Moving to Parupa to begin a missionary outreach could be compared to taking a time-travel trip back to a more primitive era. Stepping off the small Cessna plane (my time-travel machine!) with our two sons ages four and six and being four months pregnant with our twins, I joined my husband in this remote, primitive village.
Two and a half hours before I had been in town, a place with stores, restaurants, churches, schools, hospitals—and even roads that connected them! The homes were clean and comfortable. People reached into their refrigerators for cold glasses of water. They turned on fans or air-conditioning to cool their homes when the tropical heat became unbearable. They turned on a facet and were blessed with water—and all this without realizing how blessed they were!
I'd been there. Done that. But all that changed when I stepped down from my "time-travel machine." There were no roads. Instead there was a rough dirt airstrip, a river, and jungle huts lined up in the village. There was a definite rustic beauty to the scene before me. The skyline was not interrupted by electrical or telephone poles as none of that existed. Running water? Oh, that was the river. The river was where you bathed, where you washed your laundry and where you cooled off.
I was suddenly far removed from the twentieth century life to which I was accustomed. There were no clean homes. The "three-second rule" definitely did not apply here where food fell to a dirt floor. There was no reaching into the refrigerator for a cold glass of water. For that matter, there was no reaching for the facet for a lukewarm glass of water! Water was brought up bucket by bucket from the river. Water was precious. Turning on the fan meant you fanned yourself with a hand held fan made of palm leaves. Air-conditioning was a dream.
This was our new life. This was the beginning of an adventure the Lord had invited us to take with Him. He never promised it would be easy, but He did promise in Hebrews 13:5 that He would NEVER leave us, nor forsake us. That was enough for us then, and it is enough for us now. What a promise! What a hope! What a God we serve!
Two and a half hours before I had been in town, a place with stores, restaurants, churches, schools, hospitals—and even roads that connected them! The homes were clean and comfortable. People reached into their refrigerators for cold glasses of water. They turned on fans or air-conditioning to cool their homes when the tropical heat became unbearable. They turned on a facet and were blessed with water—and all this without realizing how blessed they were!
I'd been there. Done that. But all that changed when I stepped down from my "time-travel machine." There were no roads. Instead there was a rough dirt airstrip, a river, and jungle huts lined up in the village. There was a definite rustic beauty to the scene before me. The skyline was not interrupted by electrical or telephone poles as none of that existed. Running water? Oh, that was the river. The river was where you bathed, where you washed your laundry and where you cooled off.
I was suddenly far removed from the twentieth century life to which I was accustomed. There were no clean homes. The "three-second rule" definitely did not apply here where food fell to a dirt floor. There was no reaching into the refrigerator for a cold glass of water. For that matter, there was no reaching for the facet for a lukewarm glass of water! Water was brought up bucket by bucket from the river. Water was precious. Turning on the fan meant you fanned yourself with a hand held fan made of palm leaves. Air-conditioning was a dream.
This was our new life. This was the beginning of an adventure the Lord had invited us to take with Him. He never promised it would be easy, but He did promise in Hebrews 13:5 that He would NEVER leave us, nor forsake us. That was enough for us then, and it is enough for us now. What a promise! What a hope! What a God we serve!
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