10 Things About Life in Ukarumpa

1. Most people walk everywhere—to work, to the store, to school…and some people (mostly kids) walk barefoot.
2.  Most people don’t have dryers, so our laundry is hung outside to dry. That is a challenge during rainy season!
   
3. We have frequent power outages (though they usually only last for a few seconds). We’ve stopped resetting the clock on the stove every time the power goes out, and instead it now keeps track of how long it has been since the last power outage.
4. The secondary campus has a one-hour lunch break, so many students (and teachers) go home for lunch.
5. We have a horse pasture, and it is not uncommon to see people riding horses through the center on Saturday mornings.
   
6. There is no pastor at our church, so various missionaries take turns speaking, and different teams of musicians lead music every week. Once a month, we have a combined service with the Tok Pisin church that meets on center.
7. School starts in July and ends in June. There are two five-week breaks (Christmas and “summer”) and two shorter breaks during the school year.
8. We are surrounded on all sides by mountains, which makes for beautiful views, but also for challenging walks, especially at our high elevation.
   
9.  There are several different countries represented in Ukarumpa, including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Korea, and of course PNG, as well as a few other nationalities.
10. When people go on furlough, they ask other people on center to take care of their pets. We currently have 8 animals living with us (just for a little while)! Two dogs, two cats, and one cat just had four kittens!