Justin and Becky Burt Just another weblog 
Today we were able to visit one of our friends and he made us fried sago with egg. It was like a starch rubber egg, although we did enjoy it. The boys said they didn’t like, but then we told them it was just eggs they decided they liked it. Sago is one of the main foods here in Morop. They make it into a ball and then break it off into pieces to cook. They bake it by throwing it into the fire and toasting it a bit, they can fry it, usually without eggs, and they also use it in the feasts when they kill and cook a pig on top of rock under banana leaves.
Sago
More Rainy Days
Here in Morop it rains most days. Weather it is a drizzle for a little or a down pour of about 4 inches in a half hour or anything in between. During rainy season we get fogged in with a light drizzle that lasts for days or weeks. Well, it looks as though we were celebrating the arrival of dry season a bit too soon. The last few days have been completely fogged in with the slow drizzle that comes with it. Since there is not much sun, you can imagine how thankful we are to have friends like this pilot to help us fix our generator when my expertise is just not there! Just another thing to praise God for as He cares for us each day.
Soldering Friendships
There are about a million job that Becky and I do as we live and serve the Lord among the Morop people that we would have never imagined would come with the job of missionary. Some of the jobs that I do as relationship builders are fixing radios, flashlights, watches, wheelbarrows, etc…and NO thats right not my engiftment for those of you that know me but the Lord is working and I am learning how to jimmy-rig about anything these days with just a little solder. When you live in the bush there is no walmart or repair shop so we are there only hope…we try our best and they seem to appreciate our efforts even when things dont work out. I think it is neat to see how the Lord is using all these times with the people as opportunities to help them, as well as cultivate those relationships that are crucial for earning our right to speak of course so that we can one day present the gospel to the Morop people in their heart language. It is definitely an impossible task looking through the eyes of man but with God all things are possible for those who believe and step out to what He has called them. Thanks for your prayers as we solder friendships among the Morop and for the skills needed in the process.
Computers and Language Learning
Hello,
After hearing about our computer dying, one our good friends email us and asked us a few questions about how much computers actually play a role in learning the Morop language. I thought he had some very good questions and here is my attempt to answer them one by one.
Question #1: When you talk about your language studies, are they limited to computer work?
Language study is never limited to our computers. In fact, one of the most important things we can do to learn language is to get out and be with the people. When we set out to learn a language with NTM, it is not just the language we are interested in, it is the culture too. Because our goal is to one present the Gospel to the Morop, we need an in-depth understanding of the way they act and the underlying reasons for it. For example, when it has been raining for days or weeks without stopping, they will heat up a rock in their fire pit and then throw it outside so that the steam with rise to the clouds and the rain with stop. Now this can be as simple as them thinking that steam can stop rain, or it can have a more complex spiritual side to it in which they are appeasing some spirit or god. The only way for us to find out is talk to them about it in Morop and the only way for me to know about it is to be out with them.
Now computers are not completely useless. We do need computer for some of our language learning activities. Let’s take the example from above with the stone. When I am at a person’s home and something like this happens, I begin taking pictures. After they are done I will then ask them to tell me what they did in Morop. Since I am in the 2nd of 4 stages of language and culture learning, I don’t understand much of what they are saying. So I will go home and put the pictures and text into a program called CLAware (Culture and Language Acquisition Software). This was developed and is currently maintained by NTM. With those pictures I will have my culture and language helper do exercises with me so that I first learn the nouns of that situation, like rock, fire pit, steam, etc. Then I will move on and have him tell me the verbs like to heat up, throw, raise, etc. Once I have learn those little phrases, I will then move on the to text that I got while I was at the house and begin to transcribe it which often takes a long time. This will give me the sentence structure I need to speak good proper Morop as well as the intonation of the language.
Question #2: Are you able to learn as much from them [computers] as you are from the immersion lifestyle you are in?
Computers are mainly used for processing information, review and linguistic work. The things we experience in the everyday life of a Morop, are the best way to learning things. But just like anything else, we need to review those things, which is where computers come in. To give you an idea, I review about 4-5 hours a day and input things into the computer for about a half hour, so a good chuck of my day is at the computer.
Question #3: What is the most useful tool you have for learning/ logging/ studying the language?
The most useful tool we have is the computer. If it is used properly as a tool and not a crutch, it will be your greatest asset. If it becomes a crutch, it will be come the biggest hinderance to learning language. In fact, since I enjoy computers and office work so much, I try to spend one day just out with the people and not in the office. I am thinking of my time last week in which I did it and it was really one of the most profitable days of language I had that week. Now, I can’t do that everyday, but getting out with the people about 20 hours a week with give you more than enough material to review when are in the office without the computer becoming a crutch.
Well, I hope that shed some light on how computers play a role in language learning.
On a positive note, I was able to get my computer up and running this morning. I had to reformat the hard drive 3 times and finally it started working. I am thinking it is because my battery has gone completely dead recently and we keep forgetting to turn off my computer when we switch from generator power to our inverter. My mom did buy us a battery that will be here on our next supply flight in 1 week. So with a little caution given this week, maybe we have not seen the end of my MacBook Pro!
Missionaries to the Morop,
Justin, Becky, Ethan and Derek Burt
Bad Week
Hey Everyone,
You know those weeks you have that you would just like to forget? Well this has been one of those for me. One thing after another was happening, then tonight my computer finally died! It was one of those awesome 1st generation MacBook Pro’s. You know, the one that got this whole Mac craz started. Becky and I were hoping that it would last another year, but no such luck. It has seen many good days…blog writing…many many emails, but no more. Please be praying that God would supply the funds for another computer so that we can continue our language study here in Morop.
On a more serious note, please keep Maret in your prayers. We have not heard anything since our last update, but please keep praying.
Missionaries to the Morop,
Justin, Becky, Ethan and Derek Burt
Big Fly
One of the many joys our boys get to experience living here among the Morop is the joy of catching bugs. Everywhere we go they are catching bugs. Today as Becky and I were visiting some of our friends on our front porch, our friend Obet caught a huge fly. I have never seen one this big before. So Obet motioned to our kids to show them what he had caught. Ethan was really excited about it, but Derek didn’t really want much to do with it as it made a very loud buzzing noise.
Aside from catching bugs Ethan and Derek have been busy with school and playing outside. We have just entered our dry season so there are more opportunities to play outside for them. Although is still rains every afternoon, this is our dry season! 
latest news on Maret
Just wanted to send out the latest news on Maret, the little boy that was medivaced out of here for cerebral malaria. He is FAR from being better but is hanging on and is showing signs of improvement. Praise the LORD!!!! For example he is starting to cry a bit and make some noises on his own…which is a good thing. He still can’t sit up on his own, but is making small movements. His dad says he sees some improvement, but it will be a while before he gets out of the hospital. Thanks for praying for this little boy, he is about 8. We will keep you posted as we hear.
We are doing well here. The weather has cleared up from fog to sun still lots of rain but that is to be expected. We have been playing outside, spending time at the river, visiting tribal huts, homeschooling, doing medical, and of course studying. We are able to understand more of what the people are saying in Morop all the time so that is encouraging us as we study. Justin has been working on creating an alphabet from all the sounds they have here in Morop. In the last two weeks we have started visiting the tribal huts as a family on tuesday and thursday nights and we are have enjoyed getting to know the Morop one family at a time. There are 60 houses here and we live right in the middle of the village so we should be able to keep busy. There houses are one room square and have a fire pit in the center for light, keeping warm and cooking. Usually there is a side for the women and a side for the men, so we sit down and get to visiting, as best we can. The other night Ethan was able to illicit a few Morop words and he found a letter combination that we had not gotten yet so that was cool for our analysis. Okay friends, we just wanted to say hi and thank you for praying for us as we press on in here.
Your Missionaries to the Morop,
Justin, Becky, Ethan and Derek Burt
Blog:
www.ntm.org/justin_burt
Update on Maret
Hey Everyone,
So first I am happy to report that Maret is still hanging on. One of our pilot friends went and checked on him and said that Maret is still really sick and kind of hinted that if he does come through it would only be because of prayer. We trust that the Lord will be glorified in this situation. Thanks for your continued prayers.
God is so awesome. Everyday He does so much to bless us. Here is just one story how he worked a miracle in our lives lately. As most of you know upon our return from going to town for Ethan’s allergic reaction we came back to our new generator not working at all. Before we left we never had a problem with it and now nothing. So we sent out our update and many of you were praying. We were able to use a back up generator that belonged to the Milton’s the missionaries that lived here before, so we were really praising the Lord that it worked for us to function. About a week ago one of our pilot friends came on our radio check in that we have to do daily and said he was coming in to fix our generator. We didn’t even know how he knew it was broken but that was a huge encouragement to us. He tried to come in on Thursday but our weather was totally closed in. But Monday of this week we had just finished lunch and heard a plane coming. There he was on his approach to land. Not only had he come to fix our generator, but he brought us a rack of eggs and many vegetables. Having already been in the tribe for over a month, we were out of fresh vegetables and eggs, so that was a huge blessing to us. After some time of checking things out on the generator, he found the problem, a fiber had gotten on the spark plug when I replaced it and was causing it not to spark. I had checked that at least 3 other times, but God knew we needed a visitor that day and there he was. What an awesome God!!!
Missionaries to the Morop,
Justin, Becky, Ethan, and Derek Burt
Medivac in Morop
please pray!
Just wanted to let you know the latest news here in Morop. One of the boys’ tribal buddies, who we have been spending quite a bit of time with lately chasing grasshoppers and anything else they can catch, came down with Cerebral Malaria. It came on fast and hit hard. Yesterday morning we heard he was sick so we gave him some malaria medicine, then last night they said he was still really sick with diareah, vomiting till he couldnt any more and said his stomach was killing him. They also said his neck hurt so couldn’t take the medicine because his jaw wouldn’t open but his sister said he could still. This morning we went to check on him and he was already in a comma, so his father asked us to called a medivac (which took the pilot 12 attempts before actually making it in due to the rain, wind and clouds) and he is now in town with his father and two other guys. Please be praying that Maret will survive this.
Fire in the Village
This morning at about 8:30, Becky and I were in the office checking email when we noticed that one of the houses had more than the normal amount of smoke coming from it. The Morop people people live in thatch roof house with fire pits in the middle, so smoke coming out from on top of the house is not unusual, but this was more than normal. When we looked closer, we noticed flames starting to come out of of the house. We quickly ran outside to get someone’s attention. We got one persons attention and quickly the whole village was yelling that a house was on fire. The owner came running from across the village only to find that his door had been locked with a pad lock by one of his kids. He then proceeded to climb on to the roof and tore it back and managed to grab one bag of money, a blanket, and a change of clothes. Everything else was lost. It was very sad to watch as he watched everything he had burn to the ground. A few hours later, we noticed that the village, who earlier seemed not to care much, had gathered clothes, pot, machete, and a couple other necessities for him and his family.
While the Morop people don’t have as much as we do, it doesn’t change the heart ache of loosing everything you own. Please be praying for Donatus and his family during this time.