Island Life! (Part 1)

Part One:  What even is bush orientation??

Most of you probably know that we just spent a month living on an island.  This island is called Biem Island, and it is actually a volcanic island!  (it's an active volcano...but it hasn't erupted in decades!)

Biem is located about 80 miles off the coast of Wewak, in PNG.  There is a people group who lives on it--about 2,000 people.  Three missionary families have been working in there for the past few years--they learned the language and taught through the Bible, and praise the Lord there is a church there now!  Right now, two of those missionary families are at home on furlough...leaving just one family on Biem, with two empty missionary houses.

So.  Bush Orientation is a part of our New Tribes orientation here in PNG.  At the end of the orientation time (after time in Madang, etc), each family goes to live in a tribe for about 4-6 weeks.  The goal is to go to a tribe that already has a church planted in it, where there are still missionaries.  That way, we can learn from both the missionaries who are living in there, but we can also learn from and be encouraged by the tribal believers!  

We learned SO. MUCH.  It's really overwhelming to even think about trying to blog about all that we learned!  We learned everything from how to live in a bush house (with solar panels, lots of bugs, and even rats!)...and we also learned tons about church planting, how to interact with the people, and how we react to living in the bush.  So much good stuff.  I'll try to blog about it all :) 

The missionary family living on Biem right now is the Busers.  Brandon and Rachel and their four amazing kids!  What a stellar family.  They have tons of experience, and they did such a great job of pouring into us and loving on us this past month.  On top of all their other work of discipleship and translation!

The unique thing about our bush orientation is--we got to do it with the Rimestads!  As far as I know, we are the first ever who did bush orientation with their teammates--and we are SO thankful that we got to do it like that.  We learned so much about team dynamics, how we like to function as a team, etc etc etc.  Just so much.  Plus it was just so nice to be in it with them!  To walk right on over to Emily's house and tell her about the rats in my house, or ask each other what to do in certain situations, or lament about hard things of living in the jungle...etc.  

So.  Back on August 1 (seems like so long ago, now!), we headed down to the beach...

 The kids were pumped about the boat ride!

Kaine and Lou Lou again...she still loves Kaine :)  

We got on the boat!  The sea was so smooth that day, which was great.  No one had even a hint of seasickness! Praise the Lord for that!

It was very windy :)  

We were so excited to see Biem!

Tons of people were there on the beach to greet us...

Our kids were excited to be reunited with the Buser kids, while the Biem people formed a sort of assembly line to get all of our cargo from the boat to the beach to our houses...

Biem. is. so. BEAUTIFUL.

We were so excited to be there!  We were anticipating a month of of learning from the Busers, speaking lots and lots of Tok Pisin, and just enjoying living on a tropical island with these guys :)

And we are kicking ourselves...living a whole month with the Busers and we didn't get any group pictures with their family!  Sigh.  

But we did get a group pic of all the kids!  The kids ALL got along so well.  They all loved playing together!

Such a great group of kids!  We are missing them!

We were so excited to be on the island!  Excited for a month of learning and building relationships, but also a bit nervous about living in the bush for a whole month...more to come :)