Travels with anti-venom

     Well, we are two weeks from the end of the semester here.  It seems to have gone by really fast this time.  I ended up going to Lae, the nearest bigger town, to do some shopping for the bookstore.  I am trying to get things stocked up for the second semester.  So, I bought lots of paper, biros (pens) and highlighters.  The church's bookstore is also carrying some new books, so bought books on Luther's Small Catechism, meaning of Baptism etc.  Fortunately several of these books are in Tok Pisin, a blessing to our students that struggle with English.

   A more unusual experience was bringing back some snake anti-venom for Braun, our local hospital.   Sometimes they are not able to get supplies through regular channels, so arrange to buy them from one of the bigger pharmacies in Lae.  I had brought things before, such as infant formula and gauze.  However, bringing back snake anti-venom (both Death Adder and multi-valent) was more complicated, since it is both delicate and expensive. It has to stay chilled, which is tricky in a tropical country in an open boat. It turned out that putting it in a small cooler inside a larger cooler does work.  Since our electricity can be erratic  I worried about the refrigerators it was stored in the two nights I had it in my procession.  I was relieved when the doctor came and took it to go into refrigerator in their pharmacy that is connected to a generator.  It was also very expensive.  It came to K30,000 which is about the same as a years tuition for 40 of our students.  It had been prepaid, so I was glad they checked my ID carefully to make sure I was the person designated to pick it up.

    This experience transporting anti-venom helped me understand the attitudes towards snakes here.  I had noticed people seemed so worried about snakes.  People try to keep the ground around their house clear so snakes have no place to hide.  I had thought the worry a bit excessive.  However, considering the difficulties with anti-venom I understand better.  I would guess more isolated areas do not have any stock.  I also understand why they wait before using the anti-venom.  People may stay in the hospital for days, being monitored for reaction to a bite.

    Time to get back to class preparation.  We don't have regular classes tomorrow as it's the Queen's Birthday.  However, I agreed to meet with some students to help prepare them for a test.

Ann

pictures from Easter Sunrise Service

Hello Again

Dear friends,

Time to start up my blog again.  I am sorry it has been so long.  For a while I wasn’t able to get online much due to problems with both power and internet access.  Then I got out of the habit.  However, I am going to start this up again and hope to make monthly posts
.

I am in the middle of the first semester for the 2015 school year here in Senior Flierl Seminary.  Since our school year here in Papua New Guinea and much of the Southern hemisphere runs from February through November, you never have two different calendar years in a school year (that’s handy).  This term I am teaching three classes in English – English 1 (first year students), English 3 (second year students), and  an elective course in which we are reading an English language book on the Beatitudes.  I am also trying to teach two classes in Tok Pisin.  One is a class on Spiritual Life (Laip long Spirit)  in which we do Bible readings and discussions.  The last one is Pasin Bilong Studies, which is a study skills course.  My  Tok Pisin classes end up having some English in them unfortunately.  

Holy week and Easter are very nice here.  The students stay on campus during this time so we have quite a few celebrations together.  For me there were two highlights.  One was Palm Sunday.  The year 1 students did a great drama before service to get everyone into the church.  The re-enacted the entry into Jerusalem.  Two of the students were dressed up as the donkey.  One student (the lightest) actually rode into the church on top of them.  I then gave the sermon. Thanks to help from friends my Tok Pisin made sense.

Easter Day was a lovely sunrise service.We held it outside at a spot with a lovely overview of the Pacific Ocean. They had cleaned the brush away so there was a wonderful view. We started singing at 4:30 a.m. (well, I was a few minutes late).  The service started at 5 a.m. with the sunrise at 5:30 a.m.  We finished around 6 a.m.  I went home to take a nap, though had friends over afterwards.

Hope to talk to you again soon.  

Rain, Rain go away

I am sitting on my couch, drinking some hot tea and listening to the rain pour down.  Since we have tin roofs, rain can be a noisy presence.  In someways this could be a scene in the United States.  However, as I look at the window (made of glass louvers), everything is a verdant green, quite a difference than the October colors in the United States.  Here leaves never change color and don't drop at one time.  This long, late rain is a concern to food supply of the students.  First of all they can't always get to their gardens to dig their crops.  Second there is more occurrence of mold type plant diseases.

I have the morning off, which is normally unusual for a Tuesday.  However, this term my classes are clumped on Monday, Thursday and Friday.  So that leaves open time on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I have spent quite a bit of time working on the small school bookstore I have taken over.  It needed some repainting and other work, so I have been keeping things in boxes, and selling out of them during the Thursday afternoon hours the last couple of weeks.  However, everything is now ready to go, so I am setting it up.  It is interesting to look at the stock we carry in an area where few other stores are around.  We carry the expected pens (biros) pencils, notebooks and school books.  However we also carry guitar strings as they all have guitar lessons as part of their music classes.  Since churches do not have pianos or organs, learning the keyboard and guitar can be very useful for leading worship.  We also carry supplies that are used by our congregation and the congregations in the area.  This includes altar wine, communion wafers, and Sunday School books.  I have added in a few English language reference books the students can buy, such as the Book of Concord and theological dictionaries.  It would be nice if these were available in Tok Pisin also, but they are not.  The church press has closed down, so the schools work to make sure the Tok Pisin texts, such as Sios Histori (church history) are reprinted.

My other new adventure this term is being on the OPAC-IC committee.  OPAC (Overseas Partner Churches) includes the churches that send missionaries and this committee looks at administrative issues such as housing and insurance.  I am currently the English speaking rep. (most of the missionaries are German speaking)  We met in September and then met with the bosses who were in PNG for their annual meeting.  It all ended up being more exciting than I had expected.  The big issue was that the road to Goroka, where we were to meet, was blockaded by protestors for several days.  So, there was a lot of discussion as to whether to move the meetings or not.  There was also more fighting in the meeting than I had expected.  In retrospect I should have known that many people together would have disagreements.  However, I had previously remained blissfully ignorant of missionary politics.  Thankfully things seem to have worked out in the end.  We have another meeting on Monday and Tuesday next week.

A fun event this month has been an "Amamas" night.  This is a night we get together to eat a big meal together, have singing and other entertainments.  It is usually done at the end of the year.  But, this year we moved it up so we could say goodby to some colleagues also.  They leave this weekend to return to Germany.  They have been in Papua New Guinea for 14 years.  Christa has been a doctor at Butaweng, the local hospital.  Wolfgang has been a mainstay on the faculty here at Senior Flierl.  During my second semester here he was Academic Dean, Treasurer, Bookstore manager and taught 18 credits.  Needless to say he is hard to replace..

Time to wrap this entry up and go attend the daily staff meeting.  Have a wonderful autumn (those in the northern hemisphere)_ or a wonderful spring (those in the southern hemisphere).  Here we are just hoping the dry season returns.

Time for some catch up!

Well, time to give some summary of what has been happening in my call here in Papua New Guinea.  After that I will try to get back to regular postings

Home leave - most of June, July and August I spent on home leave.  That is when Global Missions brings you back to the US for 2 months.  I added on vacation time to make it closer to 3 months.  This time is partly vacation, especially nice to catching up with friends and family.It is partly work tie, visiting sponsoring congregations and attending a Summer Missionary Conference

Back to Senor Flierl - I have been back to the seminary for about a month now.ame right at the end of a term so have not been teaching. However, I will be back to teaching at the end of this week. I will be teaching three English classes.

I have also taken on some  new responsibilities.  This includes running the small campus bookstore and being the English speaking rep. on OPAC-IC, a group that helps coordinate services for Lutheran Overseas Missionaries.

Time to go to bed.  I am currently in Lae, having been to a conference in Goroka.  Tomorrow I will catch a speed boat back to Logaweng.

Preaching adventures

Going to Kwalansawa 

I am the leader of a Waspapa group, or in my case a Wasmama group.  In this role I act as an advisor for some studeents and their families. Members of the staff also participate. We get together every other Wednesday night to worship together.  I also look over the men`'s exigesis and preaching manuscripts.

One of our activities each year is going to a congregation in the region and doing the service for them.  Since they usually don't have phones planning is an interesting exercise in oral communication.  This year we went to the home area (asples) of Asemba, one of our staff members.  Fortunately he took care of the organization part - talking to someone who would talk with the church leaders.  Then the church leaders sent word back via this friend. 

My Waspapa group has only 7 students, but they, along with Asemba, have many children (11 I think).  This means that we were able to take the school truck. Otherwise adults are considered able to walk.  However, this village was about 15 kilometers away, so it would have been quite a walk!  Some groups walk to their church on Saturday and then walk home after church on Sunday.  Since it is the rainy season the drive was quite an adventure.  Fortunately Asemba  is the school driver and knows the roads, so he did an excellent job of getting us there.  The road is muddy and several of the crossings had some water on them.  At one crossing we had the high school aged sons of Asemba walk across first, so we were able to see how deep the water was.  Otherwise we would have had to wait until the water went down.

I did the preaching and the students did the rest of the service.  I have several excellent students and they did a great job of organizing and presenting everything.  Two of the Year 5 students came Saturday night and helped straighten out the language in my sermon manuscript. 

The church was open air like many of the churches here.  The side walls go up to only about waist high.  Then it is open air from there to the ceiling.  There is a wide, covered area outside the church.  During the worship I was wondering why there were so few women in the church.  Then when I got up to preach I saw that many of the women were sitting on benches outside.  There were few children at worship, so I assume they were in Sunday School.  There is a high birthrate in PNG, so normally there are children everywhere.  Several dogs did wander in and out.

Afterwards we went to the covered platform area in the center of the town.  They provided us with lovely food.  This included the usual staples of corn, sweet potatoes and cooking bananas.  There was also some luxury food like rice.  A real treat for me was all the fish as the village in on the ocean.  Afterwards they sent us home with bags of sweet potatoes, taro, and other foods that travel well.  Since this is a time that food shortages are common, it was very much appreciated by the students and their families.  The gift also included buai or betel nut which most adults here chew.  I haven't started chewing it, so they gave me some lovely grapefruit instead.

Preaching on 2nd Kings

I preached on 2 Kings 2:1- 11 at morning chapel on Friday, May 30.. One difference with week day preaching is that I have to (get to?) preach on texts I am not that I do not know as well as the Sunday texts.. This last year is the first time I have preached from Revelations and 2 Kings. It is a good thing I still use a proof reader for my Tok Pisin. Among the mistakes I had made were confusing to surprise (kirap) with dance (kalap). So, the priest of Baal were surprising around the altar and the disciples were dancing while Jesus ascended into Heaven. Actually the second one has some good theological potentials! 

Hearing loss considered

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, I have lost much of the hearing in my left ear. In some ways Senior Flierl Seminary is a great environment for someone with a hearing loss. It is such a small community that every adult knows I have a hearing problem and are good about repeating if necessary. 

This has also given me some new insights.  I sometimes have trouble hearing students in the classroom, especially when rain is coming down on the metal roof. I think the most frustrating time is during church, including our daily 
chapel.The women are not allowed to sit in the front rows, (we sit in 
the back right hand side) so I can't get close enough to always hear. 
The fact that I still struggle with Tok Pisin adds to the challenge. 
Fortunately our students are trained to work in environments without 
microphones, so they generally know how to speak loudly.

There are some interesting differences in how the Germans versus the 
nationals respond to my loss. In Germany, like America, quite a few 
people have dulled hearing due to noise exposure. Several people have 
compared their experience to mine or told me about friends that wear 
hearing aids. The nationals (people from Papua New Guinea) are much more puzzled by this loss. In a culture with very few engines or music 
amplification, adult onset hearing losses are less common. Also since 
they die younger, fewer develop old age hearing loss. They are much more used to ear infections and ear drum injuries, so expect the doctors to be able to do something. Especially when I came back from Australia, they assumed I would be cured. I think some of them expect me to be cured when I get back from the US and home leave. Cure is unlikely, but I may come back with a hearing aid. I think people will be quite intrigued by one.