Wabag Market

Hello Missionary Supporters,

First, some background information: look behind you...that's your background.

Second, we went to Wabag, the town about 20 minutes away. We took video of us going to the outdoor market where you can buy vegetables from the dirt. I don't mean that the veggies came from the dirt, which they did, but that they are sitting in the dirt when you buy them. But sometimes they are on tarps, and sometimes the vendors throw water on the veggies to make them look shiny and wet, and sometimes the water is clean.

As you walk around people, muddy rocks, dogs, and the occasional pig you get to pick up your food. Sounds appealing? You'll have to see for yourself, because I'm realizing that my description is probably creepy. Watch this video, because we didn't take any still pictures. We usually take lots of still pictures (too many, in fact), but we made a concerted effort to get video, because some things must be seen in motion to be believed, things like the Wabag Market:

https://youtu.be/0ilwsycSDmY

Third will have to wait till next time. Seriously, the Wabag market is overwhelming the first 38 times you go. Then you enter a stage of desensitization the next 24 times which leads to resigned acceptance for the rest of your life. The place changes you, and I haven't even told you about the buai market that's up the hill. No, you have to wait. Just enjoy this little slice of PNG for now. Be content. Kroger/W-mart/Meijer/Safeway/Albertson's will take on a whole new joyous pleasurable meaning. There are no pigs (alive) there, are there? No.

God bless you. And us. Christ died for our sins. It doesn't matter where you buy your groceries. Thank God for our daily bread, even if they are dirt covered potatoes. Dirt washes off, and so do our sins in Holy Baptism. Thanks be to God.

Christmas 2016, or "Where is your family and what are they doing?"

Our family did, in fact, celebrate Christmas, but you wouldn't know that if you just read our last newsletter. There was just so much 'business-related' stuff that I didn't have room to put in the family-fun news. So here it is...

We woke up on Christmas day, sick. Actually, some of us went to bed sick the night before, after attending the candlelight service. So we decided to have an 'at-home' Christmas day prayer service.

And there was coffee. Then began the gift-giving portion of our day. Christmas day gift exchanges in our house always have been relatively subdued. I say relatively, because I'm comparing us to an imaginary family that showers their kids with presents and puppies and inflatable bounce-houses and everyone eats fudge and Twix bars until they can't play video games anymore. Then after the professional photographers are gone, the wait staff cleans up the tape and paper while everyone naps.

We, on the other hand, do this:

Chaos is set on low. Small people get the most stuff. Everyone smiles. A lot. We forget for a while that we are half a world away from our families.

Some things need explanation. Like, where does the 'i' in explain go when you add -tion to the end? Also, what is this a picture of...?:

Yes, technically it is a picture of a someone holding a drawing. The drawing is done by Moreah, and it shows the two main characters in a story written by Onika (that's who is holding it). The story is about two characters who fall in love, reluctantly. Or one of them does, maybe both. I am reading it right now; I'm about three chapters in, and it's really good so far! But Onika was THRILLED when she opened it and saw who/what it was. Just look at her super-goofy-happy face:
 

She is beyond excited. Other than that the day went normally well.

If you want to watch (and hear) more, then click this video link to our YouTube channel and see all the Christmas day fun for yourself!!

https://youtu.be/QC-pSDosWKg

Christmas 2016 Update

Christmas is Christ for us--the demonstration of God's love. More than heartfelt sympathy, the action that God took by taking on flesh is the ultimate definition of 'Divine Intervention.' In our sin we were lost, helpless as a newborn. In humility, He became like us in every way, yet without sin. And this sinless Son of God and also Son of Man humbled himself further by dying a death we deserved, by experiencing eternal hellish separation from God the Father.

And therein lies a two-fold mystery:
that God would bind himself to flesh
in time for all eternity,
and the sinless one would suffer hell
to set the sinful free.

Peace be with you as you celebrate the magnificent Incarnation of God, the birth of the Savior, the redemption of His people. Amen.

Answers to your Questions

The Sunday School class at United in Christ Lutheran Church in Flint, Michigan was curious enough to send us a list of questions. Here they are:

1. What does your house look like?

2. Do you have electricity?

3. How do you wash your clothes?

4. Do you have running water?

5. How do you get your food?

6. What is a normal day like for you?

7. How do you use the computer, such as internet service?

8. How was having a baby there different from having a baby in the States?

 

And here are our answers in video form:

 

https://youtu.be/1kbuH6r_k48 

 

But if you'd rather read:

 

1. Our house looks like a normal American ranch style house, but with a few minor differences, like a big water tank on the roof.

2. We have electric power lines connected to our house that sometimes have electricity in them. When they don't, we use a diesel-powered generator.

3. We let a machine wash our clothes. We let the sun dry them.

4. Rain water collects in a giant tank that gets pumped onto our roof (when we have electricity) that goes either into our house 'cold' or goes through the roof-mounted-solar-heat tank, and then into our house.

5. We get our food from the store, mostly, or from our garden when we can get stuff to grow, which my wife is getting better at doing. Growing food here is different enough that she has had to learn new skills to get things to come up edible, and hopefully just for us, not the bugs, of which there are many...and they're hungry.

6. I have not had a normal day since I got here. The kids, however, are forced to be normal. We make them read and do chores.

7. I could do an entire blog post about what we had to go through to get the internet working here. It might take two posts, or just one with charts, graphs, and pictures. But we have internet now, and we have ways to keep it going even when the power goes out. Confused? Relax, I'll write another post.

8. Having a baby in PNG is not really that different. But maybe I'm just saying that because Charles is our sixth child and somewhere around number four you get into a groove of parenting. It is still challenging, but you know what to expect, and even in a different country babies mostly just need loving parents who can function reasonably well with minimal sleep. Coffee helps, and PNG has plenty. The other kids help, too, but we try to keep the coffee away from them.

That's all for this list. If there is something else you want to ask, put your question in the comment section below, and if I remember to check it I'll try to respond if I have electricity and an internet connection. And thank you for your prayers and support.

~Michael

Missionary Update, with helicopters

Click on this video:

https://youtu.be/6sqJJ1OViWo

It shows a typical day here in PNG.

Although 'typical' for PNG means a helicopter might land in your front yard. And by 'front yard' I mean the field out in front of the seminary, which is the campus where we live, so it is kind of like our yard.

I think it would be fun to be a helicopter pilot. I think it would be horrible to be a helicopter passenger. I get pretty bad motion sickness whenever I'm a passenger in a vehicle, whether it is a car, plane or boat. And although I have never been on a helicopter before something tells me it would be fun to drive (fly?).

But you do not need to know that; you can just watch as this helicopter, which I am not piloting, takes off from the seminary campus after delivering someone safely back home.

Like I said, a typical day.

~Michael

Missionary Update 17, Travel highlights 2014

Hello.

Today is May 2, 2016.

You are tired of looking at political news and you want to watch a missionary family prepare to deploy to a foreign land. That's great, because I just posted a video of exactly that!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq3zyhklOWQ

And because it is from 2014 you won't see one iota of political stuff. I promise. Unless you consider buffalo, ice caves, and waterfalls political?? Don't...that would be weird.

~Michael

New Videos, Updates, and Bunnies!!!

Maybe you are only subscribed to this Blog and not my Facebook account (Michael Ritzman) or my YouTube channel (OMPNG). In that case this will be great news: I have a Facebook account and a YouTube channel!!!!!

Now that you know you should go look me up on FB. And while you are clicking around go see the two new OMPNG Missionary Update videos on Youtube. Here, I will give you convenient links:

Most recent OMPNG Missionary Update with Rev. Dr. Willard Burce, one of the first Lutheran Missionaries to Papua New Guinea.

Second most recent OMPNG Missionary Update with me and Pastor Larry Matro. We deliver our totes to the international shipping company.

Some of you were asking if our shipping crates arrived safely. I do not want to spoil the surprise, but they are sitting directly behind me as I type. Wait, that kind of spoiled the surprise, didn’t it?

So what else is new? Well, I am finally in Papua New Guinea after a long wait for my paperwork to pass through the vaunted halls of government. But maybe you already knew that. I can’t remember what I previously wrote, and I am too busy/lazy to go back and research. So, here I am.

We are learning the language. It is easier to hear than to speak...as if my ears are connected to my brain but my mouth is not. Sometimes I speak French...is that weird?

I got a car, and the seminary students helped me build a carport to keep it dry. It is supposed to rain a lot here, but lately it has not. Here, 'lately' means about seven months, which is an incredibly long time to go without steady rain when you are a subsistence farmer.

The internet is incredibly slow here. By ‘here’ I mean at my house. There are spots where internet connection is good and speeds are decent. These spots are called Cell Towers, and if you are fortunate to live near one you happily surf the net. The rest of us click and wait.

The food is good and we sleep a lot. Not because we are lazy, but because it gets dark (very dark) at 6:30pm and stays dark until 6:00am every day. And if the power is out the only reasonable thing to do is go to bed. And the power is out often, like, right now. I’ve lost 20 pounds.

We have big spiders. I will not go into detail because you need to hear about giant spiders as much as you need to hear about some of the bathrooms I have been in. Both come straight out of your nightmares, and involve equal parts fear and crying.

Baby Bunnies are the opposite of spiders

And we are helping the drought victims…some of them. We would love to help them all but it would take a ridiculous amount of resources and we would probably only reach a portion and only for a limited time. So we pray for relief. Please pray with us:

Father of all mercy and grace, please look favorably upon the people of Papua New Guinea and give them good weather so their crops may grow and they may live to serve you and their neighbors in peace and love. Assist those who bring aid to find alternative solutions to the drought. Strengthen and encourage your shepherds to minister to those who are suffering. Give them counsel and courage to proclaim your steadfast love shown in the death and resurrection of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. We pray all this in His name. Amen.

~Michael