Frozen?

Hello!  What a great morning at the Pasar (market).  I love finding "new"treasures of fruit and veggies that I haven't tried before.  I pack my bags to overflowing with these yummy treats.

Here is a picture of some of the goodies:

We had our Indonesian class again today-Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings for 45 minutes.  Here is a picture of our teacher, Pak Yohannis.

Yesterday when I was making up a water bottle for Emma, I wanted to put her name on it, but the bottle was wet, and slightly frozen from being in the freezer.  I knew that the tape would not stick if I tried to put it on right then.  The surface needs to be dry, or it just won't stick.  Well, I was thinking about how I am like that sometimes.  God tries to teach me something, but my heart is not prepared and it doesn't stick.  I need to make sure that my heart is in the right place so when a lesson comes along that God wants to teach me, I am prepared and it sticks.  The first time.

Love you all

A Little About My Day

Look what I found in my dishwater today while doing dishes!  Haha.  These little lizards, called cecuks (pronounced cheechucks)are always crawling around, climbing on the ceiling, dropping into all sorts of things.  First time I ever had one in my water, though.  I was making a pitcher of Kool-Aid in the sink right next to this.  Good thing he didn't fall into the pitcher!

Today we had our second Bahasa Indonesia class.  It is going very well.  Lots of fun.  Garth got his motorcycle delivered today!  Yahoo!  It is so much easier to get around on a bike than by car.  It will be so nice to have a bike again. The Honda company gave him a helmet and a jacket.  Looks like the jacket is a bit too small.  Haha.  Garth also took one of our dorm kids in for an x-ray.  (Two kids for x-rays in two days...)  Crazy.  This girl did something to her collarbone or shoulder.  Tonight I am going with her to see an Indonesian doctor named Only One Taylor.  We call him Dr. Only.

I spent a good part of my day trying to get the dorm kitchen organized and familiarizing myself to all that is available in there.  I am happy when things are orderly, and ready to use.  I took  pictures of some of the "treasures" I found.  I am also including pictures of our 2 kitchen pembantus (helpers)-Ibu Elizabet, and Ibu Dina.

Well, it is about time for me to go make some dinner, makan sore.  

Love you all

Movin' In

So, we have been here a little over a week.  Crazy!  We are having a good time getting to know our new dorm kids.  We have 6 girls and 5 boys:  Natasha and MJ, Seun and Alina, Gloria and Victoria for girls.  Then Astract, Yohan, Jacob, Josiah, and Arnold for boys. 

We have already had one great rainstorm followed by a beautiful rainbow right over the hostel, a few volleyball games, a trip to Jayapura for fingerprinting, visits from numerous parents, banyak sekali (Very many) trips to the Pasar (market) and other stores, we started our Indonesian classes, movie night (Despicable Me 2), ping-pong games, ripstick tag, and a visit to the local pool.

This dorm has a much different feel to it.  The younger kids bring a lot of energy.  They wake up early ready to go.  They have been very welcoming of us, and seem to all get along.  Some of the kids are missionary kids and some are business kids.  We have a great mission field right here in the dorm as I am not sure that all of them are Christians.

I was walking around the grounds yesterday in awe thinking, "I can't really believe that we are back here."  It hasn't truly sunk in yet.  We are still waiting for our driver's licenses, and Garth's motorcycle, and our phones-none of them are working.  I am trying to figure things out with our new pembantus (Indonesian workers).  Especially Ibu Elisabet who will help me in the kitchen.  I need to know what she can and can't make so I can plan our menus and do the shopping.  Meat is really expensive here so I need to come up with quite a few vegetarian meals.  Chicken is fairly reasonable, but not beef.  We ordered tenggiri which is a large fish sort of like a mackerel.  I will take a picture when it comes on the back of a motorcycle.  It is awesome how they fillet it right on the ground.

Well, thanks for your prayers.  We are really doing ok.  Right now we are kind of in techno-mode of getting things checked off our to-do-list.  Once all that is covered we will be able to enjoy more of what is going on around us.

Our Trip Here

Hey you guys.  So sorry it has taken me awhile to write.  I feel like I have been spinning in a whirlwind.  Here is a recap of the last week.  The trip here was so much easier than ever before.  It was great going the other way.  I wrote down some of the cool places we flew over:  Canada, Amsterdam, Norway, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Budapest, Odessa, over the Black Sea, near Athens, Tirgu Mures, Baghdad, through Iraq, over the Zafros Mountains, and the Tigris River, over Basra and on to Qatar.  It was so amazing when we were over Baghdad and Iraq and the Tigris River-we were low enough so we could really see.  That was one of the pictures I sent in my previous email.  I wish I could have been awake for all of the daylight hours when we were low so I could see it all.  The Tigris River was beautiful!

The Qatar airport was quite intriguing!  There were so many Arab men and women.  The men were in full white dress and the women in black, some of them even wore black gloves to cover everything except for their eyes. I had a great time watching them.  There were prayer mosques in the bathrooms with a place to wash off your feet before you went in.

We slept little bits here and there-either on the airport floor, or sitting up in the plane.  We got to Indonesia completely exhausted.  We were greeted by so many of our family and friends.  It was a fun reunion.  We came up to the hostel and slept a bit.  It was one of those sleeps where your body wants to sleep like it is night, but we only had a few hours.  After that we went down to MAF base and had a welcome back party.  It was super cool to be greeting with such love and warmth.

Fast forward to today, Thursday-The dorm kids were all here for lunch and then they moved in after school.  We have five boys, and six girls.  Such a strange mix of missionary kids and business kids, middle schoolers and high schoolers.  But, we know that God will help us make it feel like one big, happy family- or as we like to say-one big, fappy hamily.

Thanks so much for praying us here.  We greatly appreciate all of the care and concern for our family.

love you all

Barang

Yes, barang means "stuff" and all our stuff made it here to the hostel safe and sound.  PTL.  Thanks for your prayers.

Rachel

First Days

Here I am awake at 4:30 and I feel like it is the only time I have sat down to catch my breath since we got here. (The thermometer reads that it is already 81 degrees!).   We really hit the ground running in terms of jumping right into life.  There was a great reception for us at the airport and then at the MAF base to welcome us back.  We feel very loved and appreciated.  We arrived early Sunday morning, slept a little and then have been going ever since.  There was much to do to get the kids ready for school and to get the dorm up and running.  The kids went to school on Monday, and were able to stay awake the whole time.  Wyatt and Emma had volleyball practice right after school, then we went to a friend's house for dinner, then homework and bed.

Everyone is adjusting very well.  Jet lag hasn't been too bad.  The school load is a bit daunting as they try to catch up, but they keep plugging away without complaining.  Garth and I have been refreshing our Indonesian as we run from store to store trying to find all of the items needed to refill the hostel.  Today we are going in to town to buy a new washing machine since the one here is broken.  The dorm kids will be moving in here tomorrow, Thursday, so we need to have a good washer by then.

It has been beautiful to feel God's strength everyday.  We don't feel overwhelmed, and each thing that comes up has been taken in stride.  The Lord has been helping each one of us to find Him right at the place we need Him most.  The first day of school Cale prayed, "Jesus, help me to be brave to talk to people on my own, and not just with Mom, and help the homework to really work my brain."  (So sweet). 
It is so fun to be here.  Garth and I keep saying to each other, "Can you believe that we are really here?"  It just seems so surreal.  We LOVE seeing our mountain, and the waterfalls (although they are really small right now because we need rain), and the palm trees, and all of the people here that have been missing us so much.

Keep praying for all of us as we adjust to life with the dorm kids.  Pray that we are able to really see and hear all of the kids (ours included).  Pray for unity among the 18 of us.  Pray for Garth and I as we start our Indonesian lessons next week that we will learn quickly and remember what we learned before.  Pray for us all as we miss our family, and friends.

On Our Way

We had a beautiful send-off from church full of tight hugs, and heartfelt prayers.  From there we went to O'Hare where God once again showed us how amazing He is.  One of my big stress points has been our luggage, and whether any of the pieces would be overweight and need to be repacked in the airport.  When we got there two sky caps helped get all 20 pieces in to be weighed.  When I went in to see how it was going, Garth announced to me that every piece was underweight.  I yelled out, "Praise the Lord!" and began to cry.  That made Garth cry and even caused the skycap to tear up. Oh, I am SO glad that everything made it through.  We even met another missionary family on their way to Tanzania.

Once we made it through security, we gathered together to thank the Lord for working all of that out for us. 

We had a fairly uneventful flight here to Qatar (13 1/2 hours) -didn't sleep much on the plane.  So, we found an out of the way area in the airport and all crashed for a few hours.  Now, here we sit with another 4 hours until our next flight at 2 a.m.

Thanks for the prayers.  The kids and I have all said that it seems to be so much easier this time.  I am sure it is all the prayers.  We have two more overnight flights so keep praying.

Love you-

Rachel