NCLA

NCLA - National Culture & Language Acquisition

That is what Kerri & I are involved in these days. For us here at Lapilo (the Mission HQ and school base) it is a 12 week course. NCLA is the real name for it but we just call it language study. For most of us North Americans when we think of studying a language, we picture a class room, books, memorizing verbs and tenses. For the first 3 weeks there was some classroom stuff. But as we progress, the class room moves more and more out into the bush. You see, we are not just wanting to learn how to speak Pidgin English, but we need to learn the culture behind the language. That is the only way to really build relationships with our neighbors here.

To do that we have to get out and do what they do. These folk live very simple lives, at least that is how it appears to us westerners. Much of their life is centered around food; not just eating it, but hunting it, growing it, and gathering it. A few of them have jobs that pay money. Many of them have coffee gardens which they work as a means of making money.

Anyway, for us to learn their language and culture we need to be out doing these things with them. This is where the fun part comes in. I got to learn how to make a fishing pole and a hand line then go use them. I got to go work in their gardens with them. I even learned how to make fire without matches. It’s rough (sarcasm) when we have to go to Mumus (a PNG style picnic/potluck) and eat, having to wade across rivers, walk through some of their beautiful gardens and have to constantly look at the incredible scenery around here.

I thought I’d throw in a couple pictures of some of the things we’ve been doing the last two weeks. 

Aute was teaching me how to fish with a hand line. Jon (the other dorm dad) was fishing with the pole a little up stream from us. We never caught anything but that is how it goes. (I'm the guy on the right) :-)

Aute, Jon & I went over and helped Pastor Eric put a roof on a house for his son. Jon & Aute were part of the roof crew and I was part of the ground crew with Hebert, Pastor Eric's son.

Here we are building the mumu pit with banana plant, leaves and grass. We are trying to help more than be in the way. They are literally building a pressure cooker out of leaves and dirt. It works quite well.

 While the food cooks we are sampling some of the other goodies. What we are eating here is fire cooked banana. It was much better than it looked. It tasted like like a potato in desperate need of salt & butter.

When the food is done, we sit around and eat with our hands. We had chicken, corn, kaukau (sweet potato), potato, pitpit (they said it taste like asparagus), and lots of salt.

It was a good time to sit around and talk with Aute, he is constantly trying to teach us something.

I spent an hour or two watching and talking to this ol' guy about making baskets. It is a very involved process from start to finish. I use to think their baskets were expensive until I saw what was involved. Lots of hard work goes into making these baskets.

Making fire without matches was one of the cooler things that i got to do. I've heard of Boy Scouts doing that but I actually got to do it. (Of course Aute got all the materials together). I felt like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away". I wanted to dance around the fire and sing "I make FIRE".

Here is the proof. Fire!

It really was pretty easy. A piece of hard wood (we used Coffee wood), a piece of bamboo, maybe 3-4 foot long and some very dry grass or leaves. And probably most important, a guy like Aute coaching you along!

Kerri has not been able to do any of our outings to the village (yet) so we hired a gal to come in and spend at least an hour a day with her. Her name is Junio. She is a believer with a real sweet disposition.

Hardly a day goes by that I don't stop and just look around in amazement at the beauty of this place. I'm often wondering why I get to be here. I don't know. There are a few things that I do know, one is that we would not be here if it were not for so many who give and pray for us, for the many who desire, as we do, to see the gospel in the hands of the many languages here in PNG. To you we say Thanks.

This is a beautiful place, yet a dark place. The enemy of God is very active here. He is working in every conceivable way to keep these people far from the Light of the Gospel. Scripture says that the Darkness cannot stand in the presence of Light and the Gates of Hell cannot stand against His Church (that's us). That is, if we will only go on the offence and attack. If we, the church, do nothing then the Gates of Hell will stand (at least for those living in darkness) and souls will continue to go into a Christless eternity.