A Pretty New Face, Post on the MAF Blog, and Apologies from the Packing Zombie

Whew!  Every time I have a free minute away from packing I think "I really need to write about 3 blog posts..." and then promptly sit or lie down somewhere that isn't covered with mounds of stuff and either fall asleep or stare dazedly at the wall instead.  Yeah, I've pretty much been a packing zombie for the past week and checked out of computer stuff, so let me take the opportunity to apologize to all the people I either haven't responded to or took forever to write back on email and Facebook...sorry guys!  

You have probably already noticed that my blog looks a whole lot different (different meaning WAY more fun), and I am very excited about the changes, but I can take zero credit for them.  I owe the snazzy new design to an incredibly sweet and talented gal named Joy Neal, who, along with her husband and little son recently joined MAF and are actually coming to serve in Tarakan in the future.  Joy and I have been trading Facebook messages as she prepares for moving overseas and has cultural and packing questions, which has been fun for me as I enjoy helping people get ready for this experience as much as I can.  A few weeks ago Joy humbly and carefully (she didn't want to offend me) wrote me and said she had created a design for my blog if I was interested.  I was blown away that she would spend time putting a design together for me and as soon as I saw it I knew it was just what my blog needed, a pretty new face!  I have thought many times about how I would like to change the look of my blog and make it unique, but, not being the most computer savvy of girls, I never got to putting that thought into action.  Luckily, Joy did it for me!  She installed the new design on my blog and made some other formatting changes and you are looking at what are, in my opinion, the adorable results.  Thanks Joy, you are awesome!

Last week came and went and I didn't even bother to let anyone know a post I wrote went up on the MAF blog on Wednesday...remember, I was a packing zombie with no awareness of the Internet, I was completely immersed in burning questions such as:

 "How many pairs of underwear should I pack in my suitcase?"

 "Was the wood used to build our crates heat treated to meet U.S. regulations?"  

"Did I write down every single solitary thing in our crates on the inventory list?"  

"Can I possibly get more sweaty while packing?"

The answer to the last one just has to be "no" because I can't imagine being more hot and sticky and covered with dust than I was packing last week, yuck!

Okay, way off track.

So, my post on the MAF blog is about the frequent "Hellos" and "Goodbyes" that missionary life requires, and the little bit I've learned from them.  You can click here to read it on the MAF blog.

We are T-minus 3 1/2 days until departure from Indonesia and we are in pretty good shape to leave.  Our crates are packed, sealed, and the paperwork for them is in process, the house is reasonably clean, we have started packing our suitcases, and we are trying to tie up all the loose ends before we head out early Saturday morning.  I have some packing pictures and stories, but I will save them for the next time I post.  Now that the crates are packed I am much more mentally functional and I may just write more about packing tomorrow...we shall see.

Until then, take care friends!

A Get-Away with the Ladies

I have been a total Five Minute Friday drop-out for the last couple weeks, but I have a pretty good excuse...well, for last week anyway.  

Last Friday-Saturday I was at a ladies retreat with the other women from my MAF team in Tarakan.  Life is so busy and often overwhelming here, especially for the ladies that have kids, so for the last few years we have been taking one weekend a year to get "away" to the one nice hotel in town (it sounds silly to "get away" to a hotel that is just minutes from our homes, but being able to spend 24 hours in air conditioning, being fairly insulated from the noisiness that is a part of life here, and even getting a break from the ants that constantly crawl around whenever food is out, all feel like a vacation) and connect with one another in an environment with less distractions.  

This year we watched a two-session video designed as a kind of retreat-in-a-box by Sheila Wray Gregoire called Extreme Make-over Heart Edition.  The sessions focused on Philippians 3:4-15...I won't quote the whole passage, but the verses that stood out to me as I was preparing for the retreat were:

"Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.  Breathren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

        Philippians 3:12-14

That phrase "press on" kept ruminating in my mind, and I wanted to capture it for myself in a tangible way, as well as for the other women at the retreat.  With this in mind I was tooling around Pinterest and found a cute pin from Lisa Storms' blog for felt leaf necklaces and it got me thinking...the retreat usually has an emphasis on fall (even in the tropics many of us lovingly put out fall decorations and burn those fall-scented candles to get even a whisper of the season in this eternal summer), and leaves would go with that, but how would I incorporate the "press on" phrase?  After mulling for a bit I came up with these...

They are bookmarks with a big leaf in the middle with the phrase embroidered on them, and then the smaller strings of leaves on either side that I borrowed from Lisa Storms' design.  It was fun to make them, and really the only way I was even able to put them together was because of my Bible study back in Michigan.  At the beginning of the year the Bible study that Chris and I attended in Michigan sent us an amazing package with lots of awesome craft stuff that isn't available here like felt and embroidery floss in every shade of the rainbow, which I used to make the bookmarks.  Thank you Bible study friends, your generosity was more far reaching than you could have imagined!  

The ladies received these bookmarks in gift bags (made of newspaper with little leaf closures, sure wish I took a picture to show you because I thought they were pretty cute), which also had yummy chocolates in them, a little tea light candle, holder, and matches to create a relaxing mood in their hotel rooms.  It's neat how we all appreciate little things so much more because it takes lots of effort to get them here!

On Friday we worshipped and prayed together, watched the first session and discussed it, had quiet time on our own, ate dinner, and then had fun just hanging out.  One of the crafty ladies of the bunch, Heather, put together a project to make a decorative magnetic board, here are some of the ladies hard at work on their boards...

After the craft the laughs began as we gathered around the big jacuzzi tub in the suite we met in, soaked our feet for pedicures, and put on facial masks...

I'm hoping the ladies in this picture won't kill me for posting this...those who were opposed to their faces ending up online are not included in this shot, and I am not going to tag anyone, so hopefully I'm safe!

We also did some dancing, lots of talking, and of course ate plenty of goodies and chocolate!  After many giggles we headed off to our separate rooms and then met in the morning for our second video session, discussion, and an extended time of prayer for each other.  I thought it was a great, relaxing time and I am so glad we were able to make it happen despite several bumps along the way, such as the hotel having the retreat booked for the wrong night even after I had confirmed with them three times, ahhh!  Serious communication breakdown!  It all worked out though, and I think a good time was had by all.

Leaving the retreat I felt a bit sad knowing my time with these ladies is very limited (Chris and I head back to the States in two weeks, I can hardly believe it), but I'm thankful for the blessing they have been in my life for the last two years.  I have learned so much from them and they have cared for me and given me grace and listening ears as I bumbled through this wild overseas life. 

 I'm excited to see who I will meet in the next chapter of life...she (they) will definitely have some big shoes to fill!

4:30am

Here's what 4:30am sounds like around here (this video was actually taken during Ramadan so it is slightly louder than usual, but not too much)...wait, before you watch it (although it's really more of a listen than a watch since the video is mostly just our window...there isn't much to see in the dark of early, early morning anyway), see if you can hear the following on the video:

- Call to prayer...you can hear one main Mosque, but there are lots of others in the background

- Roosters...and don't think they only crow at this early hour, they seriously go all day and sometimes throughout the night, grrr.

- A lizard calling to his friends...it's sort of a kissing sound, they especially love to make it during the evening and night, and apparently in the early morning.

Okay, here's the video...

Did you hear the sounds?

You may be wondering how we sleep through the early morning noises...the answer, we don't!  Or at least we didn't until we got an awesome super-loud fan, which improved our sleep quality considerably.  Seriously, that fan is one of the best purchases we have made in Indonesia!

Thought you might enjoy another brief peek into our world here.

Hope your day (or night) is excellent!

Reluctant Team Player

I'm a little late with my 5 minute Friday post this week...I've been busy helping my husband celebrate his 33rd birthday, yay!  The prompt for this week is...

Join

I've never been much of a "joiner".  My childhood was marked by memberships and subsequent drop-outs in various clubs and sports teams.  Most of the time I wanted to be home curled up with a book rather than out being a part of this or that event...I'm still the same way today.  Being part of a team was always a concept I liked, but the reality is, being raised by two introverted, slightly non-conformist parents, I didn't want to be defined by what I was involved in, or (horror of horrors), have repeated time commitments!  My nature is to stick with my family and small circle of friends, joining the crowd (no matter which crowd) always makes me feel a little, well, trapped.

Given this background it has been very interesting to become a part of a pretty small team of expats on a little island in Indonesia.  Considering the locals often mix me up with the other Westerners on our team, and I'm constantly defined by those I spend time with, it pretty much goes against how I have conducted myself in life thus far.  It's been an excellent, if somewhat uncomfortable, experience of learning to depend on new friends, letting go of the need to be separate, and extending myself even when I would rather stay in a place that feels cozy.

Although I certainly wouldn't now put myself in the "joiner" category, as I prepare to leave this team and re-enter the all-hail-the-individual culture of the U.S. I want to continue to be a part of different teams, even if the thought makes me feel a little squeamish!

Some of the ladies on my overseas team

The Silver Lining...Sort Of

As some of you may know, our house was broken into a little over a month ago, which was, of course, an unpleasant experience.  Following the break-in the local police came to our house along with various other people, including several photographers.  I think there were about 30 men standing around our yard asking me questions in Indonesian that I was not doing a good job of understanding or answering in my state of stress.  Anyway, I assumed the photographers were part of the police investigation…and then this newspaper article made its way into Chris’s mailbox at work a couple weeks ago…

Yes, that’s an ever-so attractive (ugh) photo of me looking like I’m about to get sick (I felt like I was going to at the time), and Sadie, the poor dog that the robbers poisoned.  The headline of the article roughly translates to:  “Hostility toward a pilot’s house, the thief poisoned the dog”.  It is clear that the dog poisoning was a main focus of the article, although there are a couple of very intelligent quotes from yours truly that appeared to be lifted directly from the police report we filed including,

“They gave the dog poison, but she didn’t die, just threw-up”

and

“While someone was in our house my husband was flying and I was out eating.” 

My favorite is the quote at the end of the article, which I clearly did not intend to be published in the newspaper…

“We had money in a drawer, but they didn’t take it, they just stole my laptop.”

Great, let’s advertise in the paper that we have drawers full of money in our house (we don’t, well, not much money anyway) so any other interested thieves can start planning their next visit.

The best part about this article is that it appeared on the front page of the paper, the FRONT PAGE!  This gives you some insight into just how small the island we live on is, and how Westerners are viewed here (borderline celebrity status at times).

So there you have it, Sadie and I were front page news on the island of Tarakan, and I clearly came off as both attractive and eloquent (bahahaha, far from it)…I can now say I had my proverbial 15 minutes (or 1 day) of fame.  Likely this will be the only time I make the front page of any paper (hopefully, unless it’s for something a lot more fun than this), so I have to smile a little about that silver lining to an otherwise not-so-great experience.

Elastagirl Checks In

It's Five Minute Friday again, and the prompt is...

Stretch

Ooo-ooo-ooo, sometimes I feel like I have been so stretched in the last 3 years that you might as well call me Elastagirl!  

From 30 years of living in Michigan no further than an hour and a half from my family to getting married, moving to Florida for 4 months to raising support to go overseas involving regularly speaking in front of churches, going out to meals and staying overnight at people's homes who, as wonderful and gracious as they were to us, were mostly strangers to me, packing up as many of my earthly belongings that would fit in a crate, shipping them across the ocean, traveling across the world to live in a country I had barely heard of before I met my husband, living in the midst of cobras and palm trees and big ol' roaches and rats IN MY TOILET, learning a whole new language (sort of), joining a community of amazing people and making some lifelong friends, being stared at and getting WAY too much attention every time I leave the house, seeing what I believe, I mean what I really believe about God and myself and facing how much growing I still have to do, and, and, and...can I make this run-on sentence any longer...you betcha, but I won't!  I feel like jamming all those words together in one sentence is an illustration of how my life has felt, running on like a freight train and me breathless, holding on and trying to not just live through it, but grow too.

Now we prepare to head home to start the next phase of life, whatever that will be...yet to be determined (motherhood? wife of a commercial pilot? living in a brand new city and state? building new friendships?), I gather my limbs and head and heart, all stretched and misshapen, and realize I'm amazingly okay, I have made it this far, God hasn't left me.  I just might make it through the next whirlwind too, and the next, and the next...cause that's life right? One crazy, amazing, awful, wonderful storm after another and us stretching like super-dynamic rubber bands to keep up!

Five Minute Friday: Connect

It's Friday again, time for my 5 minute Friday post-fun!

Today's topic is Connect...

When I think of connecting the first thing I think of is Skype.  Ah, Skype, close friend of many that are an ocean away from their families.  Our Internet is kind of poor (okay, kind of is an undstatement...it takes 10 minutes to load a 30 second YouTube video), so our connection with family and friends is often disjointed, delayed, and frequently cut off, but I can still hear and even see loved ones who I haven't seen in almost 2 years from all the way across the world.  It's amazing, really!

The power to connect across thousands of miles makes this big world seem a lot smaller, and in a way, it is.  As I live overseas I see people who look very different than me living a similar life...cooking, cleaning, working, talking with friends, running errands around town, the same stuff I do here and that people I know are doing in my home country everyday.  No matter where people live and in what kind of circumstances, all of us are looking to connect, whether it's with one particular person, or many, with co-workers, family members, friends, neighbors, even pets...I think we all want to impact someone, to have someone impact us, to connect and be known.

I want to write more, but I'm going over my 5 minutes!  It's good to be able to connect with people through this blog, as silly and babbling as it often is...thanks for reading it and connecting to my little world!