Lapilo Orientation Retreat

I had the opportunity to go out to Interface for the weekend to help with the Lapilo Orientation Retreat. This is the first time that something like this has been held. In the sessions, the orientees learned about things like syncretism, cultural sensitivity, etc. One of the older NTM missionaries here in Papua New Guinea gave his testimony and talked about his experiences upon first arriving here in PNG in the one session that I got to sit in on. It was very interesting to hear the differences between how things were way back then and how they are now. The adjustments we face now don't seem nearly as huge after you hear about the adjustments they had to make back then. I guess the men used to go by themselves to live in a village with the national people while they learned language.

I helped with cooking and child care. Interface has a big fully equipped kitchen and it was fun to work with the staff there. I only had one three to four hour shift per day, so there was plenty of free time. In the mornings I spent my free time helping with child care. The rest of the day I enjoyed playing volleyball, hanging out with the orientees and playing games.

Lapilo Conference

The Lapilo Conference this year was great. I really enjoyed it. It is a time of fellowship and refreshment. There were serious moments and funny moments.

Our speaker and his wife were from a coworker's church in California. He spoke on the the book for James. That was kind of neat for me, since we are covering James in church and in the ladies' Bible study I attemd. It is always so interesting to me the way God brings up the same lessons from all corners of your life.

On a lighter note, we had ice breakers at the beginning of all of the speaking sessions that were hilarious. I ended up being "volunteered" for two different games. One of them involved playing a variant of "rock, paper, scissors." It was "bear, snake, hunter." Then there was the "humming telephone game" and the "charades telephone game." The second picture is of me playing the charades telephone game. I was relieved that it wasn't anything too difficult to act out (went fishing and caught a big fish).

A few other highlights were skit night, hiking, block parties and potlucks. The bottom picture is of the hike that we went on. It was pretty relaxed. We stopped and talked to a number of national people and saw a baby cassowary.