Christmas in March
Friday, March 30, 2007
Today was the day we have long been awaiting! We packed two crates in Michigan in November/December and delivered them to shippers in the Detroit area just before Christmas. They were trucked to Chicago... somehow got to the west coast (train, truck, ship?) and were sent by ship to Sydney where they were transferred to another ship heading to several ports here in the Pacific. The ship arrived here yesterday.
We picked up our two crates from the wharf and have been unpacking them. We took the girls out of school to enjoy unpacking their belongings. For Sarah there was great joy when we got down to her violin.
The thing Emily was most looking forward to having was her new guitar! We packed it in the crate without her knowing it. On her birthday in January we gave her a gift certificate for the guitar along with photos. So today was the first time for her to actually hold her guitar. She is thrilled!
There's still lots of unpacking to do, but it was lots of fun to rediscover our belongings today - it felt a bit like Christmas!
Labels: Family
posted by Martha @ 9:49 PM
Tropical Depression
Monday, March 26, 2007
This is the view from our house looking out toward the sea this morning.We must be in a tropical depression at the moment. For the last 2 days it has been gray and the rain has been alternating between short downpours, and light drizzles. The temperatures have been in the mid to upper 70°F range which is about as cool as it ever gets here. In this kind of weather, everything feels damp and clammy. It's a challenge to get clothes dry on a clothesline and we don't have a clothes dryer. Even though we have a clothesline under our house, the 100% humidity makes drying difficult. Long ago we learned that 'dry' is a relative term!
Another down side of the cloudy weather is taking showers. We have a wonderfully efficient and environmentally friendly solar water heater on our roof. On hot sunny days, scalding water comes streaming out of our shower head. However, when we have several days of overcast rainy weather when a hot shower would feel great, we only have cold water! Last night Emily heated water and she and Sarah took showers with dipperfuls of warm water.
After a few days like this, we will welcome the sun breaking through the clouds. Then the combination of sun and all that humidity can make it feel like we are living in a greenhouse. On the plus side - our rain tank is full of fresh clean water!
Labels: life in the tropics
posted by Martha @ 7:20 AM
Youth Group
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Emily was very happy to come back to the Solomons and get involved in the church youth group here. She is enjoying Bible studies every other Wednesday afternoon, Sunday School and gatherings on Friday nights.
This past Friday we hosted the youth group at our house for a games night. In typical Solomon Islands style, the shoes were left at the door. You can see here the most popular shoe style!
Most of the kids got to our house on the back of a flat bed truck driven by one of the youth group leaders. There were about 50-60 youth present and the evening started with a time of worship. Solomon Islanders love music and singing!
Tim shared a devotional and then we played some group games. It was a lot of fun to host the youth group and we hope we can do it again. We are thankful for our roomy living room we were able to add to the house a couple of years ago which makes entertaining so much easier.
Here a group of kids was thinking up a short skit they could present using all the props we gave them in the box. They came up with some very creative skits!
posted by Martha @ 10:06 PM
Ministry Outside the Box
The house next door to us has many people living in it. Sometimes it feels like we are living next door to an entire village! The bits and stories we hear about some of the residents sound like episodes out of a soap opera.
One of the inhabitants is this three month old baby shown here with his sister. Often we hear the baby crying (and I tend to get rather annoyed). On Monday he cried the entire day! Then I saw the baby with the grandmother who was trying to comfort the baby. She told me that the mother often goes to town for the whole day and leaves it with the family. Because all babies here are breastfed, he has often been hungry; hence the hours of crying.
Nearly in tears both by the sadness of the situation and disgust with my own attitudes toward the crying baby, I got in the car and went to town to by a bottle and some formula.
I find myself struggling with the whole situation. Part of me hates to 'enable' the mother to not take care of the child because the more care we give, the less she is likely to give, but another part of me only sees the need of this innocent hungry child. A child like this would be in serious danger if it got sick with malaria or another illness, besides the basic malnutrition. I may not be able to right all the wrongs of the world, but I decided I couldn't let this hungry child die due to lack of proper nutrition.
Now the baby's sisters often come to the house to bring back the empty bottle or ask for another one for their brother. This week they have also come to help weed our yard or help around the house - even insisting on weeding in the pouring rain. Today the older sister came with an armload of orchids for me to plant because she knows I like orchids. While she was pulling weeds, she asked, "Are you going to church tomorrow?".
"Yes. Would you like to go along with us and go to Sunday School?", I answered.
She quickly answered, "Yes!" 
Our ministry here is mainly literacy, but it's not hard to find ourselves in ministry 'outside the box' of our job title. I guess for any Christian, it is part of our job description;
And if you give even a cup of cold water (or bottle of formula?) to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.
Labels: Ministry
posted by Martha @ 1:26 PM
25 Years
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Last week I received this Certificate of Appreciation in the mail for 25 years of service with Wycliffe. It represents teaching missionary kids in Mexico, Philippines, Texas and Papua New Guinea. Since 1998 we have been serving here in the Solomon Islands as literacy specialists. Wherever I have served with Wycliffe, it's been great being a part of giving people God's Word in their own language.
When I look at this certificate, I can't help but think of the many people who have supported me through the 25 years in friendship, with prayers and financial support. It's only through your partnership that this has all been possible. You will always be special to us because of the way that God has used your giving in our lives and ministry.
Labels: Ministry
posted by Martha @ 10:10 PM
Back in business
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Thanks to those of you who prayed for my computer problems. I am pleased to be writing this blog from MY computer on Wednesday night - Tim has put hours into getting it up and running again. It's taken the major step of wiping out the hard drive and reinstalling everything. Tim thinks that I haven't lost any data. I trust he is right. Time will tell.
In the meantime I have gotten some other things done around the house that haven't been as urgent as my work on the computer. It does feel good to have something to show for the time I wasn't on the computer!
posted by Martha @ 8:48 PM
Please Pray
Monday, March 19, 2007
This morning I was looking forward to a full day that I could dedicate to working of the Bible page for the newspaper. I'd collected some more information, downloaded a new font and I thought I was good to go. As I was doing something else in the house, Tim sat down at my computer to check on something and the computer monitor was blank.
After several hours, Tim has not been able to boot the computer despite trying many different things. He has gone to borrow a computer disc from someone else in town that has Macintosh computers to see if that will help the situation. Would you please pray that the computer would boot up and that Tim would be able to get it fixed? I really use my computer a lot! There are no repair shops in country that we know of that can fix Mac computers so if Tim can't get it working, it quickly gets complicated. (I am writing this from Tim's computer.)
Labels: Prayer Request
posted by Martha @ 1:41 PM
Little "Matzke"
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Almost four years ago, a village friend was in town awaiting the birth of her last born child. I had heard via the grapevine that Sandra was a bit worried about the pregnancy, so I stopped by the house where she was staying and prayed with her about the impending birth. A few days later, Tim received a phone call from Sandra's husband to say that Sandra had safely given birth to a boy and they wanted to name him 'Matzke'!
I think that if the baby had been a girl, it would have been named Martha but as this was the last child Sandra and John planned on having, they diplomatically named him 'Matzke' instead of 'Tim'.
Anyway, today we heard someone come to our gate - it was 'Matzke' and his dad, sister and uncle. We hadn't seen Matzke since he was first born so it was very fun to meet him today. As is culturally appropriate, we brought him a gift from the USA - a new soccer ball. I guess you can judge from the look on his face how this gift was received! He's very friendly 3 1/2 year old and easily came to Tim to have his picture taken.
Later when Matzke is ready to attend school, it won't be a big surprise if his parents ask us to help to pay his school fees. The honor of having a child named after you often comes with some obligations as well. We are honored to have Matzke named after us and will be happy to have a part in his education.
Labels: Special People
posted by Martha @ 6:03 PM
Sunshine through "The Blues" - by Tim
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Those of you who have been following the blog will know that Monday was not a fun day. I'll admit I was not feeling very good about life on Monday evening. But then I got a phone call...
Michael Saeni was on the phone, calling from a newly installed phone at a provincial substation near his village in North Malaita. He had just returned from about a week's travel to an area where he had done some literacy teacher training last year. Michael had trained a number of people to be reading teachers almost a year ago, but had not heard anything more from them. He told me that he was afraid of finding no activity out there, a full day's travel from his own village.
However, he was very encouraged and even excited as I talked to him. He found six literacy classes going in different villages, with between 6 and 30 students in each of them! The people were excited to be learning to read and eager to read the New Testament in their language which was made available 2 years ago.
Michael and I talked more about his plans for the next few weeks. He will be helping to start a new literacy initiative for the Langalanga people beginning on Friday with a planning meeting. He will be visiting some Langalanga villages at the end of this month to talk to them about how to prepare to run literacy classes. I still need to make a trip out there and help write a reading primer (instructional book) and we will train teachers as soon as we can get it all together.
Michael and Tim making plans a few weeks ago in our home in Honiara.Labels: Ministry
posted by Tim @ 7:26 PM
Blue Monday
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Yesterday (Monday) turned out to be a bit of a blue Monday. It wasn't just the gray clouds and lack of sun that made it feel that way. When Tim was in town running errands, he pulled out on to the main road and was hit broadside by a car. Tim is fine, but our new (to us) vehicle is damaged and will have to spend time in the repair shop.
We are thankful that Tim and the other driver were unharmed, but we are pretty discouraged about the vehicle being damaged. At the moment we have use of one of the vehicles that our group owns.
The police are investigating to determine who is at fault in the accident. At first glance, it appears that there was probably fault on both sides. We do have insurance - so that's good news, though we are not sure yet just what it will cover.
Thank God with us that no one was hurt. Please pray for a speedy repair of the vehicle. Our experience with car repairs here has shown that it can take a while to get all the parts and for the car to be returned to us.
Labels: Daily Life, Prayer Request
posted by Martha @ 10:56 AM
Yes, we have bananas!
Saturday, March 10, 2007
As you might expect, we have a lot of bananas in the Solomon Islands. What you might find surprising is that there are many many varieties available. Some bananas have to be cooked, others can be eaten right off the hand and some can be either cooked or eaten fresh. Some bananas are tiny - 3-4" long and others nearly a foot in length.
Yesterday as I walked through the market, I saw a type of banana I hadn't seen before so I decided to try them. As you can see they are a bit red on the outside, but the flesh has a red tint as well. They are very tasty bananas.
When we are in the USA we don't eat many bananas because they tend to be rather tasteless and disappointing to us. The variety of bananas sold in the USA were probably chosen because they ship well. Bananas here are tree ripened and we'd have to say they taste much better as a result!
Labels: food, life in the tropics
posted by Martha @ 11:10 AM
Treasure at the Beach
Last Saturday when we went to the beach, Emily and her friend Grant found coconut which had begun to sprout. Emily and Grant got excited because it holds a special treat.
They took a bush knife (machete) to the coconut to get through the thick fibrous husk. They hacked at that until they could peel the husk off the shell.
A final 'whack' and the shell splits open. Inside the shell is a pithy white flesh which is the 'germ' of the coconut seed. The kids love to eat this slightly sweet treat which is called vara.
Labels: food, life in the tropics
posted by Martha @ 10:00 AM
Making Connections - by Tim
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
One of the things I find most rewarding about my work here is the opportunities to connect people who have the ability or opportunity to contribute to a common goal. A couple of weeks ago, I was able to do just that.
Over the years, I have had considerable interaction with the Literacy Association of the Solomon Islands (LASI), an important partner in our literacy efforts. One name that stands out in LASI is Sister Eremina, a Catholic sister who has worked for many years teaching people in her home area of the Kwaio speaking part of the island of Malaita.
About a year ago, Julie, a young American woman, joined our SITAG team as a Bible translation advisor. She was assigned to help with the Kwaio translation project and has made incredible progress in the past year.
So when I saw Sister Eremina at a LASI workshop where I was doing some consulting, I decided that I had to help connect her with Julie. So Julie and I headed over to the workshop toward the end of a morning session and stayed for lunch. Julie and Sister Eremina had lunch together, talking in the Kwaio language the whole time.
What is really great is that the Gospel of Mark is almost ready for publication. So Sister Eremina can make use of it in her literacy classes. At the same time, Julie will get some input on the translation from people from the opposite side of the language area from where she lives. Julie’s translation work will provide Sister Eremina’s new readers with God’s Word on which to practice their reading skills, and Sister Eremina can be a valuable resource and advocate for the translation program.
I love making connections like this.
posted by Tim @ 9:53 PM
An answer to prayer
Monday, March 5, 2007
On my March 17th blog, I shared about my dream of having a weekly Bible page written in Solomon Islands Pjijn in the local national newspaper. I had talked to a reporter friend at the newspaper about the idea and she promised to talk to her editor about it.
This morning I received a call from the religion editor at the paper asking to know more about the idea. My friend Robin who is helping me with this project happened to be at my house, so we jumped in the car and went to the newspaper office to present our idea. The editor had already agreed to the concept and we have been given permission to deveolop a full page in the paper each week that is written in Pijin and features a reading from the Pijin Bible. The page will also have questions about the story, picture, puzzles, weekly Bible verse and a devotional written by a local pastor. What potential it has! Praise God with us for this open door. Pray for Robin and I as we work to develop this project.
Labels: Ministry
posted by Martha @ 1:57 PM
What's in your pocket?
Sunday, March 4, 2007
When taking down the laundry, I noticed there was something in the pocket of Emily's shorts. As I went to see what it was, it moved and made a hissing sound. It was this rhinoceros beetle and it didn't want to leave Emily's pocket.
These harmless insects are fairly common here and we often see them in our carport at night. Sometimes they get flipped over on their backs and can't get upright again. When they are disturbed, they make a loud hissing sound.
Labels: Daily Life, life in the tropics
posted by Martha @ 7:21 AM
Our SITAG Family
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Tomorrow (Friday) is our last day of conference. Today we took a group photo of everyone. The photo includes our spiritual life speakers who came from Papua New Guinea and a staff member from Australia, but the rest are members of SITAG (Solomon Islands Translation Advisory Group).
It's been a good week, but tiring. Saturday we will all go to the beach for a swim and barbecue.
posted by Martha @ 9:02 PM
