Off-roading through Tanna

Woke up this morning and got ready to leave Port Vila on the island of Efate to head to the island of Tanna for me to spend the next week in a village called Yanemillon with Ken and Mendy Nehrbass and for Nika to head off to be with Erik and Michelle Stapleton. Both families have 4 kids - exciting! The events of today were another unique adventure and much beyond my wildest expectations - so put your imagination caps on and jump on in if you will :)

After flying over the beautiful blue water between Efate and Tanna the first thing that met my eyes out the airplane window was green... and more green. And then we hit the runway and quickly slowed down and taxied to the terminal. A nicely built building in the middle of the jungle (which is very green!). You'll notice a trend of green going on here - because of how beautiful and richly vegetated God has made this island. Ken picked us up and we went to eat lunch in a neat little restaurant (fish & chips) and talked about various topics missions related and such for an hour while waiting for the food. A young couple from Australia were also with us. They're preparing to become Bible translators and were a lot of fun to hang out with for half a day and discuss things with. Ken dropped them off at a different village later in the day. Afterwards we played balderdash which is a fun word game! Then we went back to the airport around 3 to pick up a box of school supplies for the Nehrbass kids that should have been on our flight this morning (we brought it as luggage for them) but it got misplaced and had to come on the afternoon flight. It's interesting to note how persevering missionaries are in the many small obstacles that come their way. So then we headed off to the village.

The drive their is an amazing story all of its own. Never in my life could I have imaged all the places we drove through to get here where I am now sitting in Ken and Mendy's neat home using a satellite to talk to yall. The whole drive took about 2 1/2 hours to get here. We drove past many banana trees, coconut palms, and everything green imaginable. The first part wasn't too bouncy (only hit my head on the roof of the truck twice) but as we went farther things got a little more interesting. After climbing up a ways we opend up to an amazing view and stopped for a bit. Half the island was visible and the beautiful ocean and also the volcano was visible. For those who don't know, Tanna has an active volcano (which I just heard boom a few minutes ago - it does this every 5 or so minutes and sounds like what normal thunder sounds like. oh! and we also watched a little spurt of fireworks that accompanies the boom about 5 seconds prior)! so then we kept driving and came to the village where we dropped Brad and Elyse off (the young Aussie couple). It's always fun to meet the Ni-Vanuatu in various areas. They always handshake and all the kids are smiling and waving. Once on the road we got stopped by a few adults who were requesting a MegaVoice from Ken - basically a hand cranked audio player that reads the Bible to the people in their language. Praise the Lord that they desire His Word. Well, all the kids (about 30 of them) were crowding around the truck (oh just heard another boom!) and peeking ans waving excitedly. So fun to see them! Then we drove some more - up steep hills with 4x4 turned on, across a small river! over about 2 miles of sand dunes right beside the volcano, through the jungle, over thousands of ruts, and into a mango tree in the path... so we turned around and took another route (although it was disappointing to Ken because he'd been told that the Ni-Vans had cleared it, I didn't mind because it meant more exploring). so we drove through what at some times is impassible because of rain water. I can't even begin to describe the road - more like a trail for cars I should say, not so much a road. The village here is really remote. It is way farther than I expected but it's neat to see the work going on here for the gospel in the far out places of Tanna! Praise the Lord! (another boom, hehe). And oh wow, they have four kids, Caleb 10, Hannah 8, Abby 6, and Kate 4 - they are so awesome! I got introduced to all their stuffed animals and we read Scrooge McDuck together and ate dinner, and played on their swing outside, and got introduced to tree climbing (up smooth palm trees - ie - no branches) which they will let me happily try tomorrow. Then we ran up the hill to Aunt Wei's little cooking hut - their buildings are so neat, it's amazing what they use to build them. I'll show a pic of it later. She has good English (some do but most here on Tanna don't whereas English is very common in Port Vila) and she was cooking Taro. And then it was suppertime! And more time with the kids until it was time for their bedtime. So Ken and I went into their room and he read them a bedtime story. Kate is so cute! She just climbed up on my lap and made herself comfortable there. They're all so great and I'm looking forward to spending time with them this week. Tomorrow in the morning I'm going to be working with Kilion and he'll be helping me with some language learning so pray for that as it's quite difficult to get a foot in the door with a new language when I've never learned a second language. And I'm also going to join Ken tomorrow as he goes to another village to do literacy work with them. So pray for that as well. And thank the Lord for the kids eagerness to welcome me as a good friend (they showed me everything all at once, it was so fun) and for Ken and Mendy's graciousness to me as hosts!

Good night from Tanna!

P.S. I'm posting pics on my facebook account (not very many of people yet as I'm trying not to be annoying and touristy) here's a link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=108712&id=559771287&l=2abd2660ea