He's Baaaaack!

Dylan and Jared left on June 3rd planning on being interior for a week.  The problem was that MAF hadn't checked out/opened the airstrip yet, so they didn't have a scheduled flight out when they arrived.  The 7 days turned into 12, but they were able to get a lot done, so, besides being pretty hungry when they got home, it was a good trip!

The view as you fly in- not too shabby

 

 

First they put the posts up

 Then the floor beams

 This is where they stayed.  Dylan slept in the hammock and Jared in the tent.

 

This was their shower spot (Something to look forward to for Rich, Derek, Evan and Dakota:)

 

Then came the floor joists

They took a few shots to show that they were working:)

 

 On Tuesday they thought there was a plane coming that was going to take them home so this was them saying 'goodbye' to everybody.

That flight didn't work out, so they stayed until Friday. 

And they got some more work done on the house.

 Aren't these kids adorable?

 They also did work on the airstrip.

 They even got a little bit of framing up for the walls!

 On Friday they said 'goodbye' for real:)

 And then MAF came in with the Kodiak and officially opened up the airstrip!  This is a huge answer to prayer and will make our lives soooo much easier.  I tried to load the video of the plane landing on the blog, but it wouldn't work.  I put it on Facebook if you want to see it.

Beach trip

These are not my pictures, but a few months ago we went to a really nice beach with two of the families that will be our partners in the village.

This was the definitely the nicest beach I've been to since we've been here.  To get there we drove for about an hour on an awful road.  A few times I wasn't sure we were going to make it.  There had been some flooding a few days before and at one point the road was covered by a small river.  I had flashbacks to 'Little House on the Prairie' scenes of Pa leading the horse and wagon across angry swollen waters.  Well, this wasn't quite that bad, but a little scary:)  Huge chunks of the side of the road were missing in various places and it was just an all around junky road.   Anyways, we arrived at a dock and hired a man to take us to the beach on his boat.  It was about a 10 min boat ride.  We were the only ones there and it was so much fun!

Out of our team's 7 children, Raquel and Eden are the only girls.

Here we are on the boat- it was a gorgeous day!

The water was lovely.  Each couple went out snorkeling while the others watched the kids.  At one point between someone coming back in and Dylan and I going out, no one was watching Roman and he charged right into the water.  Thankfully Raquel saw him and we plucked him out and put him in this yellow tube.  He loved being in the water and stayed there most of the day.

I guess he doesn't look that excited, but, really, he loved it.

Jericho and Roman are just two months apart.  This is my favorite picture.  They would drop their food in the sand, pick it up with their sandy hands and shove everything into their mouths.  It's so nice to share:)

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera, so we'll just have to go back...:)

Dylan's trip- May 2013

So Dylan went interior for a week at the beginning of May.  I've had these pictures loaded and he was supposed to have written about his trip, but that never happened and now he left today for another trip, so I thought I'd help him out a bit:).

 He went in on May 3rd with a father and son duo who are cutting the wood for our house.  They flew with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) to an airstrip that is a 5 min flight from our airstrip.  Our airstrip has not been approved yet by MAF or the other flight programs in our city, so the guys got picked up nearby with a plane from an org who is willing to land on our airstrip right now.  They shuttled over all the supplies (drums of fuel, oil, extra chain saw parts, tools, food for the woodcutters etc.) we had sent ahead.  So thankful for pilots who work so hard to get us in!

Dylan's first item on the agenda was to build a structure to sleep in and store tools and supplies.  The people had that done in a couple hours:)

 

He set a tent up inside after finding a huge hairy spider on the inside of the tarp.

The next few days were spent working on the airstrip.  Tomorrow there is a guy from MAF going in to check it out.  We hope he will say it's ok, but at least, if he doesn't, we'll know specifically what needs to be done to have it finished.

On Sunday, he visited with the people.  They gave him lots of food- bananas, sweet potatoes, greens, peanuts etc
The next day he didn't feel so good:)

The wood cutter set up camp about a 25 minute hike up the mountain and got to work.

 

I would use two hands if I were him, but maybe I'm just paranoid.

Paulus, the wood cutter had told Dylan he would like to bring more guys in to help carry wood because when he has cut wood for other places it's been hard to get people to carry. 

One morning Dylan woke up a 5am to shouting and people running by his camp.  It was a bunch of the people running up to get wood.  Everybody including the women and kids went up and each brought wood back.  Dylan said the old ladies were passing him up. 

There it is!  Soon to be walls and what not (I'm not a house builder, can you tell?:) for our house!

Everyone was so friendly and curious always watching Dylan's every move.  Some of the people can speak a bit of the national language so he was able to communicate with them some that way as well as start to learn a few phrases in the tribal language. 

Interesting note- the typical greeting for a friend literally translates to "I eat your brains".  I thought that was gross until Dylan told me that in the neighboring tribe they say "I eat your poop".  Yummy

I'll end on that special thought.  Hopefully when Dylan gets back next week he'll have lots more pictures and stories and will write about it himself as I'm not sure I did this justice. Our partner Jared went in with him this time and they hope to completely finish the airstrip and start digging holes for the posts for our house.  We'll see how much they get done.

Please pray for their health and safety.  We are so thankful to the Lord that he has kept us all healthy so far.  It is only by His grace and mercy that we can do any of this.  He has clearly been sustaining us and going before us as we start this huge process of building and moving interior.  Puji Tuhan! (Praise the Lord:)