The first time I mentioned to my niece that I’d be moving to the other side of the world she asked several questions like: What animals are there? What foods will you eat? How will you get there? But after questions, there was a long silence. She finally ended the conversation with, “Just don’t eat the apples. They may be poisonous.” She did end up making me promise, so because of this promise I’ve yet to eat an apple here in Papua New Guinea.
Several months ago I began explaining how I was a day ahead of her, but nothing was making sense. Finally, I resorted to telling my niece that I used a time machine to get to Papua New Guinea and now I’m living a day in the future! Her response, “THIS IS BLOWING MY MIND!” Now I get requests like, “Aunt Abby, next time you get in your time machine can I come with you?”
After village living, my niece was very interested in what I ate while I was there. The conversation went a bit like this:
“I ate an octopus.”
“Whoa!”
“And I ate a snail.”
“Whoa!”
“And I ate lots of fish.”
“Whoa!”
“And I ate bugs…”
“Whoa… Wait what?!”
She warned me against the apples, but not the grubs…
But about a month ago I had a conversation with my niece that really touched me. She had just won an award at school and was so excited. I couldn’t tell her enough times how proud I was of her, but she eventually stopped me and responded, “Oh, but Aunt Abby, I’m so proud of you for helping people get the Bible.” Even in all the miscommunications and misconceptions, she knows what the point of being here is. She knows what the important part is. I love my God for helping her understand that.