Jet Trail

Here I am finally able to sit down after another crazy day of working in the kitchen. Both of our kitchen helpers did not show up today. I just found out that Ibu Poppi will not be in all week. She hurt her shoulder and went to the hospital for x-rays. Our other kitchen helper is very new and doesn’t feel like she can cook by herself yet. But she can do the dishes and clean. However, she didn’t show up today either. So…I was able to make spaghetti with a homemade sauce and garlic bread and I made rolls and potato soup for dinner. Tomorrow we are supposed to have company for lunch so we will see how that goes.
Right now we are enjoying a beautiful rain. The only problem is that Garth and Cale are out on a motorcycle ride around the lake by the cross. Garth just called to say that it is not raining there, however, he can see the rain and it looks like it is headed toward them. The girls are at ballet and Wyatt was running laps around the soccer field. He is trying to get in shape for Track-N-Field Day. (Next year!)
The girls had a hard time sleeping last night. They were thinking about Timber. (In case you didn’t read my email from yesterday-Timber was my parents dog and a big part of our family. He died on Saturday.) At breakfast they were talking about it, and Wyatt said, “He really died?” And we were all looking at him like “What? Don’t you remember our entire day yesterday talking about it and stuff?” And he said, “Man, I thought it was just a bad dream that I had.” Sophie wrote a wonderful story about how she felt. I will post it on the blog.
So, what are you all doing for Thanksgiving? I am still not sure what I am doing, or what day we are celebrating (the kids have school on Thursday), and with whom we are celebrating. Some of the dorm kids will be here and some won’t. I am trying not to think about how far away from you all I am. It is good that I have been so busy lately. It keeps my mind off of that.
The other day when we were out an airplane flew over head and made a jet stream behind it. You might think-no big deal. Well, here it was. The airplanes here don’t do that. Someone said that it is never cold enough in the air for a plane to leave a trail. I am not sure if that is the reason or not. But it was such a sight. I saw Indonesians stopping to stare and point at the amazing sight. They thought it was so cool. So did Cale. Simple things can be beautiful if you stop to enjoy them.
Keep looking up. You never know when you might see something amazing!
Love you-
Rachel

Timber

Some sad news has come to us today. My parents dog, Timber, has died. He was a wonderful 10 ½ year old Golden Retriever, and we all loved him very much. Timber was born 4 days before Wyatt and they have grown up together. He had a great temperament and put up with each of our kids when they were little and wanted to ride him like a horse, dress him up, or use him as a pillow. Just recently he began limping and not using his front leg. Mom took him to the vet and found out that he had bone cancer. In a matter of a day he went downhill fast. They are sad…we are sad. Especially Sophie. That was her dog-really, she told everyone that she had a dog back home and has pictures of him up in her room. It is a wonderful thing how a good pet can become a member of the family. Timber certainly was.
The last few days have been a bit crazy for me. Our main house helper and cook, Ibu Poppi, has been sick. A few weeks ago we had to fire the other cook we had and right now we have a temporary replacement, Ibu Iche. Iche is very new and doesn’t feel confident to cook on her own for us. So I have been in the kitchen creatively thinking of what we could quickly make to feed everyone for the day. Ibu Poppi did something to her shoulder and I guess it is quite swollen and painful. She went to the hospital yesterday and had some x-rays taken but I am concerned about what we would do if she was unable to work. We would sure be in a tight spot. The lady in charge of finding pembantu’s for all of us Westerners is actually in the States right now meeting her new grandchild for the first time. But we will just take one day at a time. Growing up in a house with a great cook (thanks Mom) does have its advantages-I am sure I would be able to whip something up. She taught me a lot.
I hope you are going to be able to spend some time with family this week. If you aren’t going to see any family for Thanksgiving, at least write a letter or call some family members, or if that won’t work go outside and grab someone off the street and ask them to be your brother or sister. Then feed them, and tell them what you have to be thankful for. I know my list is long, and I am going to write about that later. But for now I must go and feed Cale.
Love to all-
Rachel

This is the tree

Water

It is interesting to me how many times my blog opens and the header is in Chinese. Does that happen to anyone else, or just me? I am sure it is just because of where we are located right now. But how funny! All the side notes on Facebook and the advertisements are in Chinese as well. I can usually log out and back in to the blog and it will come up in English.
Anyways-Cale’s party went really well. There are pictures on the blog. I made a Tom and Jerry cake and he loved it. He was just like Sophie at that age. He wanted to lick off all of the frosting. I still can’t believe he is 3! He is talking more and more and his personality is hilarious. Wonder where he gets that????? Ha ha.
One more week until Thanksgiving. I am doing a GOAL CHECK. For those of you that made goals to accomplish before Thanksgiving, how are you doing? Better than you thought or worse than you thought? I am doing well on some of mine. I am being more disciplined with my time and balancing it out between all the things I have going. I am finding ways to relax more and be more patient, and I am really trying to work on being more happy. It seems like that is the hardest one for me. It is way easier for me to grumble at times than to laugh. I don’t want to be that type of person and I definitely don’t want to be that kind of example to my kids. So I am trying to find more ways to laugh, to look at the bright side, to see the glass as half full, to be silly…I had fun playing in the sand with Cale today trying to build sand castles, getting dirty…snuggling with our new kitties with Sophie and listening to each others tummys while we talked with Emma.
There is this really cool tree on our property that I was looking at today when I was out walking. You can tell if we need rain or not by looking at this tree. When it is dry the tree is just branches. But when we have had rain, it has these beautiful red flowers on it. I was thinking – what if we were that easy to read? What if you could tell on our faces or our skin, every time we needed more of something: more time with family, spouse, kids, more sleep, more time with God, more patience…? That wouldn’t be good for a lot of us. We like to hide those things and that is why when people ask us how we are, many of us say, ”Fine,” when we often are not. So many days are spent with us running on empty or near empty, like we are going through a drought of our own. Taking care of ourselves so we can take care of others is not a bad thing. How much gas can a car give if it is empty? I need to fill up on patience and love and kindness from spending my time with God in the Bible learning and “refreshing” my supply so that I have something to give back. God has all sorts of blessings planned for me (my beautiful red flowers) if I am willing to stay connected to Him. He is after all The Living Water. Who better to refresh my soul than Him?
Love you all
Rachel

Cale's Birthday Party

Look what Wyatt gave me
My new necklace

Yummy cake!

Jerry

Tom

I love taking pictures of the babies here

This little girl kept watching me at the Pasar

Ballet class

Cale trying to wait patiently while we buy ALL the groceries

Poppins

Here we are once again at a nice Saturday morning. It is actually only 75 this morning and a bit overcast. Unbelievable! Time to pull out the jeans and sweatshirts. How refreshing. The kids and I had a fun night watching Mary Poppins. Sophie didn’t remember watching it before and Cale had never seen it. They both really liked it. Cale asked this morning if he could watch it again. Garth was at an overnight with the high school boys last night. I am never quite fond of being home by myself, but we survived. u;kom,.8;j;k;lj. That is from Cale-I left the email for a moment and he thought he would add his two cents.

The kids and I spent a couple of hours this morning making Christmas decorations. I was in the mood. I had four big, green pieces of paper that we used to make a tree and then we cut out 25 ornaments and wrote a number on each so that we can count down the days till Christmas. They will put one ornament on a day until the 25th. That was fun. And we made cards for Cale’s birthday, which is Tuesday. I also showed them how to made paper angels in a chain. I know it is crazy-we haven’t even gotten through Thanksgiving yet and I am thinking of Christmas. I love the holidays! Such fun!

Right now the kids are all outside playing in the rain. We are having a great downpour and I know they will be soaked through, but it is so much fun for them. The rain here comes and goes so quickly. You cannot even see the mountain today as it is engulfed in clouds.

Before I go, I want to ask you to pray for Cale. He has been having some problems with his urine. His levels have been off for two weeks and we are trying to figure out what is going on. Thanks. Also, I wanted to let you know that the director of the school and his wife and three children will be leaving the end of November to get some testing done in the States. The wife has been sick for 2 months and even travelled to Singapore for testing but nothing could be found.
Now, a few minutes later, the rain has stopped, the sun is out and the mountain is back. I am going to go look for a rainbow.

Love to all-

Rachel

Cover ups

The girls and I went to the mall yesterday to look for birthday presents for Cale. The weekend is the worst time to shop here-not as bad as Wal-mart on a Saturday-but it is crazy busy. Our whole shopping trip was filled with people wanting to have their picture taken with the girls or to take the girls’ picture. At one point Emma said, “Mom, I am tired of everyone treating us like we are celebrities. I just want to shop.” There is such a fascination here with the kids. There is no getting away from the crowds of people wanting to touch them or shake their hand or take their picture. This is probably the closest we will ever get to “celebrity status.” The kids don’t understand it. They will tell me, “Mom, we are just like them, except for our skin.” Sophie totally doesn’t see the skin color difference. If I am asking her to describe someone from her class she will tell me all about them and never mention whether their skin is black or white. Many Indonesians here use whitening cream on their faces to lighten their skin color. It is amazing to me that many of them just do it on their faces. They want to look white but fail to see that from their chin down, their beautiful skin is still black. It is like me whenever I try to cover up a problem by eating, or buying something. Or when I think can cover up a lie with another lie, or use hurtful words because I am in a bad mood. Those things don’t take care of the problem. I have often thought that you can explain about problems in life by using nail polish. It never works out well to cover up old nail polish with new. Well, maybe it will for a little while, but eventually you have to take it off and start over. It is the same way with problems. The more you cover them up, the more you have to take off in the end. If you just deal with them when they arise, then the end result can be a lot less messy-maybe even something you can be proud of.
Rachel

Sunday - November 9,2008

Don't these look perfect?

One of my favorite times of night

Sophie making us pancakes.

She is just like Spongebob with her spatula!

This little girl was stunning.

Wacky Hair Day!
Soph and Maya

Wyatt?

Wyatt looking a bit more normal

Lily and Hannah Montana

HOPE

Throughout my day I am always telling myself to remember certain things that happen so that I can tell you. The list of things I had in my head before 3:30 included Garth’s two trips to Abeh one with a child whose eyes needed immediate attention by a doctor, my troubles with our pembantu that resulted in my letting her go today, and various other unimportant things. However, after 3:30 my perspective changed. Wyatt and I went to the orphanage like planned. When we got there, there was an ambulance just leaving. Usually the kids all come running out to greet us, full of excitement that we are there. But today, no one came out. There was a weird eerie stillness in the air. We went to find the sisters in charge and were quickly told that one of the girls had just died. It was a 17 year old girl named Karia. Her mother had died years before so she was living in the orphanage. She had been in the hospital for three days to be treated for malaria and typhus. Today at 1:00 she died in the hospital. They had just brought her body back when we got there. Suddenly, the stillness was broken with wails, and loud heart-breaking sobbing and weeping. We went down to the chapel and saw it was filled with girls crying for their lost friend. The boys were all sitting outside. I was told that one thing many people believe here is that you must wail loudly to show how sad you are. That chases away the evil spirits. If you aren’t sad enough the spirits will stay. Girls were sprawled all over the floor in the chapel. I saw a small bench in the back and sat down. One of the girls from my English class came over and put her hand on my shoulder. She said to me in English, “My friend just died.” And she began to cry. I told her to sit down by me and I just hugged her. She grabbed on to my arm and cried. She said this girl was like her big sister and her heart was breaking. As I sat there watching I thought about how the things I was upset about before just didn’t matter anymore. Life, and what you do with it is so much more important. Little things can become big things in your head if you latch onto them and hold grudges. But that does you no good. That moment, being there for the girls in my class, experiencing it with Wyatt, puts things in perspective. My days need to consist of more than just the things I do. It needs to be the people I touch and the things I’ve learned. Ways I have changed and grown and the things I have done for God. Thinking about this made me change my whole curriculum for that class. Instead of just teaching them colors and foods and parts of the body, etc.-I am going to give them a hope. Something that they can hold on to in times when their hearts are breaking. Life doesn’t end at death. God has made a way for us to spend eternity with Him in Heaven by believing. (John 3:16) He is my hope.
Rachel

The Halloween bunch in Sentani

Cale is one of the 101 Dalmations

Sophie the gypsy

Cale looking for candy

Big brother painting Cale's face

Cale helping Ibu Yulli

"I love my mommy"

Going away party for 2 of our kids

The girls in their ballet class

Like father like son

November 1, 2008 - Our Week

We just had a fun night of Trick-or-Treating. The kids were so cute. Wyatt was a skater dude (of course), Emma surprised me by wanting to dress-up like a basketball player, Sophie was a lovely gypsy, and Cale was an adorable Dalmatian puppy. I will post pictures on the blog.
We are smaller in size right now (unless we eat all of this candy…). Two of our dorm kids left this week to go back with their parents who are now in town. That will be strange to have them gone. We also had the Fun Fair here at school on Friday and each grade was in charge of two booths. Garth helped Emma in hers-Tightrope walking, and I helped Sophie with hers- Catapult. Wyatt did a great job in the face painting booth. Cale’s favorite booth was called Haystack and it was piles of cut up newspaper with candy underneath that the kids would dig for. He was excited every time he found a piece. Tomorrow is our Thanksgiving celebration with the mission group we are here with-MAF. That will be a bit different, but fun. No turkey, but we will have rolls, and mashed potatoes etc.
The girls started ballet this week and fell in love. They are so excited about learning how to do “real ballet”. Sophie wanted to wear her tutu to school to make sure she would be to class on time.
An unfortunate event also happened this week. The stereo was stolen out of the Hostel bus during the night on Sunday while we were sleeping. Since then the school has hired a new security guard who is in charge of sitting at the gates to unlock and lock them. That way he is only letting in the people who should be in. This new system should alleviate such problems from happening again.
Time for bed for me. Still waitin’ on those kittens. Any day now Gypsy…
Love
Rachel