Guided Tour of Papua New Guinea

After church this morning, we hosted a small group in our home. We usually have several families over for lunch, followed by a study. Today, we opted to skip the study and have a guided tour of Papua New Guinea with Matthew's photos. It was fascinating seeing all the pictures of where he grew up, getting visuals of all the things he's been talking about for years. I stole one of Matthew's pictures for your viewing pleasure; he is on the right.

We displayed our new alligator to everyone at lunch.

He also brought back treasures to give to everyone in our small group. He had a bracelet, a bunch of necklaces, and a number of bamboo plaques (for lack of a better word). My boys and I each grabbed a little bamboo plaque. My daughter got a necklace for herself. It was very generous of him.

He showed off a bag woven from bamboo fibers that was extremely strong and flexible. He also showed off his prized possession from his trip. His parents had a large piece of wood carved with scenes of all his childhood memories in Papua New Guinea. Matthew said it was made from Iron Wood and it was about 1.5 feet by nearly 2 feet, and about 1.5 inches thick. This was his Christmas present from his parents.

The slide show and display of goodies kept everyone well beyond our regular meeting time, and several people stayed until about 5:00 p.m. It's so nice to have such good friends.

Our Alligator

A few weeks ago, before Christmas, we took our friend Matthew to LAX so that he could visit his parents in Papua New Guinea. We picked him up again from LAX on Saturday. He had a nice visit, though it seems there were a few mishaps like canceled flights and out of the way re-routes to get where he had to be. He had his brother and sister with him, so he was not alone. They got it all worked out and had a great visit with his parents who do language translation missionary work with the tribes there.

The last time his parents came out to visit, he raved that they had brought him a wooden alligator for Christmas. We thought that was fabulous. So Matthew brought us our very own wooden alligator that we proudly have on display in our book case. It took up a whole shelf.

Thank you Matthew!

LAX airport

This morning I got up at 4:00 AM so that I could take my friend Matthew to LAX airport. Matthew's parents are missionaries in Papua New Guinea where they do translation work to bring the Gospel to the native peoples. Matthew spent most of his youth in Papua New Guinea, so he is very familiar with the land and it's people. He will be spending two weeks there and come back right after the new year. His brother and sister are meeting up with him on one of the legs of the flight so they will be flying over together. The church that sponsors his parents work had set aside money for his parents to come to the States during the holidays, but instead that money was used to reduce the cost of Matthew and his siblings to go visit.