Keeping Up With The Joneses - November 2022

The hard and the good

 Many of you know that we had a 7.8 earthquake several weeks ago. It threw me for a loop, even though we didn't lose anything of tremendous importance and were all fine. It was just such an emotional and mental shakeup, as well as a spiritual one - in the best way. It took a couple of weeks to get feeling more normal, although even now I think, "Do we really want to bother putting that decoration up or repainting the house (which so desperately needs it) when it could all be gone tomorrow?" It really felt like the world was ending for about 30 seconds. This broken, evil earth is not our home; one day everything will be shaken, destroyed and made new! 

Our friends Zach and Cassidy Cann lost their whole house. Gavin and his colleague helped fly them out of their incredibly remote village location on a rugged peak.

Zach Cann

For us, the biggest adjustment was to the lack of reliable Internet. The 2 submarine fiber cables were severely damaged in 3 areas each. Large ships are working on repairing them but it may be at least another month before they're fixed! So Internet (including email) has been spotty. 

Gavin loves helping with projects when he's overnighting in villages.

A local store. Our kitchen was pretty bad but nowhere near like this!

Recent violence between clans has also touched us deeply. Our oldest PNG man friend and yard man was hacked to death. Our house help, his wife, who's like a grandmother to our kids, hasn't been able to come back for weeks due to the violence threatened against her clan by the other clan. PLEASE PRAY for peace and for justice. We realize it won't ever be complete, and what these people (and all of us!) need is truly the Gospel. They have no hope apart from the Good News of a Savior for their sin. Their hopelessness and lack of true joy is blatantly obvious, and the outworking of the despair and rage is tragic beyond words. Please especially pray for the true Christians here to be courageous, stand up to evil, be protected and most of all be LIGHT in the darkness. We love these precious people. 

The kids have had fun exploring our beautiful land.

David scaling the river bank

Seth's turn scaling the steep bank.

Gracie with a fish a PNG boy caught, I fried and Marcie ate.

Will and our new kitten, Binni

Marcie with moth friend

Various photos and a Clinic video

In case you're curious what our Clinic here is like (filmed during an afternoon when I wasn't at work by our lead nurse extraordinaire):  https://youtu.be/pxj0OuZEL9U

When Gracie still had her walking boot. She's boot-free and doing great now!

GIANT fig tree on a rainy day - speaking of which, please pray for rain still.
We haven't had any appreciable rain since March. The gardens are suffering.

The view from a recent motorbike ride with Seth, our explorer who loves a road trip!

Gavin is gifted very interesting things! These (a headdress and two bags) were all made of cassowary feathers. The people ate the cassowaries, and Gavin got sideburns and tall hair. 😁

First Day of School

 How can I have a SENIOR in high school!? We’re so proud of our young man, Isaac, and our big kids who are now third- and fourth-graders and will turn 10 next week(!!!). [Seth is a year behind because of being in and out of the hospital and on tubes so much the first 18 months of his life. He’s a smart little guy who couldn’t start learning as soon as the others could. And he LOVES having his own teacher and class and friends!]

Gavin and I are unapologetically thrilled school is back in session, and the kids couldn’t be happier either! We had a wonderful long break, though, and lots of special time as a family. Thank you, Lord!

Foot update; pray for rain!; snakes and other animals

 Trigger warning: If you hate snakes, you'll hate some of these photos taken recently at a small "petting" zoo.

First, Gracie's foot: We were able to get her an MRI, praise God! They found four broken bones (three metatarsals and a cuneiform bone) and some residual swelling in the cuneiform bone. It was nice to confirm that there was a very good reason she was still having trouble walking, and also great to know that it's NOT a Lisfranc fracture. None of the fractures was displaced and all are healing nicely. Thanks for all your prayers! (Especially yours, Mikayla, granddaughter of Julie! It's so precious and touching that all these kids were praying for Gracie and for Cheetah Speed. 😀) We appreciate prayers that all the residual pain will resolve and that she'll be able to walk well again before school starts two weeks from today.

Speaking of prayer, our valley and surrounding areas desperately need rain. The ground has huge cracks in it and the crops are failing. Some of our friends, colleagues and neighbors have no more water in their tanks (we drink filtered rainwater from the roof), although that's less devastating than ruined crops in a society so dependent on subsistence farming. We appreciate your prayers that it will RAIN soon!

Now for photos (I'll stick the snake ones lower so you can avoid them if you wish):

You can see the crutches were still in operation. She's discarded them now and is hobbling around.

I've always adored parrots. I've had/cared for them throughout my life.

This snake actually bit Marcie twice, but as it was non-venomous and had tiny fangs we all thought it was pretty cool! Her grandkids will be very impressed when they hear she was bitten twice by a snake. The puncture wounds were tiny and hardly hurt at all.

This was a sweet snake who did NOT bite Seth.

Bonus pics: 

Off to dive and snorkel!

Wish this rain was in our area . . . 

A giant geode!

Will makes a darling and dashing co-pilot

This is how Will frequently reads! He's a big percher and voracious reader. His favorites are history and fact books. 

Formal Banquet for Isaac

 This is a month late, but here are a few photos from the fun formal dinner and activities the parents put on for their grade 11 and 12 kids! 

Isaac took his best friend since birth, Kassia (my best friend's daughter - Gavin and I grew up with Kassia's dad in Colombia, and now they are our neighbors and their son is one of our kids' best friends!)

Enjoying coffee and punch in the "Shawarma Palace." I was one of the servers.

The group of close friends

Gavin's costume even threw Isaac - he didn't recognize him at first! He did custom laser engraving of keychains for the kids, and it was a hit!

Kori is like family, "our brother from another mother," as Marcie likes to call him. :)

Update on Gracie and Mom

 Hi friends,

It has been way, way, way too long since I updated. First off, huge praise that my sleep issues have resolved! I only had a few minor episodes of breathlessness/apnea during sleep after returning from Australia, and it's been over a week since my last one. I am SO grateful! What a huge difference sleeping vs. not sleeping during most of the night is. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS.

And Gracie . . . well, I'm not sure what to say. Her bones are healing great, pain-free, but her soft tissue near the ball of her foot is still really painful and somewhat swollen. We've been told it will take weeks for that to heal. She continues to wear the protective boot, and she's a very brave, uncomplaining girl! Cheetah Speed goes everywhere tucked under her arm to help her thrive in life on crutches. 

The kids are off for summer break, and we'll all take a week-and-a-half off in late June/early July. Looking forward to it!! They'll go into 4th grade (Seth into 3rd) in late July.

I can't believe Isaac is a SENIOR in High School! We are so proud of him and grateful for who God is making him. 

Love to all, with gratitude again for your prayers and concern,

Carrie

Getting ice cream at our store. (It's hard to get good pictures when you have goofy kids. Will's facial expression got him cropped out of the photo!)