Basic everyday life. (or every WEEK life)

"LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us."

Isaiah 26:12

I came across this Bible verse the other day as I was reading. This verse was a good reminder to me that everything we are doing here isn't really because of us. God is the one who accomplishes his good works through us. He's the only reason our lives or any of the ministry bear good fruit. He has done it for us. He is the one who changes hearts and causes things to happen as they do. At the end of the day, I can't take any credit for the things God has done. We have just been blessed to be included, and get a front row seat to see it unfold.

In the past 2 weeks, here are some things that we've been a part of. Cheri had the privilege of sitting with one of the church leaders to translate a pamphlet on a day we would usually have Baibul study. The other ladies had all fallen sick. The day had the potential to be very discouraging, but God used that time.

I was able to sit down and write the rough draft to a pamphlet on the Body of Christ in Kriol. This was quite a feat for me, because I have a hard time sitting still long enough to accomplish stuff. Specifically when the thinking is difficult, and I'm by myself. If you think of me, please pray I would be diligent and focused on what I need to do.

I'm not much of a desk work type person--for those of you who know me, this is NOT a surprise--and it seems that much of our work right now is "desk work". I'd much rather be out with people, learning Kriol and interacting with them. I appreciate your prayers.

Cheri, on the other hand, is amazing. She is in the middle of her third pamphlet, and is very passionate and dedicated. She also relates well to all of the olgamen(older ladies) who come to our house. She is a blessing. I need to learn a lesson or two from her. :)

Thank you so much for your constant prayers on our behalf. We are blessed to include each of you in our lives and ministry. Without your prayers, nothing of eternal value will take place, no matter what we do. And, in the midst of everything, good or bad, we need to remember what Isaiah prayed:

"LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us." To HIM be the glory, forever.

Family Time!

This is a skate park/playground in Katherine. I LOVE THE RAIN!

Here are some random pics taken by the kids and us. I hope you enjoy them! :)

Beautiful Bethy Boo! (She cracks me up. :) )

Cam's self portrait from the i-pod.

Classic. :)

This one is for you, Grandma!!

A self portrait of Alice, via iPod.

We have several more of this^^^ genre. If you're interested in seeing "Mr. Noisy", Mr. Bump, or any of their friends, just ask. (Thank you, ABC, for your excellent photography.)

Peibek (Part 2) "Refiner's Fire"

As Cheri was walking Bethany and Alice to school on one of the Monday immediately following the unfortunate death of a man from Barunga, they were met by three little indigenous kids walking AWAY from the school.

“There aren’t any children at the school today, because the blackbala is going to come and kill them all.”

Upon arriving at school, it was true. There was only a small handful of children at the school, and they were meeting in a different room than usual. In fact, under the circumstances, classes had effectually stopped, and the kids were just having time to interact with each other (play time) while the teachers met with the principal to discuss the situation.

The classrooms Alice and Bethany usually went to at school were not used for over a week after the death. Why? Because the man who had passed away had children who went to the pre-school and the crèche (nursery), and they needed to wait for the smoking ceremony to take place before children could return to the classrooms. No one was exactly sure when the “Smoking Ceremony” would take place, but until then, certain buildings at the school and in the community were closed.

The smoking ceremony was done by men from another community, in order to purify the buildings and keep the man’s spirit from entering those places again. The men came later that week, with the smoke, and one man(whom I met) playing the digeridoo while others chanted and others used rhythm sticks. The men started at the school, dancing, playing digeridoo, and smoking out the building, and continued on to each of the places where the man who had died had been.

Since the man worked at the clinic, they smoked out the clinic, and also asked all of the clinic workers to walk through the smoke to purify themselves. They then traveled to his family’s homes and did the same. After they had finished the ceremony, it was again acceptable to use those buildings, and to continue on with daily activities that had been halted as a result of the passing.

I talked with one man from the community, and he compared the smoking ceremony to what the Native Americans do in their tradition. He said, “The smoke purifies the air, don’t the Native Americans do that? We are the same as them in that way.”

We have a God who also uses fire to cleanse us and make us pure; a Refiner’s fire which He puts us through to make us able to be used.

Peibek (Part 1)

Recently in our community there was an accidental death at the “drinking spot”. Some claimed it was a murder, others weren’t sure, but as a result, the fear of “peibek”—revenge—was on everyone’s mind. The man who had died was living in Barunga, but was born in another community several hours away from Barunga. The death happened on a Friday night. In the middle of the night Saturday, seemingly the entire community of Barunga (about 650 people) just left. Sunday morning, Barunga was so quiet it was strange. Kind of like everyone decided to take a vacation all at the same time, and we didn’t get the memo.

We later discovered that some people had stayed behind, though about 90% of the town left.

Why did they leave so quickly, in the middle of the night? Fear of Peibek. I found out exactly what happened in the week following the incident, as I was taking some people to a neighboring community so they could be OUT of Barunga, just in case.

“Why are you guys leaving?”

“They might be here any minute! They could be coming in a 10 person van from M(on one side of Barunga) and another group coming from K(the other side of Barunga). We’ve got to get out!”

“But you guys didn’t do anything, did you?”

“No, but they don’t care. Just any black person who lives in Barunga isn’t safe! A man came to our house in the middle of the night and banged on the door. He was yelling, ‘They’re coming! They’re coming! GET OUT NOW! QUICK!’ So that’s why everyone left in the middle of the night. We couldn’t leave because we didn’t have a car. We didn’t sleep at all! So, now we’re leaving. …”

The fear of revenge is very real and everyone seems to understand the seriousness of the matter. For about a week and a half, there was only a small handful of children at the Barunga school, where there is usually over 100. Classes were not run for lack of students, and some teachers left Barunga to sleep in Katherine to be safe. Our family was completely safe. We had no fear, because, "what can mere man do to us?" But there was a bit of curiosity on my(Jared) part.

Please pray with us for people to come to know the Lord on both ends of this "peibek" situation, and to learn that God is the one who will avenge, it's not for us.

Also, please pray for the church leaders from the communities to be a light to others and to point them to Christ. Without Christ, there will be no lasting eternal change, or forgiveness.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

It's the middle of the night, and out our window we hear yelling. Angry yelling. We were concerned and wondered if we should talk with the person who was screaming, or let it pass. Since it was a strange circumstance and we had just moved to Barunga, we decided to sit down and pray for that person--and not get involved.

As we have lived in Barunga for over a year and a half now, there have been several things we've gotten used to that aren't necessarily ordinary in our home culture. One of those things was made VERY obvious during one of our first weeks here, and has happened many times since. This is my observation:

Yelling at the top of the lungs for everyone to hear your anger seemed to be rather common if there was a dispute. This isn't usually accompanied by violence, in fact usually it was just yelling. Just to let everyone in town know that a wrong had been committed against the individual. There are accusations, anger, and many hurt feelings. This anger could be kindled by a rude behaviour, a nasty word, a mean-spirited text message, or grog.

Our community isn't the only one to deal with conflict in this manner. But does that make it the culturally right way to go about conflict resolution? I was thinking about it, and I decided to go ask Jocelyn, one of the church leaders here in Barunga what she thought about all the yelling and anger. She basically told me that's the way people do it if they've been drinking too much, because they aren't really in their right minds. However, after they have come to their senses, they go to the family and talk it out, quietly, and respectfully. We are extremely thankful God has given us a wise older woman to help us with cultural understanding. We call her "Nana Jocelyn". God has given us more than one wonderful helper when we don't know what to do culturally, and locally. :)

As many of you know, my indigenous brother went to be with the Lord recently. I was blessed to share at his funeral service, but I accidentally mentioned his name when I was sharing. In indigenous culture, you NEVER mention the name of the person who has passed away again. So, after uttering his name, I almost "chucked a spit" which is (in some communities) a way of rectifying the mistake, but decided to just keep moving through the message, and referring to the man as "my brother" from then on out. It wasn't hard, because I was used to referring to him as my brother, but I was still embarrassed I had used his name in the service(especially because there was a microphone with two big speakers pointing out the windows for everyone to hear what was happening at the service!).

After the service was finished, I asked one of the church leaders, "Did everyone notice when I said his name?" She said, "EVERYONE. But it's okay, because you called him your brother. The family wasn't offended at all. It's okay. Don't worry about it."

Moving on to the gravesite, I watched as many men and women approached the casket, stuck their fingers deep in their armpits, and then rubbed the casket with those fingers. I noticed the men first, and some women doing the same thing. I thought, "What in the world is this?" No one acted offended or outraged that this was happening, so I asked our friend what was happening. She said, "These men all worked with him, and shared sweat with him. They wanted to leave their scent on his casket. It's like saying, 'We shared life together, and I'm here now to say goodbye.'" I asked her if I should do it too, or if there was a deeper spiritual meaning. She said, "You were very close to him. It would be fine if you did it too. You should."

At first I wasn't to sure, and I thought of my brother, and his life he had shared with me. If this is how they expressed their grieving and I could relate, I wanted to do it. So, out of respect and love for my brother and his family, I did it as well. I stopped at the casket for a moment, and prayed for his family, his sons, and for Barunga and indigenous folks all over here. Our family wants to share our sweat, blood and tears with the people here in Barunga and beyond. We want them to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and the hope he brings for each of them that trust in Him. By God's grace, we will be a part of sharing with them that hope.