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.