Sunday, July 26, 2009

Weekend fun in PNG

Hi all,
Brad & I have had a great weekend.
Yesterday we attended the prison church (Brad in high security, and me in low security). The group in low security included both prisoners and family/friends from the community. The church was pretty full (maybe 150 people) and the singing was awesome. I'm still having trouble understanding the pidgin sermons properly.
This morning we picked up our house meri and her husband and 4 pikininis to go to the beach. We went to the village where my house meri grew up, which is just a few metres off the shoreline. They have black sand (maybe from an extinct volcano). About 50 metres down the beach they have a shipwrecked Japanese ship which was bombed by the Americans in World War 2. Half the boat is under the sand and coconut trees and houses are now on top of it.
All along the beach they have built small tin shacks used as outhouses (though there was evidence that not everybody uses these!).
We played ball and walked along the beach for an hour or two. After our beach adventure we took the family home for lunch and spent some time playing with remote control cars with the children, and showing the adults some of our family photos (they are amazed that I still have 4 grandparents alive!... here people are doing well to live to 50 or 60).
May God bless you all in the coming week!