My weekend

After working last weekend, I got a weekend off. It was nice to not have any hospital responsibilities for 48 hours. I ventured out with the Chapmans, Kristen, Cassie, and Pam to go to Banz and Minj. I wanted to go to the Christian Bookstores to look for tappa hangings (bark with verses painted on them) and see what else they had. We went to Banz first, and after going to the bookstore, we went to their market. We were looking for meri blouses (women's png outfits), but ended up going through the whole market. Kristen and I both got meri blouses, but that is about it. Cassie wanted to look for bilums, but they didn't have any there just the string. After the market, we headed to the GST store and got ourselves ice cream cones for our ride to Minj.

Minj is probably a 15-20 minute drive from Banz. We went to the bookstore, I got some tappa hangings and a PNG map. Too often people mention that they are from such and such a place, but I don't know where these things are, so I bought a map to figure things out. After this we headed to Timil Waghi, where the Swiss Missionaries have their mission. We visited the Strasslers, Joas and Remo are in my PE class. Their dad is Thomas, and their mom Ruth, and their little sister Elena. We got to see their tree kangaroo, rabbits, kittens, dog, and 2 other birds. They also have a very nice garden where we got some lettuce from. After that I enjoyed a relaxing day, got in a little basketball, but then we got rained out.

Today, I went to Emmanuel church, the message was on the Prodigal Son. After that I went to lunch at Becky Morsch's house, with Cassie and Pam. We had beef roast, baked potatoes, carrots, and asparagus, and rolls. This will come as a shocker to you all, but I ate everything including the potatoes and asparagus, it wasn't bad. I enjoyed learning about the game of cricket from Pam. She is from South Africa where cricket is very popular, so she was able to explain the rules to me. It seems very complicated, but at least I, now, have some idea of what is going on.

Since it is the first Sunday of the month, we had our English Lotu today. It is always nice to see the missionaries from the other mission stations around here and to fellowship. Today the missionary kids played Amazing Grace on their recorders and shared with us a little about the author John Newton. Mike Chapman then shared on having goals in our life. I then had waffles for dinner with the Kerrigans, Pam, Cassie and Kristen. We learned a lot about South Africa from Pam. It was quite eye opening to hear what other countries are like. Cassie, Kristen and I ended our night with a Bible Study on Ephesians.