A Rash of Hunting

I went hunting with these guys and brought back jungle rash as a souvenir.

Hello Again.

While it has only been about three weeks since we last posted, it feels as though we have lived a year’s worth of excitement. After our annual regional conference, we returned to Pal with a small work team (who helped us remove our rotten, ant filled porch and re-engineer our entry to be more protected from the torrential rains that are due to come any time now). It was very cool how the guys were able to do three week’s worth of my work in a matter of 3 ½ days.  Because of their hard work we were able to return to language study very quickly. Thanks guys.

Imans, waiting for the women to scare up some mobile meat (possums or tree kangaroos)

Patience

Monday, I went out to a mola (hunt). The mola is  a major social event that involves several different clans. It is meant for gathering lots of meat very quickly for the purpose of repaying a marriage debt.  Basically the hunt involves the men (arrows at ready) spreading out in a line and having the women go around  and drive the small game toward the waiting archers. When one area is cleared, the whole process begins again in another spot. Basically I spent half of the day hiking up and down the mountain and the other half sitting and waiting for the animals to come into range. Interestingly enough, I’ve learned something else that is very important  - don’t sit down in the bush all day.  The PNG equivalent of chiggers lulled me into a sense of complacency… it was only the day after the hunt that I began to notice something amiss. Now (two days later) I am covered with hives and thinking of buying stock in Benedryl. Irony of ironies, I was told that it was because my skin is so soft (the Pal equivalent of “you girly man”…) For now I am taking the itching and burning as a constant reminder of the urgency of our work here (good for motivation but I wouldn’t mind being motivated with a lesser irritation.)

Three Pal ladies taking a break from whacking at bushes and yelling.

Things you can be praying for:

-          Thank the Lord that we’ve seen good progress in relationships and in the language these last weeks.

-          Thanks too for our kids really stepping it up with  good (for the most part) attitudes for our daily chores.

-          Pray for our partners who have battled sickness in the family for three weeks.

-          Pray for Nate’s eyes which seem to be getting pretty tired lately – making language study that much harder.

-          Pray for us as we are asked more and more questions about the Pal people’s animistic beliefs – we really hope to be wise and careful in our answers.

Anyway, thanks for hanging in there with us,

Nate for the Claasens.

Posted via email from PNG Time