Our home away from home was Townsend...it was a nice setup for a large group. Usually a large dinner was served here after the day of meetings. I helped the two ladies from Australia (also wives of board members) getting the food organized. They didn't need a lot of help, though.
When Jennifer and Evelyn finally woke up and ate breakfast, I walked them over to the Teen Center where all the missionary kids were hanging out during all the meetings that happened during the week.
There are so many brightly coloured houses, and the lawns and gardens are maintained immaculately. So beautiful!
The teen center had a gym, an area for eating or doing crafts, and an upstairs with tables where the kids played board games. They were babysat by three national ladies. So I could drop off my kids and go be useful in the kitchen at Townsend...if they needed me.
The walk to the conference meeting rooms was even further. Although Ukurumpa is not hot and humid like Port Moresby, it still is plenty hot walking in the full sun. Too hot for me! One day there were meetings with the national pastors and their wives, and the board members wives were also welcome to join. It was really interesting to be able to listen in to the meeting, and just listening for an hour or two to the national pastors and wives' challenges and joys was an amazing and humbling experience.
Evelyn went to read quietly in bed when things were too tiring for her to deal with. She was too tired, even for that.
The community of Ukurumpa is quite the base. It has it's own auto shop, it's own mill, farms and electricity. It is pretty much capable of running on its own, without any help.
Evelyn, Jennifer and Matthew settled in pretty quickly at the teen center. As soon as it was open for the day, they were eager to show up and play with the kids.
Matthew got invited to a soccer game one evening. I stopped by and watched for a while. He was really enjoying himself. He also appreciated the water that I had with me (I carried a liter with me everywhere and drank so so much water).
We had an earthquake on Oct 6, and then on Oct 7 we had several. We weren't in the epicenter, but at the epicenter at least two of them registered close to 7.0. We could certainly feel them, and once when we headed outside for safety, we could see the trees shaking. The quakes would build up in intensity and then slow down again. After so many small after (or fore?) shocks and some biggish quakes, I was feeling rather unsettled. I'd need to feel the walls or furniture to see if things were shaking in my vision, or in real life. Jennifer and Evelyn ended up spending the night squished in my room. We only had twin sized beds, so it was squishy...and we didn't sleep that well.
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