The 6th Continent

As I blog today, I am looking out of my living room window across a small valley made up of patchwork little fields, at mountains. My view is partly obscured by the branches of a banana tree and some other tree that I don't recognise, but which is covered in bright red tropical looking flowers. I can hear two or three birds calling back and forth (much more musically than the robins and sparrows I normally listen to!), and the occasional whirring plunk of a gigantic cicada flying into the corrugated metal on the side of our house.

Yes, we are in Papua New Guinea! I have now been to every continent on Earth except Antarctica (and that is one stamp I highly doubt will ever appear in my passport) - I'm thinking 6 out of 7 before I'm 30 isn't bad :)

We arrived 4 days ago, I think - my sense of time has totally taken leave of me for some reason! Our flight was long, but pretty uneventful and MUCH easier than I was expecting it to be. We flew Tulsa - DFW - LAX - Brisbane - Port Moresby - Mount Hagen. Looonnngg!

Actually - I take back the uneventful part. *Someone* didn't quite notice that the travel itinerary from our travel agent included not a two hour layover in Brisbane, but a one DAY and two hour layover. Those date changes can really sneak up on you...! So as we were going through our gate at LAX, the gate agent asked us why we didn't have visas for Australia. To which we replied, "why would we need visas when we're only there at the airport for two hours?" She pointed out the actual length of our stay, and was thankfully able to issue us visas there at the gate! So when we arrived in Brisbane at 7am, we rented a car and drove to Australia Zoo.


After feeding kangaroos, watching the crocodile show and looking at all the animals Anna won't see at the Tulsa Zoo (Galapagos tortoises, Koalas, Wallabies etc), we headed to the beach! Our departure from the zoo was the only time on the entire trip that Anna cried or fussed, and that was quickly stopped with the promise of seeing the ocean shortly (Seriously. She is a much better traveller than either of her parents!). It was her first time to see the ocean, and she LOVED it. She loves looking through our Bahamas pictures and talking about oceans and starfish and sharks, so she was super excited to be able to play in the sand and look for little beach treasures. Honestly, although it was a huge (but rather amusing, even at the time) oversight on my part, our extra day in Brisbane was such a blessing. It broke up the trip, gave us a day to get adjusted to the time difference before hitting the ground here, and was really fun for Anna.

Showing off my new baby bump :)

And now, we are mostly unpacked and turning our little yellow house into our new Papua New Guinea home. Life is a little simpler here; no TV (although we rarely watch ours at home), I line-dry our clothes (we do have a washing machine, praise God - cloth diapers by hand? No thanks!), no dishwasher, internet connection speed from dial-up days (which may limit the number of pictures I can post!), water than has to be filtered before we can drink it ... but we are happy :) Mark is really enjoying working at the hospital here; he said that in his first two days, he has already done more than he would have in a week at Hillcrest. Of course, that is a mixed blessing; his patients here are truly sick. One of his pediatric patients died yesterday due to sepsis after a very third-world-rural-hospital attempt at coding him. He is seeing a LOT of domestic violence; the day before we arrived, a young girl came to the hospital 20 weeks pregnant with her membranes ruptured - from a machete attack by her husband's other wife who could not bear children. A young man was pronounced dead when his family brought him here - his older brother, furious about his marijuana use but not actually intending to hurt him, had hurled a spear at him and severed his carotid artery. Yeah. Pretty different medicine from working in downtown Tulsa ... but he is making the most of his opportunity to minister to his patients and be Jesus to them in each of their situations.

Well, it sounds like it may have started raining. We have pretty tropical weather during the first half of the day, and then it cools down and usually rains in the late afternoon. Which makes for very lush green surroundings. And also means I should go bring my laundry in!