The Lighter Side... or Tighter Side as the case may be

Noah and the guys show me their hunting postures. “Please… don’t shoot me.”

This week, from the “Things you probably haven’t thought about” box…

The people we live with are really and truly experts on so many things that I shouldn’t be surprised anymore when another area of their expertise shows up. Yesterday I learned from those who know about the joys of the self-inflicted wedgie. For our more genteel audience, I should explain that a wedgie is the condition whereupon one’s underthings make an unsuccessful attempt at vertically bisecting one’s body instead becoming lodged firmly and uncomfortably in unmentionable recesses. So, who among us would know better that discomfiture that those who spend garden season in a loin cloth.

You may be wondering how in the world this topic came up (let me tell you there are lots of topics that come up in strange ways here… but those are for another time). Well, on a family hike to visit some friends in another village (in the company of a couple of Pal fellas), Elias was exhibiting the classic signs and symptoms of the wedgie royale. The Pal guys wanted an explanation for his antics and when one was provided the nodded knowingly and launched with delight into several different ways to describe the wedgies of their own experience. Then we all had a good laugh. Just another stereotypical missionary day…*

The Pal guys were having such a hard time explaining the deadfall trap to us, they actually built one under our house.

Entrapment

There are no days in my recollection of our time here when we have not been exposed to our friend’s animistic beliefs. The other day a friend was telling us about his spirit messenger who literally (according to our friend) will take his messages to others far away. Basically, he told us that the white people have cell phones for that purpose, but the Pal people have always had their messengers (in fact,  cell phones and voice recorders are called that same thing – spirit messengers- in the Pal language.) We are ever seeing greater and greater need in our friends as we dig past the surface and into their more deeply held traditions and beliefs. Will you be praying that they will desire the freedom that we have in Christ?

Again, thanks for praying for us.

Nate and Elizabeth and the boys, deep in Pal land.

*if you’d like to be able to say “I have a big wedgie” in Pal, simply repeat after me:  tua gna jitepe kegenetogam

Posted via email from PNG Time