December 22. No measurable rain last night. Went to bed a little bit early, but not as early as the night before. It tried to rain a bit late this afternoon, but most of the rain stayed in the north. The air has really turned chilly though. Feels like it’s going to snow. ( :-) It does not get cold enough to snow where Dad and Mom are.)
Aritsedo came about 6:30 this morning and started planting a fence of little bushes and tangets around the pineapple garden. She got the top side done and west side nearly done before lotu. Finished the west side afterward. Will come back tomorrow and work on the east side.
Before lotu this morning, I worked on rechecking Pidgin Psalm 103 for Daddy to use in the next church member meeting. Printed out a copy tonight for him to proofread and make any additional changes.
Daddy continued teaching on the family this morning, continuing with the role of the husband, from Ephesians chapter 5. Started out with only a couple men there, but ended up with a pretty good group.
After lotu and snack, I did some cleaning in the office. Got some of the school things set aside in Connie’s room for now until I can get them organized into boxes. Got two and a half shelves of the bookshelf cleaned off and one shelf reorganized. What a mess the rats had made behind the books! It was really yukky! This time I am pushing all the books all the way to the back of the shelf so the rats can’t go behind them.
This afternoon, I started drawing pictures for the little parable I wrote. Got some pictures from the camera put into the computer. Started working on kidznewzletter for this coming quarterly letter. When I went to fix supper, we saw that the bread had grown a lot of mold since yesterday so whipped up a small batch of biscuits. There were quite a few dishes tonight for some reason so I was in the kitchen a bit longer than usual. Enjoyed listening to Job on the CD while I was working.
This evening, the generator is on so have been printing out a few things, including several copies of Owena Romans for us to work on with some of the men.
“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” Job 28:28
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.” Psalm 111:10
December 23. No rain last night. Daddy got the outside drum emptied and cleaned out today. A lot of debris from the trees had fallen into it, and ashes from the roof had been washed into it as well.
Today was quite a busy day, and a special day too. It was our 41st anniversary.
Up before 6:00 this morning. Made hot rice cereal for breakfast. Started laundry at 6:30 — three loads today. Ate breakfast and had quiet time in between loads.
Aritsedo came around 6:45. She finished the flower fence around the garden this morning.
After hanging out clothes, I relaxed a while and worked on another visual for the parable. I had scheduled cleaning of Connie’s room for today, but needed to get school books out of there before I could do much of any cleaning. So decided it would be a good time to start organizing all the school books. Hollands said the school in Karimui would probably buy some of them so we need to give them a list of what is available. I worked on that for a while this morning before preparing dinner. Laid all the books out by subject on the table and cupboard in the schoolroom. Worked a few minutes on translation of Numbers before I started the dinner cooking.
While I was working on the school books, Daddy went for a walk up to the airstrip. He was gone a long time — bumped into quite a few people along the way: Opo; Nuanda, whose hand is very swollen from, he said, carrying a very heavy door down from the airstrip; Mata, who has a bad boil on her foot; and Neomi, whose little toe is eating away, and the bone is protruding — they told her she would probably have to have the toe amputated. Wonder what this new disease is that is eating people’s flesh. This is the second person now. The first was a man from Marivo whose finger started getting eaten away. He had to have it amputated.
We had pumpkin (leftover from yesterday), greens-uxai-onions, and tuna cake for dinner. We haven’t been able to get any mustard in town lately, and I have run out of what we had. But I did find mustard powder last time and decided to try to make mustard. The package said “mustard powder” anyway, but my was the mixture ever bitter. I added salt and sugar and lemon juice and some other spices to try to tone it down. But it was still quite bitter, and very zingy too. What could I do with it? I hated to waste it. Well, I decided to try just a tiny dab of it mixed with mayonnaise on my fish cake. It wasn’t too bad, but it didn’t taste anything like mustard. As a matter of fact, it tasted very much like horseradish — not one of my favorite condiments.
Daddy went out and brought in the clothes while dinner was cooking. It was about1:30 when we got to nap today.
After nap and prayer time, I cut up the last two popo and got them ready for making popo crisp later. Then I got back to work on the school books. Worked on that until supper time. Finished sorting, and got about five boxes packed before supper.
Cooked the popo crisp, and had that for supper along with leftover biscuits from last night, and egg salad on the biscuits. After supper, it was still light enough to see in the schoolroom so packed three more boxes of books before doing dishes.
After dishes, I worked a while on kidznewzletter.
“Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.” Psalm 112:1
December 24. Less than .1” rain last night.
Another busy day today. After breakfast, quiet time, prayer and walking time, I worked a little bit on the visuals for the parable. Then went back to work in the schoolroom. It took 2 1/2 hours to finish getting the rest of the books packed into boxes. After that, I worked on checking Pidgin Luke until time to warm up dinner. Dinner was leftovers from yesterday.
Had a longer nap today, but had not slept good last night. After nap and our prayer time, I cleaned up one corner of the schoolroom, and Daddy stacked all the boxes of books in that corner. I made a list of all the books that we have there, and then organized the list in a computer file, along with the catalog prices of each item so that we can give the list to Hollands later.
After supper, I worked for a few minutes again on the visuals. Then did dishes. Opo and Ruth came while I was doing dishes.
Opo said also that Yonupero is in favor of our building our house above the airstrip. There are still others that he needs to talk to. After they left, I started work on the next quarterly newsletter.
“1Praise ye the LORD. Praise, O ye servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD. 2Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and for evermore. 3From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord's name is to be praised. 4The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. 5Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high, 6Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth! 7He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; 8That he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people. 9He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.” Psalm 113