We made it!

After lots of packing and goodbyes, six flights, and countless airport hours...we've made it back to the U.S.! We flew from PNG to Indonesia, then on to Hong Kong, Vancouver, Texas, and finally, North Carolina. Thank you so much for praying for us along the way! It's hard to describe how it feels to see our family again after two years...our cups are full! We will try to give another update soon, but just wanted to let everyone know we've made it safe and sound!

Goodbyes are never fun, but we were so happy to have our dear friends see us off!

Indonesia: Anybody want lunch?

Headed to Hong Kong!

The Hong Kong airport was BIG! After awhile, the kids needed a break.

Visiting friends in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was so strange to be COLD!

Grayson, reunited with his Grandpa Golding in North Carolina!

Even friends from Ukarumpa met us at the airport - what an awesome surprise!

Aitape-A Tsunami Story (Matt)

New Translator/ Center manager's house.

Women's dorm down below, with an office and flat on the top.

Four of my six carpenters had never flown before!  

Last month we flew out to the Sepik area to build a two-story women's dorm and another house.  After months of planning and logistics it finally came together.  Aitape West is almost as far west as you can go on the northern coast and still be in Papua New Guinea. 

One confused river and the many different twists it's taken.

In 1998 a tsunami leveled the trees and villages on the islands and ground that the Arop people lived on. Estimates are that 2,000 people lost their lives that day. Late in the day, an earthquake triggered a tsunami. Many who survived were washed more than a half mile across the lagoon and spent the night struggling in the mangroves. Others were trapped in various locations or carried out to sea. Many were never found.  I teared up as Emil, one of Arop's main Papua New Guinean translators, shared his story with us. He was trapped with a badly damaged leg. Many family members and friends were killed.  His story is told in the book Sleeping Coconuts written by John and Bonnie Nystrom. They were the American translators whose house was destroyed, but fortunately were not there. For a video of the story, click HERE. 

Many of the men helping us build had stories of being washed away when they were 5-10 years old.  Somehow they survived by holding onto driftwood and spending the next 12 hours in darkness, in crocodile-infested mangroves.

One of many unpopulated islands in PNG.

After the tsunami, several villages moved far enough inland to where they felt safe from the wrath of another disaster, and resettled.  The team started a fresh translation center in the new village. It has grown and grown and many more staff and translators have joined the project.  As they have grown, so has the need for more buildings.  This center runs impressively off of solar power and at times a small generator.  They have a huge satellite dish to communicate with the outside world (some of you may have seen Facebook updates while I was there).

I loved getting to know these guys as we worked in this intensely hot and humid area of Papua New Guinea.  The highlands where we live has spoiled us with nice, cool sleeping weather and comfortable daytime highs.

After we landed, Kevin (eyes closed) said, "I didn't like when we went into the clouds."

 When we started I was thinking that if we could accomplish what we set out to do, I would be really impressed.  I was impressed! 

Michael Wright, another builder in my department, took my place a little more than halfway through. He flew out with all the doors and some badly needed supplies. He finished the last two weeks of the project. Missy Smith, a manager there, was there the whole time. She worked out so many of the logistics of getting supplies and materials there, as well as having all the lumber cut by local saw mills. Much of it was literally walked out of the bush or carried by children from the road.

We may look overloaded, but this was before we bought about 30 boxes of food.

Gas Station! Probably the nicest roadside one I've seen.

Day One

Day 16

Taji airstrip

Island that the Tsunami leveled. All the trees were laid flat.

Big community help in addition to our 7-man team.

Every meal cooked right here; Stingray, crab, rice, sago, kau kau and kumu!

River house, but not far from the ocean.

Eating smoked sago grubs! Really not bad.

Lapun Peter carving a new boat behind our project.

Day something!

Michael Wright aka "The Closer"

Stick Boy Bakery plug for our Boone friends

Tsunami site

Boat trip to the Tsunami site and market

Boat companion

Sak sak(Sago), asparagus on top of a bush rodent, and sago palm grubs! This market was entertaining. I actually bought the grubs...and ate them.

Water tanks are full, after a drought!

Missy worked out so many logistics of this project and it wouldn't have happened without her.

Kevin, Naneka, Norm, John, What's-his-name, Baffen

Update on the Bridge

 As you can see, it's time for us to update you on the bridge situation here! We have been amazed to see how quickly repairs are being made! These photos show a temporary bridge that can withstand smaller-vehicle traffic. They put the permanent bridge on a temporary footing while they build the much more solid, permanent footings (to the left of the bridge).

We are still on restricted fuel (5 liters per family per week), but smaller trucks have been able to deliver the necessities to our store for us to purchase.

Praise God that this whole process is happening a lot faster than expected and we are no longer totally cut off!

It's Happened!

Some of you, especially if you're friends with us on Facebook, know that this week the bridge (yes, as in the ONLY bridge) between our center and everywhere else, collapsed.

As you may have figured out by the masses of people with fuel containers, it was a fuel truck (bringing fuel to our autoshop/center gas station). We are now rationed to just 5 liters of fuel per week.

One of our friends here, Crystal Pennington, has written a really great blog about our situation here and I HIGHLY recommend reading it:

http://penningtonhouse.blogspot.com/2014/08/whats-big-deal-about-bridge.html

We'll try to keep you all updated on all of this over the next few months!

Matt looks happy in this picture, but I'm pretty sure that's a nervous smile.

Why We're Here (Laura)

Why are we here? Why did we move our family to the opposite side of the world from our home, family, and friends? The obvious answer is that we came to support the work of Bible translation, so that everyone can hear the Good News of God's love for them - and understand it because it's in their first language, their heart language. What I've been learning, however, is that God is so much bigger than even that great task. He is doing so much more...for us personally, for our family, and for our understanding of Him and His love.

Since Matt and I work mostly from our main mission base, we don't always get to see the individual language projects going on. So, we were thrilled to be able to be a part of a Bible dedication last month on a tiny island in the middle of the South Pacific...

The Arop-Lokep people group lives on Long Island, a small volcanic island off the coast of Papua New Guinea (PNG). They are one of over 830 different language groups in PNG - that's right, on this small island nation there are that many unique languages! Last month, the Arop-Lokep people received the Bible in their own language!

We'd like to share our photo journal of this amazing experience with you...

Approaching Long Island after a 30 minute flight in a Kodiak airplane. We couldn't believe how beautiful the shoreline was! The coral reef was like something out of "Finding Nemo"!

This is the airstrip that we landed on - we are so thankful for skilled pilots here!

 We were welcomed by a crowd of dancers, singing in a traditional "singsing" dance. They were waiting for us at the airstrip and then led us to the village about a 15 minute walk away. They danced and sang the whole way there!

 Once we made it to the village, we ate lunch and got settled before heading out on a hike through the gorge. A deep gorge was formed some years ago, when the lake at the center of the volcano overflowed. We felt so small as we looked up the sheer walls to daylight above.

Our guides through the gorge.

Feeling small...the walls here were so high that we couldn't get a picture from the bottom to the top.

Matt's "doorstep".

Needless to say, Matt loved his accommodations while we were there. He shared this house with several other men and enjoyed fishing out of his window (yes, he brought a fishing pole - only the necessities!).

The day of the dedication was such a special day, especially for Jeff and Sissie D'Jernes, the Bible translators who spent over 20 years working on learning the language, building relationships, and translating the Bible into the Arop-Lokep language.

The women of the village, celebrating the arrival of the Bibles.

We walked down the beach to the dedication site as the dancers led the way.

They loaded the Bibles onto a canoe that was custom-made for the dedication. It carried the translators and Bibles to the dedication ceremony to symbolize God's Word arriving on the shores of their island.

Listening to the dedication ceremony.

These men helped with the translation project over the years and were deeply moved to finally hold God's Word in their own hands, in their heart language.

Before flying back home on the last day, we hiked up to the caldera lake (crater lake) at the top of the island. It took us over 6 hours to hike there and back, but it was worth it! Our guide had to hack his way through the jungle to clear a path for us at times. The freshwater lake at the top is over 800 feet deep at the center! Only a handful of "outsiders" have been to the lake so it was pretty awesome to be able to see it!

Our view of the crater lake from the sky.

We are continuously amazed that we get to be a part of the work being done here; to bring God's Word and the news of His great love to people like those on Long Island.

Click HERE to see a video ("The Word has come to Long Island")!