Update and Pictures

It's rather incredible how quickly time gets away from us when we're busy.  We can't believe it's been 2 1/2 months since our last blog post!  Much has happened since then, so in the interest of not boring you I'll just do the cliff-notes version with lots of pictures.

First off, I have to mention how excited we are that the Seahawks are in the Super Bowl!!!  I have missed not being able to watch the games this season.  Even Ellie who doesn't follow football is missing the camaraderie surrounding the big games.  There are rumors floating around that there is going to be a Super Bowl party for all of the football fans here in Salatiga (there are actually quite a few Seahawks fans here).  We sure hope we can watch the big game, though to watch it live we will have to get up early on Monday morning!

For Thanksgiving Ellie transformed our living room into a cozy Fall oasis as we hosted the whole MAF team for Thanksgiving dinner.  Everyone brought their favorite Fall foods and it really was a wonderful time.  Nobody else wanted to take home the 2 turkey carcasses to make broth with, so we did it all ourselves and we still have gallons of frozen turkey broth in our freezer! 

Christmas was unique and lots of fun.  Blake was able to understand the birth of Christ this year and was really excited about that.  On Christmas morning I (Matt) went to the town square at 4 am for a city-wide interdenominational worship service.  What an amazing thing it was!  There were thousands of people packed into the square...sitting or standing on the grass...praising the name of Jesus.  It was a fun and unique experience for me.  I made it home at 6am in time to see the kids wake up and run out to see the presents under the tree!

This year Ellie and I started Unit 6 (out of 9) of language school.  Hard to believe that we are nearing the end of language study. 

Ellie's parents are coming to visit in mid-February and you can sense the excitement at our house!  Her parents are also putting the final touches on our crates (that have been sitting in their garage for these last 7 months) and those will begin their long slow journey to Tarakan next month. 

We had some wonderful Indonesian friends over for a nice long visit last weekend.  He invited me to begin playing badminton with him and a group of his friends at 6am every Sunday morning.  I happen to love badminton, but haven't played in years.  I'm nervous because this isn't an ordinary backyard badminton game...they take badminton very seriously in this country!  Indonesia is regularly one of the top competitors in the world in this sport, so I'm expecting a tough, but fun, experience. 

Below are some fun pictures of what we have been up to.  Enjoy!

For a dollar you can ride these fun electric 4-wheelers once around the town square.  The kids loved it (and so did we)!

 

We had the privilege of watching a friend's daughter get baptized recently.

We got to go out to dinner with Pak Bangbang, Ibu Agnes and their 3 girls.  Ibu Agnes watches Callie and Eva while Ellie and I are at school.  She's incredible and we couldn't survive language school without her!

Beautiful children watching us ride the 4-wheeler around the town square.

The International School here has a large playground that the kids call "the park."  It's a great place to get some energy out and meet with friends.

Eva is always an instant celebrity. 

Waiting for our order of "sate" at our favorite sate place.  Sate is barbequed beef or chicken skewers served with rice and a delicious sweet peanut sauce.  It's cheap, fast, and oh so delicious.  This place has become a regular stop for us on the weekends.

Gee, Matt and Ellie sure have lost a lot of weight living in Indonesia...

Parades!

You just never know what you are going to encounter when you make a trip into town here.  Today was our first experience of the Muslim New Year.  It is a national holiday here so we got to stay home from school, which was nice!  We thought we would try to get downtown to get some shopping done since that can be a bit of an ordeal when we're in school.  It isn't far from our house to the center of town, perhaps 8-10 minutes on a normal day. But this day, as we found out, was far from normal.  As I rounded a corner we saw what looked like a large group of kids parading down the street up ahead of us.  They were all wearing really neat traditional costumes, playing drums, and moving slowly down the road.  I thought that if I could just get around that one group of kids I would be able to continue on the road, but I soon discovered, as I inched ahead at walking speed, that we were caught in the middle of about a 1/4 mile long parade of school kids.  In fact, we were now part of the parade!   The people walking were taking up one whole lane, and there was oncoming traffic trying to go the other way, so it was a mess.  We ended up just becoming part of the parade as we drove along with the walking kids.  What else could we do but take pictures out our window, wave at the kids, and enjoy the experience!

 

We finally did get through that first parade, but we soon saw the road was blocked off further ahead for more parades.  We saw it in time to make a U-turn and find a back way to get to town.  Once in town there were also parades going down the main street (our only way out).  Realizing that we were stuck we decided there was nothing to do but enjoy the festivities!  After our shopping was done I was able to utilize Googlemaps on my phone to find a back-way out of town, but it took us over half an hour to get home instead of the usual 8 minutes. 

We learned two very important lessons today.  First, avoid going to town on any national holidays.  Second, you never know what you're going to encounter when you go out here, so the best policy when encountering an "inconvenience" such as this is to take a deep breath, pull out your camera, and join the fun.  After all, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
- Matt

The Beach!

After three months of working hard in language school, we decided it was time to do something special with the kids. They have been such good sports about us being in school, so on our last break before starting Unit 4 of language school we drove to the beach! It was great to spend some uninterrupted quality time with them and we all had a blast. The kids loved playing on the beach and it was Eva's first time experiencing sand. She loved it!

We went with a few of the other MAF families as well and at night we built campfires on the beach, roasted marshmallows, and went searching for crabs. There were quite a few crabs, both small and medium sized. We used flashlights to shine down in their sand holes and sometimes were able to see them hiding in there.

One of the days we were there was a national holiday in Indonesia. We didn't really think about what that would be like for us.....but we soon found out. The beach was crowded and once people spotted our blondies...well...let's just say that we were kind of in the spotlight. Everyone wanted pictures and we could see people spot us and start coming over from way down the beach. Most people were very polite about it and some were even trying to be discreet, like taking pictures of their friends with us in the background...it was kind of funny. Eventually though, on this day in particular, it started to get a bit overwhelming. We finally reached a breaking point when a man in his late teens/early twenties, cigarette in hand, came over and without asking, planted himself next to Callie and had his friend start taking pictures. She was trying to play in the sand and it was making her uncomfortable. I politely told him in Indonesian that she doesn't like that and asked him not to do it, but he wasn't listening. Then he went over to Blake while he was getting a bucket of water and tried to grab him to get some pictures......and MOTHER BEAR came out. I firmly told him that he MAY NOT do that. He started laughing...maybe because he was embarrassed or maybe because it was funny seeing a blonde white girl speaking his language, but either way we were out of there. Again, most people were very sweet and just thought the kids were super cute. They are not used to seeing blonde hair, blue-eyed kids. This was just one man that was not being respectful, so we left. The next days were much better and there were not many people.

We had a great time overall and wish we could have stayed longer!

 Matt, Blake, and little Ellie (our friend's daughter)

 People trying to take pictures

 

The kids sharing their sand toys with some adorable Indonesian kids

 



MAF Blog Post

I (Ellie) have had the privilege of occasionally writing for the MAF blog entitled "Moms on a Mission." Here is the link to my latest post if you would like to check it out:

http://www.mafblog.com/moms-on-a-mission/healer

August Update from Indonesia

Hello everyone!

I wanted to write a short update as to how we are doing and give a couple of prayer requests as well. We are almost halfway through Unit 2 of language school (there are 9 units) and are slowly feeling more confident in communicating with people. There are days that we feel pretty good about what we know, and then there are days when we feel like we will never get there. We try to remind ourselves to take one day at a time and not look ahead too far. One thing that we find kind of funny is that random Indonesian words will often pop into our heads at the most random times, like when I'm about to go to sleep for the night and a word like "istirahat" (break) keeps repeating itself over and over in my mind. The same thing happens to Matt. We like to blurt out the words as they come......it gives us a good laugh. We go to school for four hours each day and have Indonesian house helpers (Ibu Agnes and Ibu Yani) that watch the kids and help with various other things as well, including our language learning. They have been such a blessing and we have grown to love them both so much!

Blake has started preschool and he absolutely loves it. He has a personality that needs constant stimulation and he loves to do crafts etc. It is run by a very talented and energetic American woman and has a mixture of expat and Indonesian children. At home has been a bit of a different story and we could use a lot of prayer. Blake has been acting up quite a bit with the house helpers, and with us a little bit too. We have heard (and seen) that this is pretty common with kids moving to a new place with all new surroundings. I share this not to ask for parenting advice, and I won't go into all the details, but would really appreciate prayers for this! Also we could use prayers for us....for wisdom and patience with him.

Callie struggled at first with adjusting to the new place and the house helpers, but is doing awesome now and loves Ibu Agnes and Ibu Yani! She is talking in full sentences and sometimes surprises us with what she knows....she's a smart little thing!

Eva is still our happy little baby. She's almost 10 months and is crawling and now pulling herself up. She is also a little celebrity here! Everywhere we go she attracts attention....and pictures. Sometimes there will be a whole crowd of people around her, wanting to touch her face and look at her blue eyes. Luckily people are pretty respectful so far and it hasn't been too overwhelming.

I (Ellie) am still dealing with back pain and have been trying to strengthen my core muscles, but unfortunately that takes time and my back and hips continue to get out of alignment quickly, which causes the pain. Please pray for healing and that I would be able to get strong again.

Thanks so much!

 

Isn't she cute?

 



 

Preschool summer camp

 

Blake and Callie playing at Blake's preschool

 



Eighth Anniversary Outing

On August 6th we celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary and did something completely new and exciting. We rented a scooter and our friends Ashley and Pete took us to the beautiful rice fields and up one of the volcanos. I can't even describe the beauty of what we saw......it was absolutely breathtaking and felt like we were on a different planet! Here are some pictures from the adventure...

In case you were wondering, we were wearing our helmets....just not for the picture :)

 



 My friend Ashley and I

 We saw several waterfalls along the way

 

We found a little jungle path on the side of the mountain

 

This was halfway up the volcano