Stanley December update
December update for the Stanley family
Travel disruption
It feels like problem after problem. International travel while pregnant, with a toddler is challenging at the best of times, it feels like we’re attempting to travel at the worst of times.
Our daily battle is to bring glory to God by trusting him. Despite the fact that we’ve seen God provide time after time we find that new problems come and fill the foreground of our vision. Only a week and a half ago we were in Kovol praying for a gap in the clouds so the helicopter could get us out to the clinic.
Funny that experiencing God’s providence time and time again doesn’t seem to help for the next challenge!
Scary weekend
We live with the knowledge that in living in such a remote location we don’t have quick access to health care in an emergency. It’s a weight we always carry while in Kovol which we don’t feel most of the time. Occasionally we’ll think of it after a near-miss with a knife, when we look at the thick bank of clouds around us and realise there’s no way a helicopter can get in if we needed one and we need to trust the Lord through those fears.
What an immense challenge it was to work through the fear of thinking we might be losing our twins, we only found out a week and a half ago we were having 2.
Gear change
How quickly things can change. The news we’re having twins has caused quite a jarring shift in gears. This break was supposed to be us catching 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.
We’re having twins
What a total shock, but also delight! While out on break (which is refreshing and very much appreciated) we had a 20 week ultrasound. While the Doctor is taking measurements he blurts out “hang on, is there another one?” Sure enough there was and we’re now very much looking forward to being the parents of twin girls.
5 ways life in the tribe is different from what we expected
Coming out for a break is a good time for reflection. We’ve been in the tribe for close to a year after spending 3 years in training, 2 years waiting to get to Papua New Guinea and 2 years in Papua New Guinea acclimatising, followed by a year of work to get ourselves set up in Kovol. 8 years of preparation to get to where we are now, learning a tribal language and culture with the aim of communicating God’s word into it with clarity.
During those 8 years we pick up certain expectations of what life in the tribe might be like, so here’s 5 ways expectation and reality have differed.
2020 in review
We were asked to put together a video report for NTM PNG’s central area conference. We thought we’d also make it available here. Enjoy Nov 2019 to Nov 2020 in review.
Kolom
One week ago, Kolom came, an almost 2 year old boy. There are no words to describe what we saw and pictures don’t even justify the reality. A starving to death baby crying quietly in agony, on the doorsteps to death. As soon as I left him, I started crying.
Wipeout
My goal for the day is to write this blog, and survive. Phew talk about up and down.
Our Vision Quest
This last term on the field we discovered the joys of maintaining glasses and contacts in the bush. Did you know contact solution can’t be found in your typical PNG pharmacy? We didn’t either, and so when we arrived on the field we found ourselves quite undersupplied. Eventually Stacie’s glasses became a Frankenstein creation barely hanging in there with copious helpings of tape, hot glue, epoxy, and very gentle face movements.