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Happy Summer! While you are all enjoying your longest day of the year, we are experiencing our shortest. Coming from Spokane, with an 8 hour daylight swing between summer and winter, our 37 minutes here isn't saying that much, but it's just enough to notice. In the last couple months, we have fought one medical challenge after another. On the heels of Frankie's foot infection (which, believe it or not, is still healing - healing takes so much time here!), Logan's legs (nearly always covered in some number of blistered bug bites) exploded in infections. We went through a season of changing around 17 band-aids every morning and night trying to fight the infections. Next came the lice - yuck! A new experience for us, but not as bad as we first thought it would be. And before we had even finished clearing up the lice, we moved onto the fevers. In God's providence, Logan's sickness came with a fairly high fever that also cleared out the infections in his legs! The sickness passed through two more kids fairly uneventfully. And then, Jacklyn came down with it. She was in bed for days trying to get food and water down. This culminated in what we thought was a seizure but now seems more likely to be a vasovagal episode (still the loss of consciousness and muscle jerking, but caused by a sudden drop in blood pressure and heart rate). This is way better than a seizure, but a scary 60 seconds in the moment nonetheless. That same day Frank's fever started and would last almost four days. Both of us eventually received IV fluids which helped turn us around. It's so hard to be sick and without energy at the same time as one another - kudos to our kids for making it through without parents for several days and for helping out around the house while we were so very sick! We are still in recovery mode now, building up our energy and trying to pick up the pieces from being out of commission for a whole week collectively. But we are thankful to the Lord that He helped us to make it through, and we didn't have to medevac to a hospital. And we are also very thankful for love and care from our teammates who swept in and washed our dishes, swept our floor, poked our arms to set IVs, and brought some smiles and food for our kids. In celebration of completing our formal language program, we are going to use this month's video to give you a little taste of what we've been learning. And actually, there's so much we're excited to share, this will be a longer video so we decided to count it as both May and June's updates. Praise!
Prayer!
Praise!
Prayer!
It's hard to believe we have already been here for 6 months! Life has become a little more normal, we're mostly settled in, and all the new things take a little less brain power than they first did. We are thankful to the Lord for His sustaining grace, the gift of unity with our teammates, and the support and prayers of every one of you who have helped us, encouraged us and supported us all along the way. The kindness of the Lord is always abounding. In this month's video, Frank and Frankie chat about being in PNG for 6 months and share about one of the villages where we spend time learning language and culture. Climbing the coconut tree, building a porch, cooking food, swimming in the ocean and attending a coming of age ceremony. We hope this video gives you a taste of some of the things that have been a part of our language learning! Praise!
Prayer!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! New Years is a big holiday here in PNG - bigger than even Christmas for most people. We just watched the clock roll past midnight and now fireworks, Chinese lanterns, and plenty of other other noisy explosions and shouting surround us. And another notable thing, all the dogs seem unphased in the midst of the chaos. We're definitely not in America anymore! We are thankful to the Lord for all He has carried us through over this past year and we are confident that many of you are the tools that He has used to do just that! Looking back, we are filled with thankfulness for your prayers, encouragement and support every step of the way. We love you and miss you all! Praise!
Prayer!
Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving marked our first major American holiday in PNG and it was a sweet time of fellowship and fun with our teammates. A common theme around the table was our gratefulness for one another. We are thankful for the Lord's sovereignty in preparing each of our families and bringing us here to work together and complement one another with different gifts and abilities. Christmas Cards: Many of you are already on our fridge from last year's Christmas cards and we would LOVE to update pictures and add new ones! So if you have a few extra stamps (3 regular or 1 international) please add us to your Christmas card list this year. Our PNG mailing address can always be found at the bottom of our emails! Video Update: In this month's video, we'll give you some updates on what's been going on over the last two months. Traveling, infections, generator issues... much has happened and all while we're still trying to keep up with our language study. It's felt a bit like a whirlwind at times, but we are thankful for God's sustaining grace through it all. In other news, we passed our second language check and are well on our way to our third! If all goes as planned, we will complete the third check on December 20th - just in time to take a nice Christmas break! Praise!
Prayer!
Two months in Papua New Guinea! We continue to be thankful for God's grace for our family each day. We are becoming more and more adjusted here, are able to hold slightly more detailed conversations, and are settling into a new way of life. Whether in the village we visit to practice our language, or just outside our gate, the kids are loving every chance they get to play with the national kids. Video Update: In this month's video, Logan and Frank will give an update on all things coconut! Click the video below to learn about coconuts in PNG and hear a few updates on our family. Praise!
Prayer!
We recently passed the 1 month mark in PNG! We are thankful for God's grace for our family each day as we adjust, learn more words, and understand new pieces of the culture here in PNG. The people are friendly, kind and patient with us. They are happy that we are here and love to help us learn their language and culture. Video Update: This time we decided to give all the kids a chance to pick what they wanted to share about. Click the video below to see a snapshot of our life here in PNG. In future videos, we hope to go into more detail on some of these topics. For now, this can serve as a big picture overview Praise!
Prayer!
We just finished our 4th full day in PNG! We are adjusting and settling in a little more each day, but it's a process and we need God's grace in each moment. Today we were able to set up our internet and so we wanted to give everyone a quick update that we made it!  For those of you who are on our video update list - we will still try hard to send out a video in the next couple weeks. But for now, here are a few snippets of our time so far: Cairns, Australia was a sweet opportunity for some much needed quality family time, as well as a very helpful time to recover from all the craziness of leaving the States, recover from jetlag, and process some of the pieces of this transition. We were so thankful - and we had a lot of fun! The picture below is of a Golden Orb spider that lived just up the way from the apartment we stayed in at the missionary guest house in Cairns.  We stayed a night in Port Moresby because our final flight was canceled. The kids were happy because they were excited to stay in a hotel and swim in the pool. And they all had great attitudes when we found out that the pool was closed for the day. All of these things are normal life in PNG - the land of the unexpected! (although you might as well expect the final flight to be canceled!)  Thankfully, all our bags made it to Madang ...eventually! Our teammates, the Twomblys, had a place prepared for us. We're settling in now - unpacking, organizing and making it feel like home.  There are lots of tiny ants in our house. The lizards are inside too, but they earn their keep by eating the bugs. Our hot water is solar heated, so if the day is too cloudy, there is no hot water. We've had a few cloudy days so we are all learning to wash dishes in cold water and take cold showers! The kids are getting eaten up by new bugs. Logan continues to have most of his bites turn into blisters. We have to be much more vigilant here to keep them covered to prevent infection. Everyone is feeling a bit off with stomach aches and headaches as we start the long process of acclimating to a new environment and new germs. The Twomblys have been very kind, hospitable and generous. They are caring for us well as we settle in. Our children have made a great connection with their children and they have all been having a wonderful time together.  Thank you to everyone who helped us get this far. It's surreal to be here. We miss you all dearly!
*We can still text from our US numbers - as well as WhatsApp and Signal!* |
The Ruscios
Sending, supporting and encouraging church planters living up in the Finisterre Mountains of Papua New Guinea. Archives
August 2025
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