thailand

Way back at the end of July and beginning of August, we enjoyed some time in Thailand, down south on the coast of the Andaman Sea. We never got around to posting photos, but here are some...
We recommend travel to Thailand. The sights, the food and the people were all a great experience.




These boats are used as water taxis to ferry the tourists around. This was taken on the island of Kho Phi Phi.




One day while on Kho Phi Phi we hiked up to the lookout and this was the view from up there!


One day while in Ao Nang we went on a snorkeling tour. We had a great time until...



A huge storm came and we had to cut our tour short!



This is called a tuk tuk - it is one of the modes of public transportation in Bangkok. It's a fun ride, but hang on, cause the drivers are nuts!

Malaria

How do you get malaria in the prairies of Canada!!!
On Friday on our way from Saskatoon to Burstall, Paul started getting achy and sore. Then started putting on jackets and sweaters in 30 degree weather (at this point Heidi already had a diagnosis). We got to our friends house and Paul was shaking and achy and had a pounding headache. Then he got hot. It subsided and we got a decent night's rest. Saturday morning we went to the hospital Medicine Hat and after 7 hours of waiting around we finally got the prescription we needed, but not soon enough, because Paul went through the chills and shakes again.
Thank you for your prayers, Paul is doing better, although the side effects from the medication are not very nice. We have cancelled our trip to Lethbridge and will rest one more day before going on to Airdrie.

Alberta

After 10 days in Abbotsford, BC we are on the road again. We are visiting friends in Airdrie, AB for about 5 days and then we are off to Edmonton.

Thanks

We are glad that people have enjoyed this blog, we have enjoyed reading comments that people have left. We want to give credit where credit is due, so a big thanks to my sister Ruth Nellis for posting everything, arranging pictures and catching all the spelling mistakes. Internet was a little slow in PNG so it was hard to upload pictures.
Thanks Ruth.

On our way home

We are sitting in a guesthouse in Bangkok, Thailand. We've woken up too early (6:30 am) and are hungry. Waiting for the restaurant to open. We have really enjoyed our time here in Thailand, where we visited Koh Phi Phi and Ao Nang beach in Krabi province. Highlights have been relaxing on the beach, rock climbing for Paul, a Thai cooking class for Heidi, and the delicious FOOD!!! Some downers have been some days of rainy weather, which also made for murky water when we attempted to go snorkelling a few times. But all in all, it's been a great time here.
Today we catch a flight to Hong Kong, where we'll stay the night. Then tomorrow is the last leg of our journey home, where we'll arrive in Vancouver to be met by Heidi's parents and Paul's sister, brother in law, and our nephew. We'll post pictures from Thailand once we get back.

This legs end...

This is Ruth, Paul's sister, just sitting down here to write a quick note to let you all know that the Hursts have left PNG. They flew out of Ukarumpa on the 21st and will be on a plane to Thailand on the 22nd. Were they will reconnect, relax and debrief for about 10 days. They will be arriving "home" on the 5th of August and I personally can not wait to hug them at the airport - Yehaw!!!! Please pray for safety in the next 2 weeks of travel and for rest as they take time to just be before they "hit the ground running" in reentering Canadian life.

Praise God!!!

I returned from Lae in good spirits and more energy than when I left. When I arrived in Lae I had a pounding headache, likewise on Wednesday but the rest of the time I was almost headache free. I was able to attend a number of sessions at the community development expo, but I usually took a long nap time between 12 and 3pm (kinda like a Mexican siesta). On Friday I even drove most of the 3hr drive home, which is always an adventure with potholes, one lane bridges and passing slower trucks. So was it the malaria treatment, a diet (taking out sugar, yeast and flour), the church elders coming by the Sunday before or your prayers or a combination? Whatever God used we thank him that this has passed and I am improving!


Thankfully we didn't have to travel in the back of a PMV like this.

On the Road Again

At 1:00 this afternoon, July 2nd, Paul left to go to a Community Development expo in Lae and will be gone until Friday. He has been slowly but steadily improving over the past few days and we are hoping that he'll continue to get better while he's enjoying the heat in the lowlands. Thanks to all of you who have been praying for Paul's health.

wedded bliss

On Sunday evening we had the joy of celebrating our second wedding anniversary (it was easier to celebrate on a Sunday rather than on our true anniversary, Monday June 26). We made a delicious Thai meal: spring rolls, stir fried mixed vegetables, chicken with green curry, and stir fried chicken with ginger, with an amazing cheesecake for dessert. These 2 years of marriage have been so great - we are blessed to have each other. We're looking forward to many many years together...

wedding day















1st anniversary in Fernie, BC





















2nd anniversary in Papua New Guinea
(paul rigged up some sheets, hung christmas lights,
and filled the room with candles)

My favorite Papua New Guinean

I wanted to show off some photos of my favorite Papua New Guinean, Benell.














He's about 6 months old now, and I get to see him almost every week at the
clinic for a club foot. His foot is better now, after casting it every week for
several months into the correct postion, and his mom has been doing excercises
with his foot. He won't need to come in to see us at the clinic much anymore,
and I will sure miss him. Hope you enjoy the photos of Benell, his beautiful mom Ame, and me.

The backpack that didn't go...

Thank you all for your prayers. Heidi and I decided that I won't be going on survey, my body is still not at 100% and I won't have enough recovery time before Thurs. I was really looking forward to going on this survey and I'm a little discouraged but it seems that God has other plans and I'll just wait to see what is in store for me here. Please continue to pray for the survey team.

Celebrating the Queen's Birthday

Today was a national holiday here in Papua New Guinea, in honour of the Queen's Birthday. To celebrate the occasion, my friend Carrie hosted a Tea Party.














We enjoyed tea and homemade scones with jam and English clotted cream.



















It was a lovely afternoon. Here's to the Queen's Birthday!

Now that's my cuppa tea

How does your coffee grow?

Yes, your coffee comes from these berries.















After the berries are picked, the bean is squeezed or shelled out. Then the beans must be dried, which can take up to a month for the rural coffee farmers, depending on the amount of sun and the humidity. After drying, another shell is removed from the bean, and the "green beans" are roasted. Voila, you have your roasted coffee beans, ready to be ground and made into a cup of coffee.

Last survey trip

The survey team (Thom, Esther and Rachel) leaves on Wednesday for Oro Province, but without Paul. He has been sick for a week now with a flu that has left him weak and achy, and a little discouraged. On the bright side there is a helicopter that was scheduled to be in Oro Province a week later so Paul will get a ride out joining the team on Thursday, June 15. Please pray for a full recovery for Paul during this next week.
The survey team will be surveying three language groups, one of which has requested help for Bible translation and literacy courses. The first two languages are on the coast so hopefully boats/dinghies will be available to speed up the traveling time. The team plans to return on July 3. Heidi will be by herself for about 19 days.
For lack of a photo here is a map of PNG, we live in Eastern HighlandsProvince (EHP).

a weekend with friends

This weekend our friends Ian & Nadia and their little boy Jonathan came up to Ukarumpa for a visit. They enjoyed the nice cool temperatures here in the Highlands after living in the humid heat of Lae. We all enjoyed a Greek meal together on Friday evening, along with Gavin & Carrie Jones and their son Isaac. Jonathan provided comedy relief through out the weekend (see photo of Jonathan using cereal box as a hat!)
We also enjoyed our visit with the Wildeboers who are fellow Canadians!

the missionary life...

It was just such a nice sunny day and so warm that we couldn't eat inside!
So we took our plates outside and had a yummy lunch on the back steps of our house!














photo taken last week

all the flowers of the feild

a few blooms from our yard

mumu

Last week Paul and the survey team were invited to a nearby village to join in a goodbye celebration for one of the teachers, Donna, who's going on furlough. The village had a mumu (pronounced "moomoo") for Donna. A mumu is cooking food (cooking bananas, sweet potato, corn, squash, greens,chicken, lamb, or pig) on hot rocks that have been heated in the fire, either in a hole in the ground, or covered in banana leaves. As you can see in the photos, the village ladies made a lot of food!

Tupela poroman "two friends"

Kein New Testament Dedication

On the weekend of April 15 we had the priviledge and joy of celebrating with the people from Kein (pronounced "cane"), the village where we did village living, as they dedicated the New Testament in their language. We hiked out to the village the day before the dedication and spent the day visiting with our village family. The next day was a day of celebration, singing, dancing, and speeches. It was special for us to see people that we have grown to love here in Papua New Guinea receive God's Word in their heart language.














1: Heidi receives a warm greeting from her village grandma
2: Traditional dancing and singing
3: Our village Papa & Grandma with their copies of the Kein NewTestament
4: Paul & Heidi with the village kids

a shot from survey

Getting down to business

All hiking and scenery and coffee aside, what was the purpose?
In every village we went to we did various types of survey to understand the sociolinguistic situation.
Esther took word lists (170 plus 20 sentences) that usually lasted about three hours.














Bonnie did interviews with church and school leaders and also recorded a few stories that we used to test peoples understanding of different speech varieties.














I did interviews asking what language they speak and who speaks like them. As well as questions about their culture and where they travel to and what the marriage patterns are (who goes where and comes from where).














Right now we are back in the office (yeah!) trying to sort out all the information we gathered and determine the need for Bible translation in the three languages we surveyed.

Bridges

Build your own bridge! Grab some bamboo, a few sticks and some vines, bundle them together and viola. I thought these bridges were awesome. People cross these carrying bags of coffee,
cement and sheets of tin roofing and we felt a little wobbly with just backpacks.

Cash Crop

Coffee is the cash crop in this area of PNG.















The red berries are harvested, husked and then set out to dry.

















Ever morning the people lay the berries out and then take them in at night and whenever it rains. This is done for a month. Then they carry them down to the mill in big sacks, some people will hike 6 hrs through the mountains! One garden will yield about 6 bags of dried beans. They will get 60 Kina ($20 CAD) per bag, if the price is good.

Survey

My two teammates and I got dropped by helicopter in the Saruwaget mountains in Morobe province on March 8. It was a kind of funny feeling watching the chopper fly away.














We spent the next 18 days hiking through the most amazing mountains. We could usually see where the next village was, just across the valley maybe 3 or 4 kms. But the trail went straight down to the bottom of the valley and then straight up the other side! We probably gained and lost more than 1000ft a day. We were able to finish the survey 2 days early, I was very excited to see Heidi sooner than planned!



















On our way out we took a PMV (public transportation) as you can see the road had seen better days.The corner was a litte too tight and the river was washing the road away, so they just threw a few branches down and drove across! We made it but I was holding my breath.














The survey went really well and we are now back in Ukarumpa. I'll try to post a few pictures at a time and some brief explanations. Thank you for your prayers, none of us were injured apart from a few scratches and many flea bites...

reunited

Paul is safe and sound, reunited with his wife after 18 long days apart. The survey team is in Lae this week while they start to write the survey report. Once we get back to Ukarumpa we will post some pictures from the survey. The views and scenery were incredible and we were welcomed warmly in all the villages we visited.
Thanks for your prayers.

Survey Trip

Paul will be off on his first survey trip on Wednesday morning, bright and early. Three of the surveyors, Bonnie, Esther and Paul, will take a helicopter ride to the village of Gom and start their 20 day survey from there. They will be visiting 14 villages in five language groups and then travel to the city of Lae on the 27 of March. The other half of the survey team will be flying to the other side of the language group and surveying three more languages. Heidi will fly down to Lae and meet the team there when it's all over. Please pray for us during the time we are apart and pray for health and safety for the survey team. Also pray for good interaction and meaningful conversations with the people we come in contact with.