Missions Weekend at Oak Harbor

This April our family had the opportunity to share about our ministry with Mission Aviation Fellowship at a church up in Oak Harbor, WA during their missions conference weekend.  It was very encouraging to share with so many people who share our excitement about missions, and it was fun for us learning about what other mission organizations are doing around the world as well.  We finally had the chance to meet a missionary in person after seeing his picture on multiple refrigerators over the past few years, which was fun.  (I'm still getting used to the fact that we are hanging on people's fridges).  

We also met two girls who grew up in Indonesia because their dad was a pilot with MAF!  How crazy is that?!  It was encouraging for me as a mom to hear that they loved growing up in Indonesia and that it was a positive experience for them.  One of my biggest fears about moving overseas and serving with MAF is that my kids would feel "deprived" looking back on the whole experience, so it is good to hear that it can be positive for them.  

Always fun riding on the ferry to Great Grandma's house.

We stayed at Grandma's house which is always a blast for the kids and relaxing for us.  Colton loves his "Whidbey Island Grandma" and Macie loves her "Island Grandma".  The weather was beautiful and we recharged our batteries running, biking, kayaking, throwing rocks into the Pudget Sound and reading.  Grandma has no internet at her house and we only got one bar of cellphone coverage (by a window) so we were forced to take it slow and relax. 

Colton helping Great Grandma in the garden.

We were invited to stay with a couple who live in Pt Townsend, just a short ferry ride away from Grandma's place.  Their house, much to Colton's liking, had a doggy door that he could fit through.  Even though we only stayed in Pt Townsend overnight, I fell in love with it!  There are so many outdoor activities to get involved in, I don't think you could ever get bored.  We went hiking/exploring at Fort Worden state park and checked out all of the old army bunkers the US built before WW1 to protect the Pudget Sound from invading ships.

Colton is FIVE!

Colton is officially five years old!  I won't be cliche and write about how fast time has gone by, I'll just post a quick timeline.  Here are some pictures of Birthdays past:

Colton's 1st Birthday

Colton's 2nd Birthday

Colton's 3rd Birthday with a "runway" cake

Colton's 4th Birthday with a "jungle runway" cake

Colton's 5th Birthday with an "aircraft carrier runway" cake

Notice that once Colton was old enough to speak his birthday cakes became as he likes to call them "runway" cakes.  Good thing his dad is a master at making them!  I wish that I could take the credit, but I can't.  Colton already has requested a "race plane runway" for next year.  We better make sure to pack "runway" cake making supplies in the crate!

2nd Half of February Road Trip

I know that everybody has been sick with anticipation to see how the second half of our road trip went.  Sadly to say, I have dropped the ball and left you hanging.  I meant to blog right away but mountains of laundry, grocery shopping (not one speck of food in our house after a months absence), and once again the flu bug gracing us with it's presence has stopped me.  Thankfully we are all recovered now and have settled back into a routine.  I take that back.  Nothing about our life is "routine" right now.

The second half of our trip went A LOT smoother than the first half, which was quite a relief!  We had a wonderful time relaxing with my (Angie's) dad at his place in Arizona.  He lives outside of Phoenix right on the edge of the desert.  It is a very beautiful and peaceful place to be.  Colton was excited when he learned that my dad's neighbor, Harvey, has a garage full of r/c model airplanes!  A group of Harvey's friends often drive out to an old abandoned road in the desert to fly their airplanes.  Colton LOVED watching the airplanes and asked roughly a million questions while they flew.  

Colton and Macie watching r/c airplanes fly in the desert.

Remember our trip to Alaska back in October when our family was freezing in the 12 degree weather and the locals told us that it was just a fall "chill" and not really cold yet?  It was quite opposite in Arizona!  I went to a play group with Colton dressed in flip-flops and  shorts and noticed the local kids "layered" up with long sleeves and jeans.  74 degrees to us felt like summer, definitely not winter.

On our way home to WA we broke the trip up into smaller "chunks" and tried not to stress out about making good time.  We stayed in So Cal for a few days to visit friends that we had missed because of the car trouble we faced on our first pass through LA.  We had our last In-N-Out burger in Redding, CA *sniff* which brings the grand total of In-N-Out burger visits to five (such restraint we have).  We stopped in Medford, OR for the night on the way home and stayed in a hotel with an indoor pool to have some fun, and most importantly, burn off the kids' energy before the last leg of the trip!  

Mmmmm coffee and sugar...good for driving.

If any of you are setting out on a road trip with a 4 year old and a 2 year old, ask Mike and I for some pointers.  We have a bit of experience under our belts now.  About 3,200 miles worth of experience racked up in one month!

Where does our family go from here?  We are staying in the WA area until May and then we plan to go up to Alaska again for a couple of weeks.  After our trip to Alaska we will be home in WA until our training beginning in August out in Nampa, ID at MAF headquarters.  

  

Highlights and Low Lights

We are 2,500 miles into our road trip through CA and AZ and what an adventure it has turned out to be!  There have been many unforeseen challenges along the way, twice Mike and I were at the point of throwing in the towel and turning back towards WA.  However, Mike and I are happy that we "powered through" and overall the trip has been well worth the troubles we have faced.

Trip Highlights

• In-N-Out burger!  We have shown restraint though, and have only eaten there three times.
• We visited two MAF families from our Candidacy Class.
• We had the chance to meet our "mystery supporter" for breakfast.
• We met new friends that treated us to an afternoon at the Phoenix Zoo.
• We shared our ministry during a Missions Weekend at a church in Mesa, AZ (which happened to be a couple blocks away from my old apartment).
• Reconnected with friends and family.
• The kids are getting spoiled by Grandparents (which doesn't happen very often because we live so far apart).
•  Got a sunburn in February.

Macie's first trip to In-N-Out Burger

Free show with dinner!  A tow truck backed over a fire hydrant and created a fountain in front of our restaurant.  We watched the firemen try to shut it off while we ate. 

Watching a movie with fellow MAF MKs that are also moving to Indonesia!

Colton wanted to go swimming even though the water was only 55 degrees.  This is how far he got.

Trip Low lights

• Colton caught some sort of stomach bug and couldn't hold any food down for 24 hours...in the car, at the park, in the car again.  We ended up staying in a hotel room for the night until he recovered so that we wouldn't infect our friend's children.  We had to make two clothes runs to buy him more shirts during the night.  This was the first time we contemplated driving home.
• While we were visiting "Aunt" Margie in Santa Barbara we decided to go sightseeing with her in our car  around town.  While we were idling at an intersection the car suddenly went dead.  Would not start.  Dead.  There we were with a four year old, a two year old, and 80 year old "Aunt" Margie pushing our car up onto a small median in the middle of the road.  It was a stressful situation to say the least.  To add to the situation I had forgot my cell phone that morning in LA.  I left in a taxi with the kids and "Aunt" Margie and found somewhere to stay for the night while Mike dealt with the car.  Without a phone reconnecting was a bit difficult.  We ended up staying in guest housing at the retirement home where "Aunt" Margie lives and the car was fixed by the next morning.  That was the second time we contemplated driving home.  

  

Picnic dinner in the hotel while waiting for the Jetta to get fixed. 

We are thankful and praise God for his protection throughout our road trip and thank Him that our car didn't break down in rush hour LA traffic or in the middle of the desert on the way to Phoenix.  We are also thankful that Colton recovered quickly and that it was only a 24 hour bug.  Currently we are recharging and relaxing for a couple of days in Phoenix with my dad getting some quality "Grandpa time" in with the kids before we hit the road again.  We are excited to see what else God has planned for us on our trip!

     

February Road Trip

Next Monday we are packing up the Jetta and heading on a road trip through California and Arizona.  We are excited to visit friends, family, and In-N-Out Burger (of course) along the way.  

The last time I took a road trip through California my friend and I got a little too excited about In-N-Out Burger and ate there 9 out of 10 days of our trip (we were planning on eating all 10 days but opted for Bob's Big Boy Burger one day). Let's just say that we were feeling a bit lethargic at the end of our trip and to top it off our faces totally broke out!  I'm not planning on making that mistake again.

This will be the last time we are going to be in the California/Arizona area before we move to Indonesia, and because of that we are hoping to see as many of our southern friends as we possible can!  

Schedule:

Feb 4-10: Northern California (Staying in Penryn to be exact)

Feb 11-15:  Southern California (Staying in Riverside)

Feb 16-Mar 1:  Arizona (Staying in Surprise)

We hope to see a lot of this in the backseat!

The dreaded "P" word

It is getting to be the time for us to start sifting through our possessions and decide what is going to Indonesia with us and what isn't.  Sounds easy enough, right?  The kicker is that we need to ship most of our stuff in wooden crates (200 cubic feet allowance) ahead of us to our permanent base which we will not see...wait for it...for an entire year!  Our crates will hang out in a storage facility, board a cargo ship, cross the ocean, and meet us at customs in either Borneo or Papua.  Our family will take a detour to Salatiga, Indonesia for language school where will be living out of our checked luggage for a year.  

This concept has been messing with my sub conscience I believe.  I had a dream the other night that I forgot to pack all of our kitchen stuff so we weren't able to cook anything.  Even worse, I only packed jeans and sweatshirts for myself!  Needless to say I was HOT.  I spent my dream searching for summer clothes at the store but I couldn't find anything that fit my "american" body type.  

What would you pack in your checked luggage?  What item can you not part with for a year?

Church Visit

"It looks like they have already started," says Mike as we walk into the foyer.  "Are you sure it started at five o' clock?"

"Five is what my friend told me," I say as I think to myself, Are we experiencing "rubber time"

"Should we go in?"  Our courage is starting to fade.

"We came all this way, let's sneak in the back." 

Of coarse it will be virtually impossible to "sneak in" without being spotted, seeing that we are visiting an Indonesian church in Portland and we will be the only non-Indonesians in the room.  We work up our nerve, walk through the door, and sit in the 2nd to last row in the sanctuary.  We get a few glances and smiles sent our way by others as we enjoy the last few minutes of the service.  During the service the prayers were said in both English and Bahasa Indonesian and we also (tried) to sing along to an Indonesian song.  It was pretty exciting. 

By the way we were not experiencing "rubber time" ( jam karet is a term used to describe Indonesian's attitude towards the concept of time).  We were just late, an hour late to be exact.  So much for not drawing attention to ourselves.

After the service our family was greeted right away and we were asked why we had decided to visit an Indonesian church.  We told them that we were moving to Indonesia to work with MAF and we wanted to learn more about Indonesia.  We were met with excitement and were asked if we spoke Bahasa Indonesian.  We said, "Not yet."  After assuring us that Bahasa Indonesian is very easy to learn they started to teach us some phrases right away.  Our family was then invited downstairs to eat some Indonesian food with them (which was awesome by the way).

The pastor asked Mike if we could come back and share with everybody our story and what we will be doing in Indonesia.  Mike asked, "How long do you want us to share?  5 minutes?  10 minutes?" 

"The WHOLE service, we want to hear from you."

We were sent home with a plate full of Indonesian leftovers, how often can you say that you visited a chuch and got sent home with food?  Not very often.