Not Forgotten

Do you realize that you are never forgotten? Even if you are sitting in a snowbank on a very cold day with a four year old and no cars around...you are not forgotten. I was sweetly reminded of that today.

On my way back from a visit with a dear friend Cale and I slid off the road into a snowbank/ditch. It had been snowing all morning and we were travelling on some unplowed streets out in the middle of acres of farmland. I had my mom's cell phone (YEAH!!!) and I called my sister who called a guy from our church who happened to live right near where I was stuck(YEAH!!). The man and his big strapping son were both home and came to our rescue in minutes with their pick-up truck, shovels and a chain. While they were shoveling me out, another man in a pickup and a snowplow stopped and helped as well. The van was not badly damaged (although my Dad said there is a corn cob wedged way down inside the bottom bumper-how did that get there?) and the brand new license plate that my Dad JUST put on was knocked off and bent completely in half.

It was a wonderful picture of how God cares about all the things that happen to you, the big things (like surgery) and the little things (like sitting in a ditch). The very first thing Cale and I did was to pray for someone to be able to come quickly to help us. And within minutes there was a multitude of strong able-bodied men at the van door. How is that for an answered prayer? Pretty awesome if you ask me!

I don't know what you are going through right now-the big things or the little things, but please remember this: You are not forgotten!

Love you

Rachel

Pictures from Wisconsin

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A Blog Post from Wyatt

It’s Christmas and I am without a mom and a brother. It’s been hard because she brings a lot of the joy to our family. At Christmas we usually do a bunch of family things, but this year we don’t have a mom or a brother. My dad and I have missed them a lot more than we thought we would, but the girls on the other hand miss them like nothing before. We have been opening one present just about every day and Sophie and I asked if we could sort the presents. Dad hesitated at first but said sure. While sorting, I saw that mom only had one present and hurt so bad to see that too. But just think, of how much stuff she’s done for us and provides a ton of presents for us but only gets ONE present sheesh! Thank you mom. The dorm kids left three days ago and that’s been weird too. We are used to falling asleep to loudness. But it’s been so quiet lately. The pembantus are still coming in probably until Christmas eve. We watched a movie called Merry Christmas Drake and josh and we (wyatt, Emma, Sophie) have memorized it. It is my favorite movie. We have watched one movie almost every night of Christmas break so far. At Sunday night soccer I jumped up really high to get a ball. I basically did a backflip and landed wrong. I got so many injuries then. Well that basically sums all of whats going on while mom and cale are gone.

Wyatt Erickson

An Update…

I do not have a pretty way to describe this, so if you are weakened by "medicalese", fast forward through this post.

Friday morning I went in for some laparoscopic surgery-more than anything they wanted to look around and see what has been making me sick.  None of us were expecting the problem to be my appendix.  But apparently it was three times the size, inflamed, infected and leaking toxins all over the inside of me.  These toxins were making me sick and were also causing scar tissue to form.  They removed the appendix and scraped off all that scar tissue and then stitched me back together.  Thursday I will go in and talk to the doctor and see what else he found out.  I am so appreciative of all of the prayers.

Things have worked out so well with me coming home.  My personal doctor had been out for 7 weeks with knee surgery but he was back for my appointment.  The specialist I needed to see was out for a few weeks having a tumor removed from his spine, but he was back for my appointment.  I got all my appointments and lab work and CT scans and surgery all completed in the short amount of time I had.  The fact alone that I got here without having my appendix burst points to God's Hand being in all of this as well.  I am so very blessed that God didn't have that baby burst in Indonesia or on the airplane on the way here...or any number of other places.  To all of you have prayed for me or written me notes, or called-I am thankful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So very thankful!!!  God has great timing!  How fun to be here in my house recovering with my family all around instead of in a dirty hospital in Indonesia somewhere!

My time here has been such a blessing.  And is quickly coming to an end.  Cale and I leave next Sunday.

Pray for a speedy recovery  and happy healing.

Love you all

Rachel

The Birth

Christmas is drawing closer.  It is amazing how here there are burst of the holiday season everywhere you look.  If I was in Indonesia right now, I would see some decorations in some of the store, (nothing like here) and I would be blasted day and night with Christmas music being played at the loudest possible decibel from little huts called pondak natals.  Christians build these huts just for the Christmas season to show everyone what they believe.  It is their chance to show the community that they are Christians.  Since it is amazingly loud, it takes quite a bit of persistence to learn to sleep through them.

However, I like how proud they are of their faith.  I know here, there are more and more people trying hard to make this a holiday season and not a religious season.  I think that is awful.  There are so many things in this world that are meaningless-we need more things with genuine worth.  Like a holiday to celebrate the birth of a baby born so long ago in Bethlehem.  The birth that changed everything-the birth that changed a world without hope to a world full of hope!  Don't forget the meaning of the star, the true reason we give gifts and what this holiday CHRISTmas is really about.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Rachel

On a much different note:  an update on my health.  I went to Milwaukee yesterday and saw a specialist.  It was a very good visit and we found we have much in common.  After a thorough exam and a CT scan he ruled out some ideas of what my problem might be.  The next step is the laparoscopic surgery scheduled for Friday.  That should be the final piece of puzzle.  Pray for wisdom there and a quick diagnosis.

Baby Jesus

This week has been cold. Thursday I woke up and the thermometer said it was below zero. Do you realize that is more than 100 degrees difference from Indonesia? My, oh my! I have learned to love layers.

Besides the cold I am loving the winter beauty and Cale is having a blast with the snow. He wakes up with this phrase, "Mom, can I go out and play in the snow?" He built a snowman with my sister, and went sledding at some friends house...helped shovel the driveway...and made tunnels with my parents puppy. What more could a 4 year old want?

As far as my health goes, the doctors have decided that the best thing to do is to check me out laproscopically (did I spell that right?). I have a few things going on that they think would be good to have a closer look at. So I will be doing that Friday morning.

Cale has been going to the kids class at my church on Sunday mornings and will be able to be in the Christmas Eve concert in the kids bell choir. That will be so fun to watch. He is super excited. He gets to play the yellow bell. When he was just born he was the baby Jesus in the concert. Now he is the bell ringer.

I hope you are enjoying the holidays. We were able to go to Elmbrook church to the festivities they have called Bethlehem Marketplace. They tranform the church into a market during the time of Bethlehem.  They pass out shekels and you can purchase things from the various vendors. There is a little bit of everything from women throwing pots to dancers, jugglers, even Roman soliders and live camels. It was an amazing thing to see with Cale. At the end there is Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. Cale ran back after we had exited and gave his shekels to Jesus. It was a touching moment!

Christmas is all about that baby. Just like Faith Hill sings, "A baby changes everything!" Remember that.

Love you

Rachel

My last few days…

I am having so much fun here.  I went to Wal-Mart today with my Mom and sister.  What a treat!  I told Cale he could pick out a cereal.  He was amazed at all of the selection, and finally settled on two-Lucky Charms and Reese's Puffs.

I went to the dentist on Thursday and discovered that after 35 years with no cavities, I now have one. (Bummer, Dude!)  Oh well, it is bound to happen sooner or later.  I went and saw my doctor on Friday.  He discovered that I do have some sort of infection going on but he is not sure what is causing it, my white blood cell count was down along with some other things.  He prescribed an antibiotic and I tried to get it when I was at Wal-Mart.  Wouldn't you know, they didn't have it.  How funny!  Out of the thousands they do have I needed the one they don't.  I was told that they would have it by Monday so I will get it then.  My doctor is running some tests and I will get the results from those next week.  Monday I go for an ultrasound and Wednesday to see another doctor and sometime next week to see an urologist.  Fun, fun, fun...

Today I am going with my family to get a Christmas tree.  We always go to a tree farm and cut down our own-I LOVE the way they smell.  I am sitting here listening to Christmas music looking at my Mom's beautiful Christmas decorations pondering how blessed I am to be here.

This is wonderful!

Love you all

Rachel

My Trip to Wisconsin

"Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays.." Wouldn't you agree? Well, home is where I am!!!!!! Can you believe it? Cale and I decided to surprise my family and make a trip to Wisconsin (in December. What are we , nuts? It is freezing here!) But we are having so much fun. Cale is loving all the choices in food and the fact that he can drink water right from the faucet. Today God even sent us some snow. My friend brought us a winter coat and some boots and snowpants just Cale's size. And Garth's sister loaded me up with warm shirts and sweaters along with a bunch of warm stuff for Cale as well. We are both still getting used to the time difference. The first night we were in bed at 8 and both up at 4 hungry. We crept upstairs and had a bowl of cereal (Cale has discovered that he loves Cinnamon Toast Crunch). Then we took a nap at 8. I slept till noon and had to wake Cale up at 2. Last night he was up at midnight and wide awake. He crawled into bed with me and started talking. This is what I heard, "Mommy, what color are my jammie pants? Mommy, when you lay like that it looks like you only have one shoulder. Mom, when I say something and then say I am just kidding am I lying?" My, my such questions for so early a time...finally we both fell back to sleep until 5. It takes quite a few days to get all adjusted.

Do I sound like I am closer? I am so excited to be here. The trip was long. It was a total of 48 hours from when I left to when I got here. It will be awesome to celebrate the holidays with my family but a bit sad to miss it with Garth and the kids.

Well, I am sure I will see many of you in church and in Wal-Mart. I can't wait to see Wal-Mart again!

Love you

Rachel

Cale’s Party!

We celebrated Cale’s birthday a  little early and had a party today with all of his preschool friends.  It was a great deal of fun with a clown craft, a balloon game and cupcake decorating.  Here are some pictures:

Rest

Do you ever have one of those days when you finally sit down and you think, “This is the first time I have sat down all day.”? My day was like that today, and part of it was my own doing. I woke up and made cupcakes with Cale for his party tomorrow. Then we found out that Ibu Poppi wasn’t coming again today (she hasn’t been here all week), so I decided that since the tortilla lady had come the other day to the house and sold us tortillas I would make tacos for lunch for all of us. I figured we could get the ingredients for that when we ran out to the store to buy 5 flats of eggs for the school. With eggs being scarce we were told that there was only one place that we could find them. And luckily we did, however they did not have any tomatoes or onions or lettuce. So there goes my idea of tacos. It is now almost 10:00 and I do not know what I am going to make for lunch. Then I found a recipe for this ground beef, cheese macaroni thing that I adapted to fit what was available here. And wouldn’t you know, the gas goes out on our stove. At 11:15 we still had no gas and 18 hungry kids coming to the hostel in 30 minutes. It all worked out in the long run - I asked the other hostel if I could use their oven to cook everything, Garth helped switch the gas tanks and we did have lunch, (5 minutes late). I said this was my own doing because this morning Garth asked me if I wanted the dorm kids to just order lunch and I said no. They can order stuff like rice and chicken or fish from a restaurant here in town and they will deliver it up to the school. However, I really thought that Ibu Poppi would be here or that I would have an easy morning of chopping stuff for tacos…but life doesn’t always go as you had planned, does it?

Throughout my morning, I had a song in my head from a band called Skillet. The chorus goes like this:

“I rest in the shelter of your love,

I rest in the wonder of your love,

I rest in the shelter of your love,

I rest in the wonder of You!”

I was thinking about those words-I don’t know if I actually do that. I seem to have a hard time resting. It runs in my family. I used to wake up Saturday morning to a list of chores we were all going to do before we did anything else. My Dad works when he is on vacation. My Mom would only let us watch one hour of TV a day and we had to be doing something while we were sitting there (clean out a junk drawer, write a thank you note…) Could I really rest in the wonder of God and His love? Like really enjoy His presence, sit and reflect on His greatness and love without thinking of all the things I need to get done? There is a saying up by our mirror that says, “God, if I don’t get anything else done today I want to know you better and love you more.” I don’t know about that either. I am a list person. I like to make the most of my time-I like to get a lot of things done throughout the day. A day of resting would seem really out of character and strange. But I realize that I need to practice the art of resting. How about you? Can you rest? Are you a Mary or a Martha?

Life is like a whirlpool that sweeps you along at a rapid pace and at times it can feel impossible to slow down. Yet, I think the more we take time to slow down and rest in the wonder of God’s love the more we will realize how much we NEED to make moments like that a regular part of our life.

Slow down-Rest-Soak up the wonderfulness that surrounds God’s love.

Rachie

Don't Grump It Up!

Hey there! We have had a busy two days at the hostel. Ibu Poppi did not come in both days. Someone in their family died and so she will be gone until at least Thursday. That makes it a bit crazy for me. And hot! I bet it has been awhile since you were hot and sweaty!?! Sophie was praying tonight for Grampo as he works at Grand Geneva putting up the Christmas lights. She prayed that he would not be too hot working outside all day. I don’t think that will be the problem! More like cold, huh, Dad?
Cale made up a story for me today. I wrote it down so that I would remember it.
It went something like this:

“I love you in the morning and if a mean guy shoots you dead.
I love you even when you’re mean, and I don’t like it when I see your finger. “ (He meant my pointer finger extended pointing at him when he does something wrong).
“I don’t love it when I have to go to bed.
I love it when I can watch movies.
I love you but I don’t like you when you grump it up.
Hi, Mom. I’m Cale.”
The End

I do that, too. What he said. I grump it up. Do you do that? I get upset about something or I am in a bad mood and I let it affect everything around me. The whole spaghetti concept. I am not a waffle. I don’t think we should shove our feelings down inside, but I do think that sometimes the things that upset me can be dealt with and then I can move on. Instead of stewing in them and making it a problem that messes up my whole day. I take a beautiful new day that God has given me and (like Cale says) “I grump it up.”
That does not sound like fun, now does it?
Here’s to an ungrumpy day-
Love you
Rachel

Lagoon

This Saturday we went to the beach called Amay.  It was not the trash beach that we went to last time.  In fact this is one of my favorite beaches.  It has a very large fresh water lagoon that flows into the ocean with a soft sandy bottom.  It is so nice to have fresh water to rinse off all the grime and sand of the ocean in.  The waves were quite large there and were knocking me over.  So without even trying I wound up with sand in my suit and thanks to my sunscreen, stuck on my face as well.  It became at times uncomfortable and so after a few dips in the lagoon I felt so refreshed and comfortable again.  You know, life can get grimy and gross at times.  All of our mess ups and mistakes can really make our lives a mess.  But God’s great forgiveness is even more refreshing than the lagoon.  He is there to help make everything clean again.  He will give us a fresh start each time.  I am not saying that we have a free chance to screw up as much as we want and then ask for forgiveness and do it again and again.  That is not the way to live the abundant Christian life.  What I am saying is, when you mess up, don’t walk around carrying that grime, feeling bad and kicking yourself for messing up.  Go to the lagoon.  Go to God.  He is waiting for you and me to make a fresh start.

Shirts

We see the funniest shirts here.  The T-shirt makers try real hard to make the shirts look American but they do not know English so the wording is always wrong.  Below is a picture of what I am talking about.  Also some pictures of Cale out and about Sentani.  We do have car carts in one store!  That makes us feel right at home-like shopping at Wal-Mart (O.k., Not really-the cleanliness level is nothing like Wal-Mart, or the smell…)

I just got back from watching Wyatt’s first soccer game.  He is now on a team and has practices twice a week and games every Friday.  His team won and he scored one of the goals tonight.  That was exciting!  Cale of course, was hanging out by the girls bench, flirting…

Sophie had a presentation today in her class on the rain forest.  That was a fun project.  She learned a lot of new things and it was especially interesting since we are living so close to the forests she was studying.

We are watching some extra kids this weekend while their parents are away, and taking the dorm to the beach tomorrow which means I have lots to do and need to say Good-bye.

Love you all

Rachel

Hey

Hello to you from way over here.  How are ya doin’?  I wanted to send you some pictures of our last few days.  The Senior class had some fundraisers on Saturday.  One of them was a slip-in-slide.  That was so much fun for Cale.  Also we have been having quite a bit of rain lately which always makes for great puddles (which Cale is attracted to like a bug to the light!). Also, if you look closely at the picture of the raindrop that Garth took you can see the reflection of a palm tree in the drop.  Isn’t God so super cool?

A picture of my Growing up too fast daughter Emma…She has started asking to borrow my clothes.  I knew this day would come, but not so fast!  Cale wanted to type you an email just like “Mommy does.”

We also had another dorm birthday this week.  One of the girls we have from Germany, Julia, turned 16.  So we celebrated with Apple pie, peach pie and jell-o cream bars. Yummy!  Hope your day is delicious!

Love you

Rachel

Slow Motion

Today was one of those days where I think I got out on the wrong side of the bed.  This morning I felt like I was doing stuff in slow motion.  It took me forever to get through everything before church.  Then after church I was trying to get lunch on the table for everyone and I spilled a whole pitcher of water.  Then I dropped my bowl of soup into the container of rice.  And now, while I was making dinner, I picked up a cookie sheet that I had JUST taken out of the oven (What was I thinking?) and I burned both of my hands!  The other day I was trying to plug in some bad Indonesian Christmas lights and I got shocked.  So I thought it was because of the way I was holding it… so after I recovered from the shock, I tried again and got shocked even worse-of course it was a 220v plug!  Maybe I killed some essential brain cells with those shocks and that is why I keep having trouble today…

Anyways, we had a nice long weekend.  The kids were all off school on Friday so we did something special and had pizza.  On Saturday, a bunch of the Westerners here got together and had a big Barang sale (Garage sale-except it was in the tennis courts.)  That is so fun for me.  I am such a sucker for books.  I bought a ton of books.  That is about all.  Oh, and a stethoscope.  I love medical stuff as well.  The girls have been taking turns listening to the kitties heartbeats. 

Well, we happily have internet again.  Yahoo!  Do you want more good news?  My wonderful Niece, Annie slept 7 hours last night!  What a good girl!  I was holding a baby today in church and said to Cale, “Cale, look what I found.”  And he said, “Is it ours now?”  Haha.    Babies are such a blessing.  I am sooo glad we have a new one in our family.

Time to go-

Love you all

Rachel

Today at the Hostel

Today was a big day for the hostel.  We finally got our new stove!  And come to find out, there are two new stoves.  The guy that bought them for us couldn’t get one big one so he bought one sort of large and one small.  That installation took all morning.  It will be so nice when it is finished.  One oven is Indonesian made so the manual was all in Indonesian.  But the other one said “Made in Italy.” And the manual did have some English in it.  So I have been trying to figure it all out so I can teach the dorm kids and the pembantus.  Cale has had a blast playing with the boxes.  I made him a fort and he loves it.

Also today, our internet got fixed.  YEAH!  It hasn’t been working for a few days.  It is such a strange feeling when I have no way to connect with the world.  I am so glad it is working again.

Tomorrow is the last volleyball Games of the season.  The kids are playing against the parents.  I was asked to play since some of the dorm kids are on the teams.  That should be interesting.

Time for bed.

Love you all

Rachel