Reminiscing: About Custard

Some things just taste better when you are stranded in the middle of the jungle with no way out for at least another week, you know?

At least that was my experience with custard. If you've read through any of our stories from the bush, I'm sure you've already heard of our unexpected extra week in the jungle last year. It was a lesson to us to always make sure that you can get back when you first decide to go out. But that's not what this is about.

This is about custard.

This custard looks better than mine.

For some reason, custard doesn't seem to be very popular in the States. It's pretty much the same thing as pudding, except that it's egg flavored. But during that extra week in the bush, egg flavored custard was an amazing dessert. Martha had a huge bag of the stuff and she was glad I took a liking to it, since it meant that I was willing to man the stove and make a pot of it in the evenings. It was quick and easy and delicious.

Fast forward a couple weeks. We were back in Madang and had bought ourselves a big bag of custard mix! I dumped in the mix and some milk and set about heating it up. I added the sugar, making sure to stir just right so that it wouldn't burn.

Soon, I was ready to serve what we had already established as being one of the most delicious of the desserts to be found in the jungle. But something was wrong. Taking a big spoonful, I tasted the concoction and learned, to my dismay, that some things should probably stay in the jungle.

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(25) Things I Learned in the Jungle

(About Food)

Pretty much everything is different when you go overseas. From the kinds of animals you can see to the way that the seasons change it's just different. This can lead to some interesting interactions between people who are already in "the know" and those who aren't. Namely, me. This is a catalogue of some of the more interesting tidbits that I discovered during my time in Papua New Guinea.  

Check out my wife's post on this here.

1. Green coconuts are great when you're hot. Not so much when you're not.
2. Brown coconuts need specialized tools to open and eat. Seriously.
3. There are vegetables out there that I'm still not certain how to eat.
4. Shrimp goes well on pizza. 
5. Its way cooler to eat off a banana leaf than a plate. 
6. There are nuts that have the texture and flavor of bread.
7. Bread, though, doesn't always. Also, bread takes forever to make.
8. Tuna can come in pretty much any flavor. (Chili con tuna anyone?)
9. Sweet just means good. Don't turn down someone's potatoes just because they say they are sweet.
10. Fish fresh from a river tastes amazing! The bones of this fresh fish feel like small daggers that are trying to kill your gums.
11. You can boil anything. This does not mean you should. Roasted is much better.
12. Passion fruit should be avoided at all costs. Especially if you have a cut in your mouth.
13. Just because your spices are solidified by the humidity, does not mean that they won't make food taste awesome-er.
14. Ants are good protein. I'm not sure they're worth the effort though. They aren't very filling.
15. In America we use yeast to carbonate Ginger beer. In PNG/Australia, there is enough bacteria in the air to do it.
16. Trees are edible. It takes a lot of work to eat them, though.
17. Salt is candy.
18. Neither PNG or Australia know how to make a sausage taste good.
19. If an Aussie offers you a spider, they (probably) aren't offering you a bug.
20. There is a process to freezing vegetables. Follow it.
21. Bacon is a form of currency in PNG.
22. Custard is the best jungle dessert ever! Unless you burn it.
23. Coffee can be made anywhere. If it is Garoka coffee, it shouldn't be.
24. Pancakes make a great birthday cake. 
25. Fried chicken is a world wide staple. 

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5 Fun Things Do With Your Old Smartphone

If you're anything like me, you probably have at least one old smart phone not being used somewhere in your house. In my case its my old LG Ally, that I replaced over a year ago. I had been considering getting rid of it, but couldn't quite muster the ability to throw something out that could be potentially useful. So instead I turned to the internet to discover the best way to repurpose my old phone to give it some new life. These 5 things are what I came up with.

Mouse pad and Keyboard

I'll start out with my new favorite use for my old phone. As my wife and I don't have a TV in our house, we tend to do any of our movie watching on our computers. The problem with this is that we really didn't have much of a way to control the computer from the comfort of our couch. It wasn't a huge inconvenience, but since I had the phone out I decided to see what I could do. I installed the free version of a program called Unified Remote and made my Ally into a wireless mouse pad and keyboard for my computer. You have to have their software downloaded on your computer and your phone, and have access to wireless internet, but if that's not a problem this program will let you use your phone not only to navigate on your computer, but also as a wireless media remote for things like Youtube and VLC Media player. Pretty awesome.

Media Center

I like to be able to listen to music or watch tv while I'm cooking or cleaning in the kitchen, but we have a pretty small kitchen. My computer is just a tad bit bulky for putting on our counter, and I don't really want to risk it getting wet. so I decided to put my android device on our shared network and be able to watch our movies and listen to our music from my tablet. All I used to do this was ES Explorer (to connect to my network) and MX Player (to enable video streaming) It requires a bit of tinkering with network settings to make sure you are sharing your media on your LAN, but it isn't too hard, and is totally worth the effort.

Portable Gaming

One of the more popular uses for old Androids is to make it into a gaming machine. If you have any ROMs of your favorite old games it is totally worth it to load up an emulator for your Android and play them. Its even better if you also have a bluetooth controller that you can use. While I don't have one, the iMpulse controller recently caught my eye, mostly for its portability.



Camera

My wife has recently begun doing Youtube videos of some of her stories from Papua New Guinea for our supporters who would rather watch a video than read through a blog. But to get that started we had to figure out how to record video. We ended up using our tablet as a camera since it has the best resolution of any camera in our house, but the search for the best camera is what actually made me get out my old phone. It has a camera button on the side, and since I have it linked to my dropbox, it uploads my photos without being prompted so I can view them from any of my devices. You can also use photo sharing apps to do the same thing, but I use dropbox because its automatic and works with all of my devices.

Automated Household

This is one that I haven't actually done, but there are a number of people out there who have. Using Insteon products, or other like products, you can link up pretty much anything to your Android device. Some of the more popular uses are to link thermostats, lights and security cameras with your phone for easy access. If you're willing to go all out, this could be a fun project to do with your old phone. If not.....well, there's a reason I haven't done this.

Bonus! Flashdrive/Paperweight

I don't actually use my android for this. I do however use my old classic ipod for this. *shrug* I wasn't using it for anything else..... Anyways, hope you enjoyed!

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How Not to Fiberglass: A Cautionary Tale

During our trip to Anguna this past fall, we found out that we would not be leaving when we thought we would be. Somehow our helicopter out of the village had not gotten scheduled. Elizabeth and I, of course, took this as a great opportunity to get some stuff done that we hadn't yet gotten around to. For Elizabeth, there were numerous chores of varying interest, but for me there was the boat.

Over the years that Martha had spent in Papua New Guinea, she had often used a fiberglass canoe to get up and down the river. During that time it had taken quite a few bumps and beatings, and as a result the canoe had developed cracks in its surface. Despite my being not so handy, Martha presented the repair job as a way that I could spend my time. At my hesitation, Martha insisted that I could patch these cracks much better than her and whip the boat into ship-shape! I had never done such a job before, but that didn't deter me in the least. So, with no instruction whatsoever and a hurried assurance that I would do fine from Martha, I stepped outside the house and began my first forays into the world of fiber glassing. The lessons I learned are cataloged here.

• Less is more - One of the key components of fiberglass is a hard polymer that is composed of two different liquids mixed together and brushed and dabbed into the fiberglass patches. It sort of acts like a glue that sticks the patch to the surface of the boat and hardens it. Seeing as how the patch I was working with was larger, I decided to mix a large enough batch to last me the morning. This was a bad idea. Whether on the boat or still in a plastic container, when the polymer decides that it should be hard, it becomes hard. So, one moment I was dabbing a liquid onto the top of a boat, and the next moment my brush was stuck in a rapidly setting container of polymer going through a chemical reaction. The reaction produced enough heat that the plastic container holding the polymer began to warp and melt. This was rather concerning for me, mostly because I was holding the container in my hand at the time. The rest of the week I mixed polymer 2 ounces at a time. 

• Haste makes waste - Since my first experience with polymer happened because I took too long to  use it, I decided moving quicker was more important than making sure everything was lined up properly. So instead of taking the time to sand everything even before putting down the patch, I just threw the patch over the cracks and poured on the glue. Turns out that if the patch isn't laid flat the fiberglass will form air bubbles over the hull of the boat. This isn't a good thing, as I realized after having to sand down the fiber glass back to where I started. It wasn't a complete waste of time though, because it taught me another lesson. 

• Exposed skin is vulnerable - It was hot in PNG. After all, it was the tropical rain forest. So, not only was I not wearing long sleeves, but I wasn't even wearing a shirt. For those of you who don't know, fiberglass is basically a sheet of small splinters that all are eagerly looking for exposed skin which it can impale. I itched for days. 

• Whistle while you work - Despite all these setbacks, I was able to finish a pretty good portion of patching on the boat during my week. I worked mostly in the mornings, and as the missionary house was more or less in the center of the village, I had my share of watchers. From the twenty or so kids who came and sat with me for hours, to the men who yelled out encouragements as they walked by, I rarely was alone. Often times the boys around me would whistle out tunes while they watched me. I would listen to them and then whistle it back and they would laugh with each other and with me about the clumsiness of my whistling. I never had to stop working to whistle back, and playing with them definitely made the time go by faster. 

• Slow and steady builds a boat - By the end of the week, I had actually gotten significantly better at my job. While the back half of the boat, where I started, looked like a lumpy mess, the front of the boat was smooth. I had broken off some of the more splintered areas of the boat so that I could start with a flat area, and had patched the boat in layers, so that it would be fairly smooth, and I sanded down the rougher areas. Once I had finished, the boat looked like it would float again without springing a leak, and, whats more, I felt that I had accomplished something. 

I still may not be an expert on fiber glassing, but I did learn a little that week. Work in the shade, protect your skin, sand down the surface, and don't overdo the glue. Still, the best part of the week was whistling with the kids and being encouraged by the men. On the mission field, we all have jobs to do, whether its the odd jobs handed to us, like fixing a boat, or its something bigger and longer lasting, like teaching people to read or giving them the Bible in their own language. Whatever the job may be, it is important that we find joy in it. It may take a week, or a year, or longer.

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On the road again...

After our week at Pioneer Missions institute, Elizabeth and I took to the road again! We have supporters all over this country, and keeping up with them is just so much more satisfying in person than it is over the internet. Since school is out for us for a few weeks we took the opportunity to come all the way to Phoenix, AZ to visit with some of our supporters who made our trip this past fall a possibility. Since getting to Arizona we have had the chance to sit down to lunch with some good friends, work as volunteers in a church nursery, worship alongside some awesome Christians, and help a member of the church to move into a new house. Not bad for the first day.

Since we are in the area, we also plan on taking a short break by going camping near the Grand Canyon. Neither of us have had a chance to see this wonder of nature, and being so close it would be a shame if we didn't make the trip now. And since we are camping, the trip itself is costing us surprisingly little! Both of us are rather excited to be seeing something so "Grand" during our relatively short break this year. It will be a very much so needed vacation. (see Elizabeth's blog article on vacations here)

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In Search of A Hobby

Since the very beginning of our relationship, my wife and I have disagreed on what a hobby should look like. In the past I've spent most of my free time either reading books, playing games, or catching up on the news, but Elizabeth insists that the internet won't work very well as a hobby once we get to a place where we won't actually have the internet.


With that in mind, I have been considering a number of different hobbies that could help me pass the time, even while I'm off in a part of the world where I can't access my typical forms of entertainment. I think I've finally settled on one (we hope), but it was a long and convoluted path to get me there. I submit to you here a few of my more interesting attempts at finding a past time suitable for jungle living.

• Knitting - Don't judge me. Throughout all the years of my college education, I was constantly surrounded by people either knitting or crocheting, whether in my classes or out on the front lawn of my alma mater. We even had a blanket drive for the homeless in Little Rock where the idea was for each of us to knit or crochet a blanket so we could give a more human touch to our charity. Let's just say there are quite a few scarves that were handed out that year. I, however did not try to throw my hat into the knitting ring until I discovered that my wife has a great talent for the art. For Christmas, she even knitted me a false beard to keep my face warm! (see photo) I figured worse case scenario, I tried and failed, and the knitting needles I used could be incorporated into a spear once I got to PNG. My wife showed me the first few knots I would use to knit a small square, perhaps to be used as a coaster....or something. I valiantly worked on this small square for hours and hours (or maybe, you know...minutes) until I threw down the needles triumphantly! One row was finished! I have yet to pick the needles back up to start that second row. Probably not the best hobby.

• Photography - Ah, the arts. I actually got to try this one out while we were in PNG this past fall. Who wouldn't love taking pictures of the beautiful landscapes and fascinating cultural scenes that surrounded us overseas? Turns out, me. I tried. If you go through the photos from our trip you can actually tell just by looking which ones I took and which ones my wife took. Hers are the ones where you can't help but see the beauty of this fair country. Mine are the ones where blurry figures are walking around without heads. 

• Writing - Which brings us to my current endeavors. Coming up this summer, one of my favorite authors is broadcasting his creative writing class over the internet as part of a Distance Education project. What this means is that I will have the opportunity to learn writing techniques from one of the best for free. Needless to say, I'm excited about this. I've never written a book before. I still struggle with keeping an up to date blog. But that's all about to change! I'm about as excited about starting to write as a hobby as I was not for knitting and figuring out which camera setting to use after having already missed my opportunity for a great photo. In conjunction with this, my wife has encouraged me to start a new blog where I can practice writing by recounting stories of conversations we have had over a variety of different subjects. Hopefully writing for that will encourage me to keep writing for this as well. 

Words are important to me. My main hobby of the past was reading stories. While I may not always have the ability to find new stories to read once I'm overseas, I will always have access to the stories I create, and the stories about life with Elizabeth. If I can't read, I might as well write! Here's hoping this hobby sticks!

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Provision

I've mentioned before, I think, that I'm working full time as a waiter in order to work my way through grad school. School is great and all, but it is amazing to me the variety of lessons one can learn in the workplace, if only you take the time to look around and think about what is happening.

One lesson I have learned is that there will be good days, and there will be bad days. Some days, you can work for a short time with tables that demand very little of you, and you will go home with more money than you expected. Other days you can work yourself to the point of exhaustion with tables who are hard on you, but you will make next to nothing. Don't let it bother you. Waiting tables, like much of life, is a game of balances. You may have a week of bad days, but if you trust in God, and persevere, God will take care of you. More than once I have started the week off poorly and made the entirety of what I had budgeted for in my final shift. Or conversely, I've started the week off great, and (admittedly) I grow confident that I will make more than enough for  my week, yet somehow I end up making just the same as the week before.

All throughout my waiting on tables, I have never been what I would consider rich, but we have always reached a point where we could pay our bills, even when unexpected expenses come up. (like a flat tire a couple weeks ago) God is faithful. But he also wants us to depend on Him. I think, perhaps, that is why He doesn't let us get too far ahead of ourselves. Even so, I know that if I work my hardest at my job, God will provide what I need to provide for my family. And I don't worry about the rest. I don't expect to get rich. I only expect to get by until such a point that we are ready to go to the mission field. And that's enough for me.

I don't know where everybody reading this is in their lives. If you are struggling, or gliding by. But I do know that God will provide for your needs. (read Matthew 6) I have the same confidence that by the time Elizabeth and I are ready to go overseas long term, we will have found enough people who believe in translating the Word of God into a language that has never had it before that we will be able to go. But for that to happen we will have to work our hardest, and persevere. And still we may just barely make it.

I hope God blesses each of you who is supporting us to get us through GIAL and to Papua New Guinea. And I pray that some of you reading this now will feel the call from God to start. We have a long way to go, but each day is a day closer.

Press on,

Jacob Smith

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