learning

Bugs are a normal part of daily life. Suppose you leave something out overnight; ants. Put your fruit in a bowl so it looks pretty and is easy to get; ants. Forget to bring in your laundry before the moona beetles come out; moona beetles in your house.  You get the picture. What I didn’t know, is that Fruit Bats are also a normal part of daily life, and they are surprisingly clever.

That time I brought more than 25 moona beetles (aka, june bugs) into my house by accident.

So, you decide to outsmart the ants and hang your bananas outside on your porch. No ants in your house, and pretty bananas hanging like a strange potted plant on your porch. Win-win, right? Wrong. Enter the Fruit Bat. These nocturnal creatures only eat fruit, can get up to a 5-foot wingspan, make a terrifying whoosh-whoosh sound when they fly, and are capable of untying the towel you tied around your bananas so the bats couldn’t get to them. They then proceed to try each of the bananas in the bunch, and make a big, big mess doing it.

Lesson learned. Bananas now go on my screened in porch.

Bugs and bats are not things to get upset about, though, but something to deal with and laugh about. You cannot take everything so seriously when you live in a place besides your passport country. Nothing works the same, nobody thinks the same, and you’ll make a lot more mistakes. It’s okay. Laugh, learn, and go with it.

Josh has been learning the job of (temporary) Flight Coordinator this week. This means that he has been in charge of the scheduling and filling all the flights with missionaries and cargo going to and from the bush locations, as well as managing the pilots, planes, and personnel so that everything flows (relatively) smoothly. Until the airplane is ready to fly, his wings are metaphorically "clipped" and this way he can still be involved in the goings on with the team at the hangar.

I just started working in the Medical Clinic on our center as the Receptionist. I’m responsible for charts, charges, and maintaining general order in the office. I’m still in training, but I’m really enjoying working there!

My first day in the clinic and this was one of the patients that came in. This is an elbow. This is not what an elbow should look like, y'all!

Even though Josh and I have been in the Land of the Unexpected for three months now, there is still a whole lot to learn. And just when you think you have it figured out… PNG shows you just how much you still have to learn. It’s never boring, always interesting, and I (still) wouldn’t trade it.