I thought it would be hard to celebrate my birthday in a strange place away from my friends and almost all of my family. I was wrong. : ) I had the most wonderful birthday thanks largely to my husband but also thanks to old friends back home and new friends in PNG. After lunch Andy, one of the doctors I have been working with here, came in to the ER with a delivery of flowers from Ryan along with a card. Beautiful flowers that you can see in the picture here!
Then after work I noticed that there were a lot of birthday posts on my way on Facebook. Thank you to everyone who left me a message. Although I eventually caught on to Ryan’s “birthday event” (thanks Tracy), I felt very loved hearing from all of you back home. I miss you all!
While I was checking email and facebook, Ryan was dragging his feet in the kitchen supposedly cooking me dinner. Then all of a sudden Elana, one of our friends here, came to the door with a large tray of food. Elana and the Bennetts made us the most amazing catered dinner. There was the best salad we’ve had since leaving home (it’s amazing how I miss romaine) and a curry chicken dish with rice. Such an amazing birthday dinner!
Then we went to the weekly prayer meeting which is every Thursday evening. After we finished praying, everyone sang happy birthday to me. And when I say “sang happy birthday” I mean they sang every birthday song ever invented. It’s impressive. And someone had made a birthday cake as well. So I was able to celebrate my birthday with my new PNG family too who also made me feel incredibly loved even though they’ve only known me for a couple weeks. In all, I had an amazing PNG birthday!