In His Image

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,

and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air,

over the livestock, over all the earth,

and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created man in His own image,

in the image of God He created him;

male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV)

Image of God… that’s my recurring theme for this week.  We have some assigned reading during our course.  Small articles, chapters of books, and entire books.  This week I read an article about relating to people of other cultures, and the author made the point that we have to remember that they are each little images of God.  This morning my devotional reading was about how God made us in His image.  Then our church service this morning was about being made in the image of God… this was my favorite thing I’ve learned so far: each of us, as well as each culture, is only a partial image of who God is.  When we get to know each other, even in the same or similar cultures, we get to know a little more of who God is.  When we get to know people of completely different cultures, we get to experience and know even more of who God is!  I am going to learn so much… I already am… about who God is.   And with that in mind, it makes it so much more exciting to get to know others.

…assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him,

as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life

and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God

in true righteousness and holiness.”

Ephesians 4:21-24 (ESV)

And when we get to know more of who He is, we learn of what a full life lived in Him is like and the more abundantly we get to live.

So what’s going on in Papua New Guinea, you ask?!  Well, we’ve almost finished our first week of training.  It started on Wednesday, the 25^th.    As of today I have been in PNG a whole week!  We have classes (so far just some lectures), hikes, swimming in a bay off the ocean, eating lots of good food… later we’ll get lots of hands-on classes where we’ll learn how to build things, bake things, cook things, make things, etc.

Thursday we went on our first swimming adventure.  We got to the water, put on our goggles, and headed out to a rope that is set up.  8 laps around the rope is a mile.  I did 3 laps!  I was pretty proud of myself, seeing as how I never swim, and I haven’t exercised in months!  I think I’ll definitely work my way up to the mile soon.  We’ll swim once a week on Wednesdays.

Saturday we took our first hike. This one was the easiest and the kids came with us.  We split up into 4 groups and hiked around our center.  We went through a few small villages and the school grounds for this area.  It took about 2 hours.

Sunday we had a church service.  At the end someone from each language/country prayed.  Oh my goodness, that’s one of my favorite things… hearing someone pray in their own language.   We have people from Korea, Germany, UK, Australia, and Canada going through the training.  Oh, and the US. :)

Sunday afternoon we went to a resort called Jais Aben.  They have some pretty good snorkeling locations, a nice small beach and a small pavilion where you can buy all kinds of food.  We bought a basket of chips (French fries) for 20 Kina (about $10) that could feed an army.  I think it took about 8 of us to finish it off.  And they have Heinz Ketchup!  If you know me, you know how much I love my Heinz Ketchup.

 There were about twice that many chips!

I'll post pictures of Jais Aben hopefully next week.

And if you’d like to pray for me, these are some specifics:

• Pray for a readiness of my heart and mind to hear, accept, and be involved in all that God is doing around me.
• Praise the Lord for a much quicker acclimation (so far!) than I thought I would have.  I thought I would mind not fixing my hair perfectly, not wearing makeup (because I’d sweat it all of anyway!), and having to dress a certain way.  But it turns out that none of that bothers me at all (yet). 
• Pray for much strength and stamina as I become a stronger hiker and swimmer.  It's great exercise!
• Pray as I build relationships, with my colleagues and nationals, that they are God-honoring and build each other up.