November 1, 2006	Volume 1, Number 11
What about holidays? Halloween: Residents of Alotau know essentially nothing about our understanding of Halloween. In fact, Jeri was invited to the International School to teach about the North American custom. Halloween passes just like any other day. Thanksgiving: Again the folks here do not celebrate Thanksgiving like you might. Our team is planning on getting together to celebrate. Both Les and I are Canadian and both our wives are American. All the children are ‘dual’. But, since our wives plan to do the cooking we acquiesced to celebrating American Thanksgiving (in November) rather than Canadian Thanksgiving (in October). Christmas: What we do know is that people do celebrate it; however, it will take a couple of months before we can tell you much more about it. Hannah playing with her friends Philip and Joely. Our mailing address: Craig and Jeri Ford P.O. Box 837 Alotau, MBP 211 Papua New Guinea E-mail pngfords@gmail.com OR pngfords@daltron.com.pg Prayer Requests: o Wisdom, vision, direction, and the courage to submit to God’s will o Evangelistic studies with Negila group and Nede. o An openness to the gospel so we can reach people through evangelism o Development of additional male leadership o Our cultural adjustment o Patience as we wait for our own home o God’s blessings with both continue and increase We thank each one of you for your prayers and support. May God Bless You!	Church lnvolvement: God is continually blessing our work here in Alotau. It seems that each month is filled both with exciting and disappointing news. However, we know in the midst of everything God continues to work all things to his good and glory. As you can see in the above picture, Jeri is helping organize some World Bible School materials. Siggy (the young lady in blue) coordinates much of the WBS work. Jeri and Elva (lady in yellow) are helping Siggy get some of the notebooks organized. This month I have also started another evangelistic study with Nede. She is the wife of a man who recently rededicated himself to Christ. Nede has been baptized, but is unsure about the validity of her baptism so I am just trying to help her understand what the Bible has to teach her. Our days are often filled with unexpected needs and visits. Each morning we awake trusting the activities of our day to God. At times we make trips to hospitals. On other occasions, we field requests from the poor and needy. Mostly, we are often just sought out for nothing more than a listening ear. We too have made a habit of stopping by people’s homes just to enquire about how they are doing. Feature Activity: Negila Bible Study Every Thursday afternoon I take the 20 minute drive down the road to Negila. On the way I pick up Esther (a Christian lady) and her brother, Koima. We continue down the road and meet a group of 4-6 who are interested in knowing more about God. We sit on mats and I share a lesson about our God and his desire to have a relationship with all people. Afterwards, the family always feeds us. This last week I ate squid. Though they serve a large meal I usually try to resist consuming too much because I usually get home around 4:30 p.m. and by five I sit down with Jeri and Hannah to have dinner. Around 6:30 p.m. I go to the men’s meeting where Melva (the lady of the house) always serves at least a sandwich and usually more. With three meals in a four hour window I feel quite full when I arrive home Thursday night. House: We were asked last month to pick out paint, tile, and laminex colors for the kitchen. At first that seemed like a really intimidating process as neither Jeri nor myself consider ourselves fit interior designers. However, living in Alotau made the process much simpler. There are only two hardware stores in town. One did not have any tiles. The other only had one color that had the number of tiles we needed. The one hardware store only had white Laminex and the other only had three colors – white, blue, and walnut. Another simple decision. The paint, however, is a different story – there is actually selection. So we still haven’t made a decision about paint because there are actually options. The property itself is far enough along that we are currently only waiting on the construciton company. The million dollar question is when will it be done. The only definitive thing we know is, “certianly not before the new year.” This means we will have at least one more move before moving into our house. Where will we move? Good question. We will keep you posted. Family Perspective, written by Jeri: One of my favorite family days this month was when we drove to WagaWaga Beach. This was our second attempt to find this beach. (There are no road signs pointing you in the right direction!) On our first attempt, we were sure we were headed the right way. But after stopping to ask for directions, we turned around and followed the ones we got. Those were wrong and we ended up playing in a nearby river instead. This time we asked at least 5 people on the road which way to go. Apparently we were headed the right way the first time, but we were misinformed. So, we finally made it to WagaWaga. Emily, our team intern, joined us for the occasion. Craig and I were able to snorkel by a wrecked ship as Emily watched Hannah. The underwater view was magnificent. You’ll have to visit us to see for yourself! J Hannah continues to do well. She keeps us busy and is always willing to ‘help’ with dishes, laundry, cooking, etc. She has adjusted well to living at the Reese’s house. However, she still feels quite at home when we visit the Williams. She walks right in the kitchen and knows exactly where to get a cup when she’s thirsty. Craig has almost completed his first piece of furniture – a rosewood coffee table. He has done a great job. He plans to build other furniture for our house as well. As for me, I spend most of my time with Hannah, cooking, cleaning, writing children’s curriculum for church, and reading. I think God blessed me with the best job in the world. Check it out: o Visit our blog: pngfords.blogspot.com! J o Visit the church website: www.championschurch.org