Christmas......

Its Christmas time and the programs have begun, last night was our language school program. The kids sang "We wish you a Merry Christmas" in English and Indonesian. They were pretty cute! After that party we had our family Christmas and it was alot of fun. We are heading to the beach for Christmas in a couple of days and then we are moving.

The beach will be a great time and hopefully we will be busy enough to forget that we are not with our family over Christmas. The kids are looking forward to it and it should be fun. Hopefully I can be surfing on Christmas day.

Other things are going okay, there is still lots of culture shock for the kids as they find it difficult when people talk to them in a different language. We also are adjusting to the differences here compared to Papua. We really thought that we would not have as many problems with the culture as we have had. We continue to rely on God for everything. Praise the Lord.

December NO SNOW......

December and NO SNOW!! Incredible to be experiencing this once again. Talking to people at home and reading emails it sounds as though Canada is having quite the weather this year. Although it is hard to believe a part of us misses the snow because we miss family and the great things that the kids can do in the snow.

We are currently in the middle of rainy season here and have a huge rain everyday. It is something to get stuck in a tropical downpour on a motorbike. There have been a couple of times already that we are shopping and we have to wait for long periods of time before we get back on the motorbike. During this Christmas season we are missing home and hope that everyone back home is doing well. The holiday seasons are always the most difficult, so everyone who is interested can watch some NFL football for me over the holidays.

Jalen had his Christmas program and man was in cute. Nothing like having a child in Kindergarten and watching him perform in the Christmas play. Janna and I enjoyed it alot. Jalen sang two songs and it was neat to see him singing, getting poked in the back by his friend, fooling around way too much. Kaya also goes to school three times a week and has been adjusting to this. She is going to an Indonesian playschool and sometimes does not understand and gets frustrated. The teachers also speak english and so they will speak english to her when she does not understand.

Our Christmas plans are to go to the beach with all the other MAF families. We have rented some 4 bedroom houses right beside the beach. So hopefully that will get us not thinking about home as much. Then we get back after a week there and move all our stuff to a new house. The house here is experiencing some electrical difficulties and so we will be moving into another house. We are looking forward to it although it is going to be more work. After Christmas we are going to be busy with company and continuing school. After Christmas Janna will be in Unit 7 of 9 and I will be starting 6 of 9. We are looking forward to the holidays.

Have a great Christmas season.

30 for 10 days....

I have now been 30 for 10 days and my body is already breaking down. My knee is almost better and the foot that I scraped driving my motorbike is also healing nicely. Janna and I are now in units 5 and 4 of 9 that we are required to complete. We feel that things are progressing nicely with the language.

Bandung is in rainy season right now which means that it rains everyday, which is great for the people here. The only real problem with it is that motorbikes are our main mode of transportation and it can get a bit cold when you are all wet. Yesterday our whole family was on the motorbike and we got caught at one of the malls here and it just started pouring. So we were stuck. Good adventures!! The kids have been so good.

Right now we are wondering what to do with Kaya in school. The school that Kaya attends is an Indonesian school that trys to be academic, but she is 3. So I am just wondering if this is good at this age or if Kaya could benefit more from an actual play school. We will see what happens.

Another decision that we are trying to make is one of moving. The electricity in our house breaks the breaker constantly and so it is getting so annoying. Janna really wants it fixed but that would cost some money that we do not have and so our neighbours are heading to Papua in December and our landlord said that we could just move to their house. So we are considering this option. It is a bigger house with less electrical problems and will be better when we have company.

Please continue to pray for us as we consider all the options and try to make good family decisions.

Life goes on...

Sunday afternoons there are guys who play basketball at the school that Jalen attends. This past Sunday I was playing and an old bball injury came back to haunt me. I went to transfer my weight to change directions and sure enough my knee popped out of place. Now for those of you who know me you know that this is not uncommon. It just reminded me that we are in the Lord's hands with our safety.

I must admit that driving a motorbike is a bit more difficult when you can not bend your knee but it does still work.

School continues to fly. We continue to feel that we are learning lots and are glad that we are here learning the language. Janna is a unit where she has to give presentations in Indonesian and next week I am sharing about how God led us to Indonesia in front of everyone. So we feel that things are going well.

Thank you for your continued support.

It has been awhile.....

It has been a while since we have written on this blog site. We appologize for this. We do want to update everyone at least once a week. We also hope that everyone has recieved our newest prayerletter and that the attachment openned for everyone. If you could not open your email attachment or want snail mail please just send us an email.

Well the month of fasting is over for the muslim people here in Indonesia. It is quite a month of sounds from the misjid and people fasting. People here fast for the month based on the Muslim calender. They must not eat or drink anything for the time that the sun is up. So what this means is that you wake up before sunrise and have a meal with everyone, then you fast until about 6 pm at which time you can eat again. So people are fasting from about 4 am until 6 pm. The last day of this special month occured about 3 days ago in which all the mosques broadcast arabic words for 24 hours. It has been an interesting experience to observe the devotion of the muslim people around us. It is no wonder that their opinion of Christians is that we are not that devout. There have been lots of holidays this month because of the fasting.

So Janna and I continue to go to school. There is something stressful in schooling and trying to learn a language and a different culture. At times we get quite stressed and down. We thankyou so much for your continued support. Yesterday I was encouraged because I had my first real conversation with my neighbour and I understood everything that he said, and I could respond. When things like this happen it just encourages you. Our neighbour is also our landlord and so building a good relationship with him is a must.

One of the holidays we went to a safari here on the island of Java. It is about a four hour drive from Bandung. We rented a car and went to see the animals. It was quite a sight to see all the large animals right beside the car. Jalen and Kaya's favorite part was the fact that we could feed zebras right out of our window. We could also feed elephants, monkeys, and all types of other big game. Then you drive through the tiger cage and that was great. A huge white tiger sat right in the middle of the road so that we had to stop and wait for him to move.

My goal right now is to "menjalin hubungan" which basically means to strengthen relationships. I am looking to get to know a couple of indonesian people really well.

Jalen is back in school and Kaya has a long break because of the month off.

Thank you all for the prayers and I will try to be more diligent with this blog site. Talk to you all soon.

Jalen Soon 5...

Jalen is soon 5 and it is incredibly hard to believe. We are going to have parties for him on Friday and on Monday. It should be a great time getting together with all of his friends.

Kaya and Jalen have taken a longer time than expected to adjust to the different culture of Indonesia. We continue to work on the culture shock as a family and sometimes it can be quite difficult. We ask for your continued prayers.

Other news is that Kaya has just begun an Indonesian preschool. She is enjoying it and it seems to be helping her in her adjustment. She has a different uniform to wear every day that she goes. She is so cute going to school on the back of the motorbike. She wants to be such a big girl.

Janna and I are more than half way done the second unit. Time seems to be flying along. WE are doing great and hope that you all are doing the same.

Trip to West Java...

I went on a trip with 3 friends on our motorbikes to west Java and had a great time. The first night we stayed at a beach where the giant sea turtles were laying their eggs. Awesome sight to see the giant turtle dig a hole and then lay about 100-150 eggs (at least that is what our guide told us). The people who are there then take the turtle eggs and incubate them. They then keep the small turtles for about 3 days and then they release them back to the wild. So they had a holding tank with all the little turtles that you could look at.

The second day we drove up the coast to a resort called "Ocean Queen" in which you can play in the ocean and just hang out. Absolutely bueatiful place to relax and enjoy the ocean. It sounds as though all the MAF families that are here right now are planning a Christmas vacation to the resort to relax from language learning for awhile.

There are going to be some pictures on our website soon on the trip.

Language learning is going well and we are progressing alright, although it never quite feels fast enough. We have good times asking questions of our pembantus (house helpers and friends) as well as other Indonesian friends that we are making.

Thankyou all for your continued support in our adventure for the Lord.

Please Pray

Please continue praying for our family. Kaya and Janna are quite sick with a fever here right now and Jalen and I are also a bit under the weather. Kaya is the sickest and it is difficult to see her sick. Please just continue to pray for health. Thanks.

Kaya is 3!!

Today was Kaya's birthday and we had a great party. We invited a total of 12 kids to a mall where they have a huge play area for the kids. In order to get everyone there we hired 2 angkots "taxis" to bring everyone over there, wait for us, and then take us home. The kids had a great time. Kaya was tired and at times had a difficult time having fun but I think she enjoyed it. She really thought the party had started once the Coka-cola came out. And of course the cake, Kaya loves cake!!

Kaya turning 3 only means one thing, that we are getting old. Do not expect a blog on my birthday, it might be a bit too dreary. Signing off, it has been a long day. Hope you all are doing well.

What a day!!

We had quite a day this past Saturday. But to start telling the story I must begin on Friday.

Friday I met with a student that I had met at the University while looking for a place to play basketball. So Friday I met him and he introduced me to one of his friends Gun-gun. Gun-gun said that I could come and play with him and his friends Saturday morning at 6:00 am. I said that I would love to join in. But I had forgotten that our family was planning on going to Jakarta with IMLAC (the school that we do our language learning) at 7:30 am. So Saturday begins...

Saturday I went to play basketball and I told Janna that I would try to be at the school at 7:15 am. While playing basketball I had taken my ring and watch off so I would not hurt anyone. It was fun playing with them and speaking Indonesian. At 7:00 I thought that I had better stop because it was a drive to get to the school. But sure enough I could not find my ring or watch. So I looked there for about 15 minutes before I found them. Then drove hurriedly to the school and caught the bus to Jakarta.

Our school was taking a trip to sea world in Jakarta and our family went. The trip to Jakarta was about 3 hours by bus. In the afternoon our family went to the water park beside sea world and had a blast. The only white people there, and we were quite the attraction. They could not believe that Jalen went down the slides by himself. They are just petrified of going down the slides. There is no lifeguard telling you when to go down the slide. So Jalen and I are on our backs just flying and I pass 3 females on the corner of the slide and bump into the fourth. Jalen, behind me, hammers into the first girl. The girls were so scared that one of them was crying at the bottom. They are not used to seeing us fly down the slide. She was okay, just scared. Then we got back on the bus after bartering with the taxi driver. We got on the bus in time for the 4 hour trip home. We got home at 8:00 pm just wasted. What a day!! We hope to put some of the pictures of sea world on our website. So please check that out.

Interesting Story With Turtles

We have 3 turtles and 3 fish that live together in an aquarium. One day I went to the fridge to see if there was any food left. The food that we feed them here is frozen blood worms that are really small. They love it, they fight for it!! I went to the fridge and we were all out of food and so I went to the local aquarium store to get some more. Now I am just learning Indonesian and so I was unsure if everything would go smoothly. Now I bought the food and talked to the very nice lady at the store. Then I saw some beautiful fish, although extremely small. I bought 4 small fish and 2 that were medium size. I asked if the turtles could live in the same place as the small fish. "Bisa ikan cecil tinggal bersama-sama dengan kura-kura?" She replied "tidak apa-apa". Which means no problem. So I thought great I will put them right in. I put the little fish into the tank and the turtles took little time in devouring the four little fish. Then the turtles started to go after the other fish. WOW I now have more respect for the other 3 fish living in the aquarium. So we had to explain to Jalen and Kaya how things worked and that their new fish were now gone.

We are now done 8 days of school and feel as though our brains are growing with knowledge already. It is incredible how much you learn in 8 days. Now we are just trying to keep up with speaking to people and using the knowledge that we learn. Without use it leaves my brain extremely quickly.

Hope you are all having a great day. Talk to you again soon.

Jalen Begins School

Today was Jalen's first day of school. This morning we took the classic photo of him with his backpack on infront of the house and we were off. We drove our 100 cc motorbike to his school and met all of the other children. They were all standing in line to go into their classroom with their lunches and it looked so cute. All of a sudden out of the blue one of the children just started crying and crying. I told Janna after Jalen was gone that the experience was more emotional for me than for him. We are getting old, we now have a child in school. WOW!

Jalen is now at home from his first day of school and he is excited. He got to feed the pet guinea pig and he is pumped!! It is great to see him so excited about school. I know with my experience that stays with students right until grade 10 math! HA! Jalen goes to school from 7:45 am until 2:45 pm. Quite the day for a 4 year old.

Janna and I are doing fine and will keep you all updated on how we feel about Jalen in school. We feel like our house is getting set up and are now ready to really dig into the language. Talk to you all later.

We have begun School...

Well we have now been here a couple of weeks and we are into school. Learning the language for 4 hours per day in the classroom and then we are supposed to go and speak to people in the afternoon. So far so good, we are enjoying learning new words and the formal way to speak.

Jalen will start school next Tuesday and then we will be in the routine that we will have for the next year.

August 17th is Indonesian Independence day and so there is a party for the day. Every little kompung (section of the city) has a party and so we will see what we get to go to.

We are enjoying it here and feel like God is blessing our team as well. Thankyou so much for everything. Keep looking at our web site as we have put some pictures on it.

Bandung...

Well everyone we are in Bandung, the place where we will be doing language training. We arrived after a long, long, long trip. We spent one week in Papua and got all of the paperwork done for us to stay in the country. It was great to keep in contact with all of our friends out there. We are now living in Bandung, a huge city, and trying to get our house and Jalen's schooling in order before Janna and I start school.

Life here is interesting as we are really living amoung the people. It has been great getting to know people already. We are excited about what the Lord has in store for us here.

Friday August 11th is our orientation to language training.
Tuesday August 22nd Jalen starts school. Please pray for this! We have met his teacher and his principal and everything looks great for Jalen to start school this year.

Everyone keep in touch!