Feb 28

Curried Missionary Part 8

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Pic: My brother, sister-in-law and nephew arriving in Papua New Guinea as missionaries with New Tribes Mission for the first time.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Part 8 is a summary of ways to encourage missionaries. I would normally print this out to give out to people in meetings, suggesting they pin it up somewhere in their office.
“Ways to Encourage Missionaries

1. Get to know your missionary PERSONALLY. Find out their birthdays, anniversaries, how long they’ve been overseas, what do they exactly do? Ask questions!
2. Find out their likes and dislikes, what are their favourite colours, hobbies, foods etc..
3. Find out what TV shows they might like to watch. News? Sit-coms? Sports events? Movies?
4. What are their children’s likes and dislikes, how old are their children? Favourite colours etc..
5. What products (food, cosmetics, magazines, school products, hobby supplies etc) can and can’t they get where they live?
6. Letters – the simplest card is enough to be encouraging.
7. Small Parcels – with a simple thing such as gravy mix or chewing gum.
8. Bigger Parcels – with something such as a recorded or shop bought video/DVD.
9. Special Gifts – not always just for Birthdays or Christmas!
10. Food – you can send things such as chocolate, lollies, packet foods, specialty foods, (eg; vegemite or nice tea-bags)
11. Cosmetics – soaps, chap sticks, mud packs etc..
12. E-mail – just a short personal note of ‘How are you’ is enough, make sure you ask specific questions such as ‘What kinds of things do you eat over there?’
13. Sermon Tapes – often a missionary can’t get hold of these and they are in need of Spiritual encouragement too.
14. Newspaper articles, cassettes of you speaking, video recordings of yourself/DVDetc…”

Next – Straight From the Horse’s Mouth – 60 missionaries tell you how they’ve been encouraged or discouraged the most.

Feb 28

Blackout

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Two nights ago we had a blackout. It lasted for about three hours and meant that we couldn’t do anything much. It was still quite warm (went from 6pm to 9pm) so we had to just sweat it out. It’s amazing how technology keeps you awake at night, I was almost falling asleep around 9pm, sitting there in the candlelight having a discussion with Michael. As soon as the lights came on though I was awake again! I have to wonder whether God was helping us to take it easy for a few hours after our busy week.

Feb 27

And now for Photo Friday – ‘Masculine’

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The theme for Photo Friday last week was ‘Masculine’ so here’s my entry. This is Nick, he’s a Pastor in a church in Papua New Guinea and he’s tending his garden here.

Feb 27

Playing Catchup for Illustration Friday – ‘Tea’

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The theme last Friday was ‘tea’ so here’s my entry. This is more related to afternoon tea and is titled ‘rock cakes’ done in oil on canvas.

This is the initial sketch for the painting.

This was what I painted it from.
Feb 27

Finally Some Photos

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Took this shot on the day we all went to the national park. We were surrounded by 6 dive bombing Kookaburras which, now that I think of it, was appropriate as we were sitting in a group having a session about Spiritual Warfare!


Most of the week however we were inside and Kezi spent a lot of time doing this on the quilt with me on the floor next to her listening in on the sessions.

Kezi’s first plane ride. No problems at all! (she looks bored though, she was watching the other babies across the isle)

Feb 26

The failure of the fan and the fridge

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As it often happens whenever someone goes away for more than a couple of days, a couple of things ‘went wrong’ while we were away.

Firstly our main computer stopped working which would have been ok except that I always record certain TV shows to send up to my family in Papua New Guinea. Turns out that the fan inside the box is clogged or something like that. That’s why there are no photos as yet because I can’t download them until my compuer is back. Michael will fix it today.

Secondly there was a very strange smell in the kitchen. It took a fair bit of searching but we think that a mouse may have gotten inside and died inside the drainage container at the back of the fridge. We seem to have fixed the problem now but it was an awful smell.

Truth is that we’re both so tired that we don’t really care that much at the moment and are happy to be in our own bed. Don’t get me wrong though, the week in Sydney was wonderful and we got to meet some lovely people and learn a lot but your own bed is always nice to return to isn’t it!

Feb 26

Still No Piccies But We’re Home

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Flew home on Saturday and all went well. Kezi wasn’t bothered by the plane at all which is great. She is such a good bubby. We are both exhausted though as it was a full on week with a lot of information given to us about our new role. It was a real amazing thing to see the way that God has provided new State Ministry Directors in each state except for the Northern Territory and to meet them all. Kezi was so good in the meetings, she only grizzled a little bit towards the end of the week when she’d had enough socializing I think.

Now that we’re back we’ve got a bit of work to do in getting our office presentable before it’s dedicated on the same day as the commissioning service in less than 2 weeks time. We also have to start consentrating on our new ministry and sort out our priorities. If you are involved in missions in a church in Perth WA and would like us to come along one Sunday to share about our new roles with SIM Australia please drop me a line.

Feb 20

Hi From Sydney

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I’ve just had my first opportunity to get onto the web so I thought I’d do a quick post. Been in Sydney since Wednesday last week and it’s been pretty full on but really great. We’re enjoying the meetings we’re having with SIM which is our orientation into our new role. Sydney weather hasn’t been too bad but then we’ve been inside most of the time! I saw on the news that Perth is 39C with storms today so I’m glad we’re not there! Anyway, I’m still here. Missed out on Illustration Friday and Photo Friday this week, oh well. No piccies until I get back.

Feb 15

And We’re Off….

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Tomorrow we fly to Sydney (for those non-Perthies it’s around a 4hr flight) and it will be Keziah’s first plane trip. We’re going there to do orientatin for our new roles with SIM. I’m really looking forward to it as we will get to meet the other State Ministry Directors for SA, Tas, Qld, NSW and VIC who are all mostly new to the role as well.

I’ve spent this week doing a lot those little things that are important for the trip and I’ve made about 5 different lists (what to take -us, what to take – Keziah, Nappy Bag contents, what to read before we go, what to do before we go!!!) so I ‘feel’ organised. I’m sure though that I’ll get on the plane and remember something I should have done.

Oh well, I’ll see just how much blogging I get done from Sydney. Oh and Curried Missionary will be taking a break till we get back.

Feb 14

Commissioning Service

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Today I’ve been very busy printing out invitations and envelopes to send to almost 400 people. The invitations are for our commissioning service which is to be held on March 11th at 3.30pm at the Foothills Church of Christ. This is a commissioning into our new roles as the SIM WA State Ministry Directors. If you’re in WA and read this and would like to come along, drop me a line and I’ll send you an invitation. There will be a dedication of the new office afterwards with a BBQ. Just drop me a line if you’re interested.
This is the outside of the new office at the Wattle Grove Baptist Church. We still need to paint the front and put up a sign.

Some more interior shots (notice Kezi on the floor!!) Still fairly disorganised at this point.

This is the ‘Conference’ area (not sure how much conferring we’ll do but at least we’ll feel like we’re in South America when we do!!)

Sorting through the finished envelopes

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