PNG OUTREACH!

We just got back from PNG!! I can't even believe how fast my 5 weeks went while I was there! I don't even know where to begin! We stayed in a village called Vailala East #2 for our first 2 weeks of outreach. There was no electricity, they made and ate everything from the land and were the most generous people I have ever met. We were welcomed to the village with an amazing traditional festival where they sang, danced, fed us, and gave us all sorts of decorations. For the two weeks we had morning programs where we basically had a mini DTS for them. We talked about Fear of the Lord, Father Heart of God, Identity and who we are in Christ, God's faithfulness, and did different teachings on different stories of the bible. The topic I talked about was relationships and how God wants a personal relationship with all of us. From there I talked about our relationships with other people and how God calls us to love others. It is a responsibility as believers to love God's children. I absolutely loved talking about relationships. With each program we would have different songs we would sing and teach them and different skits we would perform. Every program we would just have over a hundred people all just ready to learn.

One of my favorite parts was simply being with the kids. God completely confirmed his calling for me to be involved with children. Half of them spoke little to no english but it is amazing how far a hug or just laughing with them goes. There would be nights and I would go out and just sit with them and they would teach me different words or sayings in their language.

In the afternoons we would do all sorts of different programs. Anywhere from setting up sports and playing volleyball and basketball to having a craft day in the middle of the village where they would teach us how to make coconut spoons, fans, bags, woven mats, and fishing nets. One of the days we all went down to the beach with 300 villagers and they taught us how they fish. They absolutely love teaching us things.

I have tried all different sorts of foods now that I have been to PNG. Their main food source is called sago. It is the bark of palm tree that they make into bread, porridge, cakes and everything you could imagine. Wasn't my favorite thing if I am being honest :) We also had more watermelon and pineapple than I have ever had in my life!! So crazy! Everywhere we went in the village they would just give us a fruit. It was amazing! Throughout our time there we had 2 women and 2 men that watched over us. The women did all our laundry and made all our food. It was amazing and women would just bring us food 3 times a day-so generous! They taught me so much about hospitality and giving.

Our second part of outreach we spent 2 weeks in a bigger city-the capitol of the gulf-Kerema. We ran open market programs in the middle of the town...we would play really loud music, gather a crowd, stand on a chair and bam speak the truth about Jesus. We also ran some of the church services. Another big part of our mission there was hospital visits. We went there a few times throughout the week and prayed for the people, built relationships with some of them and just listened to their stories. Seeing the condition of the hospital practically brought me to tears and was a real realization of the fact that we were in a 3rd world country.

We are now back in townsville for a couple days before we leave for our Australia outreach. Be praying about that because weather here has been crazy and there has been tons of flooding so that could change our plans of where we were going! As of right now it is all up in the air!

I will say this for the millionth time I wouldn't have been able to go on this adventure without you guys- thank you so much for your support and prayers! This blog update was very general and I have a thousand stories that I would love to share! Email me if you would like to hear more!! soccergurl000018@aol.com I will be coming back to Oregon on March 24th! I love you all