The Home Aesthetic Blog

Wow….it’s not the greatest idea to be out past midnight when you know you have to be up at 6 am the next morning. I feel like a old person saying that. I used to be good to go with just 5 hours. Times change. I am way to fond of my sleep these days. Yeah, I just said ‘these days’. I’m officially a 60 year old in a 26 year old’s body.

Seriously we had a great time at the PASS Tour last night and we wanted to give a special thank you to Zach + Jody of Gray Photography (again), David Jay, Promise Tangeman, and Kevin Swan. These guys have been out on the road  for the last 6 weeks  sharing what they know with photographers all over the country. We count it such a privilege to call some of them friends and to get to know the others as time goes on.

Love that it was held in Fountain Square

Promise blowing all our minds with her creative genius

Zach + Jody Rocking out their talk

Kevin, Demoing of perhaps the greatest album tool of all time, SWAT | Andrew working hard making sure the tour goes flawlessly

The fabulous David Jay introducing the revolutionary PASS

A few weeks ago I received an email from Simon + Megan, our friends & missionaries in Vanuatu that contained a story written by Lucy, their oldest daughter. I felt that the story truly puts into perspective how beneficial a road connecting the different villages throughout the jungle will be.

 

Dad handed me the keys to the truck. “Here, take these,” he said, as he headed away from the clinic.  “I’ll see you in the morning.”  Gulp.

I tied the keys to my skirt, and turned back towards the clinic, where fifteen bodies lay finally asleep, stretched out along the length of the concrete verandah.  They were curled up under black builders’ plastic, blankets, lava-lavas …. whatever would keep the cold out.  Others were inside, on hospital beds, on the floor, anywhere they could find a place to rest their heads and try to sleep.  It was close to 3 in the morning.  It had been a long day.  I gave a silent prayer of thanks to God, and headed for the maternity ward, where I curled up on the floor, and slept.

——–

It was day three of our youth conference.  Close to eighty young people had gathered at Camp Jordan, a very crude, partially built village, close to where the Ora River meets the Jordan River, in the jungle area of Big Bay.  We had been enjoying games, skits, Bible teaching, and just getting to know each other, in our primitive surroundings.

It was fun to watch the bush pikinini thrash the oh-so-serious townies at soccer.  It was great to see some of the more reticent, shy girls from Friday Bible Club come out of their shells and sing praises to God at the top of their voices, and in perfect harmony.  The teaching from God’s Word had drawn some, for the first time, to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and others to a stronger walk with Him.  It was a good camp.

Then we had lunch.  It was fish, and it was delicious.  We were all hungry, so we gobbled it up, eagerly.  But something wasn’t quite right.  At first, it was just our throats.  They began to burn and itch.  Then, before long, we were all throwing up and running to the bush toilet.  Fish poisoning.

For those of you unfamiliar with this tropical malady, it comes from eating reef fish that have feasted on toxin-filled coral.  These toxins enter your system, and manifest themselves with the above-mentioned symptoms, together with dizziness, weakness, headaches, severe itching and sensitivity, and powerful muscle cramps.  It can put you into a coma, and even kill you.  It is serious poisoning.

Providentially, the men and boys at the camp had taken themselves on a huge mountain hike that day, and were not with us for lunch.  They returned from their hike just about the time we girls started dropping like flies.  Helping hands in our time of need.  People gathered into small prayer groups, and the sweet incense of prayer shot up to the throne of Heaven, as those in need were ministered to.

As the afternoon turned into evening, some of the women and girls were getting worse.  Pastor Gabi’s wife, Smiley, started convulsing, and it looked as though she was heading into a coma.  As the little circles of prayer warriors kept up their vigil, the men started loading the worst cases into the trucks.  We had to get to the hospital.

Now, you must remember that we had travelled almost three hours into the bush to reach Camp Jordan, the last half of that journey being muddy, slippery 4WD tracks.  It was back along those tracks we now headed, in two trucks, with weak, sick girls on the backs and in the cabs of each, praying, always praying.

It had rained, that afternoon.  One afternoon of tropical rain, and the route had become a quagmire.  I am not talking about the kind of mud puddles most of us enjoyed playing in, when we were young.  The mud our vehicles were entrenched in, shortly after leaving camp, was jungle mud.  This mud is thick and sticky, and if you’re silly enough to wear shoes when you walk through it, they will be sucked completely off your feet as you drag your leg out to take a step.  It often smells like a pig sty, from the rotting plant matter all through it.  It is disgusting.

As girls continued to throw up and groan in the backs of the trucks, and Smiley fell deeper into a coma, our men worked hard for hours to get us out of that mud and get us to the hospital.  Six hours after leaving the camp, we found ourselves at the turnoff to the Saramauri clinic.  This is the small, isolated clinic that we (FIA) had connected water to, late last year.  Under normal conditions, it would have taken us half an hour to travel that distance.  The clinic is very small, and very basic…. but town and the hospital were another two river crossings and too many miles away.  The clinic would have to do.

The track from the turnoff to the clinic is about 600m long, and about ten times worse than the quagmire we had just escaped from.  We had to walk. But most of us couldn’t walk, so we were carried and half dragged to that blessed clinic.

Nurse Susan and her husband, Manuel, worked tirelessly to help us.  After being dragged out of bed and through the mud to the waiting truck, they helped carry the worst of the patients back to the clinic, where they put some on drips, and handed out panadol and antihistamine to others, finding space and bedding for all to sleep.  And that brings us back to where this story began.

But it is by no means the end of the story.  No lives were lost; every soldier made it back home; our youth camp ended with a loud shout of VICTORY.  We are told in the book of Ephesians that our battles are “not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”…..  God’s word is being preached in the dark corners of this nation, and souls are being saved.  Satan’s ground is being invaded, and he is NOT a happy camper. His feeble attempt to thwart the work of God, last week, did nothing but strengthen Christ’s soldiers, and add more souls to the winning side…because, “we are more than conquerors through him that loved us”.

God’s work will go on in Vanuatu…..”for which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (IICor4:16-18)

I love our work here in Vanuatu.  FRIENDS in Action is determined to help reach the unreached in this world, by building better access roads to remote villages, building and repairing clinics, giving people access to life-giving water, but mostly just clearing the way for teachers of God’s Word to bring freedom to those who are caught in the grip of death, and are on their way to Hell.  There are up to 20 villages in the area around where our camp took place, with no decent access to clinics, to schools, and to town, where they can sell their produce, and make money to live.  FRIENDS has plans to begin road construction up there, later this year.  After our experiences last week, I am even more excited to see this project accomplished.  No one should have to go through what we did to reach medical help.

We are not always at the front line of battle, but we are never OUT of the battle.  Your prayers for us are not just appreciated….. They keep us alive.  Don’t stop praying.

 

 

The Saramauri Clinic where the ladies were taken

Pastor Gabby, his wife smiley and their beautiful children

The “good” part of the road through the jungle

The Lape River. The first river you must cross to get to the villages

The Ora River. The second River you must cross to get to the villages

Jungle Mud in it’s “dry” state. After rain it’s 10 times worse.

Camp Jordan

 

 

Thank you Lucy for sharing your story.