First of all, Merry Christmas!! Yesterday, I spent the morning opening presents on FaceTime with the fam, eating Costco poppyseed muffins (my absolute favorite), and doing an 80-person white elephant for 2 1/2 hours! Christmas lunch was unusual, with sweet potato mash (bright purple!), raisin gravy, & brussel sprouts… definitely missed my grandma’s house! Most of the day was consumed by packing and errands, but we managed to sneak in a dip in the ocean & some photos (below) to make the most of our Hawaiian Christmas 🙂 It was heartbreaking to not be with family & friends back home, but I was also blessed by the family I have made in Kona!

Second off, I’m officially gone! I’m currently sitting in the Honolulu airport using the last bit of wifi for awhile to send this update! In an hour we will be flying out to Brisbane, Australia, spending the night there, and then flying to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea! We will be boarding that night onto the Pacific Link, which is the medical ship we will be staying on for 4 weeks. Each day we will be running medical clinics all day with optometry, dental, wound care, and immunization stations.

Please pray for safety and protection while traveling & in these unreached people groups, especially for the 7 weeks after the ship. We are in the process of planning programs and outreaches, however communication issues & other factors are making it very difficult. Despite this, our team is so excited to see what God has in store for these next 11 weeks!
Thank you all so much for your prayer & encouragement all these months, I hope to keep in contact in PNG with email and weekly phone calls! Love you all so much!