Dena Archibald

An entire has passed by????

2010-02-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

January - May '09 was spent doing POC! Boy am I glad that ended!! I always wanted to be on Gilligan's Island when I was little - it's a lot more fun on t.v. than in real life, in my opinion!

June - August was spent getting settled into my new "staff accomodations". I vaguely remember a time when I did not share my living quarters with ants, geckos, lizards, and cockroaches. But, even with these house guests, it's like the Hilton compared to the dorm rooms!

August-November was the next POC course. It was fun since several of the incoming students were people I already knew from Training in Orlando. Time really flew by as the kids and I went adventuring around Madang!

November - January '10 I had the privilege of teaching and spending time in Ukarumpa

And at the end of January, the newest POC course began. It is full of a great group of people and kids too! We have had only 2 days of sun. This has made for some very wet and slippery hikes! Little Dan said on the last hike, "I fell over 21 times!"

I'm pretty sure we all "fell over" at least once!

My First Mumu

2009-12-19T03:33:00.000-08:00

Mumu: 1) something cooked by steaming with heated stones in a native pressure cooking pit, a

method of cooking prevelant in the Highlands

2) the earth oven itself

I got to attend my first mumu this morning. It was great fun! Yesterday the hole was dug. This morning about 7:00 am the ladies prepared the food - sweet potatoe, cabbage, carrots, taro, chicken, lamb, beef (they traditionally use a pig but this was a small mumu) pumpkin (squash), corn, and green beans. Then a fire was built to heat the stones. Once the wood burned up, the stones fell into the whole and were covered with banana leaves. The food was then piled on top and covered with more banana leaves, a tarp, and dirt. The food steamed about 2 hours and at noon we had a delicious meal.

The Year Continued

2009-12-18T23:51:00.000-08:00

August through November was spent as teacher for the following POC Course. The students had an hour and a half of daily Tok Pisin instruction, two hours of academic studies, followed by two hours of PNG studies which included hiking, swimming, scrap booking, and various field trips...

November to December has been spent up at Ukarumpa in the Highlands teaching 5th grade until the end of the term which was Dec. 14. It is wonderfully cool here and beautiful with the plethora of flowers, misty mountains, and green valleys!

I also had the opportunity to visit a couple of pets around here- a Kapul (cuscus) and some cute little sugar gliders which like to hide in their nest.

2009-12-18T22:03:00.001-08:00

May thru July was spent recovering from tropical ulcers and malaria as well as moving into my new flat at POC and becoming a staff member.

A Year In a Life...

2009-12-18T21:49:00.001-08:00

Next month will be one year that I've lived in Papua New Guinea already and I temporarily have internet access! The time has simply flown by!

January through April was spent participating as a student in the POC (Pacific Orientation Course) learning PNG culture, customs, language (Tok Pisin) and a bit of geography and history...

The first 9 weeks spent learning and living at POC which is located on top of NoboNob mountain. It is a beautiful setting overlooking the ocean. The next 5 weeks are spent living in a village getting to know the people and culture up close!

Village Living

2009-03-25T19:44:00.001-07:00

Amazingly, I am actually looking forward to Village Living. We leave early Friday morning and drive about two hours up the coast and then get dropped off to our village for the next five weeks. I think it will be a pretty interesting adventure! My group is three girls. One from Canada and the other from England. Please pray for our relationships with those in the village as well as with one another. We would like to glorify God in all that we do and say! Please also pray for continued health and safety. My personal prayer is that there would be no snakes anywhere!! Also, please pray for language acquistion, which will greatly increase the ability to develop relationships!

We return to POC on May 4. I will then have internet access again. Please hold off on all e-mails until then if possible. Thanks!

In Him,
Dena

Photos of every day living in PNG

2009-02-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

Hey there everyone! Here are a few photos from PNG. My bed, my shower (fancy huh), my open fire cooking experience and a local family that lives outside of POC! Enjoy! Dena

BLAZING HOT!!!!!

2009-02-15T20:37:00.001-08:00

So after all the rain we've had, today it was something like a blazing 2 million degrees! Today was also the day of the cooking fire demonstration. We learned how to build a fire (with damp wood and damp matches). Of course the bush knife was involved as well! The bush knife is always involved! We got to try building our own and then cooking something. Then we all went around to sample all the dishes for lunch today. I have never in my life been so hot!!!!!!!!!!! I was a walking Niagra Falls - literally!
I have grown very fond of rest time very quickly! In the beginning, ( a week ago) I was excited about having extra time to get stuff done. Now I can't wait to dive into my mosquito net bed! Such an easily trained body I have....
I'm hoping to attach a picture of a cook fire so you can get a glimpse of part of our day today. If there wasn't enough nutritional insentive to not have a fire this weekend, the fire in and of itself is enough to persuade me to eat raw this weekend! (starting this weekend, we have to spend both Sat & Sun in our haus kuk's cooking for ourselves) It's fruit and salad for me!! Can't wait!!
Have a good day!
Dena

EMAIL ISSUES

2009-02-07T12:17:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I am currently experiencing a "clog" in my Outlook download. There seems to be a large attachment or message that has stopped the downloading process into Outlook. I am writing to ask you to please only send me personal messages, NO FORWARDS, or large memory messages while I am in PNG. I am sharing a dial up Internet connection with about 50 other individuals, therefore I only have access to download my messages on Monday and Wednesday evenings for 15 minutes each time.

Until I can complete the download process on this one message, I am unable to send any messages out to you in reply. So, there they sit in my outbox folder. Sadly waiting for an opportunity to be sent over the computer waves into your inbox folder.

Thanks so much for understanding. Hopefully I will have this all figured out soon and I will be able to continue email communication with you in the future.

Until then, here is a picture I took of a cute little hut at POC! Isn't it beautiful?!?!

Love

Dena

(posted by Heidi for Dena) :)

EMAIL AND SNAIL MAIL NEWS!

2009-01-26T06:30:00.001-08:00

Hello! I just wanted to send a quick note to all of my faithful friends. While I am in PNG please use my Wycliffe email account and NOT my yahoo account. It will end up saving me money and I will have more time to read your messages. Here it is: dena_archibald@wycliffe.org Thank you so much. ALSO, I am going to cancel my POB address in Madang and have my mail sent to the Pacific Orientation Course's POB. This too will save me money. That address is: Box 872 Madang 511 Papua New Guinea Thank you so much for your prayers. Please pray for my health as my body adjusts itself to the new weather and climate. My face is already broken out and I have bug bites all over. :) FUN FUN!

Dena Arrived in PNG

2009-01-24T19:28:00.000-08:00

Hey there everyone!

I JUST RECEIVED A PHONE CALL FROM DENA!

She arrived in PNG around 6pm Montana time, tonight. All of her luggage showed up in perfect condition and there were not any delays or hang ups all the way there. AMAZING! Thanks for your prayers. She had an empty seat next to her on the way to Tokyo and also from Tokyo down to PNG, so that was FANTASTIC and she was able to get a little bit of sleep. She didn’t even sound tired when I talked with her. She said that the excitement will probably wear off and it will hit her, but for now, she feels wonderful.

She has already eaten Pumpkin Soup for her first meal, which I think she really liked and she said it is BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL! She said it is a combination between Tanzania and Costa Rica. It smells like Africa (you know the smoky burning smell) and the jungle is just like Costa Rica.

She only had three minutes to talk, but it was nice to hear her voice and of course I cried a little bit while visiting, but she didn’t! She sounded wonderful! Our GOD is so faithful. She sounded giddy on the phone. She hopes to get a cell phone over there that is really cheap compared to the land line and she thinks we will get to chat about once a week. I can’t wait.

Thanks for your prayers. They have been answered so far.
In Him,
Heidz

PNG Address

2009-01-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

Hey there everyone. I thought I would share my new POB address in PNG. SO, here it is:

DENA ARCHIBALD
BOX 128
MADANG
PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Have a wonderful weekend.

My First Blog

2009-01-08T14:30:00.005-08:00

We are on the TWO WEEK countdown for my departure to Papua New Guinea (PNG). There are many things to do around the house, including: packing, packing, visiting, packing, organizing, visiting friends, packing, sending out prayer letters, packing, and playing with Heidi! :)

That's all for now! Check in at a later date to find out how it is all progressing.