Troozshoes

Troolin email update, Feb. 2012

2012-02-05T23:11:00.000+10:00

Troolin email update: 6 December 2011

2011-12-06T22:37:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

You are such a blessing to us! Thank you for your faithful prayers and
thoughts towards us! We know that God works through your prayers, and we
have some things to ask you to pray about.

Today Sarah talked with Paul, one of the main Sam translators, who
called to tell us that there has been fighting between two Sam speaking
villages. The conflict is over who owns the land that a timber company
wants to log. In the conflict, fighting has broken out between people
from the two villages, and two men were injured and had to go to the
hospital in Madang town. Since then there have been a few more fights,
including a raid in which some guns were found that reportedly belonged
to outsiders hired to fight against the village in which we live. We
fear that violence will continue, because revenge killing and fighting
is a common occurrence in PNG.

Please pray for the five Sam translators, that they would have wisdom as
they try to bring about peace in their respective villages. Praise the
Lord that they are still friends and are not taking sides even though
they come from the two fighting villages! Pray also for God's peace as
wise leaders work to stop the conflict.

As this is going on, Dave is busy taking a practical course on
leadership which ends on Friday. We are looking forward to Christmas, in
this place where there are not many physical cues that Christmas is
approaching. But we know from God's Word that He sent his son into this
world to rescue us from living apart from him here on earth and then for
eternity after we die. This is wonderful news, and we celebrate his love
and provision for us at this wonderful time of the year!

Merry Christmas!
Dave and Sarah Troolin, and Joanna, Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah

Could you please pray?

2011-08-29T07:57:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Today we drive to Madang, and the road is not that good. Could you
please pray that the drive will be uneventful, no pigs on the road, no
washed out bridges, and so on. You understand. :)

We are so much looking forward to seeing the Sam translators today!
Praise the Lord we get to spend some time with them. We will be going
through a Bible study of Mark that Sarah made, and please pray that the
Lord speaks to their hearts through that study and through all the
things we can do together there.

We'll drive back up on Saturday.

Thank you for praying!

Love,
Dave and Sarah

Troolin email update, 21 August 2011

2011-08-21T22:16:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Time has been passing quickly, as it does! We are feeling more settled
into life here at Ukarumpa, and the children are enjoying school. Last
Friday they participated in Sports Day. They did their best, and we were
so proud of them!

Dave's temporary administrative duty is going well. He feels privileged
to serve the language personnel as he seeks to help others succeed in
their language work. He loves to encourage others and is finding there
are many decisions to make, each one with its own background and
influences. There are also many potential ways that SIL can partner
other organizations and with the government. Please pray for him to be
an effective Director for Language Services (DLS) and for wisdom to know
which opportunities are ones God wants him to move ahead with.

We are working on plans to spend time with our five Sam translators in
Madang next week! It will be great to be all together again! We will
drive to Madang on Monday, August 29, and return to Ukarumpa on
Saturday, September 3. Because of Dave's administrative role it is not
feasible for us to make a village trip by helicopter at this time. We
plan to work on revising the first draft of the book of Mark with Paul,
Jack, Robin, Paulus and Komo while we are there, as well as
homeschooling the children. Please pray that we will have a productive
week!

After that week, Paul, Jack and Robin will return with us to work in
Ukarumpa with Sarah for a few weeks.

The Lord's faithfulness is never-ending, and we praise Him for leading
us along the path He has for us! We're so glad He is with us every step
of the way!

Blessings,
Dave and Sarah Troolin

Email Update - 6 July 2011

2011-07-06T20:54:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We have been in PNG for almost a month now! Our trip up to PNG went
very well. While we were in Port Moresby we submitted Dave's
application for Australian permanent residency. We don't know how long
that will take to be processed and we don't mind if it takes a year or
more! For once we're not worried about the timely processing of visas!
:) We are glad to be back in PNG and involved in the work God has for
us here.

Dave has been asked to fill in for up to 12 months as the Director for
Language Services (DLS). The DLS is the director in charge of all of
the services SIL provides to its translation and literacy teams as well
as being responsible for relating with PNG churches and universities for
the purpose of encouraging their involvement in Bible translation.
Being involved in this work does not mean that the Sam translation
program has stopped happening. We will still be able to go to the
village for a couple of shorter than normal visits and Sarah will
continue with Sam-related work in Ukarumpa - including portions of
dictionary, grammar and Bible translation work. We also hope to get the
Sam national translators to come to Ukarumpa to work sometime in the
coming months.

Tomorrow Dave will be driving to Goroka (two hours away) to speak at the
Evangelical Alliance annual meetings. It will be a great opportunity to
network and meet church leaders. Please pray for safety on the road and
for wisdom as he shares with others. He will be gone for three days.

As someone wrote to us recently, the Lord uses our busy lives and areas
where things are not going the way we envisioned a year ago to make
space where He can move and work to bring about the results He desires.

The Lord bless you,
Dave and Sarah Troolin

Troolin email update - 7 June 2011

2011-06-07T11:11:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Today we start our flights back to Papua New Guinea. We're in the middle
of the confusing mix of packing, anticipating sadness from saying
goodbyes to our family and friends, and dreading all the practicalities
involved in checking in our suitcases and shepherding children and
ourselves through the airports.

But we're glad to be moving onward to the next good place God has for
us. It's nice to know God is in control, and has good plans for us!

Please could you pray for us as we travel, that we would have kind
airline staff at the check-in desks and airplanes, and that we are able
to process all the emotions involved in moving to Papua New Guinea.

Also please pray for us as we have an appointment at the Australian High
Commission in Port Moresby, PNG, on Thursday morning. We will be
lodging Dave's application for an Australian permanent resident visa.

Love,
Dave and Sarah and the family

Email update: 4 May 2011

2011-05-04T09:39:00.001+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Somehow April has flown past and now we're up to May already! It seems
like time here in Australia has been passing very quickly, and now we're
only about four weeks from our planned departure date! We have seven
speaking engagements in these next weeks and would still like to catch
up with those of you that we haven't seen yet. Please ring us if you'd
like to get together:

Dave: 0403 738 502
Sarah: 0413 347 362

We have been able to meet with many friends and family here in
Australia, including those in Melbourne whom we visited for a week
during school holidays. We have had many good times with family,
including a time with the boys called "Boy Camp" and a similar time with
all the female family members called ...wait for it... "Girl Camp". :)
While the boys seemed to feel camping outside and playing on the beach
was important, the girls did things like have a tea party, put on nail
polish, and watch the royal wedding! :) It's such a blessing to have
friends and family, and they are a gift from God! You are our friends,
of course, and we're thankful for you!

Our financial support is right up near 100% of our quota, so financially
we are cleared to return to PNG. This is a huge answer to prayer, and
we're praising the Lord! We have almost finished the medical, dental and
blood work required to return. In terms of our PNG visas, we are
currently waiting for the PNG High Commission in Brisbane to approve our
PNG resident visas. We haven't bought our return airline tickets, as we
want to make sure we have the visas before we buy the tickets. Could you
please pray that we would receive our visas in time to purchase cheap
airline tickets to return to PNG?

Thank you, dear friends! God bless you,
Dave and Sarah

Troolin email update, March 2011

2011-03-05T15:54:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We are seeing cooler weather here, and it's nice to have a change. :) (Sorry all you Minnesota folks - did that make you cringe? Don't worry, you'll see warmer weather soon! :) )

We are settled in our "new" house now, and it's nice to be able to unpack a little bit more and put everything in its place. And the Lord has blessed us with a station wagon to use, that seats our whole family! Praise the Lord! :) We have a routine of sorts, and the kids have friends in school. We are also building relationships with people here, and have started attending a church near our house. It's also been really fun to be close to Sarah's family and seeing our kids play with their Australian cousins. :)

But we are also feeling a bit stretched, and that there is a lot for us to think about: trying to move forward with getting Dave either Australian permanent residency or citizenship (he had to visit the police station yesterday to get fingerprinted), writing and revising various anthropology papers, preparing for the next anthropology conference (Bangkok, from Mar. 7-12), sitting in on some Bible College classes, applying for our PNG visas, wondering if we will be able to leave Australia when we had planned to or if Dave's Australian permanent residency visa process will require us to stay longer, preparing for some opportunities to speak about Bible translation, and so on. We're looking forward to getting together with more of you who are here in Adelaide soon and those of you who are in Melbourne in April.

Thank you so much for caring and praying! Our God is so good, and He's leading us and YOU along good paths!

Blessings,
Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah

Phone numbers:
Dave 0403 738 502
Sarah 0413 347 362

update on our car situation!

2011-01-29T14:10:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you for praying with us about somehow acquiring a car to use while
we are here in Australia! We found out that there is a Christian family
here (a friend of a friend of a friend!) who will be going on vacation
for three months and was looking for someone to look after their
seven-seater car! We can even use it for the whole time we are in
Australia!

Isn't God good!!! :)

This takes such a weight off our shoulders! Now we can throw away all
the papers with information on cars that we were comparing to buy! We
were so stressed about that, but God had it all under control!

Blessings,
Dave and Sarah

Troolin update: 22 Jan. 2011

2011-01-22T12:08:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We made the 29 hour trip to Australia yesterday and the day before, and
somewhere we lost a day without even realizing it. :) The trip went very
well, and we didn't lose any children or luggage! Everything went very
well and we are able to stay in Sarah's father and mother's house in
Adelaide for a few weeks before moving into more long-term housing.
Joanna had an ear infection, and we were worried that she would feel
great discomfort on the four flights, but she didn't feel any pain, and
we are so glad for that!

We still haven't lined up a vehicle for us to use while here in
Adelaide, but we will be working on that in the next few days. Could you
please pray about that? We are looking for a vehicle that holds our
whole family - so we need at least six seats - and we are open to buying
or borrowing (and possibly swapping a five seater car for a few
months). Please let us know if you have any ideas for us.

This next week we will be meeting with the kids' school teachers and
staff, getting back into our language work and anthropology papers and
spending time with our Australian family and friends here!

Blessings, and thank you for your prayers!
Dave and Sarah

Troolin email update - Dec. 1, 2010

2010-12-02T01:50:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Time has been flying by faster than the falling snow outside my window!

In the last month we were privileged to share about the work of Bible
translation in a Christian college in Iowa (Dordt College). Dave shared
about anthropology and Bible translation, cross-cultural encounters in
PNG, and a short explanation of language survey and how it fits into the
translation task. We were also able to speak to one of our supporting
churches here in Cambridge including two Sunday School classes (we
really enjoyed speaking to those kids and young people - and are
inspired to think that these young people are the next generation of
missionaries!).

We were able to set up a display about the languages and cultures of PNG
in the community library in Cambridge, and speak to Samuel's school
class about everyday life in a PNG village! :)

Some other important milestones for our family were the first snowfall
(rapidly followed by building our first snowman!), two Thanksgiving
meals with our family (different family members came to each!), and a
five-day spiritual retreat for Sarah and me (thank you, Grandpa and
Grandma, for taking care of the children!).

We have been encouraged by several people who, after asking if there
were concrete ways they could be involved with us in the work, have
offered to help us by typing in some of the rough drafted Scriptures! We
have also seen God work in helping us resolve a difficult computer
problem that prevented our dictionary and translation programs from
working! Praise the Lord!

Friends, we appreciate you so much! We can't say it enough - you are so
important to the Sam ministry!

God bless you,
David and Sarah

Troolin email update: 22 October 2010

2010-10-23T01:47:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Today we start driving down to Iowa for a fun time with some good
friends. One night we will be speaking with a group of people there
about the work of Wycliffe and our involvement with the Sam people. We
will drive back on Sunday afternoon. Could you please pray for a safe
drive down and back up and that God would use us to be a blessing and
encouragement to the small group?

We are so thankful for how God has been working in this last month!
Praise the Lord for the opportunities we have had to share about the Sam
ministry; they seem to have gone well and blessed people! :)

One of our tasks while we are on furlough is to raise more monthly
support. Currently we estimate we need about $600 more per month.
Please pray with us about this. God has a plan for providing for us and
we know he will make it happen!

If you are interested in partnering with us in the Sam language program
financially we have a new way to make a pledge. You may do it on-line, at

http://www.wycliffe.org/Partnership.aspx?mid=9AF436&status=approved

Alternatively you could mail a letter with your pledge to Wycliffe:

Wycliffe Bible Translators
PO Box 628200
Orlando, FL 32862

God bless you,
Dave and Sarah

Troolin email update, 8 September 2010

2010-09-09T02:43:00.001+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Wow, it's been a busy last month, traveling and sharing about our ministry with the Sam people! We drove in a giant counterclockwise circle around the eastern U.S. from August 2 to 29.

We loved seeing some of you on our path, and we're just sorry we weren't able to visit ALL of you! Seeing your faces after four or more (in one case 33!) years was renewing and refreshing for us. Some of you we haven't even met before, and seeing you was an added blessing for which we thank the Lord!

Some statistics:
- Miles we drove: 5697 (9168 km)
- Adults we visited: 69
- Children we visited: 50
- Nights away: 27
- Homes that hosted us at night: 17 (Thank you!)

Thank you for praying for us! The trip went great and the car performed well. We were healthy the whole time except for a few bumps and bruises.

Now we're working on settling back into Cambridge life, getting the children into school (it's now the second day!), updating our address list, writing anthropology papers, getting more materials prepared to help people understand mission work with the Sam people, and continuing Sam translation and language work.

God bless you!
Dave and Sarah

Troolin email update, 1 August 2010

2010-08-02T15:21:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We have been on furlough in the US for almost a month now! It's been
wonderful to see our friends and family here, and we look forward to
having more times to fellowship together. So far we have been able to
take part in a church bike trip and a vacation Bible school event and
have had the opportunity to share about the Sam translation project
three times! It's so fun to share with people about what God is doing
among the Sam! :)

Tomorrow, August 2nd, we will start out driving on our epic one month
road trip around the eastern half of the US. We will first go down to
Texas and then over to North Carolina, up to New York and back to
Minnesota. We will be stopping to visit various people at points in
between and though this will be a busy time, we are really excited to
get to see everyone in our path!

Please pray for safety, that the car will function smoothly, and that
the Lord will give us great times of fellowship with those we encounter.

Blessings,
Dave and Sarah Troolin

Final packing day!

2010-07-04T09:44:00.001+10:00

Yo Bebes,

We're in the final packing day. It's a Sunday, but there won't be an
english service here today. I think they didn't have anyone who could
lead it this time. So we're up here packing up, cleaning, doing final
emails, etc.

We just cannot believe how CLOSE IT IT!!! :)))

We leave tomorrow morning. The Aviation van will come to get us at 6 am.

Matthew and Joanna both have bad coughs and Matthew's congestion is
making him breathe hard too, so we started giving him athsma medicine
yesterday. I am hoping the Hong Kong people don't think they have bird
flu and put them in quarantine! I told the kids to not cough when we are
in an airport or airplane body. If they have to cough they should wait
until they go to the bathroom. :) How likely is that! :)

But, "she'll be right, mate."

Catch you later, and see you on home soil in less than a week! :)

Love,
Dave and the gang

Troolin email update: 11 May 2010

2010-05-11T08:49:00.000+10:00

Dear friends and family,

We hope you are all doing well. We had a great time in the village! Below is a short description of what happened in the village, both expected and unexpected, and then what we are doing now up at Ukarumpa.

Village Visit:
While in the village, we had a few goals that we knew about, such as holding a two-week dictionary workshop, which actually happened like we expected! :) So much in the village can change often and in unexpected ways. :) Although two weeks wasn't long enough for our situation, we were able to get about 6,500 words and phrases in various semantic domains, and probably at least 4,000 of those will be new words we've never heard before! That would push the Sam dictionary up to about 7,000 words! We also wanted to work on figuring out more aspects of the Sam grammar, and we were able to make progress in that.

Also in the village some things happened that we didn't expect, such as working on the back translation (that is, translating the rough draft translation BACK into English to check it) of some Old Testament portions instead of actually moving beyond that and CHECKING it with the translators like I had expected (that could be seen as a step backward). We were able to start adult literacy classes and train two teachers, and when we left the classes had about 10 to 14 adults (mostly ladies) who were learning to read! (That is a step forward; I wish you could have seen their faces when they sounded out words for the first time!) Sarah trained three pre-school teachers from another village in how to teach using only their vernacular language, and they were going back to do more training under the teacher that is currently teaching in Songum. (That makes four Songum pre-school teachers, which should help to keep that pre-school going; a good step forward!)

We also expected to have some time with our friends at the end of our village stay to give some time to reflect on what God has done with us and in us in the last four years, and eat together. This did happen, and probably about 200 people gathered, one Monday afternoon, sitting around pots of rice, tin fish, sweet potato of various types, pumpkin, and greens! What a special time, and a bit strange to think we won't see them for about a year. Four years! It has gone really fast, as I'm sure you'll agree. God has been faithful in our situation, as I am sure he has been for you!

Now up at Ukarumpa:
Presently, we have invited two Sam men up to work on refining the dictionary words we wrote down at the workshop in the village and also get some grammar insights. In a week, these two men will have gone down and five more will come up; this second group will work on checking the Old Testament portions we had planned to check in the village.

We're busy, busy, busy, but all the time mindful of how God knows what is happening, and is in control!

Blessings,
Dave and Sarah

Troolin email update: 9 March 2010

2010-03-09T00:23:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Dave has returned from the anthropology conference in the US, after
braving the fierce snowstorm that forced three of his flights to be
cancelled! :) Rrrrrr. He is impervious to snow. He laughs at danger. :)

The conference was really good, and he was able to meet a quite a few
new people. He enjoyed talking with friends, and making some good
contacts that could help SIL's work. Also very important, and fun, was
seeing his family and the pastoral team and Monday women's prayer group
at his home church! It was a blast to see everyone again!

We are packing up some of our things to take to the village tomorrow. We
will be flying by small airplane to Madang and then by helicopter to the
village. We have packed and moved many times, but it always seems like a
big job and there are millions of details to keep track of.

In this next village stay we will be looking at the translation of Old
Testament portions the translators have finished in the last several
months, going through it with an eye to make sure it is faithful to the
source text and sounds natural in Sam, holding a dictionary workshop for
two weeks, gathering data to continue writing our grammar paper while on
furlough (starting July 2010!), visiting the other two Sam villages,
possibly training teachers for the Sam adult literacy classes the people
have requested, and most of all, aiming for a good closure, such that
the translators and literacy workers feel their time spent has been
effective and important, and there are better things to come! :)

Please pray with us for good health, good times with friends, and
productive work times, with good, willing participants for the
dictionary workshop.

We can praise the Lord for the end of hostilities between our village
and another Sam village down nearer to the coast, which had resulted in
stopping the people in our village from getting to the market and going
to Madang! The people have been reconciled, and they are waiting for the
exchanging of pigs to mark the end of all the bad feelings. We might get
to see this important cultural event!

God's peace to you,
Dave and Sarah

Troolin email update, 4 February 2010

2010-02-04T09:12:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

All the busy-ness of January came down to the last week, with all the
arrangements for the anthropology workshop here in Ukarumpa and Dave
finishing his paper for the anthropology conference in the US in
mid-February. But we can honestly say that even though it was stressful
and busy, we learned a lot and enjoyed it! The anthropology workshop
attracted an average of 17 people, and we had a special meeting for the
managers and regional directors. The presenter, Dr. Alex Bolyanatz, did
a really good job; he was able to communicate cultural ideas clearly and
was great at getting discussion going!

Besides helping make sure the workshop went well by day, Dave was
writing an anthropology paper by night. :) He submitted it to the
session organizers for review, and now he will read someone else's paper
and get comments ready for the conference coming up in mid-February.

We have a new child! It's a girl! Weight: 18 kg/40 lb; height: 91 cm/3
feet. Her name is ... Rachel! :)

OK, you got us. :) She is only in our care until her parents come back
from Australia in a week and a half. Her mother had surgery in Cairns,
Australia, yesterday. We are happy to have Rachel with us, and we hope
she feels comfortable in our family! Please pray for her mother's foot
to heal well.

Please also pray for Dave as he travels to the US and back and that his
time at the anthropology conference in Washington, DC would be very
productive in terms of building relationships and networking, and
representing SIL in that community!

Blessings,
Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, Matthew, and Rebekah

More about Matthew's eye

2010-01-18T10:54:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends,

Matthew's eye is looking great! It is not completely back to normal,
but the eye doctor in Cairns, Australia, that our doctor here has been
corresponding with says that Matthew does not need to go to Australia
for further treatment unless the symptoms return. It appears to have
been some kind of allergy or infection.

Thank you so much for praying for Matthew's eye and for all of the
emails you've sent! We have been encouraged!

Love,
Dave, Sarah, Joanna, Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah

Update on Matthew's eye

2009-12-31T10:41:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends,

We saw the doctor yesterday and he said it looks like Matthew's eye is
much better! It is not swollen anymore, and we assume it is because of
the antibiotics, but we're not sure. The little bumps are still there,
around the eye socket, and no one is sure why so that is still a
concern. He will see the doctor again next week but for now he still
does not need to have further tests in Australia!

Praise the Lord! Thank you for praying!

Love,
Dave and Sarah

Update on Matthew's eye!

2009-12-22T11:19:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends,

Praise the Lord, we went to the clinic this morning and the doctor
checked him out, saw that the swelling has gone down a lot, and decided
we do not have to go to Australia at this time! We'll keep him on the
antibiotics for a full ten days, and then have another check-up next
week. (He still might have to go to Australia later, but at least not
this week.)

Thank you for praying! We really felt God's peace, and we knew he was in
control!

Blessings,
Dave and Sarah

Please pray for Matthew's eye.

2009-12-18T21:03:00.000+10:00

Dear friends and family,

When we were in the village Matthew started having eye problems that we
couldn't figure out. Swelling, redness, small lumps, no pain, no itchiness,
no fever. The symptoms got better and worse for a few weeks. We talked to
a doctor on the radio and he wasn't sure about it but we took Matthew to see
him here in Ukarumpa when we returned from the village. After getting the
advice from him and another doctor here, an eye doctor in Goroka (a city two
hours from here), and another doctor in Cairns (by phone), it looks like
they agree that Matthew should have a CT scan and/or MRI very soon (not
possible in PNG), but first try oral antibiotics as well as eye drops to see
if they help. Matthew will be having those and will see our doctor on
Tuesday morning to decide if he and Sarah need to go to Australia on
Wednesday 23rd December. They would go to Brisbane or possibly Adelaide.

The purpose of those tests would be to check if there is a tumor. Please
pray that Matthew will be healed. He's not bothered at all by the eye thing
and he doesn't realize the seriousness of it all. He doesn't seem to
realize he may not be here for Christmas (but the rest of us do). We know
God can heal him by Tuesday but we also know God may have way better plans
than ours.

Thank you for praying.

Love, Dave and Sarah

Troolin email update, 22 September 2009

2009-09-22T12:31:00.000+10:00

Dear Family and Friends,

It looks like we will be able to send and receive email one last time! We
are in Madang town at the moment getting ready to go to the village
tomorrow. Things are going well, except that someone is going to have to put
the village supplies in boxes and then into the truck tomorrow morning. Yes,
I guess that will be us. :)

Tomorrow morning we plan to drive the 2.5 hours to the village. Three things
that we would like to ask you to pray about are that the rivers wouldn't be
flooded (we are in the dry season now, so they should be OK unless it rains
today and tonight up in the hills), that one river in particular wouldn't be
too deep, and that we will be able to fix the problem with the gas fridge so
that we can use it.

In about a week, students at the SIL orientation course (whom we've been
teaching these last six weeks), will hike around in our area. As part of
their time they will work with the Buan people to build an office underneath
our village house! It will be wonderful to have a place where we can work!
We have planned to work on translation and vernacular prep schools on this
time out, as well as daily improving our knowledge of Sam. Please pray for
those things, and for the people working with us, for safety, good attitudes
for all of us, and servant hearts.

God's plans are perfect, and we're so grateful for the part you are playing
in God's plans for us!

God bless you,
Dave and Sarah

Troolin email update, 22 September 2009

2009-09-22T11:18:00.000+10:00

Dear Family and Friends,

God's plans are perfect, and we're so grateful for the part you are playing
in God's plans for us!

God bless you,
Dave and Sarah

Email Update: 16 June 2009

2009-06-16T09:55:00.000+10:00

Dear Family and Friends,

We have waited a bit before putting out this month's email update because our plans have been too unsure. But now we have the plan for this month! :)

Tomorrow we will drive to Madang and help out as center managers for two weeks! As well as the day-to-day managing of the center, Dave would also like to talk with leaders of several large church denominations and a university, to find out ways we can partner together to help interested Madang language groups receive training in translation and literacy. Also he will investigate infrastructure in the province (roads, airstrips, and so on). All of this research will go into planning for how SIL can be most effective and productive in initiating and supporting Bible translation and literacy in the province.

One big praise we wanted to share with you is that we were really glad the five Sam translators learned so much from the Translator's Training Course held from May to June! All of the team really pulled together well and were really excited to find out what verses they were going to start translating in their villages! We also saw the team working together better. We saw a miracle happen too, when one of the main translators, who had an infection in his gum and jaw (the dentist here said he would need an operation costing more than $800 US dollars!), decided to fast and pray that God would heal his jaw. The next time I could take him to the dentist to look at what other options we could take, the Sam translator looked at me and slowly said, "I don't need to go now." I asked why not! I was really not wanting to postpone this because of the pain he must be feeling. And he said, "I'm better. It doesn't hurt anymore!" He said it matter-of-factly, like he wasn't feeling as amazed as I was! And when I asked him more about it, he said the jaw was healing well, his teeth weren't loose anymore, and he was able to chew crackers on that side now! Praise the Lord for his care for us, and how he answers our prayers! Praise the Lord too for his people being willing to step out in faith.

Isn't it great to be children of our great God!

Blessings,

Dave and Sarah

Email update: 22 March 2009

2009-03-22T23:34:00.000+10:00

Dear Family and Friends,

We're sorry we haven't sent an update to you for so long!

Things have been so busy, and it just seems like we never have enough time.

Jan. 29 - Feb. 8 - We both unpacked and settled into Ukarumpa. Dave worked hard to draft a rough draft of an anthropology paper to present at the forthcoming anthropology conference.

Feb. 9 - 19 - Dave was away at an anthropology conference where he presented a rough draft of the paper he would like to write for a session on how vernacular education can be used by different groups for different ends.

Feb. 19 - 28 - We were both doing full time translation back into English of Gen. 12-21, for a consultant to use for our checking sessions.

Feb. 28 - Mar. 12 - We were checking Genesis 12-21 with a consultant and two Sam men. We were able to get all those chapters checked in the daytime and make all the changes in the evenings, and the two men carried a revised, finalized copy of Genesis 12-22 down to their villages! We have already had some good feedback from those passages! Praise the Lord!

Mar. 12 - 18 - Dave attended SIL's language and culture conference at Ukarumpa. He had to prepare for two presentations, one about the politics behind starting Sam language prep school in our village, and another about cargo cults (he was a co-presenter for that one).

Mar. 18 - 25 - In this current week, Sarah is working full-time with four Sam vernacular teachers, training them to teach using the literacy materials and developing more teaching resources in Sam.

Mar. 25 - Apr. 8 - We will both be attending SIL's Branch Conference, where we will look at what has been going on for the last two years and chart strategy for the next two years.

Please pray for us, because we both feel like rubber bands that are stretched very tight. How tight can we go? We pray that God will help us to get done what needs to get done, and be able to let go of things that aren't in His plan.

Blessings,

Dave and Sarah

December 29, off to the village in a helicopter!

2008-12-29T01:21:00.001+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We are in the middle of the "Night of Horror". :) Packing late at night, writing last minute emails, trying to think straight, all the time knowing that if we make a mistake, we're stuck with it until Jan. 29 when we come back to Ukarumpa.

We're going by helicopter, so that will be a blast! Now that it is rainy season it is too dangerous to try to drive out, through the four big rivers (and many smaller ones). It's a lot funner to fly out by helicopter!

It is so wonderful to be living in our new house! We are situated close to the center of the village, and we can see lots of houses. This means that whereas before we would leave our old village house and go and try to find people that were at home, not knowing who we would find or if we would find anyone, now we can see who is at home and what they are doing before even leaving our house! We feel less stress that way. We also feel less stress because the house isn't falling down like the old one! We don't have termites eating through the bathroom floor and the walls of our rat-proof room (much longer and it wouldn't have been rat-proof anymore! :) ). We don't worry about rain coming in through the cockroach-eaten palm thatch and falling on Joanna's bed (she was sleeping in the living room because we didn't have a room for her), or how we are going to get up on top of the roof to throw on another tarp (everyone said the roof beams were rotten and unsafe to climb on). The house doesn't lean and the floor is level! Wow, never before have I been thankful for a level floor! :) We don't have to worry about someone stealing our solar panels, since now they are on top of our house roof and very hard to steal. A big thing too is that we have a lot of light in the new house, and that seems to help with our attitude. For us, this new house is a Godsend, and we are so thankful for it! Praise the Lord for his gifts to his children! :)

We want to say a big "Thank You" to everyone who helped us with our new village house, from those who gave financially, prayed for us, and actually worked on the house with their two hands (FBC team, we were so blessed that you cared enough to come all that way to be a blessing!)! All are important, and God loves our sacrificial giving in all ways.

We have a lot to be thankful for in this Christmas season, when God sent Jesus to save us from our sins. We all don't deserve THIS present, and we need to make sure everyone knows that God has a present for them under the Christmas tree, with their name on it.

God bless,

Dave and Sarah Troolin

Report on the Oct-Dec village time.

2008-12-10T16:43:00.000+10:00

We are back in Ukarumpa now! We had a great time in the village, and I think having a good house out there helped a lot. We weren't counting down the days until leaving, and it seemed like because we had a good living situation we didn't have to worry so much overall.

We were able to do a quick check of Genesis 12-21, and since we checked chapter 22 previously, we now have a good draft of chapters 12-22! Also we decided to start vernacular prep schools in two villages, as the people have been suggesting for awhile. It was only until lately that we felt able to support the two prep schools. So now we will be very busy while we get materials ready for that!

Better go, but just wanted to give a brief update.

Take care,
Dave

Email update: 7 October 2008

2008-10-07T10:03:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

It's really good to be back with the family again! The three weeks (Sep. 3-24) that I (Dave) was away from the family in Brisbane for SIL meetings felt pretty long. The purpose was to participate in personal skills development training and Pacific Area staff orientation, and when you add in the chance to meet face-to-face and develop friendships with the other Pacific Area staff, it was really worth it! I enjoyed having a dedicated time (and consultants) to help me think through my skills and how I can use those skills in God's work. A very nice side benefit was that I was able to see a good friend who had left PNG a few years ago!

In a nutshell, I gained a vision of how I can help encourage SIL researchers to develop their skills in anthropology, and of the benefits of networking among other anthropologists, missionaries, non-governmental organizations, and the government.

While I was away, Sarah deftly handled the family and home life. But she is glad I'm back. :)

Soon I will go back to work on the village house. On October 13 I will drive down to Madang with some construction workers to finish the house. We'll have one crew there for one week, and then swap them out for some other people to work on the house for not quite a week. By the end of that, the house should be in pretty good shape and on October 24th the rest of the family will come and everybody else will go back to Ukarumpa. It will be amazing to be in our new house! We are going to have a young lady come to stay with our family for two weeks to begin to investigate the Sam culture as part of her desire to find out if God wants her to work in anthropology as a vocation.

Blessings,

Dave and Sarah

Email update: 17 June 2008

2008-06-17T14:43:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Dave made it back from the village on Saturday the 14th of June. The drive down and back was uneventful, but unfortunately the PURPOSE of the trip wasn't totally successful. He went with a friend to take the kit house up to the village, but a combination of a bad road, lots of rain beforehand, and a helpful bulldozer that turned the marginal road into a quagmire made it too difficult. The truck was stuck in the muck three times, and they didn't even get half way up to the village. Because the road wasn't going to be any better further up and they were running out of daylight hours, they decided to take the kit house from the beach where the barge was moored to a Sam speaking village on the main road. They worked through the night, stopping with the last load at 4:30 am. Now the kit house is in that village, some under a big tarp and some under a house (that is about 8 feet off the ground on posts). The main road has some serious mud problems further north because of all the rain we've been having, so he and his friend and another friend they picked up along the way decided to go back on the barge. They drove the truck and our hilux onto the barge and were in Madang by 11 am. They drove up to Ukarumpa that same day.

We have decided to go down tomorrow, Wednesday. We'll go to Madang first and then out to the village the next day. Our hilux can haul the cement bags and metal posts for the foundation a bit at a time. It takes approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes to drive between our village and the village where the house pieces are. We are working on a way to get the larger pieces up to the village also, so please keep praying that something would work out.

Please pray also for good weather the next few weeks, safe travel and working, and all the planning for tools, personnel, and materials. Finally, we really want to glorify God in all this, so please pray for good attitudes and a spirit of patience, endurance and servanthood.

We'll be greeting the team from Minnesota on June 29th, and then coming up to Ukarumpa on July 11th. The team will leave July 14th.

Love,

Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah

Email update: 1 June 2008

2008-06-01T22:53:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

In a nutshell, we are entering "Crunch Month." All of the last few months has been preparation, getting things ready for the village house, getting prepared for working on translation (by trnaslation training here at Ukarumpa), and the other bits and pieces we have to do.

A) On the house front, we have preparations ready to get the house to Madang by truck, then across the bay by barge, and then up the little road by truck. We hope we won't have to use the helicopter, because it isn't going to be available until July, which means we would have to leave the kit house pieces down on the coast, at the house of a respected church leader, until the helicopter could help us.

Please pray:

1) that the kit house company will transport the kit house to Madang THIS WEEK (before we need to load up the barge),

2) that Dave will have a safe trip down to Madang and to the village later this week to check out the road situation, and

2) that the village people will get excited and successfully fix the road up to the village so a truck can drive up to the village with the kit house.

B) On the translation training front, we have completed the five weeks of training, and the men have learned a lot and are more eager to work together and get going on translating more of the Scriptures! We have translated Genesis 22:1-19 as our training exercise, which is about Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac. We enjoyed finding Sam words for key terms like angel, altar, and sacrifice! The men have arrived back at their villages now.

Please pray:

1) that the men will work out a good working schedule so they can translate without taking time away from their gardening or community work, and

2) that community will start to recognize the good work the Sam translators are doing and will start to support them in practical ways, like helping them with gardening work.

C) In terms of all the bits and pieces of our lives, we feel like we have been able to get some of those extra things done during the translation training course, but we still have some to finish. We would like to be able to complete a lot of those other things before our whole family goes to the village on June 18th.

Thank you for your prayers!

Love,

Dave and Sarah

Checking Genesis 22:1-19!

2008-05-22T23:28:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends,

The latest is that today the five Sam men and I checked our translation of Genesis 22:1-19! We had a great SIL consultant, and it was very interesting to go through the whole process! I felt glad that I could understand some of what the Sam men said to each other in their language while discussing the various questions that the consultant put forth!

Better go, but just wanted to give a brief update.

Take care,
Dave

Email update: 5 May 2008

2008-05-05T12:58:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We are in the middle of an exciting and also tiring time. We are very glad to see that five Sam men have been interested enough to come to a translation training course in Ukarumpa! These five men come from two villages and are the core of the translation team. This course lasts for five weeks and we are very impressed with the training they are receiving here: from how to translate the Scriptures to typing to how to use a study Bible. They have devotions everyday, and they are surrounded by godly staff and students. Today we start the third week of this five week course. Komo, one of the Sam men, said to us recently that after coming to this course he feels more committed to the Sam translation program! Praise the Lord!

However, this is also a stressful time, as we prepare for building a house in the village. There are many details that haven't been decided yet, and the most important ones have to do with transport - this decision is difficult when we don't know if the road will be repaired by the time we will need to take food, people, and the house into the village! As of yesterday, no work has been done on the Raicoast highway, which is the road we need to take to get the kit house to the little road that goes up to the village (which also has problems, but if we can get it that far we can helicopter it in the last 4 miles or so). At this point we are hoping the main road will be fixed in time (about June 10th, when Dave wants to take the kit house (prefabricated sections) into the village). The little road from the main road to our village is probably not going to be useable for the big truck, so we will have to transport the house in by helicopter. Please pray that all these details will come together and we will have a house in the village for a team from Minnesota to work on! :)

We feel very blessed to be here in PNG, doing this work. Thank you for partnering with us!

God bless,

Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, Matthew, and Rebekah

Email update: 3 March 2008

2008-03-03T13:45:00.001+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We are almost ready to leave for the village. Tomorrow we will fly to Madang by plane, then on Thursday we'll fly to Buan by helicopter. We will return to Ukarumpa on April 16th.

We have a few things to pray about and some praises:

Please pray:

that we would be able to hold a literacy class, with ladies from Buan, to trial a Pre-Reading Primer that Sarah compiled.
that we would be able to also hold an English refresher class to prepare the translators to attend a training course in Ukarumpa in April-May.
that our children will have a fun time in the village and make many new friends. They are feeling a little apprehensive about making friends and feeling comfortable with the other children.
that we would receive the updated kit house plans soon (then we need to review and approve them, send them back, and get the quote - all this before they actually start making the house, which we hoped would be started before now).
that our village house would be in good enough shape for us to live in for the five weeks we plan to be out there.
that our truck, which is currently in a village near where we live, would be protected and in the next few weeks we would be able to take it to Madang for safe-keeping.
that two stressful situations here at Ukarumpa would be resolved peacefully: illegal stopping of water to the SIL Center and severe damage to one of the bridges between the outside world and the SIL Center.

Additional explanation on the previous point:

1) One of the bridges connecting the SIL Center (and other organizations in the area such as a high school and national agricultural institute) to other cities has been damaged by continual heavy rains and flooding. Currently no heavy trucks can use the bridge and that is how Ukarumpa obtains food, gas/petrol, and other things we require. We are praying that the bridge will be repaired soon.
2) There is a land dispute issue that is pending court action involving the water catchment area of Ukarumpa's non-potable town water. A local man has dismantled the water system. Most people still have rain water tanks providing them with water but, despite the heavy rains of recent weeks, some people are short of rain water. As well as the inconvenience of a lack of water there are other complications causing a tense situation in this area. Please pray for a peaceful resolution to this situation.

We can rejoice together:

that we have been able to complete updates to our website (http://troozshoes.netfirms.com and http://www.fbccamb.org/Page.aspx?id=191151)!
that we have been accepted to participate in the Translators' Training Course.
that the men's group had a really good time of fellowship at the last men's prayer breakfast last week (held in Ukarumpa once a month)!
that we have the materials all ready for our language work out in the village.

Thank you for standing with us in prayer!

Your friends,

Dave and Sarah Troolin

Email update: 7 February 2008

2008-02-07T09:33:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Here's an update of things that have been happening here during the last few weeks.

Dave went to the village to find out who wants to attend the translation training course held in April and May. He was gone for a week. He was able to drive to one of the Sam speaking villages, which was the one closest to the road and NOT the one in which we live. He then hiked up to Buan, and saw firsthand how the river has flooded and destroyed the road. After collecting the application forms and references for three Buan men, he then hiked back to the first village and gathered the applications and references from two men there.

The night before Dave was to drive back to Ukarumpa it rained very hard. The rivers between the village and Madang all flooded. One man said that the flooding only gets this high once every rainy season and it was right when Dave wanted to drive out! After checking the water level throughout the day, he decided not to chance it. The next day, he saw an amazing attempt by the Sam men that came with him, as they forded the river about 800 feet upstream where the river spread out wider, made a new road down a stream and up another stream, up a steep 8 foot high (45 degree slope) bank (an awesome display of manpower, as they pushed and the truck spun it's way up the hill), only to find that the next big river was even worse than the first. Dave left the truck at the house of the Lutheran district president, and came to Madang by dinghy, and then up to Ukarumpa by public transport.

Two days later, we went to the city of Lae to talk to the house building folks about our kit house plans. They are now working up adjusted plans for approval. Then they will start working on the house to get it ready to deliver to Madang in June!

When we returned to Ukarumpa, we worked with our regional area directors to finalize plans for what we hope to accomplish for 2008. We were encouraged to see how the things we accomplished in 2007 feed into the overall plan for the language program!

We are currently planning for our next village stay, March 4 April 15. We would appreciate your prayers for us as we work on getting ready. Please also pray for the village stay, that we would see good progress in our spoken language abilities and that the two workshops we hope to run (an English refresher course for the translators and a trial literacy course to test out some literacy primers) would be well-received. Please also pray starting now for the good group of people coming in June to build our village house!

God bless you,
Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah

Email Update: 12 December 2007

2007-12-12T13:44:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends,

Wonderful news! The visas have come for Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah! They arrived just as Dave was trying to book tickets to come back to be with us in Cairns. Instead he changed it all around and now Sarah and the children are booked to fly up to Port Moresby and then Ukarumpa on Friday December 14.

Thanks for all of your prayers about this! It has been a hard six weeks for our family as we've waited in different countries. We had no idea it would take this long and at times it's been difficult to be patient and praise God along the way. But we know that he is in control and has a good plan for us, and we are grateful that it was his plan to send the visas along now!

Love,
Dave, Sarah, Joanna, Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah

Email Update: 16 November 2007

2007-11-16T21:10:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends,

Thanks for your prayers about the PNG visas for Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah. So far Port Moresby has not given the High Commission in Canberra permission to issue them. Sarah is still waiting in Cairns with the three children. Dave had to leave Australia because his Australian visa was about to expire and now he and Joanna are settling back into life in PNG. Things are going ok for all of us where we are, but, of course, we'd rather be together! Please keep praying!

Love,
Dave, Sarah, Joanna, Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah

The 11th hour update

2007-11-01T20:09:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We are here in Cairns, and have been wondering if the visas would arrive in time for us to come to PNG together. But they haven't come yet, so we have moved to Plan B, which is for Dave and Joanna to fly up to Ukarumpa tomorrow, and Sarah and the three younger children to stay in Cairns and fly up later. We don't know how long it will take to get the visas, but we're hoping it doesn't take very long! Please pray with us that the visas will arrive soon. She will be staying in a motel run jointly by Wycliffe Bible Translators and Mission Aviation Fellowship. The Lord knows what is happening, and we feel perfect peace knowing he is in control!

Thank you, dear friends!

Love,

Dave and Sarah

Troolin news flash - 29 October 2007

2007-10-29T19:33:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We are in the middle of packing and last-minute jobs for our departure tomorrow. We have a prayer point to share with you. At this point, we do not have visas for the three younger children, so they cannot enter PNG. We have decided to fly to Cairns, since those tickets are costly to change, and wait. We hope to have their visas back in time to fly up to Papua New Guinea all together on Friday. If the visas do not come by then, Dave and Joanna will fly up on Friday and Sarah will stay in Cairns with the other three children until the visas arrive. Please pray that the visas will come in time so we can all fly up to Papua New Guinea together!

Thank you for your prayers!

Love,

Dave and Sarah

Email Update: 18 October 2007

2007-10-18T10:52:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We have been having a wonderful time here in Adelaide! It's been a time for adding a new person to our family, doing all the associated paperwork for the three governments with which we relate, catching up with many friends (some we haven't seen for nearly ten years!), reuniting with our family, and writing technical papers about the Sam culture.

Family

We've been living with Sarah's family, and it's been really fun to see they and the kids connect and get to know each other better! We like connecting with them too. :) We were also able to spend about five days with some of their cousins in Wodonga, and they got along very well together. We thought about leaving them there, as they all bounced on the trampoline, but Sarah said we shouldn't. :)

Work

Dave has been working on writing one of the two anthropology papers we need to finish about the Sam culture. It's about the social organization of the Sam people, and encompasses a huge amount of information. At the moment, he has a good rough draft, and is in a good position to finish that before the end of the year. He has also been working on a rough draft of another anthropology paper for the conference he attended in February. This paper deals with literacy, and a theory about how to encourage greater interest among the Sam people in their literacy program. This paper is due Nov. 1, and is causing Dave some stress.

Government

The children are all finished with getting updated with new Australian passports. We have submitted all the paperwork needed for their US passports and Rebekah's report of birth abroad certificate, and now we just have to wait for them to mail the documents back to us. However, we are facing a difficulty with the visas to go back to PNG. We hope the visas will be ready before Oct. 30, but at the moment it's a bit uncertain. Please pray with us that we will be able to get the visas in time, and don't have to change or forfeit our airline tickets!

This brief summary gives you an idea of what we have been doing. At least it gives you an overview - we don't have time or space to tell you all about the donuts, lattes, bookstores, fish & chips, ABC kid shows on TV, a Colin Buchanan concert (an Christian Australian kids' entertainer), the biggest library in the southern hemisphere, holding a koala, seeing all the cousins, anties, uncles, and all the other things we have enjoyed while we have been here. But we also look forward to getting back to PNG and seeing friends and getting back into the work there. We are feeling like it is time to go back, and we are thankful to the Lord for giving us that peace!

Love,

Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, Matthew, and Rebekah

Baby Rebekah is born!

2007-08-28T11:42:00.001+10:00

We are so happy to meet little Rebekah Grace! What a cute little girl! She was 7 lbs. 3 oz., and was born at 12:17 am, August 23rd. Now we are moving into the sleepless nights, crying baby phase. :)

We praise the Lord for giving us this little girl!

The Newsletter Ritual

2007-07-09T11:18:00.000+10:00

I just finished sending out our July prayer letter. It's always a deal. It seems like this time was more time-consuming than usual, because we had about 10 pictures. It's fun to include pictures, but it takes time to resize them, arrange them, and then write something interesting about them. We hope people like it! We already have about seven returns, from emails that can't get through. That's part of the job too - keeping up with "the undeliverables".

Blessings,

Dave

Email update: 6 June 2007

2007-06-06T13:57:00.001+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We flew back to Ukarumpa on June 4th, and now we are slowly getting unpacked and settled in again. We had a lot of emails to work through when we came back (we didn't have email access in the village).

The village time went very well, and we felt like we made good progress on language learning, relationship building, gathering data for the anthropology and grammar papers we will be writing, and sharing the Gospel. We also were so happy to see the three children begin to make friends in the village. They each have someone they like to be with, and they have activities they like to do with them! That is a real answer to prayer! In the beginning we were worried and sad for our kids because they wanted to play but they didn't know what games the kids play or the language, and we could see that they were really discouraged. Now they enjoy learning new Sam words and spending time with their friends. God is faithful and He worked it out wonderfully! Thank you too for your prayers for that situation.

We all stayed reasonably healthy, including "Herbie" inside of Sarah's tummy. Joanna had two different kinds of rashes, and one that spread all over her body, but that faded after a week or so. All of our kids ran around with bare feet, like the village children, so there were various wounds associated with that behavior, but we tried to stay on top of putting antibiotic ointment on the sores every night, and the sores didn't get nasty.

Sarah's grandmother died while we were in the village, so that was sad for us. Her death made it possible for us to talk with some of our friends about where they would go if they died, and one man, a good friend and sort of a grandfather for our kids who attends a church in the village, said he didn't think there is anything after death. He said most of the Sam people thought the same. So when their family and friends die, they don't think they will ever see them again! That opened up a wonderful time of sharing what the Bible says, and how to be saved. In the Sam area, there is a very strong tendency toward legalism, and we faced a bit of a challenge dealing with that. Another man is dying of cancer, and he had been consulting sorcery practitioners to find the cause of the illness, so Dave went to share the Gospel with him, but we don't know what he will decide. Please pray for him. His name is Pang, and he used to be a leader of a church, but now has really fallen away.

We will leave it at that for now, since it's very hard to put 8 weeks into a short page update! :) Stay tuned for our prayer letter, which we hope to write in the next few weeks.

Love,

Dave and Sarah Troolin

Email update: 25 January 2007

2007-01-25T15:39:00.001+10:00

Dear Friends,

We are overjoyed to be able to announce the addition of 'Herbie' to our family. He/she is due at the end of August. The last few weeks have been difficult emotionally for us as we have had some complications and have wondered if Herbie would actually make it through it all. Today at an ultrasound we saw Herbie's heart beating and we heard it too! We PRAISE GOD for his gift and we are so thankful for all your prayers for our family. Please continue to pray for us, especially for good health for Sarah and Herbie.

Love,
Dave, Sarah, Joanna, Samuel, Matthew and Herbie

Email update: 15 January 2007

2007-01-15T11:29:00.001+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We are having to change our plans. While all of you good folk thought we were out in the village eating grubs, we have been in Ukarumpa going through a health related difficulty. Two days before driving down to Madang, Sarah began to have some disturbing symptoms and the clinic advised us to wait a week before going down to Madang. They didn't want us to be out in a village where it would be difficult to get out if we had a serious problem.

So we are waiting in Ukarumpa for Sarah to feel better. We will write again later, when we know more.

God bless,

Dave and Sarah

Email update: 5 January 2007

2007-01-05T16:22:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Isn't it amazing to be into 2007? Time passes, everything changes and we get older, and yet God is always faithful. Praise the Lord!

It is time for another village stay. Our Christmas time here at Ukarumpa, with our friends and cooler climate, was wonderfully encouraging and refreshing, but we are looking forward to getting back to the village as well.This time we will be in the village for 5 weeks. We will be driving to Madang on Sunday, seeing expatriate friends there and buying supplies, and then flying by helicopter to Buan village on Tuesday. We will be out of email contact during this time, and we will communicate with the SIL center by two-way radio. We plan to get back to Ukarumpa on Feb. 11.

Via two-way radio Dave has been talking with our neighbor in Buan, and we found out last week that the heavy plastic we had put up over the roof (and the numerous holes in the palm thatch) has broken up and fallen off. We don't know for sure the extent of the damage. Sometimes things get exaggerated, as a way of highlighting changes the speaker thinks we should make. But in any case, this is unfortunate. We hope the village people will weave new palm thatch to repair the roof so the roof will be good for another 3 years. Please pray that the people will voluntarily get together and repair the roof!

During this coming village stay we are planning on doing another translation workshop on the first few chapters of Luke. The goal of the workshop will be to train the translation team in translation principles, see who really wants to be on the translation team, and translate and check the first chapter of Luke. We are excited! We will also work more on literacy development and language learning (trying to only speak the Sam language, which is very hard to stick with!).

Please pray for safe travels, good health (the kids and Sarah have been under the weather recently), a leak-proof village house roof, good camaraderie among the translation team, and good progress with literacy development and language learning. Please pray that we would be good examples of followers of Christ.

Thank you and God bless each of you,

Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, and Matthew

Email update: 5 January 2007

2007-01-05T16:21:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Isn't it amazing to be into 2007? Time passes, everything changes and we get older, and yet God is always faithful. Praise the Lord!

Thank you and God bless each of you,

Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, and Matthew

Last village email for a month.

2006-11-29T11:10:00.000+10:00

Dear friends and family,

We have had an interesting last week or so. First off, we have decided to leave the village early, to take part in a seminar about a new SIL software package that has just been upgraded, and which we want to use to organize all our village language and cultural data. That means we will leave here on Dec. 1 (instead of Dec. 7), and arrive in Ukarumpa on Dec. 2. The seminar is held on Dec. 4-5. We hope to get some good hints and overview of the program, so we can make the maximum use of this excellent software.

We have had several uninvited guests, besides the rain bugs that flock to our lights at night and their huge cousins, the big black beetles. Last Tuesday night, a leaf flew in to buzz crazily around, to do an exuberant dance with our light. The leaf was about 4 in. long and green, and had intricate markings showing the veins in the leaf. It turned out to be a cleverly disguised grasshopper! It was just amazing! Then the next night we had a big huge brown grasshopper that just looked like a grasshopper, or rather, like a commando grasshopper, with huge legs and antenna, and a big blockish head. It took a lot to kill him, and he put up a good fight. On Sunday night, Sarah saw a flicker of gray that was just a blur, going to underneath our kitchen cabinet. The blur was a rat, which obviously hadn't read the "No tresspassing" signs. So, we now have put out more rat poison, and we'll see what we see.

On Saturday I was spraying antiseptic liquid bandaid solution on my arm, and when it didn't come out, I looked at it and the liquid came out at just that moment, squirting into my left eye. This solution, as you might infer, is supposed to land on the skin and then make a thin layer of protection, and here I had put it right on my eyeball. I shot up out of my chair and stumbled over to the kitchen sink, and tried to rinse my eye with water. The cannister has a warning that you should not put it in your eye, but it didn't say anything like if you are in a remote area, then leave immediately to get to medical help! :) I thought that since the solution dries when it is exposed to air, then I should make sure the eyeball was wet as much as possible, so I was a sight, alternately blinking and closing my eyelid!

I had an ambulance run on Tuesday last week, with a lady that fainted and was having heavy bleeding. It turned out to be a pregancy complication - her third miscarriage in a row (She already has 7 kids). Someone came to get me, and asked if I could take her to the Health Centre at a village about 45 minutes away. I said "yes" immediately, and after getting all my stuff together (water and a tarp), I got in the car. It had a problem with the electrical system again, and just had a "check bettery" light. A week earlier when this same problem happened, I had no headlights, turn signals, fan, gas gauge, temp gauge, ignition or 4WD lights. So, I was wondering how it was going to go. It was starting to get into dusk, about 5:25 pm, and it would be dark around 6:20 or so. If I hurried, maybe I could get back before it was too dark.

When we got her to the Health Centre, it was hard to work on her because of having to use flashlights, which none of us had because we had left so quickly. But finally a few flashlights came from the people down there, and the two health workers got the IV drip in her and the oxygen. She looked very still and like she wasn't breathing, until they started the oxygen. The light was so bad that they had to really work hard to find the vein to put the drip into.

After we'd gotten her in, my friend went to talk to the Madang Hospital, and for about 15 minutes they didn't respond on the radio. But finally they came up, and said we should take her to the Hospital as soon as we could. My friend asked me if I could help, as they had to vehicles there at Ileg. I really wanted too, but I was having doubts about whether I could get to Madang (2 hours away) in the dark, with no headlights. We were both trying to figure out what to do, and my friend asked the Hospital to send an ambulance and we would meet it halfway. It turns out that it wasn't really halfway because the ambulance can't go very fast because the front wheels and steering wheel wobble.

So I went out to the car, and tried to figure out what was causing the electrical problem. Before, it was an electrical short, and the symptoms were the same. I would wiggle and reposition a wire, as another guy was shining a flashlight on the area, and then would see if the warning light went off, and then would try another wire. But no solution. Finally I thought I should make sure the lights didn't work, so I would know if we needed to try to round up a savvy guy from the village. So I got in, started the engine, and - the lights worked! Still no turn signals, or fan, or any other lights, but at least we had the headlight. So I think that was probably a miracle.

We were able to clean up the lady and put her in the truck again, this time on a mattress, and then we drove off toward town. It was dark by this time, but we had our headlights! We crossed all the rivers fine, but one was pretty unnerving, when we drove in and then it got deeper and deeper until the headlights were under the water for about 3 seconds, and we could sort of see where we were going. Sometimes it was dark and sometimes we would get a glimmer of light as if it was underwater, which it was! I never have tried to go through the rivers at night, so this was a new experience.

We came to the ambulance, around 9 pm. We tranferred the lady to the ambulance, as a guy who lived there watched, and he happened to have a solution to my car problem. It turns out that if you wiggle the fuse, the lights work again! So now we have lights back, and we are feeling much better about driving around now.

On a closing note, the lady was discharged yesterday, and she came up to our village yesterday and slept here. Today she was going to walk up to her village, just in time to take part in a school graduation ceremony and singsing!

Love,

Dave and Sarah

Unexpected stay in Madang

2006-11-17T13:23:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends,

We had a one day trip to Madang last week, which turned into two days, because the truck developed an electrical short on the trip to Madang! We were driving up to Madang, and we'd crossed two rivers about 3 feet deep at the deepest parts, and then I saw the fuel gauge start to drop to zero in about 2 seconds. The fan stopped working, and I saw that the turn signals weren't working either. Somebody we were bringing to Madang (we had about 7 people in the back - deciding who will come is always a big deal, as I'm sure you can imagine!) yelled that he wanted to wash in the river before we got to town, but I said we couldn't stop because the engine might not start again, and we'd be stuck in the boondocks.

It turned out that it was an electrical short, and we had to stay in Madang overnight to get it fixed. We enjoyed being stuck in Madang though, with ceiling fans, restaurants, and friends. :)

We made it back to Buan village fine on Thursday, and arrived in time to have some light to get unpacked and start making supper. When we got here, the house was in great shape - our waspapa had slept on the porch at night, and stayed around the house during the day! We really appreciated his help. Probably no one would have broken in, and we had put all the important things inside the storage room and locked it, but still it would have been a big "hevi" and aggravation.

Now that we're back, we have figured out we have 22 days left. We will be very busy these last few weeks, doing language learning, and setting up a system for reviewing language.

I went out with the men to cut the Aid Post grass, and I found out that a man from Bom, north of us a bit, in the same language family as Sam, was working with the mining company down south, about 50 km from us, at a place called Passamuk. A local man was up on a digger or something, and he couldn't operate it - he'd said on his application that he knew how to operate the machine. So the Chinese boss said to get down, and replaced him with the Bom man. As the Bom man drove out of the yard, the local man's family came and tried to hurt him with a bush knife, and ended up cutting his arm and fingers on one hand.

So on Monday, as we were cutting the grass, I saw two guys from Buan going down to Bom to see the man and have a meeting to figure out what to do, and they thought the group would probably send a group to fight with the Passamuk people. But when I asked why we were banding with the Bom people (I thought maybe it was a thing like if the threat is outside the area, then the whole area bands together against it), the guys said that the real issue was that the mining company was going to send a pipeline through the Raicoast land, and wasn't going to hire locals to do the work. So, probably this man being cut was really an excuse to address the bigger issue.

Regarding a different company that started work in our area, on Tuesday I heard that a local man had stopped the lumber company workers here, and told them that before they could continue, they had to make the second road through the mountain range over to the coast. Maybe that was something they had all agreed upon before, but the company was just ignoring it and hoping no one would notice. Or maybe our community is asking for more and more stuff, now that they have the company on the hook. So far they have asked for a new Aid Post building, and new school buildings. There are two sides, and I don't know where we are in this issue yet. But I think our people are asking for more and more things. And only one of the four clans have agreed to sell their logs, so the company has the right to get logs from only that one clan's land! So the road and all the buildings are being built and only one clan loses their logs. So that will be interesting to see what happens.

We went to our local market Wednesday, held at the Aid Post, about a 3 minute walk from our house. We used the Sam language to buy things, and walked away with cucumbers, sweet potatoes, bananas and some huge beans. It's great! They just started this recently, and we think it's for the people from Erima, whose gardens were destroyed by too much rain.

We worked on making a metal-roofed shelter for the car, which will also collect rain water for our water tank. We made it yesterday, Thursday, and it looks really good. I hope it works. We had to anchor the gutter to some bamboo, and it wasn't sloped very well - actually it sags a little in the middle! :) But in a good rain we'll get some rain in the tank. Right now we are depending on a pipe from a spring uphill, but that was blocked by some mischief makers a few weeks ago, and reminded us that we really need two sources of water, so we don't have to go to the river and carry our water up!

We found out Friday that the people in one of the village we pass through on the way to Madang have fixed part of the road (which was tricky to pass through, but do-able) and now charge vehicles 20 kina to drive on the fixed part. We don't want to pay, but maybe in 3 weeks, when we need to drive to town, this situation will be resolved.

Take care,

Dave and Sarah

Getting down to language learning, and a Birthday party!

2006-11-01T14:08:00.000+10:00

Dear Friends and Family,

We normally connect to get our emails on Friday, but we had to connect a little earlier this week.

We have been getting more confident in language learning, and have been getting out a bit more. We went down to a fish damming event on the Saturday of the first week, a few days later we went to the big river where we enjoyed splashing around, and Dave went up to visit the logging camp two days ago. On the way he saw several gardens, and we hope to visit those with the children sometime. We had planned on doing everything monolingually, and that is still our goal, but it is frustrating for Dave who wants to talk about things that we haven't learned yet, and are pretty advanced, as well as important, such as the practices of the logging company, our plans for starting translation next year, etc.! Please pray for our language learning!

We are doing very good healthwise. Joanna's sores are looking very good now, and Matthew is over his cold and the breathing problems! Praise the Lord for that! Sarah cut Matthew's hair this week. His curls were beautiful but it was all getting too long and hot for our little BOY! There's a bit of lift to his hair still and a bit of wave and curl, so he looks quite stylish!!

We have been having great sunny days, so we are able to charge up our battery and use it for printing, using the computer, and the lights and radio without worrying about getting too low. That is a praise too!

On the 29th we celebrated Samuel's birthday! We had two parties, one with the people where we played games, ate popcorn, and had a great time, and the second with just our family where we had a great cheesecake pie that Sarah made and opened presents we brought from Ukarumpa. It was a very fun day, and now we are looking forward to the next party - Dave's brithday is on Nov. 19.

Our good friend, Paulus, came from Songgum on Monday, and we enjoyed talking with him again. He lives in another village, and came to Buan to visit the health clinic to get medicine for his three children. The clinic "doctor" is on strike though, because the community hasn't been meeting their obligations to him, such as digging him a hole for his pit toilet, and finishing his kitchen. So, he came to see us, and I was able to help him a little with medicine, but I encouraged him to visit the other clinic in the area because the symptoms were confusing and I wasn't sure what the children had.

Before leaving he said that he had had several offers of work with different companies, but he told them he couldn't take the offers. He felt like although he really wanted to get work to help with physical needs, he sensed that God didn't want him to leave the translation work. He felt like he had to stay in the area to continue helping us with the translation work. Almost all of the other translation and literacy team members have gone to work with a mining company and a logging company in the area. He said, "But I am going to keep working with you, and stay loyal to you, because this work is really satisfying to me spiritually." Wow! Praise the Lord for Paulus and the other two committed people, Paul and Philip!

Take care,

Dave and Sarah

PS: I didn't forget Pete's email address - it's just that it's on the other computer, and we left it in Ukarumpa! Could you guys please forward this to Pete and Danica? Thanks!

A rat a day...

2006-10-27T15:51:00.000+10:00

Dear Family,

Sounds delicious, eh? :)

We didn't eat it, silly! Today we found it, first as it was in the kitchen cupboard, slowly feeling the effects of the poison, and then a few hours later, as it was dead, under the desk. But, we disposed of it quickly and how we're in good shape. Hopefully we won't find empty peanut shells in the kitchen cupboard now!

We're mainly healthy. Bubby still has a cold, and he sometimes has a fever. But the sores are all under control, so we're thankful for that.

We have been going full speed ahead on language learning. We have been trying to only communicate with people in Sam, but it is REALY hard - Dave especially has questions that he want's to ask, that he can't figure out how to ask in Sam, so it's frustrating for him, and he occassionally lapses back into the trade language. But, we still want to say more and more in Sam.

We have been having mostly sunny mornings, and then overcast afternoons, with rain a few nights. When the nights are rainy we get rainbugs that launch themselves in droves at the lights we have on in the house. If we turned out the lights we would have no rain bugs, but also it's very hard to read or work on things. If it's not raining, then we get the big flying bugs that have a lot of juice inside them. Splat! Amazing amount of juice inside! :)

OK, better send this. Take care, and love,

Dave and Sarah

We've been in Buan a whole day now!

2006-10-17T13:43:00.000+10:00

Hello all,

We drove up the hill into Buan village yesterday, around 2:30 pm. It went fine driving through the various rivers. The highest the water came was up to the hood, but it wasn't flowing fast and wasn't difficult to get through. We are glad to be here, but we have been very busy with cleaning everything we left, and getting all the major systems in working order. Now we have the water filter cleaned and functioning, as well as the solar system, the water system, the two-way Codan radio, and the stove and fridge. We have a resident occupying the oven. A rat moved in sometime in the last year, and we can see its nest through the glass in the oven door - very cozy! We see it chewed off and took the lower part of our shower curtain, and has some fluff from somewhere! The email communication system is one of the last things to get working, and I hope I can send this email. If you are reading it, then you will know I was successful. :)

Two of our kids have health problems we are worried about. Joanna has sores on her bottom, and they look red and painful. Matthew has had a cold and is breathing fast. He tends to get congestion in his lungs, so we hope that doesn't happen here. Please remember us in your prayers if you think of us.

Thank you and love,

Dave and Sarah

Late Tuesday night, still working.

2006-10-10T23:31:00.001+10:00

Hello all,

We are closer to getting ready to go to Madang. The truck is fixed, the men
have been told about our contract arrangement for working on the house while
we are away, our yard man knows what we are doing, and we have finished
printing, stamping, and gluing our latest prayer letter! I'm sure we will
think of something we missed, probably while we try to get some sleep in a
few hours, and hopefully we will remember it in the morning!

We had Matthew's birthday party today, and it was really fun! He is such a
cutie! :)

Take care,
Dave and Sarah

2006-05-29T15:44:00.000+10:00

We are packing up what we need for the next two months in the village. We will drive out tomorrow about 11 am, but knowing us, actually it will be about 1 pm. :)

The men are still working on the house, but hopefully we will get done with all the house repairs/extensions next week!

Catch,
Dave