New ministry intro video
Our last team video introducing the Kovol work was made back in 2019. We decided it was a good time to update the video that sits on our site’s home page.
Kidsclub
Stanleys have been gone for over 2 weeks now. Even though we still have the Hubers, the homeschool-helper couple, with us, it became much quieter. Too quiet… You could feel the loneliness the first 2 days. Hardly a person was to be seen. Louis and Timon kept coming back and Read more…
21 hours of flying
Our journey went pretty smoothly for Papua New Guinea. We arrived early at Goroka airport for our 10 am flight. Our children were bursting with excitement to get on the “big plane”. Unfortunately, Air Niugini had cancelled the afternoon flight to Port Moresby the day before after checking in everyone’s bags. All the passengers who had a flight the day before received priority, and there was no space for a family of 5. “Come back this afternoon”, we were told.
A different world
With us heading out for our home assignment, you may think this post is about the different world we’re entering into, returning to Europe, but no, it’s not that. This is about how we feel about entering a different world while still here in Papua New Guinea! Goroka is so very different from Kovol.
Tensions in Kovol
Currently there is tension between Kokoma and Eririm. Kokoma is the village we live in and Eririm is a village that is a 3-hour hike away. They are both Kovol villages and people from Eririm come over from time to time to see us and play soccer.
Stanley term summary
As we prepare to leave Kovol next week to visit family back in Europe we took a moment to think back over the last 3 years we have spent here.
Beginning to wind down
This week, I (finally) finished checking through a post-literacy book “How the Jews lived”. Completing the book was an important goal before leaving. I can draft Kovol reading books and Bible portions on my own in front of my computer; but there is a good chance the result isn’t very good!
Preparing the 9-hole program
Students will start at the snail level and move up through gecko, rat, wallaby, pig, cassowary and finally, eagle. Each number represents a task. When the student completes a task, the teacher takes a hole punch and punches out the task and the student levels up to the next task.
Holes 1-3 give the students a certain number of flashcards that they need to read correctly in 1 minute.
Holes 4-6 are writing tasks where students write in exercise books.
Holes 7-9 are reading tasks with comprehension questions.
Wrong advice?
Some young men in Kovol like to get their wife from town or other bush locations. One such guy came to us with his wife and his mother a few days ago. They came to us for advice because the wife was sick. She has had pain all over her body since she arrived in Kovol, so they said. Because of that, she can´t work. There is no fever, no sores, no other physical signs that could give us a clue about a sickness she might have. I was silently praying for wisdom. She didn’t say much, so I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to talk to her alone and took her aside. After I asked more questions, it appeared that she was homesick. Like many other young couples, they had run off together, not telling her parents who live far away in another remote place. Now, six weeks later, she is worried about her parents as they are still looking for her. There is no way to contact them from here.
The pig fence
Pigs are a big part of life in Kovol and Papua New Guinea in general. Pigs are a valuable source of meat, and the meat is an essential part of any important social event. If you apologize publicly to someone for wronging them, but don’t kill a pig to give meat, was it even a real apology? If you don’t kill a pig to celebrate a successful marriage in the pennam ceremony, your words and actions don’t match. You’re saying you have a good marriage with the celebration, but if you don’t kill a pig, then your actions are saying the marriage isn’t worth celebrating.