They got there!

Yahoo!!  The boat with all of our kids arrived safely in Nabire after 36 hours.  There were 71 of them all in one open room with 10 beds.  Crazy!  Two of our big, strong guys and one leader were the “security” for the room and it was a good thing too because a few times random people tried to get into their room.  At one point in the trip, a young drunk man fell overboard.  The boat turned around and looked for him for an hour or so but they could not find him.  One of the teachers had her wallet stolen getting off the boat.  The kids mentioned that they were able to see flying fish and dolphins.  They said that the sunrise from the boat was amazing!  One of our dorm boys was able to talk to the 3^rd mate and got to drive the boat for a bit. 

They seem to be in good spirits.  They had a 35 minute bus ride and then went to a Indonesian Youth Group, slept, and then left on airplanes to fly to the Moi tribe at 5:40 the next morning.  Pray for good health, safety, patience and many opportunities to share God’s love.

If you would like me to send you the unabridged version of the OE updates let me know and I would be happy to do that.

Love you-

Rachel

Thursday and Friday

I had such a unique Thursday.  The day was full of running around and getting last minute things taken care of for our high schoolers that would be leaving for OE on Friday.  Then after school I joined Emma’s 5^th grade class for a Star Gazing overnighter.  We started out playing dodge ball, then kickball, followed by showers, board games and then dinner.  After dinner we had a bonfire with S’Mores, star searching, a movie with more food, then outside to play Hunter, more showers and then bed (kind of)-we didn’t really sleep much.  Then up at 7 for breakfast, a devotional, and good-byes.  The kids had such a blast, and I had some good lessons in patience.  One such lesson came when I was cleaning up dinner and wiping off tables.  A boy came over franticly asking me, “Where’s my tooth?”  to which I replied, “I don’t know.  Where did you leave it?”  And he says, “Right here on the table.”  So we then proceeded to sift through the trash until we found it.  Gross!

The next day the dorm kids were all loaded up at 9 o’clock at night to drive an hour to Jayapura where they would catch a midnight boat for a trip of at least 30 hours to Nabire.  It was quite the craziness getting all 70some people where they needed to be with all of their luggage.  Since they are riding third class, the kids will have one large room to be in for the trip to sleep in and hang out.  Our kids were sad to say good-bye to them.  This is the first time that we have only high school age kids in the hostel.  That means that all of our kids are going on OE, and the Hostel will be empty except for us.  I am thankful for this little break.  I love the dorm kids, but I am ready for some family time.

Please keep all of the kids and leaders in your prayers.  This is an amazing adventure, a trip of a lifetime.  Pray for safety, and good health. 

Good News

We found the key!!  Actually Garth found the key.  It was such a God moment.  He was standing by our front door waiting for the Director of the school to come over and see if he had a key, when he noticed that the back wheel on Cale’s old stroller was broken.  He called me over and I said that it looked like it could be fixed.  So, Garth flipped the stroller over to try and fix the wheel and the key fell out!!  There is logically no reason that the key should have been anywhere near that old stroller.  We have no idea why, but it has been found!!  Yahoo!!  What a relief!

Now back to normal-haha.  What is that?  The dorm kids leave tomorrow for Outdoor Education.  The timing of things here are crazy.  Tomorrow at ten o’clock at night Garth has to drive them an hour to Jayapura where they will wait for their boat.  Then they will be on the boat for 30 hours until they get to Nabire.  They needed meals for the boat ride so I have been making and baking so each kid has a big bag of munchies.

In a few minutes I will go down and “play” with Emma and her 5^th grade class.  One of her teachers thought since they are studying space and stars, it would be fun to have a sleep over so the kids can observe the night sky, play games, have a bonfire, eat, hang out and then the girls (with me) will sleep in the library and the boys (with the teacher) in the classroom.  I say sleep because I am really hoping that we actually do.

More good news- We caught the rat!!!  Some friends let us borrow their live rat trap and we caught the rat last night under the sink.  A friend of ours asked if he could have it to feed to his snake.  Cale wanted to keep it as a pet but THERE IS NO WAY, JOSE!!  I was so glad to see that thing go.  I sure hope he was the only one.

Here are some pictures of the rat, and Garth’s volleyball team yesterday, and the boys and girls basketball teams for the tournament.

CRAZY!

The latest in the Erickson craziness…

Emma got her thumb caught in her floor fan.  The fan has been broken for about a year or so.  The only way we can use it is to leave the grate off the front and spin it by hand to start it.  During the darkness she tried to move it and sliced through her thumb pretty bad.  That was quite the ordeal with comments like, “I’m losing too much blood…I’m going to die.  My thumb is going to fall off!!!”

Garth and some other Westerners are a part of an adult volleyball league here in town.  It is outside on a concrete court in the hot sun in the middle of the afternoon.  They did a great job even though they lost.

Then we had the final games of our basketball tournaments.  Both our girls and boys teams were in it.  The girls lost by two points and the boys won by three.  Even though it was late we decided to let all of our kids stay up for the games and be a part of the excitement.  So by the time the games were over we were all hot and ready for bed.  However, when we got back to our apartment, Emma couldn’t find the key.  We looked EVERYWHERE.  Even taking a flashlight outside to see if she dropped it on the way to the gym.  SO, I borrowed some clothes from the dorm kids, showered them in a Hostel shower and waited to see what we should do next.  After awhile Garth found the key to the back door and got us in that far.  However the door that is locked is in between our apartment and the rest of the Hostel.  So we have to walk outside and around to get to the kitchen or any other part of the Hostel.  Pray that we are able to find the key…soon.

Okay.  Now that it is really late-I am off to bed.

Love you all

Rachel

Always Something

Well, there is always something here, I tell you.  Last night some of the dorm kids and High school kids were having a bonfire in our fire pit in celebration of the fact that they finished the Yearbook (yahoo!!!  Lots of late nights there).  Well, one of the boys got gasoline for the fire instead of kerosene.  SO when one of our dorm boys went to light it, his face got burned.  The nurse says that it is second degree burns.  He is pretty miserable.  Pray for him. His name is Colton. 

All of the high schoolers leave on Friday for two weeks to take a 30 hour boat ride to Nabire and then they will take an airplane into a local village where they will be working for two weeks.  They will set up dental clinics with the dentist that is going with them, and a medical clinic along with the nurse.  Also doing clinics on AIDS prevention and HIV.  During that whole time they also visit and help in the local schools and orphanages among many, many other projects.  They do this every year at a different location.  What an amazing opportunity for them to put others before themselves, and live out God’s love.  They always make such an impact on the people of the community along with encouraging the missionaries and coming back changed themselves.

The basketball tournaments are still going on.  Yesterday the Indonesian team that was to play our girls team didn’t show up at all, so it was a forfeit.  Our boys team went into overtime and then lost by two points.  It was a nail biter!

I got a trap today to try and catch the rat that has been living in our kitchen causing me stress.  There is a guy here that has a snake and wants me to give him the rat after we catch it.  Doesn’t that sound like great fun?  Haha. 

Love you

Rachel

The Weekend

This Friday was all school chapel and Sophie’s class was in charge.  They did an excellent job of memorizing all of their lines and songs.  Cale and I took a nice long walk the other day.  It was so crisp and clear.  All of the different green colors just sort of popped.  Spring is in the air!  Oh, wait-that is your line!  Haha.  Emma won first prize for her class for World Math Day!!!  Yahoo Emma!  (Math is her least favorite subject, so we were quite surprised when they called her name.)  Then it was Slip-N-Slide Saturday - fantastic way to beat the heat!  After that Wyatt and his class walked up to the waterfall, but I didn’t see any pictures from that adventure.  In the evening Garth and I hosted Youth Group for all of the 6^th-8^th Graders.  Playing games, eating food, singing songs, and learning from the bible. What a blast getting to hang out with all of them.  Here are some pictures:

Rats and Pranks

Sophie and I are both doing much better after our bout with malaria.  Yahoo!!  It is nice to feel good again.
And the tsunami wasn’t more than two foot waves around us.  So that is a HUGE answer to prayer.  There was a group of kids that went to the beach the day after the tsunami (how smart was that…) and they said that the ocean was acting real weird.  The tide was up real high and stayed that way the whole day.  They said the whole ocean would swell up and go down, then rise up and go down, and the currents were all messed up, switching directions.  Farther up from us, there are houses that were on stilts in the water that were swept away completely, and at least one death.  We do not have the news so all I know is from word of mouth.
All the girls of the Hostel were feeling a bit mischievous this weekend.  The boys left early Saturday morning for a retreat.  So we had the idea to do a “makeover” of their rooms.  We put up pink and purple curtains, and bows, and lots of Barbie and Hannah Montana stuff, along with make-up clad mannequin heads stuffed in their beds, headless Barbies and hidden Polly Pockets in their bathrooms…(I have a bit of my father in me-he can be quite the prankster.)  It was quite hilarious to hear them hooting and hollering when they came back.  Haha.

A week without a cat and there is already a rat in our kitchen.  A few of the dorm boys told me they saw it in the cabinets where we keep our pans…I asked them when they saw it.  They said on Friday.  Here it is Monday and they are just telling me.  Do you know how many times I went into that cabinet this weekend???  UGH!  Rats freak me out.  When we first came here four years ago, our helper, Ibu Poppi caught a rat in the kitchen and was so happy she brought it over to show me.  Oh my goodness!  Definitely not what I thought I would see when I heard her calling me in.
I hope that I can sleep tonight and not think about what might be running around the house!!!!
Love you all
Rachel

Status

You’ve probably heard by now in the news, but I want to let you know that we are all okay.  The Tsunami was quite diminished by the time it got to Jayapura.  Thanks for your prayers.

Love,

Rachel

Tsunami

Cale’s prayer tonight was “Jesus, please help Japan since there is a big wave.  Please dry it up so that the people can live.”

There is a tsunami that is supposed to hit Jayapura tonight.  It was causing quite a bit of uneasiness here.  There was a team from Jayapura that came to play our girls basketball team.  They stopped in the middle of the game because many of their family was being evacuated and the parents were calling on cells to try and get their kids home.  If you think about it, it would have been safer to have them stay here.  We have mountains around us, we are farther from the ocean, and we are at a high elevation.  But, I think they thought they would be safer if they were together.  Our high schoolers are supposed to go to the beach tomorrow for a retreat, but there is a good chance that will not happen now.  One guy said that the water was already starting to recede out of Humboldt Bay.  We have been there many times.

So please keep the people of Papua in your prayers when you are praying for all those hit with the earthquake and the tsunamis.  I will let you know when I hear anything.

Rachel

Ups and Downs

On the down side-

I am trying to write this with a cheery tone to my words.  But to tell you the truth I am not feeling very cheery this morning.  Sophie and I both have malaria, and it is draining me.  There is another girl in the Hostel that also has malaria.  There are boatloads of people here in Sentani right now that are suffering through malaria or dengue or both.  All it takes is one mosquito to bite someone with dengue or malaria and then bite someone else and it is spread.  There is no good bug spray available here anymore.  There used to be but there hasn’t been for 8 months or so, and now everyone is getting sick.

We said goodbye to our last cat on Tuesday-we aren’t exactly sure what killed him but we think it was a motorcycle.

On an up note:

There is a big basketball tournament going on and our boys team and our girls teams are both in it.  The boys are undefeated and the girls lost one.  They are both going on into the finals. So that is exciting.

Garth and some of his buddies just joined a volleyball tournament-outdoors in the sun, on like a tennis court or something…should be interesting.

The dorm kids are starting to prepare for their Outdoor Education adventure.  This year they are going to Nabire and to the Moi Tribe.  There they will have two weeks of working, doing AIDS seminars, taking turns in the dental clinic and medical clinic, and many other assorted jobs.  It is an amazing time for them as a group to bond and individually to see what they are really made of.

Love you

Rachel

Highlights

Well, I am one year older than I was the last time I wrote to you.  Thank you to everyone that sent me birthday wishes.  It was very sweet and I appreciated the kindness.  We had cake and homemade ice cream with the dorm and a nice party with our family.  They all made me fantastic cards along with a few nice gifts.  I feel very blessed. 

A few of the highlights of my weekend:

The basketball team that I play with on Friday mornings had a game against a local Indonesian team.  The team arrived an hour and fifteen minutes late and we ended with a tie of 35-35.  It was a great deal of fun and I hope we can do it again.

Last night was our Talent Night.  Emma did a song, and a bunch of jokes with her class, along with reading a poem that I wrote about Hostel life.

Wyatt was up there for a paper airplane contest and got second place.

Cale was dressed up as Megamind and had a few different acts that he was in.  (I put a picture of Megamind that I got off the internet in case you didn’t see the movie.)  It was absolutely hilarious and I am so proud of all of them.  The pictures from up on the stage are quite dark and I apologize.  It is quite dark in there and the pictures didn’t turn out well.  After the show They asked Cale to stand in the back and sign autographs.  That made him feel very famous.  He said to me, “Mom, I am like the star of the show!”

Love you

Rachel