Sister Cyd James - Notes From The Homefront

News From The Home Front - April, 2001     We had a ladies fellowship this month and made Bible covers after our study. Since it rains a lot over here, we made the covers out of vinyl. I brought (what I thought) was a big amount of rickrack and lace for them to decorate their covers with. It ended up being enough for three or four of them instead of ten. I completely forgot how I’m the type of person who thinks less is better in decorating; however, the people here love decorations and enjoy putting a whole lot of it on their projects. I felt bad that we didn’t have enough, but we got by. My sister-in-law reminded me of how we tend to judge matters by our own thinking and our own culture. Therefore as a missionary’s wife, I ask for prayers to be more sensitive to cultural differences, but yet not to condone any unBiblical traditions and customs.
    After church recently, a lady gave me a guava fruit to eat. They are getting ripe right now. When I peeled it, I noticed that there was a soft, brown spot on it and cut that part away. Frank was in the kitchen with me and right after I put a big piece in my mouth and ate it, he said, "Is that worms jumping?" We looked closer at the guava and it was filled with teeny, tiny white worms. That is not good news after you chewed and swallowed a piece! I didn’t like the fact that there were little worms in my stomach, but Frank assured me my stomach acid would kill any that I swallowed. Well, you can imagine that I will do a super inspection on any guava I get from now on to see if there are any worms in it.
    Since I’m on the subject of creepy, crawly things, we had another roach incident. This time it happened at a motel pizza restaurant. We just sat down in the booth when Frank suddenly told me to move because there was a big roach behind me. I’m sure that somehow roaches have developed the acute ability to know who does not like them and they get a kick out of standing right beside those particular people. Well, I did "move," which made the roach start running and it landed on the floor. Frank started chasing it (in front of everyone in the restaurant) and then stepped on it. Then he calmly called for the waiter and asked him to sweep it up so I wouldn’t have to look at it while we ate. This is the second
time we have seen a roach at this restaurant, but they are common here. It was like, ho hum, just another day eating out in Papua New Guinea.
    Some people have asked me if we have any pet geckos in our new apartment. Yes we do but not as many. One has an abode in our office andanother one does in our livingroom. I’m not sure if they will invite any relatives to join them as time goes by.
    A sad thing happened last week to one of our mission members. He was at the market selling things when a policeman came up to him and told him that they had a report of someone who looked similar to him stealing from other people. The policeman then put his gun up to him and took all his money and goods. There are many upright policemen in this country, but there are just as many corrupt ones. The corrupt ones use their power to steal from people and even beat people up for no reason. The report of someone who looked like our mission member stealing was just a ruse. These types of policemen simply pick out an innocent victim at the market place when they want some money. It was a grieving thing to happen to this mission member though. He works at the market after he goes to technical school each day and on Saturdays to help make ends meet for his family. When something like this happens, it means he doesn’t have money to get back and forth to school and his family may go hungry that night.
    The mission had a fellowship at Ela Beach this past weekend. The children swam in the ocean and the adults enjoyed visiting together. The men got the children together and played football and some of us ladies picked up tiny sand dollars that were plentiful along the beach. Some of the ladies wanted to try to make a necklace out of them. Church fellowships are not common among the Baptists in this country and we are trying to encourage fellowships as a way to draw a mission or church closer together. It was a fun day to all.
    I’ve had a dreaded tooth problem here lately. In the USA, that is a minor thing; but over here, it is a touchy situation - in my opinion. The reason being is that the majority of dentists in PNG do not use anesthetics in dentistry, their office equipment is from the 1960’s, and you do not see diploma’s from dental colleges hanging on the wall. A lady dentist from Asia was recommended to us because she was extra clean and hygienic, and so I went to her. She was clean, but she didn’t seem as knowledgeable as I would like. The main thing is that she never x-rayed my mouth to see for sure what the problem was. The second thing is she wasn’t going to give me an injection of anesthesia before she drilled
out an old filling and cavity. I insisted on one and since she didn’t want to use it, she gave me a minimal amount. I would rather spend 12 hours in childbirth than have my teeth drilled on without a numbing agent. It was not a pleasant experience to say the least. The next day, I had more of a fever and swelling and we were ready to go to Australia to get the tooth treated there. I called a lady we know who lives half the year in Cairns, Australia and half the year here to get a referral, and she told me the best dentist she has ever been to works here in Port Moresby. I got an appointment with him and kept on antibiotics. I saw this other dentist today and he was very good and had state-of-the-art equipment. He is from Great Britain and even had a diploma on the wall showing where he studied in Sydney, Australia. It seemed like I was back in the USA because he followed the same procedure a dentist does there. Starting with an x-ray to know exactly what the problem is before he started drilling away. He was sympathetic about my previous ordeal and even gave me two shots before he started working on my tooth. ha. It was such a blessing not to feel a thing this time.
    A friend in Christ,
    Sis. Cyd James