Trip Preparation: Part 1

This time next month, God willing, we will be in Papua New Guinea.

We are deep into our trip preparations now. I have a "packing pile" in the basement that is beginning to get out of control. It's interesting to me that we are leaving America (where we have too much stuff) and going to PNG (where there isn't as much stuff) but I've still had to do so much shopping for this trip. Ick, more stuff. I want to learn how to live with less. But I'm grateful for the many travel-size, lightweight items we've been able to find. We each get to bring one bag that weighs fifty pounds and a carry-on that weighs fifteen. Those two bags will carry our bedding, towels, books, clothing, and anything else we'll need for a month. (Flashlights, first aid kit, camera, raingear. It adds up fast, you know?)

Then, of couse, there's our immunizations. I've received my first round of shots for Hepatitis A & B, Japanese Encephalitis and a Tetanus booster. Today I took my third Typhoid pill - only one more to go. We'll go back for another round of shots just a few days before we leave. I will be very excited when that part is behind me!

Our new passports arrived in the mail this week. Frank's old passport was getting ready to expire. He was sad to part with it, since it documented his many travels throughout the world. I also needed a new passport since my name has changed. I opened up the cardboard envelope and discovered that we not only have NEW passports, we have ELECTRONIC passports. Creepy. There is a computer chip embedded in the back cover that can be read from a distance by a special chip reader. It also contains our photographs to enable biometric comparison through the use of facial recognition technology. (yes, I copied that from the government website.) I sure feel more secure. Don't you?

Speaking of security, there are moments when the reality of this trip makes my heart a little fearful. I think to myself, "What are we DOING?" I have to remember that there are people in the world, every day, who are dying with NO HOPE. Why should I worry about my life? I know where I am going. I want others to know what I know.

Recently I was encouraged by a quote from Elizabeth Elliott's book "The Savage My Kinsman". Her husband and four other missionaries were brutally killed by the Auca tribe as they attempted to reach them with the Gospel. These words describe her feelings several years later as she prepared to enter the Auca tribe herself.

"I found peace in the knowlege that I was in the hands of God. Not in the confidence that I was not going to be killed. Not in any false sense of security that God would protect me, any more than He protected my husband... Simply in knowing that He held my destiny in His two hands, and that what He did was right."

I know he holds our destiny in His hands. And that is enough.