I lack the words to adequately desribe the last couple of weeks. Our friends, Thomas and Chrisitiane Weber, who were soon to leave PNG, after finishing the Bimin New Testament, had a house fire. Their home was destroyed. Thomas had significant burns and had to be flown to Australia where he is now in the burn unit at Royal Brisbane Hospital. I came to Australia within a day to join Christiane for the same practical reasons she did that for me three years ago.
On the bright side, after a week of praying and seeking the Lord for his healing while Thomas “was sleeping” through surgeries, he woke up and his first word, ever so slight and said with great effort was “Coffee”. If you don’t know him you might think he was in bad shape but everyone who knows him knew it was a good sign.
A bit of history:
In 2006, when Neil nearly lost his life as the passenger in a truck accident I felt like I was living in a movie. It had been a very hard year. Neil had broken his collar bone in an accident. Tony had broken his arm. I was diagnosed with a cancerous condition and had surgery (praise God it was later changed to a “misdiagnosis”). Then close friend had a terrible stroke. A road collapsed under Neil when he was teaching a friend to drive. The next month someone else close to us was diagnosed with HIV. Four weeks later another dear friend died. While waiting for her burial, we got word my cousin Rosaria had cancer and I went to Germany. I was back less than a week when Christiane came over to pray with me and I said, “I feel like a sponge held under water too long. I can’t take one more thing”. When she knocked at the door that night with Thomas alongside I remarked, “So, one more thing?
Had Webers not been there in Australia I am not sure what I would have done. Had friends in the US and Europe not rallied with the necessary practical needs I don’t know how I would have made it. But you did rally and God, I pray, has blessed you back a dozen times over. Now I see Webers and I feel it was somehow easier to be the victim than it was to be along side. I would never want burns but I hate to see those I love suffer. We feel like we can’t do anything. We know we need God.
I read a good quote recently. It said that the early church prayed ten days, then Peter preached ten minutes and three thousand got saved. Nowadays we pray ten minutes, preach ten days and three people get saved. We want to pray Thomas and his family through to an amazing recovery. We have given and loved but we must pray. We feel so dependent when we pray. What did WE do when we prayed? Nothing but God is working. As our brother sleeps and heals, let’s pray.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Powerless no more!
Is it wrong to love a generator? If so, we’re guilty but oh, so thankful!
Power outages have been a frequent concern here at Bobiufa and while we were in Brisbane our house was without power for more than two weeks. Needless to say everything in the refrigerator went bad and as the house used power for the water supply that was also not available. Obviously, we need a generator for the computers and printers, not to mention water and refrigeration. Getting the generator proved to be more a challenge than we thought. Due to the outages, the ATM machines have been down and the banks have been closed for days at a time. When they have been open cash withdrawls have been limited. Credit cards are not being accepted, so cash is the only way to pay for anything from a new computer to a new generator. Neil had to stand in lines for up to three hours a day for three days in a row to get enough cash to buy the lovely little Yamaha seen here.
Of course generators do not run on love alone but they like to drink gas and oil. However, the power loss has been accompanied by bad weather which has caused flooding and roads and bridges have also been closed making the supply of fuel in the highlands very tight. It took another day of waiting in line to get the oil and the gas to get the generator running but this past weekend Neil fired it up and we had charging computers, water running in the sinks, and even the milk stopped curdling! It was a thing of beauty! In fact, we’ve only had about six hours of power in the last three days so the generator is a real blessing. Thanks to all of you for all you do to provide the tools we need to keep doing the work to which the Lord has called us. The great thing is that no one person can do it all, so it is only collectively, as His body that His will is accomplished; that way only Jesus gets the glory. That’s how it should be.
So as the lights flicker and the power fades we go downstairs again to hook up the cords once again…….
Power outages have been a frequent concern here at Bobiufa and while we were in Brisbane our house was without power for more than two weeks. Needless to say everything in the refrigerator went bad and as the house used power for the water supply that was also not available. Obviously, we need a generator for the computers and printers, not to mention water and refrigeration. Getting the generator proved to be more a challenge than we thought. Due to the outages, the ATM machines have been down and the banks have been closed for days at a time. When they have been open cash withdrawls have been limited. Credit cards are not being accepted, so cash is the only way to pay for anything from a new computer to a new generator. Neil had to stand in lines for up to three hours a day for three days in a row to get enough cash to buy the lovely little Yamaha seen here.
Of course generators do not run on love alone but they like to drink gas and oil. However, the power loss has been accompanied by bad weather which has caused flooding and roads and bridges have also been closed making the supply of fuel in the highlands very tight. It took another day of waiting in line to get the oil and the gas to get the generator running but this past weekend Neil fired it up and we had charging computers, water running in the sinks, and even the milk stopped curdling! It was a thing of beauty! In fact, we’ve only had about six hours of power in the last three days so the generator is a real blessing. Thanks to all of you for all you do to provide the tools we need to keep doing the work to which the Lord has called us. The great thing is that no one person can do it all, so it is only collectively, as His body that His will is accomplished; that way only Jesus gets the glory. That’s how it should be.
So as the lights flicker and the power fades we go downstairs again to hook up the cords once again…….
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Reflections on Waiting
Tomorrow marks the beginning of our fifth week of in Brisbane, waiting for our visas. No one can turn time in Brisbane into a hardship. It’s a lovely city and we brought work with us so we stayed busy thus far. We do, however, want to get back to PNG and begin preparing for Christmas and the people who will come to us at that time.
Waiting is an interesting activity. It almost always seems to be a “waste of time” and if I pretended we were not a tad frustrated it wouldn’t be honest. I have, however, prayed about what God has for us in this waiting period. Glimpses appear here and there: a meeting with a long time friend from PNG who is struggling to sense God’s presence; the hairdresser whose husband said he would come to Australia for his family but has decided to stay in their country of origin. All over there are people, God’s image bearers, who need someone to come alongside and say, “He is there. He is listening. Wait and see what He will do”.
Waiting for something as mundane as a visa, reminds me how much our waiting for temporal things Is not like waiting for Christ. Biblical hope is not a wish that something might happen that, should I not cross my fingers hard enough or say the right words, could fall through the cracks. Biblical hope is the expectation of that which is assured. Our hope cannot fail because of the One who made the promise.
So we wait in Brisbane and enter the Advent season, a time of waiting for a promise assured by the Maker of the Universe. These weeks between Thanksgiving and Advent can remind us of a time when all the world stood waiting for the child whose coming made a new star appear, wise men traverse the globe, shepherds rejoice, kings quake, angels sing and senior citizens proclaim salvation to all those in Jerusalem who were waiting for the Messiah.
Celebrating as we wait,
The Vanaria Family
Waiting is an interesting activity. It almost always seems to be a “waste of time” and if I pretended we were not a tad frustrated it wouldn’t be honest. I have, however, prayed about what God has for us in this waiting period. Glimpses appear here and there: a meeting with a long time friend from PNG who is struggling to sense God’s presence; the hairdresser whose husband said he would come to Australia for his family but has decided to stay in their country of origin. All over there are people, God’s image bearers, who need someone to come alongside and say, “He is there. He is listening. Wait and see what He will do”.
Waiting for something as mundane as a visa, reminds me how much our waiting for temporal things Is not like waiting for Christ. Biblical hope is not a wish that something might happen that, should I not cross my fingers hard enough or say the right words, could fall through the cracks. Biblical hope is the expectation of that which is assured. Our hope cannot fail because of the One who made the promise.
So we wait in Brisbane and enter the Advent season, a time of waiting for a promise assured by the Maker of the Universe. These weeks between Thanksgiving and Advent can remind us of a time when all the world stood waiting for the child whose coming made a new star appear, wise men traverse the globe, shepherds rejoice, kings quake, angels sing and senior citizens proclaim salvation to all those in Jerusalem who were waiting for the Messiah.
Celebrating as we wait,
The Vanaria Family
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Brisbane
Brisbane
On Wednesday October 28th we flew to Port Morseby to bring our residential visa application to Pastor Felix. On Friday the visa was lodged in the capital and we flew to Brisbane where we make a second application for our visa in PNG. The entire process should take less than three weeks and then we will head back to our home, celebrate Thanksgiving, and start Advent with our first group of Mesem friends by our side checking the completed translation work.
Brisbane is a great city to spend time in while we are waiting. The Internet works, so the long download of email takes a matter of seconds. We can add messages to the blog and update friends of the work from here. We’re adding some video taken in PNG. We’re in a handy DHL spot so we can get our new credit cards and debit cards to replace what we lost in the most recent “wallet walkabout” that happened at the market. The thief got a lot of cash (Neil had just withdraw money to pay the men) but thankfully the credit cards were not a problem.
Of course the Internet is not our only past time here. Tomorrow Neil goes back to the embassy and we’ll go along as in all these years I have never been in the PNG embassy. Brisbane has a lovely river winding through and a wonderful outdoor mall area where a book lover can sip cappuccino and pass some time. I’ve got the New Testament with me of course, and have finished Acts and should be done with 1 Corinthians this week.
Tony is happy and has found a gym near where we are staying that has a $3 fee for shooting hoops or playing a pick-up game. He will be 17 in December and though we’ve heard the teen years are supposed to be bumpy we’ve not had many bumps and we appreciate the good humour and versatility he has demonstrated in all our travels.
I will update you again as soon as we have more news.
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