December 2, 2002

The Original Thanksgiving!?

 It had been a time of excitement, disappointment, difficulty, and thanksgiving.  I, Aaron, left a week before Thanksgiving and headed back out to New Ireland, to the tribe we will be working in, to try to secure a piece of land to build on.  The going went smooth and my arrival was greeted with plenty of sunshine.  My mission was to simply get a land agreement signed on one of the three plots of land that had been offered to me, and start clearing the land for our house.  Getting the offers and having the people say they wanted us to come was no problem; but finding out who’s clan or line the land actually belonged to and gathering them all together to minimize problems in the future was another story.  Then…it started to rain.

 A few hundred years earlier, men and women known as the pilgrims were also on foreign soil in search of land.  Many had left their homeland, not necessarily to bring the gospel, but to have the freedom to worship their God.  On arrival to a sunny new country with fascinating new people, many had high hopes, but facing the difficulties of the land and misunderstandings with the Native-Americans was another story.  Then…winter came.

 The day before Thanksgiving 2003 when I headed down to the village for the final meeting, I was greeted with mixed messages.  The “papa of the ground” would only talk in his own tongue and the message being translated to me was that the meeting would not take place and I would have to go find some other individuals who had a claim on the land.  I admit that at that point in time I was pretty discouraged.  It seemed that all that had been accomplished so far was in vain.  Furthermore, I would have to stay around at least a few more days and miss having Thanksgiving with my family. 

After the winter, the pilgrims had much more to be discouraged about than I did.  They had paid dearly for their quest for land: sickness, hunger, cold, and even death.  Eventually, better dwellings were built, health was regained, gardens were planted, and the harvest came.  The first Thanksgiving was shared with the natives of the land and was in celebration of the land on which they could worship freely.

 My discouragement was alleviated that night when my loving wife reminded me, by way of radio, that she knew God had a plan for us and she would be praying fervently for me.  On Thanksgiving Day, I went back to the village and this time the truth came out.  The papa of the ground was there with his family. He explained that the day before he was not upset with us, but was upset with another clan for undermining his authority.  The translator, who had pulled me aside, was not actually translating, but telling me his own story so that his clan would gain some prestige for us moving into the tribe.  With that clear, I was able to proceed with the papa of the ground and his family, the true owners of the land.  As I explained that the purpose of the land agreement was not a contract, but an agreement between the mission and his line that we would build here to one day explain God’s message in their own language and that their line had agreed to let us building here so other clans would not be able to dispute it.  The old man smiled big as the rain continued to pour.  This Thanksgiving was shared with natives of the land and was in celebration of the land on which they would someday be able to worship freely.

 Due to adverse seas and difficulty getting rides, I missed my boat back home on Friday night, but thankfully I was able to catch a small plane and get back home to my family only two days after Thanksgiving.  Truly this was a Thanksgiving we will not forget, and we thank you for your prayers on the land situation.

 Thankful for His Goodness,

Aaron, Lori, Avalon, and ?

PS – Thank you to many of you who have given us updates on your address.  However, there are still several of you that receive these email updates that we do not have current mailing addresses for.  If you would like to get the newsletter we are now sending out, please send us your mailing address.

 PPS – The guessing game:  We received many guesses (in fact we got more responses to the last email than any other email in history J).  Many of you were close, but no one guessed it.  The source of the mark on my back was a relatively harmless millipede.  They occasionally make there way into our house and we have Avalon sweep them up and throw them away.  Their only defense is that they are filled with a burning acid, which makes birds think twice before chowing down.  One day I was working in the joinery and saw a dead one lying on the floor and didn’t think much about it.  Later on, I had to crawl under the furniture I was making to fix the bottom.  Without realizing it, I laid flat on the dead millipede.  In doing so I smashed it and that inner fluid seeped through my shirt.  The result was an acid burn on my back which you saw in the picture.