Emergency Med-Evac Fly Along

On Saturday Matt and I were getting ready to go on an anniversary date to celebrate ten years of marriage, when Matt got a call requesting him to med-evac a patient from one of the interior villages. He wasn't technically on call that day but it turns out that he was the only pilot checked out to fly to this particular village. For the first time, I went along with him. It was great to finally see my husband in action, doing what he does on a daily basis.

The beautiful Borneo jungle



 

Hundreds of miles of uninhabited jungle. We also saw a waterfall on the way back. There are absolutely no roads to this village, so the only way out is by airplane. 

The valley of Long Rungan (the name of the village where the patient was waiting).



 This is the airstrip we landed on.

Men carrying the patient to the airplane.



This was the village pastor. He apparently had extremely high blood pressure during the night and started to hallucinate.



 The entire village surrounded the patient to pray.

Securing the patient into the airplane. He was taken to a hospital in a larger city so that he could receive the care that he needed.

Blake's 6th Birthday - Beware of Pirates!

Up until now we have never really done anything huge for our kid's birthdays. Of course we've always celebrated with them and often had little parties or invited friends and family to join in the celebration, but until now our life has been....well...a little crazy. We were in major transition for a couple of years, and we also figured that when they are that little....how much will they really remember anyway? This year was different. We decided that for Blake's 6th birthday, since we are finally settled in our house in Indonesia, we wanted to do a pirate theme and go all out. Besides, what better theme to go all out for than pirates! When I say "go all out" I don't mean extravagant money spending. I mean planning long in advance, making decorations (thank you Pinterest!), and mom and dad dressing up! We had a blast planning this party! Just an FYI: We will not be doing this for every birthday here on out :).

 The Covered Patio was our Pirate Ship 

 

 

 

 

Grandma and grandpa sent the sweet pirate costume that Blake is wearing. 

 



The boys LOVED the idea of drinking alligator blood 





Uncle Rich sent an awesome treasure map, gold doubloon, a real telescope and a compass!  

 

 Captain Matt explaining the rules. Whenever the word "Pirate" was said, all the boys were told to yell "Arrrrg!" 

 

 Get Captain Matt! 

 

 

 Cannon Ball Pop  

 

 

Blake's Pirate Cake

 

 



A Beautiful Plan

I'd like to you to meet Ibu Lina. I first met her the day she showed up at our house for an interview to be our house helper. An extremely meek, sweet-faced woman, she mentioned nothing about the fact that she had a serious, debilitating illness. I hired her that same day.

Not long after that, she began calling in sick for days at a time, saying something about her legs and arms being "weak." About two times a month this would occur and would last almost a week at times. I began asking more questions about her illness, confused as to what could be going on. She told me that she had been suffering from this illness for six years now, and that when the attacks came on, she couldn't move any part of her body. Sometimes she even had difficulty breathing. Visiting several doctors produced no answers. One day during one of her attacks, I visited her at home. Sure enough, she was completely paralyzed. Her family said she became "seperti orang mati (like a dead person)." After a few days the paralysis slowly resided and she regained her strength, almost as if nothing had happened.

"Lord," I prayed, "please show me what is wrong. Please allow me to help her."  After doing some research, I came up with a theory as to what the illness was. If I was correct, the solution was as simple as taking medicine. I asked her if the next time this happened, she would allow me to take her to the lab to get some blood work. In Indonesia, anyone can order labs without a doctor's prescription. She agreed.

Then without notice, she sent me a text saying that she had to stop work and didn't show that day. When I asked her why, she didn't respond.  I'm not a doctor, but I just couldn't shake the thought that she might have been delivered from a long-term illness, if she would only respond to my texts! Disappointed and frustrated, I started looking for a new helper. To my surprise a candidate showed up at our house for an interview, accompanied by Ibu Lina. Apparently a family member had persuaded her to accompany the interviewee to our house as an act of goodwill for leaving so abruptly. After the interview I talked with Ibu Lina about what had happened. She said that she had another attack, and apologized severely for quitting without notice. When I asked her if she would still like me to take her to the lab the next time she had an attack, she declined with tears in her eyes, saying she thought God had a beautiful plan and that she would just continue to pray. I think she was still ashamed and embarrassed about leaving us. "Ibu Lina," I responded,  "I believe that God does have a beautiful plan for you, but I also believe that sometimes He sends other people to help. I am willing to help if you will let me." After thinking it over later that day, she agreed.

The next time she had an attack she called me. Her husband carried her limp body on his back down the rickety ladder of their second story shack and loaded her into my car. We drove to the general hospital here in Tarakan. She was so ill, the hospital personnel whisked her away on a stretcher and were getting ready to admit her. It took quite a bit of convincing that I just wanted labs, but thankfully the doctor was a friendly young man that spoke some English, and he finally agreed. When the lab results came back, they confirmed what I had originally suspected. After consulting with an American doctor working in West Borneo, we decided to start her on a regimen of medicines.

I am overjoyed to say that Ibu Lina has not had another attack since! After six long years of terrible suffering and strain on her family as well, she is free! We are praising God with her.

She is under the care of a doctor in town now so that she can get her medicines for free through the government. It has been rather difficult to get the exact medicines and dosages correct, and she has still felt some weakness, even though she hasn't had an actual attack. Please pray for Ibu Lina, that the doctor would understand what is going on and be able to get her on the right meds and dosages. Being healthy again will transform so many aspects of her life.

Let it Go

Here is my most recent MAF Moms on a Mission blog post. To see the it on the MAF blog, click here:
http://www.mafblog.com/moms-on-a-mission/let-it-go



I know what is probably going through your mind if you read the title. Visions of ice princesses casting ice to the all too familiar Disney tune. Sorry if it’s in your head the rest of the day, but this post is about how Indonesia has taught me to let go of some things….to be more….flexible.

To this day that word gives me shivers. No one wants to be flexible, especially in the way I’m talking about. When you are exhausted and are continually thrown into stressful situations, flexibility does not come easily.

The first incident of me deciding to let something go was actually on our very first journey to Indonesia. We were on our way from Jakarta to one of the smaller cities and I had bought, in the Jakarta airport, what would be my last Starbucks coffee for quite some time. I was ready to enjoy every last drop (I’m from Seattle, what can you say). We had been travelling for countless hours with three small children that took turns crying on the trip over, and were beyond exhausted. As we were getting situated on the plane, the top of my coffee was removed and placed on the floor. The flight attendant handed us the baby seat belt that was to be strapped onto mine, but before I knew it the entire germ-infested (and probably vomit saturated) seat belt plopped right into my coffee. That was the last straw for me. Unable to cope with anything at that point, I put my head in my hands and let the tears flow. After a few minutes of feeling genuinely sorry for myself, I took a deep breath, looked down at my coffee, and said, “You know what? I live in Indonesia now,” and then proceeded to drink, and enjoy, the entire cup.

Yes I am a nurse and yes I have taken microbiology, but sometimes you just have to adapt, stay sane, and just plain let things go. Perspectives can change or a situation might cause you to do or think in a way that you wouldn’t have in your home country. There are still a million things that I have not learned to let go of, especially when other stresses are piling up and my ability to cope is wearing thin. Looking back to when we first came however, I can say that my perspectives on certain issues are not the same. Those armies of ants in the kitchen….just not the problem that they used to be.

An Unusual Christmas

This Christmas in Tarakan was a little more difficult for me (Ellie) than our first Christmas in Indonesia when we lived in Salatiga. Maybe part of it was because it is significantly hotter here, which made it pretty much impossible to get the “feel” of home this time of year, or maybe it was because we’ve been here for a year and a half now and settling into our home in Tarakan has given it a more permanent feel, but either way at times I found myself more homesick than usual. We decorated the house and put up the tree, and the kids and I even made a ginger bread house. It was definitely a challenge with the intense heat, trying to get the candy to stick, but we had a great time. I held a Christmas cookie exchange with some of the other MAF wives one night and we had a blast chatting and eating the peppermint ice cream that Matt made! He was our hero that night ;).

Christmas day was the same in some ways and extremely different in others. We spent Christmas morning opening gifts with the kids and then prepared to open our house up for our neighbors to come visit, a tradition that is very common here among both Christians and Muslims (the same is done for “Idul Fitri,” the big Muslim holiday). We really didn’t know what to expect. I handed out invitations that indicated a certain time that would be good to visit, we prepared tons of snack type foods, cookies, and cider, and then we waited. Towards the end of the indicated time, our neighbors across the street showed up. We welcomed them in and served some cider (which they loved!) and unsuccessfully tried to get them to eat more of the food. Then we attempted to carry a conversation, which included several awkward silences and me fumbling through the language, making several mistakes and causing quite a bit of laughter. One more family showed up at that point. They surprised us when they pulled out gifts for the kids! After about 20 minutes or so, everyone left….and no one else came. We had an entire table full of leftover snack food that we had no idea what to do with. We figured that everyone was too busy and that no one else would come, so we closed up the house and went upstairs to spend time as a family. Later we heard that three other families came much later….oops!

I’m going to try to explain my feelings after a day like this, but unless you live here day to day it might be difficult to understand. To say that we felt out of our comfort zone would be a major understatement. I was already struggling with homesickness. Then to spend part of such an important day of the year, a day that is filled with so many memories of the past, in this particular way succeeded to make me feel very, very far from home. We had tried to skype with my family back home, who were all together spending Christmas the exact way I remember, but the connection was poor and we were cut off. Inviting neighbors over any of the other 364 days of the year would probably not have caused such feelings…..but I couldn’t suppress the selfish feelings that I wanted to keep Christmas to ourselves….to feel as “at home” as possible and completely within our comfort zone. Looking back, it seemed that had we kept the day to ourselves, no one really would have cared and it wasn’t as important culturally as we thought it was, but in actuality the invitations had opened up a door a to some deeper friendships here.

So will we do it again next year? Mabye. I can’t say this far in advance how we will feel at that point, but at least we will know more of what to expect culturally next time.


PS: To those of you who sent packages (you know who you are), we can't thank you enough....receiving loving cards, pictures, and all kinds of gifts and treats was so encouraging and reminded us of the love and support of so many people back home. Thank you!

Here is the spread we had for our neighbors....almost all of it was left over!

Sweet time with dad on Christmas morning

Callie with her new Rapunzel doll



Eva wearing her new pretty dress....such a personality! 

 

 

 

 

Our little mad scientist, Blake. A family from our home church in the states generously sent a package full of gifts, and one of them included a little archeologist kit. Blake wore these glasses while he dug for dinosaur bones. He had so much fun!

 Such a goofball.

One of our neighbors that visited on Christmas mentioned that she wanted me to teach her how to make pizza. This is us making pizzas together last Sunday afternoon. She was so excited!