No Two Days ....

It seems as though the last two of three weeks have been just a blur. We went from a little bit busy, to very busy, to insanely busy. One of the members of our team went into the hospital for a kidney transplant, and Diane has had to pick up her work – first she had to learn it, and then do it. That hasn’t impacted me as much, except she isn’t available to help me as much.

We’ve had a couple of interesting events that filled several days. Even though neither of them amounted to much, we have had to track them and make all of our contacts, just in case something materialized. The first was the 7.9 earthquake near Tonga which was followed by an underwater volcano.

Fortunately, neither of them caused any significant damage or injuries. But they interrupted anything else we might have wanted to do. Everything goes on hold when we have a potential emergency or disaster. In this case the only thing we have to show for it is a couple of pictures from others. The volcano its self spewed a lot of ash and rocks for several days and when it stopped there was a new island off the coast of Nukualofa, Tonga.

The second situation that interrupted our work for a while was a late season Tropical Storm that just appeared out of now where. I make it a practice each morning to survey what is going around in the Pacific that we might be interested in. What to my surprise, on Tuesday morning I spotted this Tropical Cyclone bearing down on New Caledonia. It continued in a south-southeast direction following the New Caledonian coast line for a couple of days until the cooler southern waters caused it to just peter out. In the interim it dumped a lot of rain along the western half of New Caledonia, and its winds kept everyone on edge for a few days. Again, no major damage, no injuries, and not even very much flooding, but I was pre-occupied, again, for a while.

In between potential disasters I have continued to work on a couple of Humanitarian Projects that have been in the mill for quite some time. The first is a wheelchair project in Papua New Guinea. We purchased about 700 wheelchairs to be distributed to disabled people, but somewhere along the way, the local group we were supposed to work with decided that they would charge a “fitting” fee to each recipient of PGK$150. That is not a lot (US$52.) but to someone who has no way of obtaining currency, it makes it almost impossible. We have been trying to negotiate with them for several months without success. Finally, a couple of weeks ago we decided to just work around them completely. That got their attention and they suddenly decided that they didn’t need to charge any fees. The wheelchair that we selected is a three wheel jobbie with wide tires. It is very stable in rough terrain and with the long wheel-base it can go just about anywhere.

The other project that I picked up was intended to develop a program to teach the Aboriginals in and around Alice Springs, Australia how to speak and read English (Australian English).

It has been tied up in copyright issues since we arrived. We are very close to getting all of them settled, but it is still a work in progress.

The missionary couple that I’m working with in Alice Springs returns to Blanding, Utah in May. They may find the church building different, but I’m not sure they’ll notice many other differences.

Alice Springs is a very remote area in the central part of Australia. It is truly what one would refer to as the “Out Back.” These photos should give you an idea of that country. The chapel pictured here is in Angula, NSW, Australia.

While all of this was taking place, Diane and I have been accompanying the missionaries while they taught a young family about the Gospel. We’ve really enjoyed that. And coincidentally two of the family members were baptized on the same day that Emily Gordon was baptized in Houston. For us it was a Sunday, for Emily it was Saturday. I was asked to speak at the baptism service and I told everyone that it was a special day for us – which it was kind of like a symbolic baptism for Emily. I then talked about the symbolism of baptism: as the candidate is lowered into the water it symbolizes the death and burial of Jesus Christ; and as he comes up out of the water symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thereafter, the candidate walks after the manner of Jesus – taking upon him Christ’s name and following His example. I further explained that during the time of Christ and for many years after a Kings would seal a letter with wax and imprint his ring in the wax. By doing so it was his way of authenticating the letter—confirming to everyone that it was from him. Nowadays we simply sign our names, our signatures. Before we sign a contract, we read every word and make sure we understand and agree with it; then we add our signature. Thus our signature is our symbol of our commitment. In like manner baptism is the symbol of our commitment to follow our Saviors example, and to keep his commandments.

Diane and I haven’t been on any excursions, treks, or explorations for so long that I really felt that we needed to do something. So we let our housework go, packed a lunch, and headed for the hills – mountains really. We went back to a range that we have been to before, but this time we started from a different trail.

We followed a stream most of the way, up, up, up we went and deep, deep, deeper we went into the bush (forest). It was a lovely steam, by far the best we have seen since we’ve been here.

It led us to a beautiful waterfall that was probably 150 feet high. After eating our lunch, we continued our trek up to the top of the falls. Only to discover, once we got there, that there were five other falls further up stream. They were one as big, but collectively they were magnificent and beautiful.

Deep in the bush we began looking at things on a micro scale. It is hard to see the forest and the trees at the same time, so we alternated between enjoying the magnificence of the forest, and the intricate beauty and variety of the smallest moss covering. How grand are the creations of God.

How much effort he must has made in giving us such a beautiful world with so much variety and yet organized to perfection! Hmmm.

When we got home from our 6-hour stroll (hike) through the woods, we were invited to a sausage feed at the retirement village where we live. It consisted of oven baked sausage, white bread with butter, and sauce (ketchup). Yum? Don’t make the mistake of thinking the sausage might resemble something you’ve had before – Not. They don't season with spices, and use very little salt. Sausage as it is sold here is just some type of ground meat in a skin (chicken, turkey, beef -- but not pork, for some reason). Yum? Not! The sausages aside, we enjoyed the socializing. One of the ladies played older songs on the piano, ones we remember as kids, and we all chimed in and sang, laughed and reminisced through music. I was surprised at how many US songs they all knew, such as the Tennessee Waltz, Red River Valley, In the Good Old Summertime, etc.

It was a grand week!!!