Curve Ball...

Please continue to pray for us as we live overseas. There are certain stresses due to culture, food, interpersonal relationships... Right when you think you have settled in and are adjusting another curve ball is thrown, so please just continue to pray for us.

We have appreciated all your emails telling us how your families and friends are doing. Please keep the emails coming they encourage us in times of troubles. Yesterday was chapel at school and I gave the message, of course in Indonesian, and I spoke about faith. Interesting again to study about faith and the characters in the Bible that it mentions had faith. Hebrews 11. They had not yet fully received the promises of God but they saw them from a distance and believed.

Give us more faith Lord.

Singapore....

We have just returned from our children's doctors visits in Singapore. What an interesting/exciting/fun experience... The first day we arrived we checked in at our hotel and decided to go out and see one of the malls that we had read about in the "Lonely Planet" guide to Singapore. Going down one of the escalators Jalen got his foot stuck in the escalator. Janna had to pull his foot out and the blood was dripping off his foot. There were multiple people willing to help and so we found a clinic no problem. His toe was not too bad but the escalator had tried to rip it off!! No stitches because it was on the crease of his foot. So needless to say the next couple of days involved Dad, me, carrying Jalen around where ever we went. After about 3 days he was limping around on it again.

If you have never had the chance to travel to Singapore you should. It is extremely hot and humid, it reminded us of Papua. Currently we live in the cold compared to Singapore so that took a while to get used to. Probably the best part of the trip was when we went to visit some friends in Singapore and we stayed with them for 2 nights. We had a great time and our kids absolutely loved it. It is always nice to get out of the hotel and touristy areas and see what Singapore is actually like. So thankyou so much Steve and Lisa for your hospitality.

Also great talking with them about what God has lead them to.

All in all an interesting trip and once again we are happy to be home in Bandung. About 2 more months left until we move to Papua and about 2 weeks until my family comes to visit. Should be fun!!!

God continues...

God continues to bless us. We are so encouraged being here! We are encouraged with our supporters and the great emails that are sent. We are encouraged in the Lord feeling like this is becoming our home. God has given us a love for the people here. We are encouraged in how great everything is coming together to move back to Papua.

We continue to realize that we are Gods insturments. Our only goal is to follow Him and strive to become closer to Him. God takes care of the rest. What a freeing feeling to know that God is working on our side. At times we as humans think that we are so knowledgable, so powerful, so smart, so understanding, so incredibly selfish... We are nothing! We do nothing! God we need you.

Verses that have become real to me lately are found in Ephesians 4: 1 - 7. We as Christians need to remain united in the Holy Spirit. I love the first verse. "Therefore, I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God." Man do I ever want to lead a life worthy of my calling. May we all be prisoners of the Lord. Amen.

Back to Jakarta

This past weekend we were back in Jakarta for MAF management meetings. No we are not management but since Jakarta is so close to Bandung, all the language students were invited to go to the meetings for 3 days. What a great time of meeting old friends from Papua. Janna and I are so absolutely excited to get out there. But we have about 3 more months to go before that is a realization.

One great thing that we heard during this meeting was where we will be living. That is exciting for us to hear and now we both can not stop thinking about the house and what we need before we move there. As MAF career staff we must outfit the entire house ourselves. So this is going to be expensive and difficult as you can not buy many things in Papua, so now we must decide whether to buy here and ship or wait and just see what we get.

Janna and I continue to learn language and interact with the people here. God continues to lead and we continue to seek Him in our lives. During the meetings this past weekend a pastor from the states came and spoke to us about John 1 - 2. John knew who he was and who he was not, and he did the work that God wanted no matter what. He also was so close to the work of God that he could recognize where Jesus was. Amazing. If only we could be like that.