The rain came down!

Many people pray for us to have rain. You see, rain is the only way we get water. We have tanks that catch water off the roof. When we get low we start praying more! We also ask friends to pray for us! It was such a refreshing sound to hear the rain through the night last night! Praise the Lord!

Siege of sickness

After the "Miracles of the Meeting" came a "Siege of Sickness". Monday- Our 6 year old, Grace woke up with a headache, fever, and then started vomiting. We took her to the hospital which is where you get treated even if not admitted. They gave her a shot of malaria medicine. Tuesday-she was not better so we again took her to the hospital. This time they gave her a shot again, tested her for malaria(which takes a day or two to get results back), and also put her on iv to rehydrate her. After the first bag they decided she needed more so we were then given a bed in kind of like the ers of America. (We would prefer this as the wards where they put admitted patient is much worse with many different kinds of patients with various illnesses. We at least had our own cubicle.) I (Christi) stayed with her that first night as Mark was coming down with a fever and severe body aches. Titus and Mark both were sick during the night with fevers, chills, body aches. Wednesday- she still was not looking good. The fever would not stay down and kept spiking. I was getting concerned that she needed more help than they could give her at this small hospital. I asked our missionary co worker, John Gray about it. He said he would go up and assess the situation later in the day and if there was no visible change we would consider taking her to Port Morseby the capital city for further help. I was relieved by this. The dr. came by and told us she was positive for vivex malaria. It is a strain of malaria very common here in Kerema. Mark was feeling better after his fever broke in the night. He also was tested for malaria which took two days to confirm that his was also positive. Titus also was tested for malaria. He too tested positive for vivex malaria. This was also Hadassah's birthday. Tabitha had planned a bd party for her in the afternoon. I came home from the hospital to make sure all was well here. Hadassah was starting to feel sick at her party. She later began to get sick. She was also tested for malaria but hers was negative. In her case I guess hers was a bad virus. She was sick for 3 days. Wed. night was Mark's night at the hospital. I was starting to feel bad by this time. Then through the night Sam and Hadassah made many trips to the bathroom. Thursday- I was in bed all day. I ached so bad and had slight fever. This was a good day though because Gracie's fever broke through the night Wed. night and she was able to come home. We were all excited about that! Friday- I was tested for malaria and it later came back positive. Saturday- Tabitha was sick. We also tested her for malaria and it came back positive as well. So now we are all on treatment to get rid of the malaria. We should be finishing up here within the next week. After the miracles come the trials!! God was gracious to us through it all. He gave us so many things during this time. Many people from the church here at Charity were such a blessing to help us and one lady stayed with me that night I stayed at the hospital. Thanks to all who knew about this and prayed for us!!

The Miracles of the Meeting

To introduce what I am talking about I will explain. We (the Mark Helzerman family, the John Gray family, and Charity Baptist Church of Kerema, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea) prepared for a missions meeting scheduled for Nov. 6-9. In preparation we raised funds to bring in national pastors from this province and also a few from surrounding provinces. We also fasted and prayed one day a week for seven weeks. Also 4 Australian men came one of which was a pastor, Nathan Lloyd, our guest speaker. The other 3 were men from his church. Their names were Bro. Armando, Bro. Lionel, and Bro. Rivo. We live in Papua New Guinea so to some of you that read this, it may not seem like a miracle. To us who live here we KNOW it was a miracle. The Miracles: 1. The flight bringing our guest preacher scheduled to come on Sun am of the meeting came as scheduled. To explain to all you who don’t know, for weeks before this only chartered flights were coming in. The scheduled flights were all getting canceled. They were the first flight to come in as scheduled in weeks! 2. The flight that was to pick them up came as scheduled. The 2nd flight to do that in weeks! (the first being the one they were on to come) They had a connecting flight in Port Morseby to take them home on the next day. If they didn’t get on that flight they missed their connecting flight home. On a side note: Bro Gray had cargo coming here that had been in Port Morseby for weeks to come on the scheduled flights that weren’t coming in. Part of the cargo came with the group when they came and part came on the flight that picked them up. 3. The power stayed on during the meetings! Again if you don’t live in a 3rd world country you may not appreciate that fact. We woke up the morning after the meetings and the power was out!  God is good! These things mentioned are only the physical side of things, but we fasted and prayed for the logistics of the meeting and this is what God did in that area. We found that Pastor Lloyd had two men with him also fasting and praying for the meetings. I believe that had a lot if not everything to do with these miracles! I know God helped many pastors and preachers and even our church members here. We hope to see in time to come the fruit of this meeting!

Potty Training

It is my most dreaded training process. I do not have any magic tricks or ways that work every time on every child. So we're working on child #7. She is doing ok. Not getting it quite yet but has managaed to use the potty seat a few times! My other kids have made up this song for her "Go pee pee on the potty!" Sometimes they say "Go pss pss on the potty" trying to imitate the sound. Today she was sitting on the potty and singing the song!

Last night at church, I had taken her out because she was being loud. Another lady and I were talking in pidgin and one of us said "Nogat" which means no. Serenity started chanting it, saying it over and over again. She is speaking in English fairly well so I guess pidgin is not far behind!

A long time

Well it has been a very long time since I have blogged on this. I am not very good at the computer or at blogging. Anyways because we have made it to PNG I have many exciting stories to tell and decided to resurrect this blog.

So here is what I posted on our family blog: The Mark Helzerman Family @blogspot.com:
What better way to celebrate your anniversary than to go to a remote area just the two of us….well sort of. We left on Monday, 29 August 2011. We first carried a load of cargo via Matt Allen's plane to Kaintiba (our future home). We then were able to go to Kanabea where Matt's airstrip is and then ride a 45 min. mule ride (Kawasaki mule that is, not the animal but the vehicle). We stayed two nights in the Allen honeymoon suite J. (Thanks to John and Selina Allen who didn't even know we were using their house while on furlough!) It was a refreshing time to be with the Matt Allen family! They are so hospitable! We are very grateful to them for allowing us to come and feeding us and providing for us for 2 days.

Besides the Allens fellowship, the most rewarding part of being there was the preacher boy, Jorim, who believes God wants him to help us in Kaintiba got married to Tabitha (not our daughter, just to clarify). It was on our anniversary! It was the first Church wedding in the bush area of Kotidanga. They were able to set an example of getting married God's way and the Lord worked it out for Mark and I to be there! AWESOME!

That was the more comfortable (from America's standards) part of the trip. The next part was exciting because we were working on our new home. We do not have running water or electricity, yet. It was challenging to fix food on an open fire. I had the blessing of having Jorim and Tabitha there to help me with this. We are not used to this but they are. One morning I sat for a half an hour trying to light a fire.  Jorim came and had it lit in a minute or less. This white lady doesn't know everything that's for sure :).

I was telling Tabitha that we can learn from each other. I know I learned from her and hope she was able to learn from me. I was able to start working on my hamtai language learning. That is the language spoken in the area we are going. Mark did more work than me though as he put in a sink, tub and counter top, plus a door and sealed off another opening.