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June came in like a lion. But is now going out like a lamb...(thankfully)
I know that saying is supposed to be about the weather. And also not about the month of June. But this month started out challenging (pig attacks and even natural disasters)...but thankfully the month ended sort of quiet and hopeful.
Here is a recap of the past month:
The trials: (1) We went looking for a young girl given over to marriage to an older man. She has run away twice and we are trying to keep her out of the marriage and in school. We did not find her. Child marriage is a heinous sin. (2) We confronted a man beating his wife. He decided he'd just leave the village for good.... but then asked money from us to leave. (3) Teresa began to wear out with exhaustion from treating the sick and not getting rest and some of her symptoms began to come back (fatigue, bruising, lack of concentration). (4) I got attacked by a jungle pig. Then Paul had rocks thrown at him from an angry evangelist who owned the pig. One boy was bitten. (5) A huge flood happened and caused much damage and many gardens were destroyed, which may cause hunger later (some of the people are already malnourished even with these gardens).
Then the blessings: (1) Then we had an easy last two weeks. (2) The Knapp family visited us from Kansas. (3) We have an upcoming baptism course and several interested people. (4) We've had some good times with the evangelists and spiritual progress and are encouraged by the faithfulness of people like Jimmy Weyato, Perin Lambe, Yus Weya, Wetinus Bogum, and Wemin Wenda, a good bunch of Papuan church workers. (5) The flood waters actually IMPROVED our creek and swept open our creek banks and gave us many new places to play with the kids. We now have many rocky and clean new swimming holes. (6) We celebrated Alethea's 10th birthday.
Below are some of these items in more detail:
THE PIG ATTACK:
The pig attack of 5 June, 2017, by Teresa Johnson:
"This evening I watched my wonderful husband defend a young Korowai man from an attacking pig in our back yard. I watched this man throwing rocks at this pig in our yard [a common practice to keep the pigs at a distance] and the pig turn around and attack this man. He was next to a tree and jumped into it to escape the pig. I screamed for Trevor as I was running out the door and picked up a sturdy club on the end of the porch. Trevor launches himself out the door and I pass him the club. I see him running up to the pig and it turned on him. He hit it hard twice but didn't slow it's attack at all. It knocked the stick from Trevor's hand and he literally wrestles the pig to the ground with his bare hands around the pigs mouth and pinning him it to the ground with his knee, but it was a struggle to keep it down. I ran inside to grab a knife to stab it before it got loose from Trevor's hold and while I was in the house another Korowai man ran to help and grabbed the pigs legs out from under it making sure it couldn't wrestle from Trevor's grasp. While they held it down Noah comes running up as I run out with the knife, I hand the knife to him and he doesn't hesitate, but runs to his dad's aid, drops on his knees by the pig, and stabs it over and over while Trevor and the Korowai man hold down the struggling, extremely angry pig. Paul Snider runs up with his spear and also begins to try to kill this pig. Poor Paul has an infected leg and had to run on it in order to help. All this on his birthday no less! When all was over (and it took a long time to kill it) they had to deal with an angry evangelist that was worried about his now dead pig instead of the two men it attacked. The Korowai man ended up with his finger bitten through and some cuts and Trevor had nothing but a lot of pig blood on him. Praising the Lord that things didn't turn out bad. A bitten finger and cuts we can deal with. I've seen pig attacks we couldn't help and I am so grateful I didn't have to call for a medivac that couldn't have come until tomorrow. God has been very merciful."
Anger from an evangelist:
Evangelist Yowenus saw the pig attack. He never asked even once how Samuel (the Korowai kid who was bitten) was doing. He was only concerned about his pig. He pointed his machete and yelled. We recorded him with a hand phone as evidence of his behavior and he threw rocks three times at Paul. The professed believer Airus stood in front of the rocks to protect Paul. Then Yowenus tried to slap the phone out of Paul's hand, hitting Paul in the process.
Later when we were cutting up the pig to divide up the meat (giving the biggest piece to Samuel, the young man who was bitten) Yowenus came over and wanted to claim the meat since it was now "his pig" (even though he just denied this fact 20 minutes prior. If you are going to lie, at least remember what your lie was).
I have received a promise from the GIDI church that Yowenus will soon be removed. So we will see what the church does.
WE ALSO HAD A FLOOD THIS MONTH:
On the night of June 4th it flooded higher than I have ever seen the water. It swept through a few homes but the main damage was that it swept clean many gardens which the people depend upon for food and swept away over 100 pigs (some came back), and some handicrafts the women made for money, and the tribal people lost a handful of boats and a couple of trolling motors (including ours) were lost or damaged.
Nobody died and so we were thankful. The evangelist Jimmy did fall out of his boat and get swept downriver for a time until he was able to crawl out on a bank.
We are also thankful that many people from the church and the government and private Indonesian Christians came together and sent in several plane loads of supplies. With gardens gone, hunger will soon be upon the people here. And so Christians here acted! This was all an Indonesian effort and I am thankful to see national Christians react so quickly to these needs.
The faithful Evangelists Jimmy Weyato, Yus Weya, and Wemin Wenda worked many days to deliver the relief supplies up and down the river to 9 different villages.
The gardens that were not swept away were battered to death or they got so wet that the crops rotted.
Gardens swept clean and totally destroyed.
Other gardens too damaged to produce anything.
ALETHEA HAD A BIRTHDAY!
On a lighter note, Ali turned 10 years old.
Pray for her. She professes faith but is sometimes inconsistent in her behavior. She desires baptism and we are trying to disciple her.
Pray for the salvation of our children. Pray for wisdom as we seek to teach them well and give them good examples.
She IS maturing though and took her first hike with me in the jungle - without a single complaint!
Also,
THE KNAPP FAMILY IS VISITING FROM KANSAS:
Glad to have Pastor Curtis and Nathan and Cara here. There is no better theology than creek-side theology.
Perpetua below is so happy to have Cara here.
There is much more to write, but this is enough for now.
A final thanks for funds for the Anti-pig fence. We just received word that the full amount it will cost has already come in. This will keep our kids and the school-kids much safer.
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