Aaron and Lori Luse Among the Patpatar in Papua New Guinea A growth
Towalaka
What would your reaction be if someone told you that something was becoming fat inside of you? Would you be offended, scared, happy? If a nutritionist told you that, you may have to start eating less turkey and pumpkin pie. If a doctor told you that, you may be scheduled for surgery. If a mid-wife told you that, you may have to start preparing a nursery. If your spouse told you that, you may have to show them the dog house. But what if your neighbor told you that something inside of you was becoming fat?
Recently one of the Patpatar believers, Towalaka, came and told me that someone had been watching him for a while and had noticed that something inside of him was becoming fat. Towalaka smiled and proceeded to tell me all the details. For the past two years he has walked the six mile round trip every time the Bible was being taught so he could hear the lesson. Just in miles that totals up to somewhere around 1,200 miles of walking. The weariness from making the familiar trip combined
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I’ll be home for Christmas
Singing with some of the believers at sunset.
Dear family and friends,
We will be home in the States for Christmas this year…and not just in our dreams! Since our Christmas with family in America in 2000 prior to coming to Papua New Guinea, we have only been back home for Christmas once. So, we are excited to reunite with family and friends and experience those Christmas traditions once again.
Many of you know that we have been without co-workers in the tribe for a while due to the Kunzers needed extended Home Assignment and Madonna’s treatment for cancer in Australia. Thankfully, Lord willing, both will be returning to the tribe at some point in 2011, to continue the work that has begun here among the Patpatar people. At this point in time, with the young group of Patpatar believers and so many aspects of the ministry being new, we don’t feel that it would be good to leave them without help
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Halfway Through
Lori helping during literacy class
“Oh no, September is finished. This isn’t good. It means the school for reading and writing is going to finish quickly. It would be good if we could just keep doing more and more school,” sighed one of the literacy students when he realized two of the four months were now complete. Surprisingly, he is the most educated student in the class, but he cannot get enough school. Every morning, he and the other students, contrary to their culture and lifestyle, show up early to wait for the literacy class to begin.
Though the rhythmic reiteration of syllables can be on the side of boring, the students continue to come and be taught. Nine of the students are also being trained as teacher trainees who will be doing most of the teaching in the future classes.
We look forward to how God is going to use His Word in the lives of those who will be able to read it for themselves. We are already excited about doors the literacy school is opening up
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A Time to Heal
Our family saying good-bye.
Dear friends and family,
We want to thank you all for your love and prayers. We received so many emails from so many of you expressing sympathy and compassion. Thank you for helping us through the difficult time of our loss. In retrospect we see so many things that God worked out to help us through this situation.
Lori’s surgery could not have gone better.
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And the Lord has taken away
Working on the literacy building.
Dear friends and family,
Many of you have been wondering how the first literacy class has been going. We are happy to say that the 16 students continue to be excited and are doing great in the class. The small school house that we began to build however, has had some set-backs.
After all the supplies were cut from the jungle and purchased from town we began preparing the sight for the school house. Our friends through Madonna, Allan and Diane, came from Australia to help us with our ministry here for two weeks and help put up the school house.
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All Better
Blais
“I want the Christians in America to know how I came to understand the Gospel so more of them will be missionaries and I want my family to know my testimony so that they will also believe that Jesus died to pay for their sins so that they can be in His family like I am,” was the response that Blais gave me. I had my recorder with me and had been asking him questions about his life and his testimony, and had asked him what he wished could be accomplished through telling his story.
That was just over a month ago when he could still talk well and get around. Since that time the cancer growth (we think it was cancer) on his neck began to grow at a rapid rate
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Something to be rained out
Something to be rained out
Last week the meeting was set up, but at that time there was nothing to meet about. Since our last update there still had been no resolution to a location for the Patpatar literacy class. With the class set to start on Monday, August 2nd we went ahead and spread the word through the village that on Friday, just a few days before the first day of class, we would have a community meeting to give them the details of the literacy school and to start building the little school house. At that time we didn’t have any of the details ourselves and were doubting that the land disputes would be resolved.
Thursday morning was the quickest, easiest resolution meeting I have ever attended among the Patpatar people. Getting together with disputing parties to work out a disagreement is common, but it usually involves hours of sitting and waiting for everybody to show up
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Ungrounded
Typically “ungrounded” and free to fly, the girls seize the opportunity to meet a bird.
August 2nd is the start of the first Patpatar literacy course. The curriculum, primers, readers, flashcards, posters, teacher’s manual, and other Patpatar materials are in their final stages of production. The construction materials for the simple village classroom, desks, and chalkboard are on location. After months of negotiation a piece of ground has been selected on a small hilltop a couple of hundred yards above the village. The jungle has been cleared and the site marked. Things are in full swing to be on track for the first Patpatar literacy course…that is, until a few hours ago.
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The 4th
Gathering on the 4th of July
It is the 4th of July here in Papua New Guinea. It is a beautiful, warm, sunny day, but it doesn’t feel like the 4th. There are no flags waving, no picnics planned, no red, white and blue (except for a banner my girls put up in the house and their toenails which were meticulously painted), no family reunions, and no fireworks. So much here is unlike what so many are experiencing back “in the land of the free and the home of the brave.” In fact no one here even knows that the 4th of July is significant in any way to any other day of the year.
Yet there is a get together today. Almost the whole village is gathered. Food is being prepared and eaten. Friends and family are spending time together. Today is the funeral
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Fixing Broken Stuff
Lori assisting Sierra on a recent hike to a village.
You ever had one of those weeks? You know, the kind where nothing seems to go right. The kind of week that by the end you are not surprised by another breakdown. That has been the kind of week we have had. Lightning played with our solar panels and additional problems with the fuses left us without much electricity. The water pump wouldn’t work, so that left us without water. That is until it starting working again and wouldn’t shut off, which successfully started moving the rain water we had collected from the tank out through a burst pipe in the house. The excess water would eventually help the grass, but unfortunately the mower broke down…again. Though the mower was dead, the computer took on a life of its own and started randomly shutting down and took an enormous amount of persuasion to turn on again. But we did finally hear from the shop about our broken boat motor after four months. They said
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