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