Monday, November 30, 2015

Back in Papua New Guinea!



It's all coming back...tropical rainstorms, parrots chirping, Tok Pisin (our language skills are a bit rusty, but we're getting there!), hanging clothes on the line, a hot Christmas season...the list goes on! We are happy to be back in PNG after being in the U.S. for almost 11 months and we're so thankful for the many, many people who made it possible for us to come back and serve here. Thank you for praying us safely here and for supporting and encouraging us!

I wanted to share a photo-journal of our trip here and the first few days settling in. It was a long journey, but a little easier this time since we had done it before and sort of knew what to expect!

Checking in! When you're moving somewhere for three years, you have a lot of bags (those aren't ALL ours, but 8 of them are!).
This was our second plane, the BIG one! It had two levels and 10 seats in each row! We enjoyed watching movies and even got a little bit of sleep on the 14-hour flight.
At the Brisbane airport we had to re-check our bags. Grayson and Brianna were a lot of help while we wheeled the carts around. It's nice that they've grown up a bit and could push this time!
Waiting for our third flight, from Brisbane to Cairns, Australia. Can you see the kangaroo on the tail of our plane?
Seeing parts of the Great Barrier Reef through the water between Australia and Papua New Guinea was really cool!
Finally, our LAST flight! It was noticeably hotter in Papua New Guinea! Only an hour and a half away from Ukarumpa, our "other home"!
We had a huge group of friends waiting to greet us at our aviation center (you can see them if you look carefully near the center of the photo)! We felt very welcomed and it was good to see friends we had been missing.
Airing out our things that had been in storage during our time in the U.S.

We were so thankful to find out that our shipment had arrived before we did!
This is the view from our front yard - we can't complain! In the distance you can see what turned out to be quite a rainstorm, complete with hail! It rained so hard that water came in through our windows even though they were closed!