed, and brought the truck over. Ken met it, then the guys flew to meet him, and just yesterday Mendy and family flew to meet all of them. The guys dug a septic hole, helped hook up a satellite Ken just purchased (and they were able to Skype from his house in the village!), rid the house of rats and the larger of the vermin, did a few repairs and cleanings, and checked out ministry opportunities. Tuesday they'll come back and let us know more about the time on the island.


The team had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving for the first time in Vanuatu. Tania did a fantastic job organizing the whole affair. She and Jim and kids have moved from the guest house where they were staying into Jack and Kay's main house. They are missionaries that help with Joy Bible Institute here in town as well as with some other AOG (Assembly of God) ministries. They have headed back to the US for a short furlough so wanted someone in their actual place. It is a house able to accommodate pretty big groups so was perfect for hosting our full team, as well as the Gibb family and a ton of other American friends we invited. Some calling other countries home were invited as well, but only very special ones... Ross and Lyndal stopped by for a bit. They just headed out last night to PNG (Papua New Guinea) to do a revision on the New Testament they translated a decade ago. I'm already missing my fun upstairs neighbors! Sophia came as well. She's a ni-Van woman I met at Talua on Santo when I was there in October. She and her new husband, Philip, work together with Andrew and Rosemary (staff at Talua - he's American, she's Australian) on the Bislama Bible Commentary project. Philip was Houghton's contact in Ambrym for the ministry opportunity we have there and the survey work the guys did there last month. Sophia and Philip were here in town and Hought and Gretch hosted them as they just needed a place to stay before heading to Australia for a conference. Philip's flight was earlier so he wasn't able to come to Thanksgiving. From the conference, Philip will return and start on his degree program at Talua (he already has a 3 year diploma, but will now start his 4 year degree). Sophia, however, is coming to Australia with us to Equip! (She's also a graduate of the diploma program at Talua.) She'll do the introductory 6 weeks of the program and head back to Vanuatu to continue her work on the Commentary. I went around town with her the morning of Thanksgiving to help her finish up some medical stuff for her visa. I got to see more of the hospital, as well as a Western doctor's office, the Australian High Commission, and just had great opportunities to talk with Sophia. The day after Thanksgiving, we hung out more and she shared a bit about her work on the commentary. She's an incredibly smart woman of 28, was just married a few weeks ago, and is a hard worker. She's still ni-Van though with her non-Western sense of time. She decided to start a load of laundry just as Hought and Gretch were out the door for Thanksgiving. She also missed her flight the next morning and had to re-schedule everything for a full day after, which is why I was able to hang out with her another day. We are so looking forward to her, and one other ni-Van (Pastor Peter, the head of the Vanuatu Bible Translators organization here) being at Equip so we can continue to speak Bislama with them and learn from them.

At our celebration, turkey was really the only customary food we were missing out on but we were able to order roasted chickens for the same price as frozen ones so the white meat on them tasted pretty close to turkey; yum! Otherwise, we were able to get potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, gravy, bread, homemade stuffing, all the good stuff. Gretch and I spent the entire day the day before making pumpkin pie, cheesecake, cookies, muffins, apple pie, and banana cream pie. It was really nice to have a traditional American feast, made complete with the feelings of being full to the point of popping. The nicest though was being able to fellowship with other Christians and spend some time in thanks-giving prayer. God has blessed us with so much.

There are a lot of events happening all around town all the time. Sometimes I hear about them from ni-Van friends, sometimes from expat friends, and sometimes I stumble upon them. Port Vila Day was one I stumbled upon. I went to market on Friday and saw booths set up all over in the seafront park so wandered over to check it out. They were making an announcement about Port Vila Day(s) being through Saturday. These kinds of things are a lot like fairs in the States with different booths, a few carnival-ish things for kids, music, and sometimes other entertainment. Amber and kids, Tania and kids, and me with Gretchen's kids (she was feeling sick this weekend) went to hang out a bit on Saturday. You can expect a bit of a mix of food you'd recognize (sandwiches, rice, pineapple) and island-style food (some stir-fry stuff with either fish, chicken, or beef, meat sticks, roasted taro or some other root crop, fried egg-roll-ish things with meat in them, sometimes laplap, etc.). I got sandwiches for the kids (one egg and one tuna) a plate of rice, taro, and beef stir-fry for me, and a young coconut with the top cut open for us to drink. Yummy. I ended up being in and out with Gweny and some bathroom issues (she's potty trained now but has lots of accidents) and left early because Jesiah had a sudden stomach ache, but it is always interesting to check out the culture of these sorts of events. They get packed out with people (shady spots are hard to come by), for the most part it is far quieter than similar events in America, and booths are made out of local materials. Check out the palm leaves that made up the walls and fronts of these booths! It's a fun atmosphere. When we arrived on Saturday there was a play on the stage about two crabs being chased by a cat (acted out by some guys from a group who called themselves "The Monkey Boys" - these are guys in their early 20's mind you!). Jesiah kept jumping at the narrator's vocal animation as the crabs tried getting away. The crowd was loving it, laughing. A note on the quiet thing: we went to a concert that was held in a park nearby Tania's house a few weeks ago. It had some local string bands, a local pop band, and some bands from neighboring countries, among other groups. Emily Gibb was asked to play her violin the night we attended so after a French clown act, she opened the concert. Brave girl, and she played beautifully! The crowd really packed in after dark, but even when she played at dusk there were several hundred people all sitting on the grass to listen. I was realizing as we were all sitting there in a big white-man clump :) that we were the loudest ones present. We were talking throughout the concert, kids were running around playing, and we were up and down the whole time. All the ni-Vans around us sat quietly, now and then mouthing or whispering to people around them, and kids for the most part sat and listened too. Concert etiquette here is quite different than America, that's for sure! The ni-Van pop band was trying to get people to stand up, come closer to the stage, and clap and participate more like an American pop concert would look. No one took them up on that but stayed put sitting quietly in the grass. No one standing, swaying and holding lighters... I was telling Jane when we left that everyone around us would probably be happy to see us leave so they could go back to enjoying the concert in quiet. :) Don't get me wrong, a lot of churches and concert set-ups like this have microphones and sound systems set up and they crank the sound, but the audience tends to be quiet, at least in the experiences I've had.

We've been also trying to implement some girls' get-togethers as a team. Friday afternoons are now girls prayer times, which is great. The guys get together for weeky or twice-weekly meetings so it's high time for girls to do the same! :) Tonight we had a girls' movie night. Amber and kids weren't able to make it, but Anna joined us. She's without her husband too (Ben's on Santo and our team's guys are on Tanna, as I mentioned above). Anna is the current Office manager for SIL/Wycliffe (so I see her a lot in the office since I live here) and she also works with YWAM with her husband, Ben. See earlier posts for a pic of them together. Anna has been a great friend here. We've gotten together for Bible studies and prayer, just to hang out, to meet friends, to go to an exercise class, and she's introduced me to quite a few ni-Van friends. She, Tania and kids, Gretchen and kids, and I ate junk food and watched "Secondhand Lions" together at Tania's place. On our way home Anna ran into some friends so walked home with them and Gretch and I caught a bus back to our place.

I think Christian fellowship here is definitely at the top of my list for what I'm thankful for. What a blessing to have friends as a team but also be able to get to know and enjoy others working here and learn from their experince and insight.