The storm coming
Sophie decided to do "face painting" with atube of lipstick
Garth hanging out with the teenagers
At the suturing class-stitiching up the pig foot
Cale running around the chapel with his super hero cape on Friday, July 24, 2009
Pyramid
Our time in Pyramid was enjoyable and full of moments that pushed us out of our “normal” standard of living. The cabins were just long buildings, each room connected to the other and each family all in one room. Every night the power would go out from 10:30 – 5:00 am, so nightly trips to the bathroom were by flashlight. There was a LOT of rain that the ground couldn’t soak up which created mud puddles everywhere. The kids enjoyed that, and there was a perfect hill for mud sliding. One day there was an opportunity to go on a hike up one of the mountains so the girls and I decided to go. It was way more than just a hike. There were fences to climb over, mud bogs to slosh through, logs to maneuver over ponds, loose rocks to walk up, and HUGE cow pies to avoid. The moment we got to one of the flat spots at the top, I noticed a large storm coming toward us. We decided not to go up further, like some were doing but to go down with one of the guides who was leaving. About 5 minutes into our descent, we lost the guide, and the rain started pouring on us. Tricky, huh? Well, the hike down was tougher than the hike up because the rain made everything very slippery. Of course, I fell-many, many, many times. More than the kids because I was in the front and found all the slippery spots that they were then able to avoid. After awhile we lost the trail, and were navigating by guessing. Ha ha. Garth was getting worried because everyone else was back-except for us. We made it and got a nice warm welcome. Boy, did the showers feel good-we had mud everywhere. It was a good lesson for all of us but especially the girls-they wanted to give up and quit. But they knew they had to persevere and they did. Giving up would have gotten them nowhere. And they were proud of their accomplishments when we finally arrived home.
I was also able to sit in on a suturing class. The doctor from the States brought pig feet and taught those that were interested how to suture up a cut. It was fantastic! Those of you who know me, know that I love that kind of stuff. Of course, it is one thing to sew up a cut on a pig hoof and quite another thing to sew up a screaming child, but I liked it.
Have you learned anything new lately? If you have a chance to, do it. It is really fun, and good for your brain.
Love you, and remember-
If you ever need stitches, just let me know…Ha ha!Rachel
I was also able to sit in on a suturing class. The doctor from the States brought pig feet and taught those that were interested how to suture up a cut. It was fantastic! Those of you who know me, know that I love that kind of stuff. Of course, it is one thing to sew up a cut on a pig hoof and quite another thing to sew up a screaming child, but I liked it.
Have you learned anything new lately? If you have a chance to, do it. It is really fun, and good for your brain.
Love you, and remember-
If you ever need stitches, just let me know…Ha ha!Rachel
Back
We are back from our week long MAF conference in a place called Pyramid. The kids had a blast with all the other kids and Garth and I really enjoyed the teachings from Pastor Matt. A Group from a church called New Heights comes to Indonesia each year to help us with this conference. They do kids programs like VBS and Pastor Matt does the teachings for us, they bring a praise band and a doctor and his wife and tonz of free stuff from the States. One of the highlights for the kids was the snack bar loaded with all the candy and pretzels you can imagine. This group was such a blessing!
The whole week was quite the adventure for us as we are not used to “roughing it” like that. Sleeping in a cabin with other people right there, outside bathrooms, the power was out every night from 10:30pm-5:00am, there was lots of rain and mud…you should see how much fun the kids had with all this rain and mud. They made a mud slide and became mud zombies. Oh, my! Try to scrub that out of clothes with just a bucket of water. Haha . Our trip back yesterday was full of opportunities for patience. Our flight was supposed to be at 7 am so of course we got everyone up early and then it was delayed a bit. We flew to Wamena and arrived there around 9:15am and then at quarter to 2 we got on our airplane and found out that the air conditioner was broken. Because of the heat and the turbulence, many of us were passing around puke bags. Thankfully it was a short flight and we all arrived safely. We couldn’t wait to have real showers and scrub off a week of mud. The kids were ready for bed around 5 and I was asleep by 6:30. Sophie and Cale both have fevers from something. Now that we are home and can get some sleep, hopefully they will soon be well again.
I have quite a few stories to tell you about this trip but my journal is still packed. SO I will write later. We are having a very strange storm at the moment. It is day (7 am), but it is pitch black outside. Good sleeping weather that is probably why the kids are all still sleeping.
Thanks for praying for us. We love you all.
Rachel
The whole week was quite the adventure for us as we are not used to “roughing it” like that. Sleeping in a cabin with other people right there, outside bathrooms, the power was out every night from 10:30pm-5:00am, there was lots of rain and mud…you should see how much fun the kids had with all this rain and mud. They made a mud slide and became mud zombies. Oh, my! Try to scrub that out of clothes with just a bucket of water. Haha . Our trip back yesterday was full of opportunities for patience. Our flight was supposed to be at 7 am so of course we got everyone up early and then it was delayed a bit. We flew to Wamena and arrived there around 9:15am and then at quarter to 2 we got on our airplane and found out that the air conditioner was broken. Because of the heat and the turbulence, many of us were passing around puke bags. Thankfully it was a short flight and we all arrived safely. We couldn’t wait to have real showers and scrub off a week of mud. The kids were ready for bed around 5 and I was asleep by 6:30. Sophie and Cale both have fevers from something. Now that we are home and can get some sleep, hopefully they will soon be well again.
I have quite a few stories to tell you about this trip but my journal is still packed. SO I will write later. We are having a very strange storm at the moment. It is day (7 am), but it is pitch black outside. Good sleeping weather that is probably why the kids are all still sleeping.
Thanks for praying for us. We love you all.
Rachel
Done packing
I just want you to know that I am done-really, I am. Finally! We leave early tomorrow morning for the annual MAF conference in a place called Pyramid. Normally, I love to pack, just like Sophie. She always says, “Mom, one of the best parts of a trip is the packing.” But for some reason, I have been stressing out about this. For one thing, I have never been to this place. It is in the highlands which means cool in the morning, hot in the afternoon and pretty cold at night. There are times that it rains all week and then it is called Pyramud. We have a real restricted weight limit, and need to bring all of our own bedding and towels and clothes for a week for everyone without the opportunity to do any laundry. UGH! Do you know how many times I have packed and then repacked, weigh it again and repack?…The way that they do things here is to weigh you and then weigh the luggage and add it all up. I had one piece of apple pie left tonight and I told Garth it was for him. But once I heard that our body weight counts, I told him not to eat it. If Emma weighed 2 more pounds we would get 10 extra kilos. Garth said we should have stuffed her this week. Ha ha. Just kidding.
Well, you will not hear from me until July 20th-that is my Dad’s birthday! Yahoo!! Great day. While we are gone we have another of our cats that will be having kittens, and hopefully none of them will get hit by a car this time.
Please pray for us that this will be a time of refreshment and refueling. I am helping out with the Kids club and Garth is doing the sound, so pray for no glitches there. Also, an exciting opportunity has come my way. A writer from the Jakarta Newspaper has contacted me about doing an article on me. She has seen my blog and is interested. So I wrote her the article adding that God is the reason we are here doing what we are doing. Pray that something good will come of this.
Love you all-
Rachel
Well, you will not hear from me until July 20th-that is my Dad’s birthday! Yahoo!! Great day. While we are gone we have another of our cats that will be having kittens, and hopefully none of them will get hit by a car this time.
Please pray for us that this will be a time of refreshment and refueling. I am helping out with the Kids club and Garth is doing the sound, so pray for no glitches there. Also, an exciting opportunity has come my way. A writer from the Jakarta Newspaper has contacted me about doing an article on me. She has seen my blog and is interested. So I wrote her the article adding that God is the reason we are here doing what we are doing. Pray that something good will come of this.
Love you all-
Rachel
Watch the Water!
We have been having problems with our internet so I am going to type fast because we have it right now. Since I last talked to you Garth and I have celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. Many of you were at our wedding. It was July 8th at Calvary. Remember? We had all that Patriotic stuff up because it was around the time of the concert and we weren’t allowed to take it down…Remember? Well, our anniversary was a quite a bit different this year. Last year we were home and my sister and her husband gave us a few nights at a great spa and it was so heavenly. (Thanks Carlena and Donald.) We loved it! Yesterday we had a bonfire here with the kids and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows-thanks to my Mom and Dad sending them in the mail. (The marshmallows not the hot dogs). Ha ha.
We had picnic lunch in the pondok with a swing. Good old fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Wyatt has been having a taste for Apple Pie. So I thought that today would be a good day to work on that. We had some nice tunes going and a job for everyone-peeling, cutting, mixing even Cale was helping out. I must say it was quite yummy.
We have been having fun playing games-like Moose in the House, and we showed the kids how to play Pictionary-that is fun playing with Sophie. She draws so many little details, you really have to wait until the whole drawing is done to figure out the picture. I almost flooded out all of the kittens today. I put the hose in the washer out in our gudang (storage area) to fill it up and then ran in to check on my apple pie and got distracted. By the time Emma went out and found it, there was so much water on the ground, Garth had to push it all out with a big squeegee. What a mess! I am so lucky I didn’t wash all of the kittens out the door. The kids would not have been happy about that!
Well, I need to go.
Love you all
Rachel
We had picnic lunch in the pondok with a swing. Good old fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Wyatt has been having a taste for Apple Pie. So I thought that today would be a good day to work on that. We had some nice tunes going and a job for everyone-peeling, cutting, mixing even Cale was helping out. I must say it was quite yummy.
We have been having fun playing games-like Moose in the House, and we showed the kids how to play Pictionary-that is fun playing with Sophie. She draws so many little details, you really have to wait until the whole drawing is done to figure out the picture. I almost flooded out all of the kittens today. I put the hose in the washer out in our gudang (storage area) to fill it up and then ran in to check on my apple pie and got distracted. By the time Emma went out and found it, there was so much water on the ground, Garth had to push it all out with a big squeegee. What a mess! I am so lucky I didn’t wash all of the kittens out the door. The kids would not have been happy about that!
Well, I need to go.
Love you all
Rachel
Watch the Water!
We have been having problems with our internet so I am going to type fast because we have it right now. Since I last talked to you Garth and I have celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. Many of you were at our wedding. It was July 8th at Calvary. Remember? We had all that Patriotic stuff up because it was around the time of the concert and we weren’t allowed to take it down…Remember? Well, our anniversary was a quite a bit different this year. Last year we were home and my sister and her husband gave us a few nights at a great spa and it was so heavenly. (Thanks Carlena and Donald.) We loved it! Yesterday we had a bonfire here with the kids and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows-thanks to my Mom and Dad sending them in the mail. (The marshmallows not the hot dogs). Ha ha.
We had picnic lunch in the pondok with a swing. Good old fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Wyatt has been having a taste for Apple Pie. So I thought that today would be a good day to work on that. We had some nice tunes going and a job for everyone-peeling, cutting, mixing even Cale was helping out. I must say it was quite yummy.
We have been having fun playing games-like Moose in the House, and we showed the kids how to play Pictionary-that is fun playing with Sophie. She draws so many little details, you really have to wait until the whole drawing is done to figure out the picture. I almost flooded out all of the kittens today. I put the hose in the washer out in our gudang (storage area) to fill it up and then ran in to check on my apple pie and got distracted. By the time Emma went out and found it, there was so much water on the ground, Garth had to push it all out with a big squeegee. What a mess! I am so lucky I didn’t wash all of the kittens out the door. The kids would not have been happy about that!
Well, I need to go.
Love you all
Rachel
We had picnic lunch in the pondok with a swing. Good old fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Wyatt has been having a taste for Apple Pie. So I thought that today would be a good day to work on that. We had some nice tunes going and a job for everyone-peeling, cutting, mixing even Cale was helping out. I must say it was quite yummy.
We have been having fun playing games-like Moose in the House, and we showed the kids how to play Pictionary-that is fun playing with Sophie. She draws so many little details, you really have to wait until the whole drawing is done to figure out the picture. I almost flooded out all of the kittens today. I put the hose in the washer out in our gudang (storage area) to fill it up and then ran in to check on my apple pie and got distracted. By the time Emma went out and found it, there was so much water on the ground, Garth had to push it all out with a big squeegee. What a mess! I am so lucky I didn’t wash all of the kittens out the door. The kids would not have been happy about that!
Well, I need to go.
Love you all
Rachel
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Try this!!!
You must try this new recipe I found. It is super yummy and so refreshing for the summer!
Lemon Sherbet
1 ½ cups of sugar
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
1 cup milk
¾ cup lemon juice
Few drops of food coloring
In a saucepan mix sugar and gelatin. Add 3 cups of water. Cook and stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Add lemon peel, milk, lemon juice and food coloring (It may look curdled-that is ok). Pour into a 9x9 pan or other dish. Cover and freeze for 2 to 3 hours or until almost firm. Break frozen mixture into small chunks. Transfer to a chilled bowl and beat with mixer until smooth but not melted. Return to pan, cover, and freeze till firm. Makes 2 quarts – feeds 8 to 10 people. To make Orange sherbet: Prepare as above, except substitute 3 ¾ cups orange juice for water. NO lemon juice. And use orange food coloring instead.
Today was a busy day for us. We had our Indonesian class in the morning (from 9-11), then we played games with the kids and lunch. we all went to the gym to play basketball, then Garth and I played racquetball-off to the pool to cool off and dinner along with a pile of books before bed and then snooze time for the kiddos. Of course in there are all the non-fun tasks (dishes, sweeping, cleaning…but they are not worth mentioning).
I asked Cale yesterday if he was growing up and he replied, “Yes, Mommy. Are you growing down?” And tonight at story time when we were reading a book about heaven that asked, “Who would you like to see first in Heaven?” Cale replied after thinking, “Grammo!” (That is what the kids call my Mom).
We are trying hard not to be homesick and lonely here during this long summer…It helps that we have new kittens around. Our cat Gypsy had kittens while we were in Bali and when we returned, we could not find them so we thought that maybe they were eaten. But yesterday, Wyatt heard the faintest of meows and we went searching and found them in the back of a broken dryer. So the kids have created an awesome cardboard fortress for all of them. There are 4 beautiful kittens and of course Emma got first choice in picking since her kitten was hit by a car and killed while we were in Bali. More kittens will soon be making an appearance as another of our cats is about to deliver as well. Every morning the kids rush outside to see if she delivered during the night…but not yet.
Love to all of you who are growing up and those of us that are growing down.
Love
Rachel
Lemon Sherbet
1 ½ cups of sugar
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
1 cup milk
¾ cup lemon juice
Few drops of food coloring
In a saucepan mix sugar and gelatin. Add 3 cups of water. Cook and stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Add lemon peel, milk, lemon juice and food coloring (It may look curdled-that is ok). Pour into a 9x9 pan or other dish. Cover and freeze for 2 to 3 hours or until almost firm. Break frozen mixture into small chunks. Transfer to a chilled bowl and beat with mixer until smooth but not melted. Return to pan, cover, and freeze till firm. Makes 2 quarts – feeds 8 to 10 people. To make Orange sherbet: Prepare as above, except substitute 3 ¾ cups orange juice for water. NO lemon juice. And use orange food coloring instead.
Today was a busy day for us. We had our Indonesian class in the morning (from 9-11), then we played games with the kids and lunch. we all went to the gym to play basketball, then Garth and I played racquetball-off to the pool to cool off and dinner along with a pile of books before bed and then snooze time for the kiddos. Of course in there are all the non-fun tasks (dishes, sweeping, cleaning…but they are not worth mentioning).
I asked Cale yesterday if he was growing up and he replied, “Yes, Mommy. Are you growing down?” And tonight at story time when we were reading a book about heaven that asked, “Who would you like to see first in Heaven?” Cale replied after thinking, “Grammo!” (That is what the kids call my Mom).
We are trying hard not to be homesick and lonely here during this long summer…It helps that we have new kittens around. Our cat Gypsy had kittens while we were in Bali and when we returned, we could not find them so we thought that maybe they were eaten. But yesterday, Wyatt heard the faintest of meows and we went searching and found them in the back of a broken dryer. So the kids have created an awesome cardboard fortress for all of them. There are 4 beautiful kittens and of course Emma got first choice in picking since her kitten was hit by a car and killed while we were in Bali. More kittens will soon be making an appearance as another of our cats is about to deliver as well. Every morning the kids rush outside to see if she delivered during the night…but not yet.
Love to all of you who are growing up and those of us that are growing down.
Love
Rachel
Happy 4th!
Happy Fourth of July to you all!! I was remembering how last year at this time we were in the States watching the beautiful fireworks display from Grand Geneva (thanks Dad!). That was wonderful. This year…no fireworks. In Indonesia they do fireworks on New Years. But we had a fun day anyways. I had some crafts planned-we made hats, and paper sparklers, along with making 4th of July bread dough creations. And we grilled out chicken on our outdoor fireplace (thanks Garth), and had Jell-o treats (Thanks Mom for the unflavored Gelatin and Kool-aid) along with a strawberry cream pie (even though we don’t have strawberries and I had to improvise), plus we did that experiment with Mentos and a bottle of Coke (the closest thing to fireworks we had), and we took a nice night time stroll with our new glow bracelets (Thanks Carlena)…So it was a blast.
I hope your holiday celebrations are with family or good friends. If they are around you, enjoy their company. It is a blessing!!! Don’t forget that.
Love you all
Rachel
I hope your holiday celebrations are with family or good friends. If they are around you, enjoy their company. It is a blessing!!! Don’t forget that.
Love you all
Rachel
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