Past Adventures
We spent 7 years living in Papua New Guinea working with a religious non-profit. Five of those years were spent deep in a jungle swamp, living among a remote, isolated tribal group. These are some of the posts that we wrote from that context!
Momma Mia!
I think I mentioned a while back in a newsletter that we had a few big events coming up, and that we were jittery with anticipation as those momentous days approached. Well, those days have come and gone, and all those things happened. (YAY!) As is often the case...
Party Poopers
The other day, we had a bit of a shindig in our village, celebrating the graduation of our first Iski literacy class. It was a fun time. The people did mini-dramas depicting different Iski historical moments, they had singing groups perform songs they had written...
Pomp & Ceremony
You may not have read about it in the paper, or heard about it on the evening news, but history was made recently: The first-ever Iski literacy class just graduated its first students! That’s right, for the first time in HUMAN HISTORY, a mixed group of Iski men,...
The Candy Man Can
Often, I’m left feeling like the jungle’s biggest nincompoop. Like today, for instance, when I was walking through the bush behind one of my Iski friends. I miss-stepped and ended up in swamp muck up to my belt loops, while my barefooted friend and his 4-year old kid...
When It Rains, It Pours
Normally, I try to keep things more or less upbeat on our little blog. You know, a little sarcasm here, a little tongue-in-cheek comment there, maybe a short anecdote, centered around one of my countless ineptitudes. Sometimes though, stuff comes up in this work that...
The Monotony of Adventure
When we were getting ready to come over here to Papua New Guinea and move into our tribe, people were always telling us how exciting and full of adventure our lives were. They acted like we were going to be experiencing something akin to “Indiana Jones and the Temple...
Griffin’s New Tooth
We built a little fire pit under our house a few weeks ago (remember, our house is on stilts varying 8-14 feet off the ground). It’s been a nice way to have some fun, relaxed family time on the weekends, as well as be a teaching opportunity for the boys about fire...
Live To Die Another Day
The Jungle and I have this little game that we’ve developed. The rules are fairly simple: I in some way insinuate to my wife that I think I’ve finally bug-proofed our house, and then the Jungle responds by unleashing one of its horribly terrifying creatures into our...
The Road (and river) To Humility
Our people think that I am slightly more durable than a porcelain doll, and marginally more athletic than a jumbo-sized marshmallow. Personally, I’d always kind of considered myself as an athletic, outdoorsy person, but after spending these last three days trekking...