Questions and Answers (and a few requests for prayer)

Clockwise from top left As students are learning, we are training them to teach; Our literacy school students are writing much much better than at first; Elias tries to taste his way around (goofball?); wrestling – we really do take it outside; and Noah shows some of the local flora.

Q & A Wherein we share answers and associated questions that may or may not interest and enlighten about our lives and the work here in Pal.

So, Nate and Elizabeth, whats for breakfast tomorrow? We are so glad you asked... oatmeal.

What? Oatmeal? Don’t you guys eat anything exotic – like ground crabs or some kind of rare moth? Well actually, we rarely eat anything that most people would feel is truly exotic. For breakfast, we try to mix it up a little these days – sweet potato pancakes, oatmeal, crackers and peanut butter, etc. The most exotic thing we have had lately was a mamunya – grated taro cooked in bamboo – with a kind of grass seed in the middle. Yum.

Well, if most of the food that you eat with your friends isn’t that exotic, surely you have introduced them to some different tastes? Oh, yeah, you should have seen my friend the other day when I handed him a little bite of cheese. He handled it in much the same way I would handle a fire-roasted spider. ‘What is this???’ he said. ‘I am afraid of it.’ - And that was with plain Edam... I encouraged him ‘ Go ahead, eat it...swallow...swallow...all the way down... that’s right...’ I then told him how cheese is made. He didn’t believe me.

Really?? A dude who eats pig fat with the bristles or smoked frog-on-a-stick had trouble with cheese??!! Yup. As my father loved to tell me; ‘Its all mental.’

Did your father have any other words of wisdom that apply to life in the bush?

Now that you mention it, he did. He used to say ‘For crying out loud!’ all the time. I never understood what he was crying for and why it was so important that the crying be audible, but now I get it. (Our water pump breaks) Me: ‘For crying out loud.’ (I forget the key to our schoolbuilding - .6 miles from home.) Me: ‘For crying out loud.’ (The water tank hasn’t been collecting water because the filter is clogged) Me: ‘For crying out loud.’ (I haven’t written a blog post for 3 weeks and can’t think of what to write about.) Me: ‘I’ll just write some Q&A...’ Blog readers: ‘For crying out loud.’

Aren’t there interesting things happening there all the time though?

Of course, but in order for the interestingness of the situations to be actually interesting to anybody who does not live here, it would take a week of explanation. For instance, if I came home and told Elzabeth that Mavek, a student, read a story out loud about Libagum, she would right away laugh out loud. Now you, dear reader, are probably saying ‘Wow, what a thigh slapper... how long have you lived in the bush again? Don’t you have a break coming up?’ You see, in the states we think nothing of calling our in-laws by name (hey there Bill), while here in PNG, saying your father-in-law’s name is akin to doing a public speech in your underwear. Anyway we all know that jokes that require long explanations are no longer jokes – and stories that require lots of explanation just end up as cat-naps.

So are there five things that happened to the Claasens this week that the rest of us can relate to?

Oh Yeah!

1. Parenting: can you relate to this? ‘Finish the dishes... yes they have to be finished today.’ ‘No really... yes before dinner...no that is not outrageous... look, it gives you 5 minutes per spoon, now get them done.’

2. The accidental miscommunication before breakfast that sets you and your spouse on edge – even though it was just a really really dumb little thing.

3. Finishing up a large project (A section of translation – This is an answer to prayer from our last update) and having it go so good that you celebrate... only to fall down and get hurt (I’ll recover, but the office chair might not...)

4. Going to the creek with the boys on Saturday and playing with mud and sticks and spitting sunflower seeds as far as we can.

5. Watching our partner’s 2 year old walk up to a village leader, study the tobacco smoke coming from his mouth, and then trying to imitate what we has seeing, spitting in his face. This would have been a lot less funny if our village leader hadn’t got such a kick out of it. He laughed so hard he laid down.

Alright, what can we pray for?

Nelis – a teenage girl who, in an epileptic fit, cooked both of her feet in the fire on Thursday night. This is seriously one of the worst things health wise that we have dealt with here. We think she is going to lose her big toe. Because of her epileptic condition, the folks in the village don’t know what to do with her – they are afraid. We have helped as much as we can and tomorrow are about to exhaust our meager supply of burn medicine. We as a family hiked the 45 minutes to where she is staying today and (with only a tylenol-3 for pain relief) worked to remove the rotting dead tissue on her feet. Please pray for us and for the community – particularly that her extended family will take on the responsibility for doing what needs to be done for her. Pray that she will live to hear the Gospel.

School – folks are hitting a time of rapid development in the school – at the same time they are needing to work extra hard in the gardens. Please pray that they would stay focused and come out of the class as good readers.

Family – we could use 5 days or so without village, general life, or otherwise emergencies.

Thanks for praying,

Nate for the family.