One Week

I've officially been here over a week now. Thursday I went to Jayapura (about 50 km away) to do fingerprinting for immigration. I went with Henry and Rose Moore, a missionary couple who's lived here for 20+ years. They were great! It wasn't all that long ago that digital fingerprinting came to Indonesia - one of the other ladies from Sentani who was also there had brought her baggie of a wet rag and vaseline, ready to clean the ink off her hands. I guess I came at a good time. ;) We had lunch at KFC, did some grocery shopping (I got apple juice because it's hard to get in Sentani), and went to a bookstore. I also saw frog's legs and fish brains at the grocery store, but I passed. I purchased an Indonesian pop music karaoke DVD just for fun. We also stopped at Dunkin' Donuts before heading back to Sentani. School was out when we got back, so I spent some time meeting with teachers to organize the hearing screenings for next week - we'll see how they go. I finally got to talk with my parents and Hunter via Skype, so that was a blessing.

I found out that Sentani has a population of about 15,000, with something like 8 elementary schools and several middle schools, so it's a young population. Jayapura is close to half a million - much bigger than I thought!

On Friday I saw the regularly scheduled students plus another student we did an evaluation on, after which we met with his teacher to talk about what we can do. My neighbor, Joyce, had me over for supper, and I went over early to watch her cook - I'm still learning how to adjust cooking/baking here. She made chicken pot pie, and it was delicious! Charis, another one of the teachers, had given me a fresh pineapple, so I cut that up and brought it over to Joyce's to have with our supper. Earlier in the week Joyce made brownies - we had papaya and a scoop of peanut butter (to get our protein) first, and then enjoyed the brownies for supper. :)

Saturday was a pretty lazy day - I spent some time reading my Bible and praying, and then I caught up on my journaling. We had planned a trip to the Hypermarket, but the car didn't work, so we didn't go. We could've walked, but none of us needed anything urgent, so we stayed back. We found a bat by the laundry room door that morning, so we snapped a couple pictures. He was pretty little, and we think he was injured because he didn't move unless we poked him with the broom. I got to talk with Lexi before lunch, and for supper I went with Clare (another teacher) to Papa Ron's Pizza in the mall. It was good! Dunkin' Donuts JUST opened in the mall that day, so Clare stopped by there to grab a few - it's a pretty big deal to have that here. The 2nd gas station in town just opened not to long ago, too. When we got back to the school, we watched "Enchanted." I hadn't seen it before, and it was a nice light-hearted movie.

An update on the teachers: Myron, the kindergarten teacher, got the results from his test and his lymphoma is back. He just got back from Singapore this morning, and will be flying back to the States on Wednesday for treatment. The Lord has provided a parent who will teach kindergarten for 2 months - a definite answer to prayer! Please pray for Myron as he goes through chemo and radiation, and for Margie as she steps in to take over the kindergartners. No more news on the 4th grade teacher's visa - the committee meets on Friday, so keep praying!

Today We had a wonderful church service! The speaker talked about how God doesn't change - we can rely on Him. During the prayer and praise time, one of the missionaries shared how a shipment of 2,000 Bibles in a local language just arrived - a translation project that they've been working on for many years. It was a privilege to share in the joy and excitement of all the missionaries as he shared his news. They're doing a dedication on March 17. It's so neat to be a part of this in a small way, and to see these people do the things I've only read about before. It makes things so much more meaningful. Myron came up to share at the end of the service, and we had a powerful time of prayer for him, with almost everybody in the room surrounding him as various people prayed over him. I went out for lunch with one of the missionary families and Clare, and I learned that it's pretty risky to use your credit card here - good to know, as I had been planning to use it if I could instead of spending cash. I guess I'll get cash from the school and leave it at that. I've only used it once here, so hopefully nothing will come of that. This afternoon I'll be working on a fluency evaluation, and maybe I'll be able to fit in a nap. My throat was a little sore when I woke up this morning, so please pray that I can stay healthy and not get sick - not even a cold. Thank you!