Hannah

We had Hannah's party in Lenakel with the Stapletons and Greg Carlson. Here's Hannah opening her earrings. (And Caleb's typical joyful self).

Hannah on photoshop

This was Hannah's first attempt (with my help) at photoshopping herself into a picture. It's her desktop image.

Birthday month

Hannah loves that she was my 26th birthday present (nine years ago now). I just realized that I didn't post a picture from our birthday week. Here's MY cake. Hannah's was pink.

Hannah's Birthday

Hannah's birthday will last as long as the presents keep arriving! Click here to see the 4 minute video on youtube where Hannah opens her music box. She said such nice things, I had to post the video!

Caleb made a video; making explosives

Click here to see the video edited all by himself, adding music and titles.

Abby Reading

I posted a video on our youtube channel of Abby reading a tough passage in the Bible. See it here.

Back from Literacy Workshop

We're back from teaching 100 students how to read in their own language; they did a great job! By the end of the first day they were reading scripture portions.

I also posted some videos on youtube of out kids.

This one has Kate singing a song I learned at Out Door Ed (remember that) in 5th grade.

This one Caleb shot himself on a tripod. It's him on the zipline.

This link has Ken teaching kids in Yetap how to read their own language.

Caleb learning photoshop

Caleb learned Adobe Photoshop in like one week.

How It's Made Bible

I made a 1 min parody of How It's Made: the Bible. Click here for it.

Teaching at Enafa

Abby and I went to the Southern Islands Presbyterian Bible College so I could teach for three days. The students were very engaged in the material, which was nice.

The highlight was the blue hole. You drive on the typical muddy north Tanna roads for 5Km past Enafa, and then hike through a peanut field, down the coral ledge, and dive 10 feet off the ledge into the water. Then you swim UNDER the small entrance into the cave. Once you're in, you see vivid blue water at your feet, light by the sun rays coming through the small hole. There were about 15 of us-- students at Enafa-- andI wondered how we'd all fit in the cave. Once inside, you realise that the cave is about 100 feet across and five stories high. I'd heard there was a hole at the top of the cave letting light in, but I didn't realize it was a 20 foot wide hole, which lets ample light in. We swam to the edge of the cave where you can stand on rocks. There, I noticed that the students had brought a can of white paint and were writing their names on the walls. Abby wrote hers, but a student came and changed it to "Hapi." That upset Abby for about 1 second, then she got over it. Sorry there's no pic of the cave- next time we'll get a cheap waterproof camera.

Since we dived off the 10 foot coral ledge, that left me wondering how we'd get up. The students scaled up the ledge just fine. Abby did fine. I couldn't do it. After hesitating and hesitating, someone said, "Do you want to go around the easier way?" Wheww!

It's also thrilling to stand at the edge of the hole at the top of the cave, looking down inside the cave.

I got sick towards the end of my stay, and this caused a theological problem for the leaders there, who figure that sickness is a result of God's punishment.

Camera works

We haven't been able to take videos in a while, because the record button on our video camera is broken. Then Caleb had an idea, "Buy a battery for the remote and use that to control the camera." We'd never used the remote. We bought a new battery, and it still didn't work. Caleb said, "Let me try." He got it working. Here's our most recent video. 3 Girls singing

Church in Lenakel

We went to church on the other side of the island, Loanpakel, today. That was so I could do dissertation interview #23, the second-to-last. This church doesn't have a person trained to preach, so they skip the sermon! Better than heresy, I suppose! Makes the church service shorter, too. After the service and the interview, they gave us a feast of yam, rice, beef, pineapple, grapefruit. Then we went to Tanna Lodge and swam in the pool and ocean. Caleb lost his bottom retainer in the waves, which devistated him. But he takes such good care of his retainers, we let reasurred him it wasn't the end of the world.

After swimming, we found a store open on Sunday, which was nice. I asked the shop-keeper if he was an SDA. He said no. "So, how can you work on Sunday then?" He said, "Mi go harem toktok blong heven, ale, mi kambak mo swet." Which I took to mean, "I went and took care of the heaven thing in church, and now I have to come back and work for a living."

Tomorrow, Abby and I are going to the Southern Island's Presbyterian Bible College so I can teach for a few days.

How much do you know?

I am continually astonished at the proportion of cultural knowledge we LACK compared to the amount we KNOW, even after more than 6 years in a village. It sure makes me compassionate on those who move to American cities as adults, and have a hard time learning the language, let alone the culture. I think the language is easy compared to the culture! For example, I happened to ask Linda if there is ever a time when women blow conch shells. She said, "Oh, yeah, when they burn nases leaves." I said, "When is that." She said, "You know, when they burn the monapitang leaves that are bad." "When's that?" "Like, when there's a hot thing, and then a cold thing, and then the circumcision ritual is finished." "Huh?" "Well, they burn nases leaves, and whip the moms of the circumcised boys, and blow conch shells, and stamp out the fire. Then the circumcision ritual is done."

It's like, if I didn't know any of that, how much else do I not know?

Picture is of Linda Naug digging a taro hole with a "tap" digging stick.

Honey

The men were smoking bees out of a banyan so they could get the honey. Abby, of course, wanted to eat the honey from the comb. But I saw it wasn't honey, it was bee larvae! "I want to eat them!" "No, Abby, I won't let you eat the bee larva." A kid in the village said, "If you eat the worm, it's good."

That's where I draw the line

New Video- God Bless America in Bislama

Glad to have our internet back after a few days. Jacob, had an idea of translating "God Bless America" into Bislama. Here's my shot at it:
Click here for the video.

hike on yasur

That's Caleb and Hannah up there. We discovered that you really need shoes and socks to hike this. There are long slivers of silicon (well, glass, really) all over the leeward side of the ridge.

Kite flying on Mt Yasur ashplane

Good day for kites.

Mud

"Kenny, did you go off-roading?"
"No, honestly. I only went to town."
"Kenny, go out there and look at your truck and then look me in the face and tell me you didn't go off-roading!"
"Seriously, I only went to town!

Jumping for Joy

They wanted to PROVE they could hover in mid air. This picture proves it.

Village check of the Thessalonians

I checked 1 and 2 Thessalonians today with two savvy men who live in Vila. Even though they are both readers, and both worked for the government for 30 years before retiring, they found checking the scripture to be unfamiliar territory, and were hesitant. However, after a few chapters, they got the hang of it. By the end, I didn't even need to ask comprehension questions-- I just read a verse, and they'd tell me what it means. I was pleased that the bit about the "hidden power of sinfulness" wasn't totally confusing to them. However, "Big House of God" just doesn't seem to work as an equivalent for "temple."

You can see a little video of our village check by clicking here.

Kate can ride a bike

Kate can ride a bike now-- right before her fifth birthday. The video is on our youtube channel.

Rascals

We awoke last night to a man in our bedroom, stealing our laptops. We screamed, he ran and went through the kitchen window. He got two laptops that are oldish and don't have much info. Thankfully, he didn't get a chance to get our good laptops with all our work on them. We didn't get a picture of him to post on the blog, but here's a picture of our new center manager Robert Harmon installing new security bars.

Trip across the island

I drove in the mud across to the Southwest side of Tanna. Needed the winch to pull me up in five different places, and I came to the conclusion that if you need the winch five times, you probably shouldn't be driving. At one point, I was going up a steady incline that was too muddy, so the truck slipped. I slammed on the brakes, and the truck began slipping backwards despite me standing on the brakes. That's a terrible feeling! Jakob grabbed his girl and jumped out of the truck. I had him rip out the winch cable and wrap it around a tree so the truck wouldn't slip any further. At one point, the truck was bogged down in a river, the water was about as high as the tailgate in the back left wheel. Wish I had pictures, but, those times are so stressful, I'm not in the mood for taking pictures!

On the drive, I also so the first Digicel Cell phone tower to be knocked over and destroyed by the inhabitants of Yenfitana-- that is, the very people that the tower was benefiting destroyed it, after just one year of cell phone service. Actually, I'm surprised it took a year for one of those towers to get destroyed. Tried to take a pic of that-- very sad to see this huge tower laying on its side; but my camera battery was dead. Vanuatu's Mobile Force and police were coming up the track behind me to see if they could arrest someone for destroying the tower; but their truck couldn't make it up the hill.

Webcam Online

Back by popular demand, our live webcam will do video feed during daylight hours Sunday January 25 (Vanuatu time) which means from about noon on Saturday Jan 24 till about midnight, in America. See what you can see! It'll show people coming and going to church in the morning, and will show the volcano if the weather is clear. The link is at nehrbass.info/wc.html

The kind of bike ride I would have done 20 years ago

I finally got the courage to ride my mtn bike from the gate to the parking area of Mt Yasur (had to push the bike the rest of the way up the hill, to the actual rim)-- 35 minutes up, 10 minutes down. Saw some bike tracks from earlier in the day, but they petered out at the first major incline. Probably someone who didn't have low gears. Ask me tomorrow how my legs are feeling.