Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast, where our mission is to encourage and highlight God's
Goodness and modern-day miracles. We are your hosts, Josh and Shelly Hankins. Today we have
with us a special couple. They're back again. It's Pastor John and Belinda Kent with us,
and they have started telling us about their tales of their mission work in Papua New Guinea.
And we first started off with the calling and then how they found their way 270 miles deep in
the jungle. And now we're going to talk about some more miracles and stories. And years ago,
I told Pastor John, you need to write a book. And this is the next best thing until he gets
that book written for us. So with that, we'll have them open us up with an opening prayer.
Yeah, thanks for letting us be here. Let's pray. Father, we are just so grateful for your grace in
our lives. And so astounded that from across the scope of the universe, you looked down and saw us
and saw value in us all and have chosen to use us for your glory. And so we just come to this
moment, this time of sharing and ask you to guide in everything that's said today, Lord,
that it truly will bring glory and honor to you. Thank you for hearing this prayer. Amen. Amen.
Okay, so where are you starting today? Well, we thought what we would do is kind of pick up
where we left off last time. If you remember, I told the story of arriving and discovering or the,
you know, wondering where I'm going to build a hut among the Iwam people. And they took me to the
top of the hill and there in the middle of nowhere, 270 miles from the nearest town is a 17 by 25
foot house on the lion post and a medical center separate from the house that the government had
built several years earlier, but had no money to staff. And so when I returned back to the provincial
center of Wewack, I thought, you know, the villagers had said, you can just use this. And I thought,
well, it would be wise to check in with the government just to be sure. And so when I get back
and recovered from sunburn and mosquito bites, I eventually made my way to the provincial
headquarters to see the secretary for health. And so I told him, you know, listen, my name is John
Kent, we're going to be moving to May River. And we're going to be establishing a mission there.
And we found this house and health center sitting. And I'm just wondering, would it be okay for us
to use that until we're able to, you know, build our own home? And, you know, Dr. Ciorari was his name.
He looked at me and he said, John, you know, the truth is that we built that house and that little
health center four years ago in the first attempt to bring development to the Wewack people.
And the problem is we had a grant to build it, but we have no money to operate it.
And so they said, he said, you know, if you will operate the health center,
we'll give both the health center and the house to your mission to operate. So just like that,
we not only had a house to live in, but we had a health center to operate and just provided completely
free by the provincial government. What did you have to do to operate the health center? Was it
vaccines? Was it, you know, first aid band-aids? Was it like, like what was the minimum requirement?
They actually did give us a minimal requirement, basically providing basic health care, first aid,
treatment for malaria, tropical ulcers. There's a host of diseases, accidents that would happen.
But I didn't come with any medical experience really. But we had had just
providentially a student missionary had come for a year that wanted to join us. She was a nurse.
Oh, awesome. So she was on her way to join us. Yeah, she was on her way to join us when the
health center was given to us. And clearly God is blindsided by that coincidence. Yeah, and then
just real quick add in, our church had a hospital in the Highlands that also was the training for
nurses. And so eventually it worked out to where they would bring down, they would do a rotation,
they would bring down two of their nurses every month that would stay a month with us. And then
they'd come back and the doctor would visit for a day with the plane. And then they take nurses
back and bring two new ones. So that was for a couple of years. We had a rotation of two
nurses plus our student nurse. That's awesome. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, amazing provision of God.
Again. Yeah. But one of the interesting things, this is where the story gets fun. So when the
government had built this, held this house, they actually put in a little septic system.
And you think, well, where did the water come from? Well, there we collected rainwater. We
got 20 feet of rain a year. So we collected rainwater into tanks and then use that water,
you know, for washing. And this had a little tiny, a little tiny toilet, a little tiny shower in that
house. But the problem is, so this, they left the top, it was a fiberglass septic tank. And they
left the top of it exposed. And so the tribal people came along and saw that and thought,
that's a great place to build a fire. And so they melted down the fiberglass septic tank. And so
that's what I found when I went up on the hill that day. And so what I needed to do now is to build
a septic tank before I could move the family out, you know, and so this all transpires not over in
moments, but in days and weeks, you know, it takes the wheels move very slowly in that primitive
situation. But finally, I was able to find a friend, you know, a member of our church there in
Papua New Guinea in the Wewack, the provincial headquarters, another Christian Sabbath keeper,
that he came with me and we took up a bunch of supplies. And the, what can I say, so where
our station was was miles from the nearest gravel, right? And I knew I needed to pour, I wanted to pour
a concrete septic tank. So I took some supplies up to do that. But I went to an actual supplier
there in that provincial headquarters and I bought 35 sacks of premixed concrete, you know,
you know, with the gravel in it, not just cement, but concrete that all you had to do was put water in.
And so each one of those weighed 110 pounds. And so we went out to the river, we took two big canoes
and built a platform across them. And then I put onto that platform 30 over 3500 pounds of sacks of
cement and then tank rings and supplies, just all kinds of stuff, you know, to try and get this
house ready for the family to come out. And I'll never forget, we got into that, those canoes,
got everything loaded. And by the way, you know, between Wewack and the river is a 90 mile mud road,
John, just amazing. You don't want to forget anything. Yeah, you don't forget anything, right?
And, you know, you come to raging rivers because it's rain and you got to wait hours and you're
slogging through the mud. I'll get you some pictures on that, you know, grinding through mud,
trying to get there. Well, anyway, we get there, load it up and then begin what becomes a two day
up river journey. And along the way, man, just these monstrous crocodiles we're seeing. And
we arrive at May River on September 16. I'll never forget that date. As we come to the station,
the place where we're going to live, we pull in at the base of that hill. And I expected that there
would be a whole bunch of men and boys of men that would come to assist. But there was not a man
anywhere. It just so happened that September 16 was Papua New Guinea's Independence Day.
Their own holiday. And the entire tribe, which normally, I mean, they don't really,
you know, they don't have a really a way of celebrating, but the entire, all the men,
everybody traveled several hours up river to where they were going to play games for two days.
Two days. And so when I pulled in there that evening with 3500 pounds plus of cement and tons
of other supplies, lumber and, and tank rings and all kinds of stuff, there was not a boy bigger,
there was not a man bigger than eight anywhere. And so this friend of mine and I and several guys
that came with us, I hired these guys to guide us up the river and get all that stuff there. We
lifted it all, got it all up in the bank, you know, scrambling up this mud bank. And we went up and
collapsed inside that little house. And the next morning, I get up and the three or four guys that
had come with me, they went down the hill, got in the canoes and they went back down river.
Because they said, we're part of a tournament for Independence Day.
I guess stuff to do. So they turned around and went down river and left Salmon Eye. This was my
friend. They left Salmon Eye standing on the bank. And no one had mentioned out of politeness,
it was Independence Day. Hey, you're going up their Independence Day, but you know,
they were too embarrassed to tell, to say anything. Also, did they keep calendars? How did
they know that it was Independence Day? Was it literally just word of mouth? Or did they like
watch the stars? They had a basic calendar. They knew what day. They knew it. They were educated
enough to know the dates and the calendars. So anyway, so we're standing there with this massive
mound of supplies and a steep hill, you know, quarter, third of a mile up to the house.
Oh, gosh. And I looked at that pile and I looked at my friend Sam and said, well,
we better start carrying. And so reach down and pick up 110 pound sack of cement and put it on
your shoulder and start hiking up that hill. And by the time you got up once, our legs were like
jelly, right? And then come down and pick up another one and start up that hill again. And
about the third round, these three little boys came out of the jungle. Ben, Jacob, and I don't
remember the name of the third, but Jacob, Benjamin and a third little boy. And they looked at us for
a little bit and then they ran off and disappeared. A few minutes later, they came back with an old
iron wheeled wheelbarrow. Where, how long it had been there? Where did it come from? I don't know,
but it was this old iron wheeled wheelbarrow. And they came back and those three little boys,
they would reach down and they picked up together 110 pound sack of cement. And then one took one
handle, one took the other handle and the third tied a vine to the front of the wheelbarrow.
And they would wheel up a sack of cement. And they helped us all day long as we carried cement
up that hill and lumber up that hill and other things that we had to carry up. We probably had
4,000 pounds of supplies on those two canoes. And it's an amazing memory. And I have a picture of
them that I can share with you on that day. But here's the astounding thing. Through the years,
we continued to invest in those boys. And Belinda, she taught Jacob how to read and write
in, in talk Pison, the local language, and then how to read and write in English. And eventually
I gave him basic math skills and stuff. He had had a little bit of education, all the education
in New Guinea is in English. So it had a little bit. So then I worked with him to up his math
skills so that we could put him into mission school at grade six. So so we put him into mission
school at grade six. And he went through that. And then we found some sponsors and we helped him
go on. Only six grades of education are expected in New Guinea. After that, you just get weeded out
the farther you go. But eventually Jacob completed high school. And today, and then he went to a
pastor training. He went to a little Bible school and did some pastors training. And today Jacob leads
more than a thousand believers. Amazing. That's gonna make me cry. Where's he stationed? In that
same, that May River. That's amazing. You know, he's the leader of the church there in at May River
among the EWOM that previously had been unreached. And so he's leading more than a thousand members
today with multiple churches and schools and the clinic and other aspects of that. So it's just
an amazing story of God's, you know, God's grace of an eight year old boy coming with an iron wheeled
wheelbarrow. You know what I love about that is those boys could have seen you struggle and brought
you the wheelbarrow to make your struggle easier. But instead, they chose to join you and create
work for themselves. Right. Which took work from you. Right. I just, I love the heart behind that.
I love the heart that says, Hey, I want to help. So here's this. Instead, they said, I want to help.
So I'm going to help instead of enabling you to do it easier. Right. I think you clearly saw it that
the willingness to step in and do something is probably what helped key your decision to invest
in them is not just that they had a wheelbarrow, but that they used it to help you instead of
giving it to you to help make yourself easier. Like this was, I think this is something that is
unidentifiable as what a leader is at a young age. This is what you do. And now here he is leading.
Yeah. And actually Jacob was Ben Mollio that John met at the river that was such a providence.
Jacob was his little brother. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. And we'll come back to that. That's sorry. Yeah.
But yeah, Jacob was Ben's little brother. But yeah, so, you know, Jacob, through the years,
you know, he went, he came, we returned. He completed his Bible school training, you know,
he came back to the village. He became a missionary among another tribal group nearby.
Back in 2007, was it? Glenn and I returned. I can't remember the year we returned
to pay a final visit to the EWOM. And he was living deep, you know, eight more hours deeper into the
jungle. And we went to find and visit him. He didn't know we were coming. But we can't really call
ahead. Yeah, you can't call ahead. But, you know, we made our way through the jungle over the coconut
hills and, you know, crossing rivers and wading streams. And when we come into the region, the
word began to travel, you know, up through the jungle, the coconut telegraph we used to call it.
You know, the word made its way. And we met Jacob. He came across the river just weeping and weeping
and weeping because his spiritual father and mother had come back. Yeah, he just hung on to us
just the longest time, just crying and crying. And we have a picture of that too, I think.
Can't remember. Yeah, just, you know, it's just amazing what God did in that young man's life
and what he continues to do with his life today. Awesome. All because of your faithfulness.
That if it wasn't for the two of you going there, that never would have happened.
Yeah. Because you wouldn't have gone without her and you'd have to go with kids. And so,
there was a great amount of faithfulness that took place on your part to enable him
to lead with his faith. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. Incredible.
So we're going to transition to blended here in a moment, but it took from the time that actually
we arrived in the country until we made the move to May River. It was about three or four months.
We arrived in July, I think July 9. And it was in late October-ish, right? November.
November when we actually made the move out there. Because just logistically,
how do you move your family up there? With no moving trucks. With no moving trucks.
Yeah. And we were able to get a truck. There was just a lot of trial, a lot of tears during that
time, coming short of money, not having the money to do what we need to do. We made arrangements.
There was this medical launch that was like a houseboat that we were supposed to be able to use
to move our stuff out. And we were getting everything loaded on our truck and then got
word that that launch didn't actually work. And so we were going to have to do it on canoes.
Yeah. So it just took a long time. But when it came down to the end, I left, was supposed to be just
a few days ahead of Blin. I was taking the load of our things out in these double canoes.
And there were just a number of things that went wrong.
It's many, many things that went wrong. And I was supposed to be there like a week ahead of her to
finish up the septic system to just get this tiny house ready for she and the three boys.
And I got there the night before they were supposed to arrive. And we had made arrangements for a
pilot to come. We'd found there was an airstrip about four or five miles up river that planes came
into and little, little six-seater airplanes, a little grass airstrip. And we made arrangements
for them to come pick Blin up and take her out there. And I was going to meet them at that time.
And with that, I'll transition over to Blin. So John left a week before. And of course,
there was no radio contact, no cell phones back then, nothing like that. So the kids and I,
the three boys and I were there in Wewack by ourselves. And I was trying to wrap up the final
things before the pilots came. Our church had a whole, from the highlands, they had a whole,
they had several pilots that flew and serviced all the missionaries in New Guinea. So they were
supposed to come pick us up in a week. And we had made arrangements when John had, all the trips John
had made to the government office and everything. The government was actually supposed to, every two
weeks, they said they were flying out mail to the little airstrips up there in the area and
to bring mail and supplies to everybody. And so we had arranged with them that they would,
our mail was coming to Wewack and then they would pick it up. Someone from the mission in
Wewack would take it to the government office and then they would fly it out every two weeks.
And so I thought, well, two weeks, I can handle going two weeks at a time without mail. So one
of the last days there, I had somebody, one of the local people watch the boys and I hired,
got on a bus and went to the government office. And it was actually one of our church members
that was working for the government. And I went to talk to her just to make sure that she knew
that someone from the Wewack mission was going to bring our mail and they fly it out. And she
looked at me and she says, well, unfortunately, the services have been suspended indefinitely.
And I just looked at her, she says, we just don't have the money they had planned on this big
mind opening and it hadn't opened up and that was supposed to give all this money to the government.
And they, it didn't work out and they just didn't have the cash to do it. So I went back to our
little house at the mission station where we were staying. It was right on the ocean where
you could overlook the ocean. And I just said, God, what am I supposed to do? No mail. And
the pilots flew in that evening, two of them. We called it the transit flat. There were several
bedrooms. So they stayed in one of the bedrooms. And at that point too, there was a radio system
that everybody, all the missionaries in our church throughout New Guinea could get on the radio and
you know, talk every day if you needed help or anything. And so they brought our radio, but
they mentioned, oh, we forgot the battery. We accidentally left the battery to run this radio
for communication. So that night they went down to the ocean and they took, they went swimming
and then they came back. I'd gotten the boys to bed and I just kind of sat at the table in the
little transit house. I could hear the waves of the ocean. And I wrote a letter to my mom and dad
and I wrote a letter to John's mom and I just said, I'm leaving tomorrow for the jungle.
We don't know what, when we're going to get mail out again, the mail was suspended, you know. And I
just wrote, I don't know when you'll hear from us again. And I just sat there just, I'd been struggling
all day close to tears and I just sat there. It was felt like I was writing my last will and
testimony. You know, just, I didn't know, you know, and I just kind of just sat there and I just
let the peace, at first I said, God, I can't do this. I can't do this. And then I just let the
peace of the waves, just the sound of the waves coming in. Just, it just felt like God's peace
was ascending on me and that He said, you can, I will be with you. And so the next day, the pilots
said, well, we're going to get up at six because they had a ton of other flying to do. We were the
first on their list and we'll drop you off. Well, no one at that point, they'd never flown into
May River. And so, and by the way, just so you know, flying there at that time was not, you
know, there weren't any electronics to do it. You did it with a watch, time, and landmarks.
Wow. That's how you found an airstrip. Anyway, so no one realized that May River often clouds in early
in the morning and that if you want to fly into May River, you kind of wait till 9, 10 in the morning.
Well, we left at six and it was going to take an hour out there. We had gotten a dog for the boys.
And so we went out to the Wewack Airport and little Cessna airplane. I'd never been on a little
plane before. So we got in the back and the Aaron and Chad, the five and three year old, were in the
way back and then I was in the middle seat with holding our 18 month old on my lap. The dog was
down in the bottom in the baggage. They stuffed it in the baggage thing and we took off and I was
scared to death, you know, as a plane, a little Cessna plane. I'd never been on one. So I was
scared to death holding on to my little baby and then watching my boys. And as we flew out
for the hour, I just was looking out the window and just noticed how remote. It was getting fewer
and fewer huts. You know, you could see the Seapick River, but just fewer and fewer huts
along and I just said, really, this is really remote. I mean, John had kind of told me he had
two trips up there, but still it was just very remote. And then as we got closer to May River,
where there's a few more hills, the clouds came in and of course they're not flying by instruments,
they're flying by site and they never landed at May River before. So they were making their way
through the clouds and circling around and I said to them, how are we going to let John know that
we're coming? I mean, we'd sit on this date, but they said, oh, he'll know, he'll hear us.
He'll hear us. So we circled around and around and you know, the airstrip had white cones. There
was actually another mission that was there at the airstrip. They were doing Bible translation. So
there was one house there with a couple of American families. Anyway, they had the white cones out
and you could see them and then the clouds would take over and I think the pilots, they were later,
we found out that one pilot became our close friend and he said he was pretty worried that day.
Anyway, we ended up, they made their way through the clouds and I just kept hanging on to Matthew
in my lap and we landed on the airstrip and you know, John, the only, there was no way to let
John know when to come. And so I had gone to bed the evening before, absolutely exhausted from a
several day journey up the river in the sun and unloading stuff that night and we had collapsed
there and gone to bed. And so I woke up to a plane going around and around and around and I said,
well, that must be that. So we raced down, jumped into a canoe and you know, made the way about
five miles up river. So you know, the pilots, they landed. So they landed, they left me there.
They unloaded the, they had a ton of work to do that day. So they, they took left the kids and I
out and the dog was just shivering. They opened the baggage thing. The dog was shivering. They took
out the few bags that we had and they shook my hands and they said, we had to take off. Now,
the new tribes translators that were there, they did come out and gave us a little shady place to
sit while we were waiting for John, but just watching those pilots take off, it was like,
you're just leaving me here in the middle of the jungle. Anyway, about 20 minutes later,
John came up and we got in the canoe and went down river to, to where we were. And when we climbed
out of the canoe there at the bottom of the hill, it was a canoe that had brought John up and they
had to take off immediately that day too to go down river. So we stood on the river bank. Oh,
we had ordered a boat from Australia, a dinghy to take us around and had not arrived before we
left. It was supposed to go up in the cargo that John had brought. So he had bought an
outboard motor. So we stood there on the bank of that river watching these guys take off to go back
to Humpa and to with the canoes and we had an outboard motor and no boat and we had a radio and
no battery. And I stood there on that bank with my 18 month old in my arm and my five and three
year old boy standing beside me was seeing all these people, you know, in Wewack, a lot of people
spoke English, but here they didn't speak English, just hearing the strange language and a lot of
them were covered with the skin fungus ringworm and just saying, man, I hope none of them hold my
baby and just just being scared to death. And then it felt like literally we were at the end of the
world, you know, just when those canoes, I'll never forget those canoes leaving us and going down
river and just feeling like we were left in in civilization and walking up the hill and the
heat and humidity, you know, with the two little boys and holding Matthew in my arms and just making
our way up to this tiny house and the septic hadn't gotten done because John had just gotten there and
so we had this broken little outhouse to use for a few days. Anyway, it was the pilot actually came
a week later and dropped the battery at the airstrip. Again, we just heard the plane circling.
Yeah, all we heard was a plane flying over. And I knew that he, so John made his way up river and
sure enough, he dropped the battery off and so then we at least had communication. But yeah,
it was it was quite scary. And so that was November. And then three weeks later, they brought our
student nurse out Kelly. And then when we had come to New Guinea and when we had packed up all our
crate and stuff in July from the States, I'd said to John, we should pack Christmas presents for our
kids, you know, we always made a big deal of Christmas for the boys. And we always bought quality
things like Legos and stuff. And John says, oh, they're going to have all that stuff over there.
We can just buy it. And so we got to Wewack when we got to Wewack in July. And when we were getting
ready to move, I went and all these all the where were these little Chinese shops because John said
back then, Australia, you know, they're under Australia, they're going to have all the Australian
goods. Well, they didn't. It was Chinese junkie. I mean, not junkie, but just little cheap Chinese
stuff. And I was used to buying quality toys, you know, for our kids. And so I'd written to our friends
and family in the States and said, can you guys send a few little gifts for Christmas? Well, at that
time, we did not realize that packages, not air mail, but packages took six to eight months to get
to New Guinea. Wow. So that's to get to the country, to the country, then not let alone to us. 270 miles
upstate, which only happened. You know, I went to town about every two to three months. So from then
on, we got mail every two to three months packages every two to three months. Anyway, so when we got
so when we left Wewack, I didn't have anything for the kids. So we were up there and it was getting
closer to Christmas. And I just said to John, what are we going to do with the kids? What are we
going to do with the kids for Christmas? Because we'd always make Christmas really special for them.
And I didn't have anything for that. I bought a couple little things for them. So the couple
days before Christmas, our radio, which we had working at that time, the pilot up in the Highlands,
one of the other pilots, crackled to life and said, how would you guys like to come to the Highlands
for Christmas? He said, I'll come down Christmas Eve and pick you up. Yeah, Christmas Eve day. And so
the day before, I just said to John, we've got to get a couple little things made for the kids. So
John actually went down. We've got he got in the generator shed set up in the generator and he went
down there and he bits of our crate. He took boards in our oldest son, Aaron. He was five and a half
at the time and he just said, we got to make something for my brother. So he and John were
there late at night making little boats out of the crate, crate pieces. And that morning, we had
a little Christmas there for the boys. And then the plane came that day and picked us up and took
us up to the Highlands. Now, unbeknownst to me, one of my friends in Michigan that was supporting
us, she had decided she was going to air mail a Christmas package just not surface, but air mail.
And so on the way, the pilot picked us up and on the way he was going to take us to our hospital
at 8,000 feet there in New Guinea, which was going to be cool. It was going to feel more like
Christmas because where we were was so hot. Anyways, on the way up to drop us at the Soapus
Hospital, he got a radio call from his wife in Mount Hogan that a package had arrived from America
for us. So he dropped us at Soapus. He didn't have to do this. And he flew 30 minutes over the mountain
to pick up the package from his wife, flew back over to the hospital. It was this big box from
my friend in the States. And the next morning was Christmas morning. And we opened it and there was
a toy for every kid. Just it was just little gifts and stuff. And it was just amazing. It was the
best Christmas we've ever had. Right on time. Right on time. And was it cooler? We needed jackets.
They're vegetables. They grew up there down in the plains. It was they can't grow food because
the flooding and the river we had bananas, but a few greens, but everything was hard up there.
You went to market their carrots and potatoes and broccoli. And just it was, you felt like.
Every time we went to the hide ends, it was like we died and went to heaven. They even had strawberries.
And it was amazing. So and then we got to know some Australians. Another family was up there of
Australians. They also had, well, we only had three children at the time, but they had four kids.
And so they've become one of our best friends to this day. So we went on vacations with them. But
yeah, we stayed up there with them. It was so nice and cool. And so blessed. That's incredible. I can't
imagine the fear that you must have felt and how much God had to intervene on that fear to give
you the peace enough to get on that plane. And then the fear you built on the plane, you know, the poor dog.
I don't think he ever recovered from that. And to bring a dog, wouldn't the Ewan people see that
as like potential food at some point? They usually didn't eat dogs, but maybe. Well, I know some
tribes actually still ate people, didn't they? Well, many of the people that we lived among,
many of the men still remembered the taste of human flesh. Yeah. So like, I don't know how a dog is
off limits. If Ray is not off limits. And so, you know, the fear that you must have felt in the heat
and the desperation and like that's a lot to overcome. And to be a mother on top of it,
not just a mother, but bring those children with you as a mother, right? So you have the sense of
protection as a mother, the sense of nurturing as a mother. And you have these three kids in a place
where you admit you can't provide Christmas. What else did you feel that you couldn't provide?
And I can't imagine the amount of fear, trepidation, uncertainty that you could have felt.
How much do you think you've grown from the first year to like the second year to the third year?
Or was it all pretty much asking God to give you peace like every moment of every day?
No, it was actually, you know, we grew to just love the people there and everything. And by the
time we left, they actually said to us, John and Belinda, the only difference between us is your
skin color. You're just like us. And it was actually, it was a lot harder to leave than it was to go
there. When we went, came back to states eight years later, it was so hard, you know, we just really
missed them. So yeah, God did a lot of growth in us during that time. How hard was it for your kids
to simulate with American kids afterwards after being a part of tribal life?
It was 13 when we brought him back and it took him a decade at least to get over that.
Yeah, it was harder. Others were a bit younger. Our daughter was only six, so it wasn't as hard.
But yeah, the first two years we were back in the States, there was in a day that went by that
the kids are one of us said, life here stinks.
What an interesting perspective. We have all these things that we take for granted
and your kids were raised with none of those things and longed for them.
Yeah, they were raised so simple because, you know, their entertainment was making
fronds, coconut fronds as a slide down the mud bank. And then in the river, we went down to
river every night to swim and just, you know, they Legos, they're Legos. They, you know,
eventually two years in a family joined us. They were both nurses, so they joined us and they had
couple kids. So the kids together, you know, would play together. And then when they came to the
States, they just said, these kids just don't know how to attain themselves. They just want video games.
Our kids were happy under our house. Eventually we built a house on eight foot posts. And so
every day in the heat, the kids would go under the house and play and make their cars and their
tracks. And when they got to States, they said, kids don't know how to entertain themselves.
They don't know the supper either. Kids here, you know, if it's a hot day, what do they do?
They wind, they want to go inside, they don't want to do anything. They complain.
That's what your kids do. Let's go slide down a mud bank. It's hot. Nothing's going to change yet.
Let's go have fun. So, you know, eight years and we have another store, maybe to tell to finish
this piece up, but you know, eight years of immersion in a culture like that irrevocably changes you.
That culture was a highly relational culture. You know, houses, there aren't windows or doors even.
Windows with the screen. Well, our house had windows in the screen, but there's did. They were pots,
you know, and you're a village. And so you're just, you hear everything. You're part of everything
that's happening in the village, you know, so you're just, you're kind of immersed in it.
And over time, that becomes very comforting, maybe, you know, reassuring just to know that
you're part of this greater community. When you come here, when we came back, all of a sudden we
went from this open environment into an environment with sealed houses and sealed doors and you can't
even hear the birds outside if your windows are closed, right? And you certainly have little
engagement with your neighbors. So all of that was part of a called reverse culture shock of coming
back and just experiencing after eight years of immersion, having to re-enter this world and make
adjustments back. But on the front end, yeah, the lack of privacy on the front end was just
really hard for me. We had this little 400 square foot house, the whole front end was open,
and it was a porch and John eventually put a screen on it so that the boys, you know,
it was just gave an extra area for the boys to play in and not have to worry about mosquitoes.
But it was right on the path to the health center. So every morning, and it was just open, you know,
my kitchen sink and when I was cooking and stuff and doing my little laundry, we got a generator.
So we had this little Japanese washer. We ran the generator a couple times a week anyway. So I would
be washing the breakfast dishes and I had started home schooling our oldest son sitting there at
the table and all the ladies with the children on their backs would come and they would just plaster
themselves on the screen just looking at me and talk talking in their dialect, you know,
I mean, their local dialect. And the only place I had to go where they couldn't see me was our
tiny's bathroom two feet by two feet, you know, I had a tiny shower in a toilet that would just
go in there and just sit on the toilet and close the door just to get away from all these prying
eyes. But, you know, we got used to that more eventually. The bathroom feels like my, my,
what do they call it, the war room. War room? My prayer closet, for sure. I get my best ideas
in the bathroom. Yeah. Anyway, so it just took a while to get used to that. But then we came back
to states it was reverse of that. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess for the you want people the concept of
personal, they didn't have it like not property themselves. I'm sure they knew it. If it's theirs,
they know it's theirs. But like as far as territory goes, was not a concept. So they walked where they
pleased, right? Right. Right. Where are you? Wherever my foot is, is mine. It's yours too. It's fine.
Well, even property was everybody if you didn't own it, you know, if somebody had something,
somebody else could just come and take it and not not steal it, but then it would become theirs.
It's very, very shared community. It reminds me of the book of acts where if somebody needed
something, the community pitched in and worked it out. They had what they needed. Yeah. It's cool.
Well, we wanted to maybe for the next piece here, share Ben's story. I love all these stories. And
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