We're Here in Indonesia!

We made it safely to Indonesia! We've been here almost six days and have been settling into our house and orienting to our new surroundings. The trip was long and pretty difficult with the kids, but overall it went okay. Our first couple of flights went fairly well actually, including the twelve hour flight to Taiwan. We had been worried about the kids not doing well in the beginning because we left at 11pm and had to take a short flight to Vancouver, B.C. first, so the kids didn't get to sleep until 2am when we boarded our longer flight, but they did amazingly well. The airport in Taiwan was rough though and it kind of went downhill from there due to all of our exhaustion. The kids would take turns waking up on the flights and screaming or crying, sometimes we'd have two at once that were crying.

When we arrived in Jakarta mid-day, the heat stepping off the airplane was absolutely stifling.....almost unbearable. No one could have prepared us for that heat, even though we have heard how hot it is here. I've been to the Philippines, Honduras, and Mexico several times, but I don't remember it being THAT hot! We stayed in Jakarta the first night at a mission house and the next day took a short flight to a smaller city called Semarang, then rented a taxi and drove to our little town called Salatiga where we'll be attending language school. It was a beautiful drive once we got out of the big cities, with green jungle everywhere. Salatiga is definitely more of a jungle town with a lot more green than the cities like Jakarta, and is slightly cooler (though still pretty hot!). And no, we don't have a/c in our house so that is something we've had to get used to. Hopefully soon we'll be able to at least have an a/c in one room.

The first night I encountered a giant cockroach in our bedroom, probably the size of a golf ball. Luckily we haven't seen one since! We have, however, seen many other critters, including spiders, mosquitoes, geckos, and lots and lots of ants. The ants are everywhere and anywhere there is food. They crawl all over the kitchen counter and it's pretty much impossible to get rid of them all. We've heard there are things you can do to minimize the ants, but that "eventually the ants will win." It sounds like many people who have lived here a long time have just learned to co-exist.

We've definitely had our share of difficulties since we came, but we also have had an amazing team welcoming us, both MAF families and expats from other organizations that have really tried to make our transition as smooth as possible. We didn't have water for half of the first day in our house, but luckily a friend was able to figure out the problem. Also both of our showers broke, though they were still somewhat usable, and Eva came down with a fever and GI issues and was pretty miserable for a few days. She is doing much better, but now I (Ellie) have it. On the positive side, we've been shown some amazing restaurants here in town that are pretty inexpensive, a nice pool to swim in, and many other of the "perks" of living here. Here are a few pictures....there will be much more to come....

 Long flight to Taiwan

 

 The airplane headphones were too big for Callie's head so we improvised

Resting in the Taipei airport.  The double stroller came in handy as a luggage cart! 

 View of our yard

 

 When the weather is good we can see this beautiful volcano from our yard

 

 We have a banana tree and a guava tree in our yard!

 

This is the spider that lives in our banana tree. We call him Pete #4 since there are three other Pete's that live here! This picture does not do him justice....he is about the size of my FACE, with yellow and black markings. I will be sure to stay far away since I am terrified of spiders. No picking bananas for me!

 



 Callie playing at a nearby pool

 

Blake having fun with the other kids/families that are here

Latest Flight Watch Magazine Features our Family

In an earlier post we mentioned that Flight Watch Magazine, put out by MAF, would be featuring our family. Well, the issue just came out! For those of you that get our newsletters by mail, you should be getting one in the mail. For those that don't and want to check it out, it can be viewed at http://maf.org/news-and-resources/publications under the Flight Watch Magazine section, halfway down the page . Our amazing photographer friends, Gerald and Airika Pope, took the family photo and we are including more photos from the December session below.

On another subject, if you're wondering why we haven't been posting much on our blog lately it's because we have been pretty overwhelmed trying to get ready to leave for Indonesia! We still don't have tickets and are awaiting visas, but there's hope that they will come through very soon and that we'll be able to leave around June 15th. This still isn't 100% for sure, but that is what it is looking like at this point. That would give us less than two weeks to finish packing our crates here at my parent's house in Bellevue, pack for language school, and take care of the remaining things on our list. As you can imagine, it has been a crazy few weeks for us! Please pray for us as we prepare to leave and await information on visas....for health, peace as we pack up and say goodbye to dear family and friends, and that all of the last minute stuff will fall into place. Thank you!

 This is what my parent's living room looked like before we started sorting through our stuff to pack!

 

Here's the garage! It's looking much better now.

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 



Idaho Backcountry Trip

It's difficult to describe the jaw-dropping beauty along the Salmon River, and the pictures below certainly don't do it justice.  I honestly don't know what I enjoyed more... physically flying into the airstrips, or riding in the backseat with my camera!  I definitely enjoyed the cameraderie of the pilots, the top-notch training from the instructors, the hospitality of Jim and Gloria at the Ranch (I'm sure I put on 3-4 pounds over the 4 days!), and of course God's beautiful and majestic creation.

The purpose of this trip was to expose us to some of the most difficult mountain airstrips that Idaho has to offer.  These airstrips are representative of the types of challenges we will face while flying overseas.  We are continually grateful to those of you who through prayer and through financial support make this possible.  I literally can't wait to put these skills to use in Indonesia...to impact lives through providing medical help, access to education, and hope, as we physically demonstrate God's love to all people. 

Allison Ranch (where we stayed the 3 nights) in the morning.  The fog lifted each morning by the time we had had breakfast and were ready to go.

The view from the hill above Allison Ranch

The mighty Salmon River

Morning sun from the deck of the lodge at Allison Ranch

Did anybody notice the yellow spider on the flower?

Flying over Whitewater Ranch, one of the more challenging strips

Parked at the top of Whitewater Ranch.  This airstrip has a 10% slope and is very narrow.  To give you some perspective most highways in the United States don't go much over 7% slope.  When you start getting around 5% on a highway you'll see all the warning signs for truckers, run-away truck ramps, etc.  We have some airstrips overseas that have portions at 24% slope!

On one of our lunch breaks we suddenly saw this Bald Eagle cruising down the river looking for fish.  I just happened to have the right lens on the camera to get the shot!

Wilson Bar.  One of many airstrips with a "blind approach."  You fly upriver a mile or two and then descend towards where you know the airstrip to be.  You don't actually see the airstrip until you are 100 feet above landing as you make a 90 degree turn to line up with it.  While we were measuring the airstrip here we saw a large herd of elk a few hundred yards up the mountainside.

Idaho Backcountry Pit-Stop

I found myself wondering if this amazing cornice would fall if we buzzed it with the airplane!  Needless to say we didn't try it.

Luke making a picture-perfect touchdown at Allison Ranch after flying the "blind approach"

 

Take-off out of Allison Ranch

We were privileged to see many herds of Elk on the slopes above us.  We even had some on the runway at Allison on our last day.

Training at the MAF Headquarters

Matt did an earlier post describing some of his training at the MAF headquarters and I thought I'd post some pictures of what the whole family has been up to for the last two months. The kids have had a blast playing with the other kids here, and we've really enjoyed the sense of community. Some of the pictures include the visit from Matt's family, Easter, and random pictures with the kids.

 

Looking ahead, we start orientation training on Friday, which both Matt and I will be a part of, and leave for Bellevue the first weekend in May. We'll continue packing and plan to leave from there for Indonesia. Two major prayer requests are that our visas will come through, and for adequate funding. We're still waiting on some donor amounts and are unsure of our exact funding status. Please join us in prayer for these two things so that we can leave in June as planned.

 

Front of MAF headquarters (view from our apartment)

 

Blake just loves his baby sister, and she loves him! He makes her laugh all the time

 





 

 

Here is the caravan, fixed up and ready for service in Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa. There was a dedication service here for this beautiful airplane.

 



Sitting in the back of the caravan

 



Callie and her cousin Abby, enjoying the hot tub at the hotel

 



Matt and Grandpa Gary went to the Birds of Prey Exhibit

 

Blake and Callie looking at the Condor

 



I took a "cooking from scratch" class for one afternoon, put on by MAF. Here is our amazing meal!

 

All the cousins (from Matt's side) together in the hot tub

 



Callie's first Easter egg hunt! 

Cousins together on Easter

 



Callie and Eva, such pretty little girlies!

 





Blake, Callie, and Judah

 



Eva spending time with Grandma Laurie

All the missionary kids at our St. Patty's Day party 

Blake loves pretending to be Batman. In fact, Grandma Barb made him his very own Batman cape!