How to plant a Peanut garden
In Spring last year we started talking about planting a peanut garden with our Kovol friends.
Raft building
Reconciliation
Affirmation
Farewell
Think ahead.
Movement from one place to another is very quick. It will take less than 12 hours to go from the UK to the Netherlands, but transition is the process of emotionally arriving – and that can take longer.
Whatever we’re gaining by moving, we’re also leaving something behind, and there’s grief in losing it. We want to try to work through that grief, and not just deny it or bury it for it to cause problems later.
Developing Leadership through literacy
NTM PNG keeps producing nice encouraging videos of teams several years ahead of us. These are the things we’re looking forward to in Kovol!
The purge
Right now we’re in what I’ve come to think of as the purge, the getting rid of phase. We don’t have a definite luggage allowance for our intended flight to PNG yet, but from our early investigation of routes, it looks like it will be 3x 25kg suitcases and hand luggage.
Paperwork… hard to keep in order
All we can say is oops. We missed something.
Gerdine’s passport expires in December 2024. We didn’t think much of it, that’s a long time away after all – but as we’ve been getting the papers ready for returning to PNG we realise that since you always need 6 months left on a passport to use it for travel we’d only be in PNG for 1 1/2 years before needing to renew it.
Team formation video
NTM PNG are cranking out the videos. It’s fun to see lots of Kovol footage being used, but I actually enjoy seeing all the other places a lot more. It’s amazing to think about how many people God has worked in to form the network of different teams serving all over Papua New Guinea.
Life and Death
These last weeks and months have been marked by the deaths of people I know here in Kovol and back home in Germany. My two granddads died and also my dear aunt just a week ago. I miss my family in these times especially and I wish I could be there with them. I find great comfort knowing that my granddads and my aunt are now enjoying being with God their father, because they believed that Jesus died for them on the cross paying for all their sins, and then He rose again, conquering death. I know I will see them again when I leave this earth either when I die or when Jesus comes back. Tragically, the Kovol people lack this comfort in the face of death.
Stanleys in September
You may have noticed not much blogging activity from us recently. That’s because we don’t want our ReachKovol blog to be filled with our adventures here in the UK. We know people are praying for us though so we want to start posting a little more frequently now we’re out of the hectic newborn phase.
When we arrived back in the UK in January we entered during a national lockdown and got a taste of what life has been like. Even the libraries were closed! In April our twins were born, queue exhaustion and sleep deprivation for the next 4 months.
We’re pulling out of that level of intensity (though twin babies at 6 months old are still tough!), and covid restrictions have mostly lifted so we’re able to start enjoying the UK.
How do you teach an adult to read and write?
NTM PNG just put out a new video. Right now our team is wrestling with how to spell and construct Kovol verbs, we’re deep in the weeds discussing grammar points. This video was an encouraging little reminder of where we’re going with all this.
A flying iron bar
Sunday night around 1 pm I was woken up by the sound of voices under our houses. The only people who usually wake me are my kids and my cat, we’ve never been woken by anyone from Kovol. I went to see what all the commotion was about. It was an emergency. A 4-month old baby had a terrible head wound and was in shock. 10 or so people were stood around looking sad and worried in the cold night.