PNG Photo Journey 2: Easter Sunday

On our second Sunday in PNG we celebrated Easter at a local church across town by sharing testimonies, doing the children's sermon, leading a song and performing a drama. Allyson was amazing sharing a powerful message of forgiveness with the people of Papua New Guinea. This was one of our favorite church visits, and probably the hottest, and a most memorable way to spend our Easter Sunday morning in worship of Our Great Almighty Lord Jesus.

Rachel and I performed many short dramas together in churches, meetings and schools in the area. Here we are starting a drama about the disciples arriving at Jesus tomb as our special contribution to the Easter service.

Here we are after church hanging out in the sanctuary before Easter lunch. This is before the gals received any of the beautiful meri blouses to wear that appear in the more recent photos.

This is our big Easter dinner served after church: lots of fresh fish, various squash (that they call pumpkin), cooked bananas, and something called sago that is a starchy food product made from the inside pith of local trees. In the foreground you can see some paw paw, which is a melon-like fruit along with some small sweet bananas. Best of all is the sliced pineapple, which is easily the best pineapple on Planet Earth!

This is me and Awa outside the church. Awa, a missionary in his own right to other peoples of PNG, was our bodyguard and a constant companion. He is full of wisdom and humor and we really miss him a lot right now.

As a gift, Allyson received this large flag or "lap lap" of PNG that also has inset around the border all the individual flags for each province. Super fun! The stars in the bottom left represent the Southern Cross, which is a constellation only seen in the southern hemisphere and refers to Christ's cross. The fifth star represents where Jesus was pierced in the side. The large yellow bird in the upper right hand corner is a Bird of Paradise. I believe there are 400 types of these beautifully flumed birds in PNG. I regret we didn't see any one of them.

Look at that beautiful face. This is one of my favorite photos from our time in PNG. We have traveled half a world away to meet little girls like this one to be able to tell her about the love of Jesus and encourage her in a lifelong pursuit of God. Is this the best job in the world or what?

These pretty, spiky red flowers look like rambutans, which are a sour fruit that Abby particularly enjoyed. I leave you with this parting shot to contemplate God's great creativity that made these flowers and you and me and the people of PNG.