Gear change

How quickly things can change. The news that we’re having twins has caused quite a jarring shift in gears. This break was supposed to be for us to catch our breath before a final month’s language learning push before a language check followed by returning to the UK at the end of January.

A week ago we found out we’re having twins and suddenly we’re in full preparation mode for our home assignment. We moved our return back to the UK to the beginning of January and we’re working through the paperwork of a rental apartment we’ll be going to in just 4 weeks!

Suddenly we’re looking at only 2 1/2 weeks left in Kovol and our focus has shifted from pushing language to saying goodbye and battening down our house for being unoccupied for 9 to12 months.
With so much of our attention on reading through rental contracts, finding furniture, reading up on pregnancy with twins, writing to our UK doctor, rebooking flights, pulling out our cold-weather clothes from storage and making phone calls to and from the UK, we’re already feeling disconnected from life in Kovol.

Landing in the jungle on Friday to the warm welcome we’re sure to receive is going to feel weird when emailing the estate agent of the result of our credit check will surely be in the back of my mind. Yep, we’ve very suddenly been thrown into ‘transition gear’ and it’s jarring!

The good news is that a landlord has agreed to allow us to rent a 2-bedroom flat for the 6 months we requested. We were rejected a few times for asking for such a short tenancy. We’re just working through the paperwork. We’re praying the internet tower that gives us internet in Kovol is functioning or we’ll be forced to book another helicopter flight to bring us out only days after arriving so that we can finish it all!
Assuming there’s internet, we’ll spend our days chatting in the Kovol language to the guaranteed crowd of visitors that will come to see us and spend our evenings in calls to the UK lining everything up 🙂

The plan is to stay in Kovol until Dec 31st so we can do Christmas with Philip and Natalie (and the Kovol people – they’re talking about killing a Christmas pig).

Our break has been refreshing nonetheless. We’re enjoying PNG again and have caught our breath enough to be able to look forward to seeing our Kovol friends again.

We had the chance to catch up with Ham in town. He’s a teacher at the vocational school where we taught the chronological Bible course for 2 years. The plan was to have Ham take it over, but Covid and general normal PNG disruptions mean classes haven’t been going.
Ham was delighted to see us and we were happy to share a little time with him and see how he’s doing. We’re delighted to see he’s still excited for the Lord and is even now listening to the recordings of the classes we did with him 2 years ago – wow time’s flown!

Oscar is enjoying the trampoline and toddler trikes on centre here; I’ve been enjoying sweating my way through P90X workouts (there’s just no time in the bush!) and playing football on a (flat) field; and Gerdine’s been making the most of the expanded social circle, including a meeting tomorrow with a mother of twins seeking any advice she can get.

Man twins, they’re already a lot of work!

We’re still excited for twins, but we’re also feeling the weight of the worry of being so far from good medical care. Gerdine is as low risk as it gets for carrying twins and everything is looking good, but the thought of contractions starting while we’re deep in the Kovol jungle frightens us. We’re working to trust the Lord with our fears