Guest Post by Kaitlyn - Middle School Field Trip

Last Thursday, I got to go with my class to Lae on the Middle School Field trip.

We drove about 3 hours to get there.

 When we got there, we got to go see the Crocodile Farm where they raise crocodiles for their skins.  They have about 35,000 crocodiles there and we got to see their eggs.  We also got to hold a baby crocodile.  When I held it, I thought it felt like a bag of jello covered in scales.

 The next factory we got to see was the Gala factory.  They made ice cream, popsicles, ice cream cones, a type of koolaid and baking powder.  They had a huge freezer where they had huge cylinders of ice cream, and there was one machine that made ice cream bars.  When we were there, they were making tubs of mint chip, and chocolate covered coffee ice cream bars.  At the end of the tour, they gave ice cream bars out to everyone.  When we were leaving, they handed out two more entire boxes of ice cream bars to take with us.

Sporting some awesome (?) head coverings

Baking Powder???  Seems like that doesn't quite fit with the frozen/dessert theme!

Somehow, "Pure Sugar" is considered a selling point!

 

We stayed at the SIL Guesthouse in Lae, were we were able to go swimming at least twice every day.  I stayed in a room with all of my friends.  All 5 of us 8th grade girls got to stay together. 

 

The next day we got to the Rainforest Habitat where I got to hold a snake.  We saw lots of birds and animals that are native to PNG.

 

Checking out some wildlife.  Notice one of the snakes the kids got to carry around with them...

Fascinated by a crocodile or cassowary or something!

A wood carving for sale....Gotta love the crocodile eating someone part!

After that, we took tours of the Lae Biscuit Factory and also the Coca Cola factory, where they make all different kinds of sodas.  They were very interesting.  At the Coke factory they gave out tons of free sodas! I drank 3 different ones!

Middle school girls with their chaparones/parents/teachers

The whole gang (minus Matt, who was taking the picture)

On Saturday, we drove back to Ukarumpa and got home a little after 1pm.

It was an awesome trip and I'm so glad I got to go!

**side note from Mom:  Just 2 days after the 40-ish 7th and 8th graders and chaperones got back, the whole town of Lae was closed down due to civil unrest!  We're so thankful that the kids had a great time and got back safely before all the craziness erupted! :)

It's the Little Things

Sometimes, all it takes is something small!

This last week, Matt was able to install some light fixtures around the house.  After living with blaring flourescents and bare bulbs, it's fun to see how pretty things are with just a simple, inexpensive light fixture installed to cover up the bare bulb!

He put a new fixture in our hallway

Both bathrooms

Before

After

 
And we FINALLY fixed the hanging lamp over our dining room table.  When we first bought our house, 10 years ago, there was a hanging lamp.  But it eventually died, and being a scandanavian IKEA or some such purchase, we had no way of getting ahold of replacement parts.  So for years, it has been a hideously ugly plastic and wire mess hanging from our ceiling.  But it is ugly no longer! :)

Granted, it did take hours for Matt to crawl around in our filthy attic space and try to figure out the rather.... unique... wiring that was put in to this house some 50ish years ago.  But he did it, and everything works! ;)

Back To School 2015

Yesterday was a glorious day!  The first day of the 2015-16 school year!  And this is the first school year ever (in the history of our family) that all of my children will be in school.  While Elijah is at his preschool class, I will have two entirely kid-free mornings a week!  Whatever will I do with myself?

All ready for the 1st day of school!

Everyone in my house was excited for school to begin.  Everyone was up and ready to go with time to spare.  I have a feeling that as the school year continues, that may get more and more rare.  But for now, I'll enjoy their excitement and having them be ready to be out the door in the morning!

Walking to school

A partial view of the Secondary Campus

This is our first time ever with a child at the Secondary Campus (7th-12th grades).  So we've got lots of new things to learn.  Kaitlyn has had to figure out lockers and where her classrooms are and what each different teacher expects from her.

Kaitlyn at the Middle School lockers.  They are all painted with the flag colors of various countries.

Outside the 6th grade classroom-- notice the bare feet:  kids remove their shoes before entering the classroom here

 Nathan is in 6th grade this year.  Due to staffing shortages, he actually has 3 different teachers teaching him this year.  As a 6th grader, he has the priviledge of getting to use the 6th grade hauswin (umm, English...gazebo, maybe?  Sort of, but not quite the right word)  Anyway, no kids except for 6th graders are allowed to use it.  He'll be starting to play trumpet in the beginning band, and singing in the choir.

Justin is starting grade 3.  2nd grade was easy peasy for him, so we'll see how 3rd grade goes!  Thankfully he won't have too much homework yet, so he'll have plenty of time to play with Legos and play Minecraft on the computer. :)

Julianne is kind of starting primary school for the first time.  She attended Preschool here in Ukarumpa, but since we were on furlough her Kindergarten year, she didn't really have a 'big kid school experience' yet.  So she'll get to have music and library and art and the sorts of things she didn't experience as a preschooler.  Her class is a 1st and 2nd grade combined class this year (again, due to teacher shortages).  But of all my kids, she is probably the most suited for a class like that... even MORE kids to befriend!

Elijah, with some of the playground in the background

Elijah will be in the Pukpuk class (Pukpuk is Tok Pisin for 'crocodile').  He'll be going 2 mornings a week.  Yesterday wasn't an official class day for him, but there was an open house where we were able to go hang out in the class and check it out.

Checking out some new toys in the preschool room

All the kids came home happy and excited about their first day back!  What a great way to start the school year.

Of course, there is always the random 'only in PNG' aspect to the first week of school:  Today (Thursday) was declared a national holiday, so, after starting new routines and getting all psyched up to start school yesterday, today is a public holiday, so, NO School!  Friday they'll have classes again and then the weekend.  I guess, for a kid, that's not a bad first week of school. :)

Breaking the Blog Silence....

I know, I know, it's been ages!  The business of life just caught up with me.  In between homeschooling 4 kiddos, the daily chores in keeping up with 9 people, travels, and my computer being monopolized by my kids, well blogging just didn't happen these past few months!

BUT, something so wonderful and exciting happened today that I just couldn't resist sharing!

My new oven got set up!

After 2 days of having it hanging out in my living room, it was finally set up in my kitchen!  Because it came from the U.S., Matt had to do a gas conversion kit so that it would run properly here.  That involved borrowing tools from friends (as we either didn't have them, or they were stolen in our break-in a few months ago), hiking down to the construction department a couple times while attempting to find the right fitting, and lugging the 200+ pound stove up our front staircase.  Simple set up.... or not!

What a beauty!

My new oven is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!  Fan forced, 5 burner, shiny and new, and, get this:  All I have to do to light it is turn the knob!  Fantastic invention!  No more cheapo match heads flying off and burning me as I attempt to light my stove! No more sticking my arm gingerly between hot oven racks because my gas bottle ran out, and I had to switch to a new one and re-light the oven!  All I have to do is turn a knob!  I love it!

Definitely not much to look at, but it served us well :)

 I will always have a soft spot in my heart for my dear old oven.  That ancient beast has served us well for the past decade.  And countless people for decades before that.  No one else can boast an oven whose door was held shut with a rigged clotheshanger contraption.  Or whose burners were so ancient that they literally disentigrated into metalic dust when bumped.  No, I will always remember this oven, and it makes me so very thankful for the new one!

Today was also a wonderfully exciting day for another reason:  The First Day of School!  But that will have to be a blog post all of it's own. :)

Beach Fun

It's been ages since my last post.  Most days are filled with the mundane:  School.  Chores.  Daily life with 5 kids.

But there have also been some really fun moments where we've gotten to enjoy things we miss while in PNG.  The beach is one of those things.  Being a California girl who spent almost her whole life just a few miles from the beach, I've really missed not being close to the beach while we are in PNG.  So its been fun to take advantage of some warm days and just go play!

One of the best beach trips so far was when we went to Santa Barbara and spent the day with my cousin and her family.  We hadn't seen them in 7 years, so it was a great time to catch up.  The kids had a blast digging and playing in the water.  Kaitlyn got to go body boarding and once she started, we couldn't get her out of the water.  She stayed out there till dark!  We ended the afternoon with roasting hotdogs and marshmallows over the fire.  It was a great day playing with cousins!

Fun times with cousins!

 
A few weeks back, we had the nicest weather of our whole time back so far.  Here on the Central Coast, summer doesn't really kick in until September when the fog goes away and the warm weather comes.  So we took advantage of a hot Saturday to spend the day at Pismo Beach.  We packed a lunch and sand toys and had a wonderful, relaxing day.  The kids dug and splashed, and then we walked down the beach to explore the caves and tide pools.

Playing on the cliffs

Checking out the caves

Beautiful Pismo Beach

What would a beach trip be without getting covered in sand!?

We're back in the U.S.!

We're back in the U.S.! After multiple days of travel and seven different flights, we arrived back in California in early July, completing our four-year term in Papua New Guinea.  We plan to be Stateside for one year, returning to PNG next July.  So what are we up to while we're here?  We're glad you asked!  Matt will continue working on the Nukna translation of various portions of the Bible, and also continue revising the Nukna grammar he has written.  Christy is homeschooling our children, teaching grades 7, 5, 2, and Kindergarten simultaneously!  However, the most important activity we'll be involved in during this year will be reconnecting with you, our partners, after four long years away.  We'd love to get together and reconnect!  Let us know when would be good for you. Just before leaving our home in Papua New Guinea.  Please pray for our kids as they miss their PNG friends and adjust to life in a country and culture that is new to them.   The Arop-Lokep New Testament Dedication In June, just before we left PNG, Matt had the privilege of flying to Long Island, Papua New Guinea, to attend the Arop-Lokep New Testament dedication.  Long Island is a dormant volcano with a huge water-filled caldera in the middle (think Crater Lake, Oregon), and is opposite the PNG mainland and the Nukna area where we are working.  On a clear day, we can sit on our village house's front porch and see Long Island across the sea.  The dedication was a joyful celebration full of traditional PNG dancing and singing, with praises lifted up to God for his faithfulness and goodness.  The Arop-Lokep people, for the first time in history, now have the full New Testament in their own heart language.  Take part in the celebration by watching this short video of the Arop-Lokep New Testament dedication! The Arop-Lokep people celebrate with a traditional sing-sing Prayer and Praise Praise God with us for all that he accomplished during our last four years in Papua New Guinea, including the publishing of the first Scripture portions in the Nukna langauge! Praise God with us that we have the opportunity to see family and friends again after so long, and to reconnect with you, our ministry partnership team. Pray for the Nukna people during our absence, that the newly published Scriptures would impact their lives powerfully.  Pray also for our co-translators, Muransi and Simendi, as they continue to work on translation while we are gone. Pray for our family, that we would adjust well to life in the United States. serving together, Matt, Christy, Kaitlyn, Nathan, Justin, Julianne and Elijah   Our U.S. address is: 481 Rosemary Lane Arroyo Grande, CA 93420 matt_taylor@sil.org www.taylormissions.com Wycliffe Bible Translators PO Box 628200 Orlando, FL 32862-8200 1-800-WYCLIFFE www.wycliffe.org We have a new mobile number for our year in the U.S. - give us a call!  949.374.6908   Click Here to Give to Our Wycliffe Ministry Or gifts can be mailed to the Wycliffe address above with a note "Preference for the ministry of Matt and Christy Taylor". You are receiving this email because of your interest in the Bible translation ministry of Matt & Christy Taylor. Our mailing address is: Matt & Christy Taylor 481 Rosemary Lane Arroyo Grande, CA 93420 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences