our first few months in the tribe...

You might be wondering what we will do once we get to the tribe...and since we won't have internet, I won't be able to post pictures or anything like that.  So...here is just an idea of what we think our next few days and months will be like.  Again, it's what we think...remember how I've said before, that we need to hold our plans loosely because God often changes them!  

(Check out this blogpost to see the first part of this post...what our move in day will likely be like.)

After we arrive in Maliyali and the chopper leaves us...it will be very VERY silent.  It's a pretty crazy feeling, just being surrounded by jungle and mountains and knowing we are just. so. remote.  But anyway...

I would expect our first day (Saturday) to be filled with cleaning.  Our house has been built, but it definitely is not done.  There is still varnishing to do, plywood to nail up, cabinets and doors to be put on, curtains to be put up, etc etc etc.  The list goes on...and it will likely go on for a very long time!  But that's okay, we can live in an unfinished house for a few months :) 

So as I was saying, we will need to clean (the house has been sitting empty for the last few weeks so there will be plenty of dirt, dust and bugs to clean out).  Then we will begin to unpack, which is going to feel like a huge task at first.  We have never moved to a house this unfinished before!  So it will take some time to settle in :) 

On Sunday, we are planning to have an "amamas" party...which is basically just a big party to tell our Maliyali people THANK YOU.  We are bringing in some meat and rice, and they will provide garden food...and we will just have a big feast.  Our husbands will stand up and tell the people how much we appreciate all of their help in building our houses, and how happy we are that they have taken care of our families so well.  We are going to have all of the people walk through our houses to see them.  Most of the men have already been in there a lot during housebuilding, but none of the women have seen the inside of our houses.  So that will be an interesting time :) :)   And safe to say it will be the most amazing and memorable Father's Day that Nathan has ever had!

After Sunday is over, I think we will get working REALLY hard on unpacking and Nathan will start to tackle the to do list on our house.  We plan to kind of settle in for the first two weeks...finishing up things on the house, spending time with the people, getting our kids settled and acclimated,  exploring a little bit...really, just a couple weeks of settling.  I think it will be important for our kids to have this time before we dive into "real" life...

On the Fourth of July, we have a big day planned...we are going to start CLA!  Otherwise known as Culture and Language Acquisition.  That is going to be our life for the next few years.  So, we have marked July 4th as the day we are going to "officially" start learning the Maliyali language and culture full-time.  (Actually, as a side note...I personally am going to start homeschooling that day.  I had great advice from our homeschool consultant NOT to start our homeschooling routine on the same day that I start CLA.  So I think I'll spend a week or so just focusing on homeschooling the kids and establishing a good routine.  In the long run, I think it will be very worth it!)

After a good week of figuring out how our homeschool days will go, then I will join the rest of the team in doing CLA.  For our husbands, they will be required to do at LEAST 40 hours of CLA every week.  I predict they will put in more hours than that, though.  Me and Emily won't be able to put in that much, obviously...with our kids, homeschooling, cooking, cleaning, surviving, etc.  I think 20 hours per week is a good goal for me.  And that 20 hours would include:  focused language sessions, memorizing in the house, and just being with the people and practicing the language.  We'll see if 20 hours is realistic or not!  I'll have to update you all on that later :)  

To remind you...here are some pictures from our CLA days when we were learning the national language last year...we will soon be reliving these moments!

I'm not so excited about this part of CLA :)   Many days I predict my brain will HURT.

Here's a quick rundown of our timeline...

• June 16--we move in
• July 4--we officially begin CLA...and we will continue CLA for the next few years :) 
• September--our language consultant will fly in, we will get supplies, and we will have our first language evaluation!
• November--we will leave the tribe to go on our first break!  We will take two 2-week breaks per year.  During our break in November, we will post pictures and try to update you all really well!  We will be back in the land of the internet:) 

So, in the meantime...between now and November...

• We will be living life in the mountains of PNG.
• We will hopefully be well on our way to learning an undocumented language . 
• I will be cooking WAY too many meals from scratch :) 
• We will not see any form of civilization.
• We will not have phone or internet...but we should have email!  Therefore...
• I will try to do some email updates! 
• Please don't forget about us :) 

We were talking to our kids tonight about what a BIG day we have coming up tomorrow.  This is what we have been preparing for, for these past six years!  We feel that this is SUCH a privilege, that we are the ones sent out from our church to do this work.  Praise Jesus!

And we praise Jesus for all of YOU!  We love you all so much.  Seriously, is there any way we could do this without our amazing supporters back home?  Never!  You all are SUCH a HUGE part of this...and we thank you so much.  

Please keep these sweet Maliyali missionary kids in your prayers!

And please, please be praying for the Maliyali people!  We pray that someday, by God's grace, there will be Maliyali people surrounding the throne of Christ.  

What is our life in the tribe going to be like?

Three days until we leave for Maliyali!  I know I've said it before, but it's a surreal feeling.  I personally am just wanting to get this next week over with...all the cleaning and packing, last time going to the beach, the goodbyes, the flights and the moving all of our stuff in, and the first few days.  I am excited for a week from today--we will have been in Maliyali for like four days and I'm hoping we'll be getting settled!  Just being real :)  I love Wewak but I'm ready for this transition to be OVER!

So...here are our plans!  What our weekend is going to look like...even though we know we need to hold all of our plans loosely.  God has definitely changed our plans many times already!  So this is what we hope will happen :)

On Friday morning, we have two airplane flights scheduled, to get our two families plus all of our cargo into Yifki (if you remember right, Yifki is the airstrip that we use, with the missionary families who we have spent time with).  So we will fly in on this airstrip...

On this airplane...

While that is happening, Mike (our helicopter pilot) will be leaving from Goroka and coming to Yifki as well.  He will be bringing our freezer food that we ordered from Goroka.  So he will meet us in Yifki.  And then...he will begin to shuttle us and our stuff over to Maliyali.  Each helicopter trip from Yifli to Maliyali is about 15 minutes one way.  So he will first take Nathan or David, along with the first load.  The other guy will stay in Yifki to help coordinate everything.  If Nathan is the first one of us to go in to Maliyali, he will need to quickly unload the heli, put the frozen food into our two freezers, and organize things and then be ready for the next chopper load.  And this will go on pretty much ALL day.  At some point, David will most likely switch places with Nathan, but probably we will try to have one of them in Maliyali and one of them in Yifki throughout all the shuttling.  I'm not really sure when me and Em and all of our kids will fly in to Maliyali...some details are not figured out yet!  But all I know is...it is going to be one of the craziest, most overwhelming days of. my. LIFE.  

We will be reliving these moments (from our last time going into Maliyali back in January):

Loading the chopper...

Loading us onto the chopper...

...and entering back in to Maliyali!  This time, for good!  It's a crazy good feeling to know that we will soon be calling this our HOME.

Stay tuned for part two:  What will our next few months look like?

ONE. WEEK.

Lately I have to tell myself to stop, breathe, and pray.  We are SO ready to move to Maliyali and begin this huge work--but it is a very daunting thing.  When I really just stop and think about how different our lives are going to be in just one week...it can be dizzying.  But God is good, He has called us to this, and He has prepared us!  By God's grace, we are all so ready (though a bit nervous) to face this transition!

Both of our families have been gifted with cats!  Our kids are thrilled because they all want pets. Emily and I are thrilled because we do NOT want rats!  And our husbands are simply NOT thrilled.  Lol!  Neither one of them really want cats :) 

We had a language consultant fly down from Goroka, to get us "kicked off" to start CLA!  That's Culture and Language Acquisition.  Normally, our CLA kickoff would happen in the tribe, a couple of weeks after we move in and when we are ready to start CLA.  But for our situation...Eric said he could kick us off a couple of weeks early, so we could avoid the thousands of dollars it would take to fly him in there so soon after we move in!  He will be coming to Maliyali in September, for our three month "evaluation"...to see how we are doing, and give us much needed wisdom on how to continue!  And then he (or another consultant) will continue to come in an evaluate us every six months until we are fluent in the language.  Our team is SO thankful for our consultants!  Cannot imagine this huge task of learning the Maliyali language without them!

We said goodbye to some more friends :(  This is becoming so "normal"...but it will never be easy.

This is Stephanie.  She has become such a dear friend here in Wewak and we will miss her so much!  She is a school teacher, and a homeschool consultant--she has given me SO much wisdom and direction with homeschooling!  She is traveling to a tribe to visit some missionaries this week, so we hugged her goodbye a little early.  

 Our kids said goodbye to Jed and Ella Jo...we will be so excited to see them at next year's conference!  They are visiting that same tribe that Stephanie is visiting, so we said goodbye to them a little early as well :( 

Earlier today, we had a crash course in CPR and first aid from a missionary here in Wewak.  We thought it would be a good thing to be reminded since we won't have ANY other medical options in Maliyali.  Actually, it's kind of scary to think about--but we rest in God and we know that He is in control of everything.  Chris, thank you for spending the time to help us!  We really appreciate it!  And Sarah--thank you for opening your beautiful home to us!

I think we all look concerned in this picture, lol!  I think it was very sobering to think through all of these situations happening in Maliyali.  We are praying we will never have to use this training!

T-MINUS SEVEN DAYS!