Yesterday, Tim and a national colleague, Shadrach left for Papua New Guinea en route to Cairns, Australia where they will attend a ‘Scripture in Use’ conference. The other participants in the conference will be members of our organization from around the Pacific. This will be Shadrach’s first trip out of the Solomons!

Back here in Honiara, the girls and I have a full week planned. Starting today we will be attending some functions to commemorate the 65th Anniversary of the Landing of the Marines on Guadalcanal. (We live on Guadalcanal.) We have visiting US Marines in town – a Marine Band, a Brigadier General and the US Ambassador for the Solomons who lives in Papua New Guinea. There will also be American Veterans who have made the journey once again to visit the place where they fought in the war.

Sunday afternoon there is a function for the American community at the home of the American Consular Agent’s home to meet the US Ambassador. On Monday night I (Martha) am invited to a function at the home of the US Consular Agent where there will be guests from the business and diplomatic community as well as high ranking government officials.

The US War Memorial

as seen from our house

On Tuesday morning there will be a service at the US War Memorial. Sarah will be one of the school children who have been asked to hold a flag at the entrance of the memorial as guest arrive and Emily will be giving ‘remarks from an American School Girl’. Pretty neat!

Tim’s sorry to be missing all the events here!

This week at the girls’ school they are celebrating ‘Cultural Week’. The kids are learning about the Solomon Islands, local crafts, foods and generally celebrating the rich diversity in this country.

In the senior school (high school) the kids worked on projects in groups. Emily gave the speech for her group on ‘Unity’. She did an awesome job and got lots of compliments!

A month or so ago, Emily joined a local Christian singing group called, “Salvation Echoes”. This is the third generation of singers, most of whom are from the Wala Language/cultural group.

The group has wanted to learn more about singing techniques and were excited to learn that Tim could lend them some help in that area. This week the group met at our house so Tim could coach them. It was a fun time and the group enjoyed learning some new things from Tim.

On December 9, 2007, the Wala New Testament will be launched. Emily plans to tour with the Salvation Echoes group throughout the Wala area ministering in song and with testimony as they encourage people to purchase the Wala New Testament and read it!

We have a new cat at our house – Rascal. As you can see it’s a rough life being a cat at the Matzke’s.

Rascal tries to catch a breeze by sleeeping in the window.

Tuesday was a big day for us. The Bible page written in Pijin that I have been working on was published in the newspaper for the first time. It will come out in the paper every Tuesday.

Four thousand copies of the Solomon Star newspaper are published on Tuesdays so lots of people had opportunity to read the passage from Genesis, contemplate questions on the reading and a short devotional. We’re eager to hear what people think about the new page in the paper.

My trip to Orlando had a wonderful bonus. I got to see the Space Shuttle go off. It was very cool!