Moving On

Yesterday we said goodbye to our little house in Spokane that we have lived in for almost eight years. Packing and cleaning took two days longer than expected, but we were so thankful for the people that came to help, and for the friends and neighbors that brought meals and coffee. As we walked through the empty rooms in our house one last time, a flood of memories came back to us....and a heaviness to be leaving our home. It's funny how attached we can get to a space, but this house has meant so much to us over the years. We have lived there since we were first married, brought home our first puppy, grieved the loss of our first kitty, and brought home a new kitty. We welcomed our three babies into this house. I'm going to miss watching them run through the sprinklers, chase garter snakes and pick up apples that fell from our tree in the back yard and plop them into a bucket. I'm going to miss watching the snow fall from the dining room window, miss our quiet street, miss our friends. We know we have exciting things ahead, but for now we grieve the closing of this chapter of life. Thank you to all of you who made this place so special.

We have moved all of our things to my parent's house in Bellevue and will pack our crates from here. We leave for Nampa, Idaho in four days for ten weeks of training before departing for Indonesia in mid-June. Please pray for the packing process and for strength and energy in the weeks ahead. We are exhausted. Please also pray that our house would sell quickly and for peace as we say goodbye to so many things, and to so many special people.

Chocolate Chips and Ear Plugs

One night, after a full day of Christmas baking, I (Ellie) had a dream. I felt something small and round between my fingertips. When I looked down, I realized "hey I have a chocolate chip in my hand!" Slowly my hand brought the chocolate chip up to my mouth and popped it in. But then I noticed that something wasn't right.....this didn't taste like a chocolate chip at all. It was then that I woke up to find....yep, you guessed it....a flourescent orange wax ear plug ...in....my...mouth!!!

As we prepare for Indonesia it's funny to think about all the odd things we need to bring, like ear plugs. We've heard that Indonesia is a noisy place and ear plugs are hard to come by. For those of you that know me, you know that I NEED my sleep. So, we bought about 25 packs of ear plugs to last an entire term. Crazy, you say? Maybe. But sleep is one thing we don't want to be worrying about in the midst of a brand new culture, not knowing the language (if we can help it). Let's just hope I don't have any more dreams about chocolate chips.

Our Final Assigment...

We have received our assignment of our final location! After a year and a half of wondering exactly where we will be serving in Indonesia and which of the bases we'll be living on, we found out this last week that we will be sent to the island of Kalimantan. Specifically, we are going to be living in the city of Tarakan. 

Tarakan is a small island off the coast of Kalimantan (Borneo), is predominantly Muslim, and is a city of roughly 200,000.  From there we will fly to the interior villages of Kalimantan each week day delivering supplies and transporting people in support of all kinds of church and humanitarian work.

Tarakan isn't known for much today besides some fisheries and forest products, but before World War 2 it was a major producer of oil.  In fact it was one of the first targets of the Japanese Navy because of the oil, and because of the strategic location from which they could launch bombers to other parts of the islands.  The airfield that MAF flies out of today is leftover from that era.  

MAF currently has 15 staff families on the island and we're excited to join in what we hear is a great team.  Most of them have young kids as we do, so that will be a huge blessing to our family.  There is a small school there for the MAF kids, however at this point the teachers can only commit to one year terms, so please pray with us that the school would continue to be supplied with quality teachers.  Side note...if you're a teacher there is ALWAYS a place for you in MAF! Just go to the website and find out what cool opportunities there are for you.  Perhaps we'll see YOU over there with us some day!

Anyway, much more could be said about Tarakan, the families there, and the ministry, but we'll save that for subsequent posts.  For now we're excited to have a destination, and to be able to pack with a purpose.  Please pray for us as we pack and wade through the complex logistics of selling our house, packing for 3 destinations (Nampa, Language School, and crates to our final desination of Tarakan), and saying goodbye to family and friends here in Spokane.