Our dreams of serving with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) in Indonesia are finally becoming a reality.  Today was assignment day, a day that I have been sweating and praying over for a LONG time.  Today after lunch Mike and I nervously walked into a room and sat down at a table with six people staring at us who had decided the day before where our family would be serving.  I held my breath as I heard the words, "We have decided to send you to...(dramatic pause)...Indonesia."  There really was a dramatic pause too, I didn't make that part up, it felt like an eternity.  That is one of the reasons I love MAF so much, every body seems to have a good sense of humor.  I think that if you get in this line of work though, it is a requirement of sorts.

Mike and I will be learning in more depth the details of our assignment in these coming weeks and will be sharing them with you soon.  For now here is a sneak peek of what Mike will be doing:

Trip to Alaska

Passing the Technical Evaluation with MAF was very exciting for our family and we are eagerly anticipating officially joining MAF in July.  These last few weeks leading up to our candidacy class with MAF have been crazy and at times very stressful.  We have a lot to get done and very little time to do it in.  Our family is definitely in a state of limbo right now with a lot of unknowns on the Horizon.  The largest question looming for us is, "Where will we be serving?  Africa?  Indonesia?"  

It will also be a big transition for our family to live off of ministry support instead of being in the work force.  Leaving a steady job to go into ministry feels like a huge step of faith.  We know that we are in the Lord's will however, and are putting our trust in him fully to provide for our needs while we serve him through working with MAF.  God has been very faithful to us so far and has definitely had his hand in providing the means for the training needed for us to join with MAF in the first place.

Speaking of leaving the work force that means our family will no longer *sniff* have flight benefits.  I personally haven't had to purchase a plane ticket since 1997, I can feel all of your sympathy welling up for us right now (sarcasm intended).  We decided to take one last trip and visit some friends of ours up in Anchorage, AK.  The trip ended up being just what we needed and it recharged our family physically, mentally, and even spiritually. 

Macie and Colton watching the rampers in SEA

It is hard to be surrounded by the beauty of Alaska and not have this verse pop into your head:  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.  (Romans 1:20)

It is so easy to feel God's hand in creation and his presence in the vast expanse of the mountains and wildlife that surrounds you when you are outside enjoying the beauty that God made.

Quick stop for a picnic.  A hike was planned as well but a bear was spotted in the parking lot!  So hike was cancelled.

We stayed with our friends Aaron and Katie that Mike met when he went to Ecola Bible in Cannon Beach, OR.  Our friends have 4 boys so needless to say there was never a dull moment on this trip!  Our friend's Grandma owns a cabin in Soldotna right on the Kenai River so we drove down the peninsula to try our hand at fishing.  Mike and Colton tried to catch a King Salmon but had no luck.  Interesting fact:  The average cost to catch a single King Salmon in AK is $150!  We decided to switch gears and try for Rainbow Trout instead on a lake in town when we went back to Anchorage.  Our friend Aaron took Mike and Colton out in his canoe on Sand Lake and Colton actually hooked into 5 fish!  Colton's fish keep getting bigger every time he retells his story in true fisherman fashion.

Colton's first catch

Our friend Katie's parents live near an airport community where the houses have hangers below them.  We would pass Piper Cubs with big Tundra tires on them every time we visited her parent's house and we would imagine how much fun it would be to fly in one of them.  Luckily for us Katie's dad talked to his neighbor and told him how our family is going to serve with MAF and would love to go for a flight.  His neighbor was pressed for time but he managed to take Mike and Colton up for a quick flight.  They got to spot a few goats and bears in the surrounding mountains and Mike was able to fly the plane a bit as well.  Mike has been feeling grounded lately now that he isn't training for the Tech Eval anymore.

Tundra tires are huge!

Another check off the bucket list for these two

We visited our friend's church on Sunday and the pastor was kind enough to write a sermon just for our family.  Isn't it funny how it works that way?  He showed clips from the movie Groundhog Day and his message was to take life one day at a time and to live it fully for God and not for ourselves.  God has placed us in our current situation for the day we are living and we need to honor him in it.  A fitting sermon for an overwhelmed family.  One day at a time.  

Even though we aren't officially support raising yet MAF (of coarse) came up in conversation because we can't stop talking about it, and a few members of their church are very excited about our future with MAF.  The church had recently been involved in sending out a couple with MAF down to Nairobi, Kenya and a lady had just returned from a visit to the MAF base in Africa.  It is nice to know that we will have people interested in our mission and praying for us clear up in Alaska!  

We are back in Washington now hard at work preparing to attend candidacy class in July.  If you would like to stay updated with us and join our prayer/support team email one of us your address and we will add you to our mailing list. 

Technical Evaluation with MAF

These past two weeks our family has been in Nampa, ID at the MAF headquarters going through technical evaluation.  TE is basically a two week long job interview.  It was pretty intense, but I am happy to say that we passed!  (Well Mike did most of the work).  We are not officially with MAF yet, but at this point it is about 99% certain that we will be.  It is very rare for a couple to pass TE and not end up serving with MAF.  

The next step in the process for our family is to come back to headquarters in July and go through a candidacy class.  In class we will explore in detail what MAF is doing at each of it's bases.  We will then interview with a committee and go over the different options for service and at that time voice some desires or concerns that we may have.  The committee will then decide where they believe our family will best "fit" and at the completion of the class we will be given our country assignment.  

I am not going to lie the the thought of being assigned a country to go live in is a very scary thought!  After meeting the staff at MAF though and seeing that they truly want to see our family succeed and really strive to seek God's will in the situation has calmed my nerves.  God has really given me a peace about the situation too and I know that I just need to trust him because he is much wiser than I am.

Living in the MAF apartments was so much fun.  We got to meet a bunch of really neat people in all stages of the process of serving with MAF.  We met a family that was headed out to the Congo in a week, a family assigned to Hati, a family on furlough from Indonesia, and a couple serving in central Asia.  We bonded over chicken wings one night with a few of them and listened to each other's stories.  It was very exciting to hear what God is doing through MAF in these different parts of the world and it is cool to think that we will be a part of that soon!

We would just like to take the time right now and thank everybody for the support and encouragement that has been given to our family to get us to this point of our journey.  We could not do this without you!  The generosity that has been shown to us is very humbling and in helps us tremendously to know that our friends support our family and are behind us in this crazy adventure. 

It is an MAF tradition to take your child's picture in front of this turtle every time you are on furlough to see how much they have grown.  They actually moved this turtle up from the old headquarters in Redlands, CA even though it is HEAVY to carry on this tradition.

Almost there

At the beginning of this month Mike still needed 15 more flight hours to be qualified to take the technical evaluation at MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) headquarters at the end of the month.  We were a bit stressed out because anybody from the Northwest knows that spring here is notorious for rain and clouds.  We have been praying and asking people to join us in prayer for good flying weather.  The weather lately shows that prayer actually works!  There have been sun breaks every weekend this April so that Mike has been able to fly!  Mike only needs 1.3 more hours before he hits the grand total of 400 flight hours needed.

This Saturday Colton had a slumber party with his cousin Riley so we only had Macie to hang out with.  Macie loved being the center of attention all day and was in a great mood (I think that deep-down she wishes that she was the first born).  Mike scheduled a training flight in the Cessna 206 to do some Instrument training with one of the flight instructors at Servant Wings and Macie and I decided to hitchhike in the back.  It was a beautiful day outside but Mike couldn't see anything because he was under the hood (or as I like to call it his "Darth Vader" mask).  Wearing the visor forces Mike to only look at the instruments while he is flying and it simulates what he would be able to see in bad weather.  

On Sunday Mike took Colton flying in the Cessna 152.  Remember the slumber party the night before I mentioned?  I don't think that much slumbering went on because this is what happened during the flight:

Poor little guy was so excited to go flying but he missed most of it!

This next couple of weeks Mike is going to study and practice in the flight simulator with an instructor to further prepare for the technical evaluation.  It is crazy to think that we are only two weeks away from a test that Mike has been preparing to take for the last seven years!  No pressure, right?

Colton is four!

It is hard to believe that we have a four year old in our house now!  We celebrated Colton's birthday this weekend with yet another "airplane" themed party.  Everybody who comes into contact with Colton soon figures out that he is obsessed with airplanes.  We had a few of Colton's friends over for some pizza, orange juice (at his request), cake and ice cream.  Colton wanted Mike and I to make his cake into an aircraft carrier but our cake decorating skills are not quite up to the challenge of that yet so we opted for a float plane jungle scene instead.

Thanks to Señora Flynne and high school spanish class I was able to make an airplane piñata for the party.  I knew that Colton would not take to his friends beating his piñata with a stick very well so in order to escape tears I thought that I was being clever and designed a door that would open and let out the candy with the pull of a string.  Let's just say that I am not an engineer and the design had some flaws to it and there were tears anyway.  Oops.  Other than that the party was a success and Colton has been requesting to have another one ever since.  

Whenever we have gatherings at our house like this I realize how much we are truly blessed by all of the friends placed in our lives and in our children's lives.  The amount of love that our friends pour into our children blows me away every time.  It saddens me to think of the future when an ocean will be dividing us from each other.     

The big 4 year old with his cake

....and yes Macie liked the cake too.

Baby sister Macie and her slice

Free Flight Time

Mike had the opportunity yesterday to acquire some FREE flight time.  It is always nicer to fly the airplane knowing that it isn't draining your wallet every minute that you spend up in the sky!  Servant Wings is the organization we are a part of that has been helping Mike with his flight training.  Servant Wings has corporate members that pay for the aircraft rental allowing candidate pilots like Mike to build flight time without going into debt.  

The airplane that Servant Wings uses for all of it's corporate flights is the Cessna 206 which rents out for $150/hr.  The 206 is actually the type of aircraft that Mike will be taking his technical evaluation in for Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) in late April.  We don't usually fly the 206 to acquire flight time because it is about twice the amount to rent as the Cessna 152, so you can see why these corporate flights are so valuable.  Mike flew out to Pasco, WA and back and gained about 3.7 flight hours.  After some quick math you can see that we saved a bundle yesterday!

Mike with the Cessna 206

Some fun facts about the Cessna 206:

• It served for MAF in Venezuela for almost 20 years
• It transported about 4,000,000 lbs. of cargo while in service
• 3 babies were born on it
• Tractors, a horse, bees, fish, medicine, Bibles, pastors, and many other vital supplies were transported on it
• A very generous board member of Servant Wings bought the plane and donated it to Servant Wings 

Bellingham and Back Again

Renting an airplane is expensive!  When Mike and I were first married and crunched the numbers to see exactly how much it was going to cost to obtain 400 flight hours it seemed impossible.  These past seven years, however, God has provided for our family in amazing ways and has taught us to have faith that he will provide what we need when we need it.  A recent way that God has chosen to provide for us was to offer Mike field work up in Bellingham, WA.  Since October Mike has worked out of town 4 days a week.  It was definitely an adjustment for our family and not always easy, but it supplied the much needed funds to help us complete the last few flight hours needed.

As of this week Mike is working back in Portland and we are very happy to have him back home with us.  Colton and I decided to have a little adventure and fly up to Bellingham to help Mike drive his stuff back home.  Macie had a sleepover with a very brave friend of ours so the adult to kid ratio for me was 1 to 1.  I myself prefer to play man-on-man defense and not zone defense while flying, especially when a connection is involved.  

Colton with the ever-so important blue blanket in SEA

Colton and I flew standby and batted .500 for the evening.  We were bumped in Portland once which wasn't a big deal, but then we were bumped in Seattle which was a slightly bigger deal because it left us with a 4 hour layover.  Luckily Colton is a well seasoned traveler and we actually had a lot of fun in the airport.  We ate some Ivers fish and chips for dinner while watching airplanes get loaded on the ramp and then we hung out in the play area for a couple of hours.  Colton made some friends and they soon were having a jumping contest off of the slide.  Colton had so much fun in fact that he asked me today if we could go to the airport again to play. 

Colton in the SEA airport play area

Colton and I caught the last flight out of SEA and finally reached the hotel in Bellingham at around 1am and crashed.  Mike got off work at 7am and after eating hotel waffles we all piled into our little 1983 Honda Civic hatchback complete with AM/FM radio and a whopping two front speaker system and took off.  The Civic is our backup/commuter car and we never drive it as a family because it feels like we are driving a clown car when we do.  I felt a little bad making the poor old Civic go over 50 mph, but it did suprisingly well and wasn't always the slowest car on the freeway.  

Since we were passing through Seattle we took this opportunity to eat at the Paseo Caribbean sandwich shop that we have been wanting to try for awhile.  All I have to say is BEST SANDWICH EVER!  If you ever have the chance to eat there take it.  While you are there do us a favor and order the #2.  

Posing with our wonderful sandwiches at Paseos