Idaho it is

Decision day has arrived and it is official, we are moving back to Idaho for a few weeks.  Mike will be working in the MAF hanger at headquarters helping out with the aircraft maintenance.  

We have been informed that things are starting to move in Indonesia and we feel confident we will be able to depart for language school in early May.  There is an end in sight to all of our waiting.  :)  We will be moving directly from Idaho to Indonesia, so we will be saying our final goodbyes to our friends in WA before we move on March 31st.

I don't know why God is directing our paths to Idaho again before we move to Indonesia, but we are faithfully following his leading step by step.   

We are excited to have some answers and we are thrilled to be able to see our friends in Idaho one last time before we leave.  We are also excited to eat at Chick-fil-A again!    

Moving Date

I am breaking one of my own rules right now and I am writing a post with no pictures.  Gasp!  Don't worry I'll keep it short.  

Mike and I had a meeting today over the phone with our MP Coach (supervisor) at MAF to look at some options for us because of our current visa situation.  The "situation" being not having them yet.  We still have no idea when they will be approved.  In years past the visa process usually took 3-4 months, this year has been different.  Our paperwork has been filed for 7 months now.  We are praying and resting in God's perfect timing in this situation (we aren't perfect, we do have our moments of unrest aka: "freaking out").

Meanwhile we have put in place a plan "B".  On March 31st we will be saying goodbye to Washington.  We will either be on a plane to Indonesia, or driving a car to Idaho.  MAF has found a fully furnished house that we can live in close to headquarters and Mike will be working in the hanger doing maintenance on the MAF aircraft.  

In conclusion.  Our family is moving on March 31st.  We need to hang out as much as possible right now Washington friends!




      

February Update

No visas yet, we are still waiting for them to be approved by the Indonesian government.  The end of March is now the earliest we will be able to depart for language school in Indonesia.  

In the meantime, we wait, and pray, and we wait some more.       

Today we drove out to the place our crates are being stored at to finish packing our shipment.  This is the shipment we won't see until we move to Tarakan about 1 year from now.  In fact we haven't seen any of this stuff since the end of July; it was kind of bittersweet to see all of our stuff today.  I know that they are just possessions, but it is a bit unsettling at times not to have access to most of our things.  This whole packing experience has been a lot more emotional than I thought it would be for me.  It consists of going through our possessions, pairing them down, and putting them into storage.  I honestly didn't think I was THAT attached to my stuff.  God is always finding teachable moments for me in our journey to Indonesia.

We can however, add a bit of fun to this process.  You're welcome future Angie.  Ok, future Mike, future Colton, and future Macie I'll share.

  

Entering every. single. item. into an Exel spreadsheet with it's new and current value.  Good times.

Colton has been missing his old MAF buddies and has started writing notes to a few of them.  It is fun (and sad at times) to have friends that live all around the world!

Last trip to SEA??? Maybe not.

A couple of weeks ago our family packed up the Jetta and made what we thought was going to be our last major road trip before we moved to Indonesia.  Mike and I were invited to share about our ministry with MAF at a church up in Pt Townsend, WA.  While we were up there we decided to spend some extra time and say goodbye to our family and friends who live up in the Seattle area.  

We were literally sitting down at our goodbye dinner with our family (gearing up for it to be a sad evening) and I decided to check our email.  We got word in an email from MAF on the VISA situation in Indonesia.  Basically it is not good.  Slow, very slow is the process at the moment.  VISAs usually take 3-4 months to process and ours has been waiting for approval since August.  It is very likely that late March is the soonest we will be able to depart.  So what was supposed to be a goodbye dinner turned into a "never mind, not yet" dinner.

Can you say, "Emotional roller coaster"?

So we wait. 

We have been told to pack like we are leaving in February, just in case, but probably March is more realistic.  If our VISAs are approved within the next couple of days a February departure is still within our reach.  

Here are a few highlights from our trip.  We lucked out and had gorgeous weather!  The sun was actually making an appearance in Washington, in the month of January!      

We found a cool Asian Market to pick up a few fun items.  Soon though we will just call a store like this...well the market!  If you look closely the sign Colton is pointing at says, "Balut, $1.25".  In case you are unaware of what Balut is, it is basically a duck egg with a baby chick partially developed inside that has been cooked.  Yum.  They come from the Philippines.  Mike used to eat them all the time in his lunch.  Just kidding!  We passed up on this great deal and decided to keep our money.

Mike's grandma lives 2 miles away from the ferry terminal that connects Pt Townsend and Whidbey island so we hopped on it and visited her for the night.  Colton wanted to check out the bunkers at Fort Casey so we did some exploring. 

This was our last trip on a ferry for awhile.  We were glad that we caught this one in time because the Seahawks game was about to start and we didn't want to miss it!

Yes…we are still here

If I had a nickel for every time somebody has looked at me in surprise lately and said, "I thought that you were already in Indonesia!"  I would have…well I would have about .40 cents.  

It seems that our family lived in Nampa, ID so long at MAF headquarters, people here at home have been led to assume that we have already left for Indonesia.  Why are we still here you may ask?  We are currently waiting on our VISA paperwork to go through and we are finishing up our monthly support.  (Which by the way is up to 95%!)  It is looking like a realistic departure date for our family will be late Feb.

It is hard to live in a state of limbo, we thought that by now we would already be in language school in Salatiga.  Our heart's desire is to be serving in Indonesia and it can be frustrating to be in a state of waiting.  God's timing is better than ours though and we are doing our best to wait on Him and remain content.  We are enjoying our extra time He has given us here with our friends and family.  It was such a blessing to get the chance to spend one more Christmas at home!  

Christmas Eve with cousin Riley

Colton taking his new plane out for it's maiden voyage

Macie trying out her new Razor Scooter.

Notice the tongue stuck out in concentration

A Big Change

Our Blog has been silent for awhile and many of you have probably noticed that we are still in Idaho training with MAF even though our last blog post had said that we were done with training, and we were driving home to Washington.  Sorry for the confusion.  If you have not read our latest prayer letter yet now would be a good time:

November Prayerletter


Basically instead of serving with MAF as a pilot (slash) mechanic MAF is asking us to serve as a maintenance specialist family instead (no slash).  This change may seem abrupt to you, and believe me it felt abrupt to us too.  It wasn't an easy change for us to embrace, not in the least.  We do know this, God is good, He is in control.  We know that God's hand is in this decision, and we still believe that we are on the correct path that he has laid out for our family to follow.  

It feels as if God is asking us, "Why are you really going to Indonesia?  To serve me?"  

Our answer is of course, "Yes!  To serve in any way you need us."

It just so happens too that Tarakan, the base we are going to serve at, is in great need of a maintenance specialist!  God is in control. We are trusting in Him.  Sometimes in the midst of the chaos it is harder to trust than usual, but it is always best to trust, and especially the second part:  obey.

It's not possible to fit the whole story in this post, so if you want to know more of our story feel free to call or email, we would love to chat with you because there is more to the story.  :)

Our new look:

Here is an updated timeline for us: 

Now - Dec 13th  
Maintenance training at headquarters in Nampa, ID.

Dec 14th 
Drive home to Camas, WA.  

Dec 15th - Dec 20th  
Mike travels to Sandpoint, ID for Kodiak training at Quest Aircraft

January-Feb
Finish packing and raise the remaining 10% of montly support needed

March
Move to Salatiga Indonesia for language school

Our last week in Nampa

Our time in Idaho is coming to an end, it is surprising how quickly it began to feel like home for us here.  We are excited to be done with our training for MAF and are looking forward to the next chapter in our lives, but leaving and saying goodbye is never fun.

Last Saturday it was a beautiful day so we decided to do some exploring and check out Camelback Park in Boise.  The fall colors are so much more vivid here than in Washington (the evergreen state).  

Check out this view we had from the top!

Macie was a bit too much into her granola bar to look up and smile.  Sitting on Mom and Dad's shoulders burns a lot of calories I guess. 

We found a snake along the path all stretched out in the sun, and of coarse Mike had to grab it's tail.  This made the snake mad and it coiled up and hissed at us!  I have never seen a snake do this to me in real life.  I did not like it.  I need to toughen up when it comes to snakes, word on the street is that they are MUCH bigger in Tarakan, Indonesia.

I realized that this weekend was probably the last time I will feel comfortable.  The weather was perfectly in the mid 70's and all I had to wear was a t-shirt and shorts.  We are moving back to Washington where it will be cold and rainy and then to Indonesia where it will be very hot.  So mark it on your calendars:  October 25, 2013 is the last time I will be at a comfortable temperature outside until our next furlough in a couple of years.  (I'm not being dramatic at all right now).  :)

Monday and Tuesday Mike fly out to the backcountry in the mountains to finish his flight training in preparation for Indonesia. He took some pretty cool videos while flying, stay posted we will have them up soon. 

Colton and Macie were super excited to watch him land and come home!  Mike says that it is bittersweet to be done with his training, because it will probably be another year before he gets to fly a plane again (we have one year of language training ahead of us).

To celebrate Mike's return and say goodbye to our favorite Nampa hangout, we went to Messenger Pizza for dinner.  We will miss Messenger Pizza dearly.  We have figured out that there are 3 must sees in Nampa, ID:  MAF (of coarse), Messenger Pizza, and the Flying M coffee garage.

Mike still needs to debrief with his flight instructor tomorrow morning and we have to pack up and clean our apartment before we can head home to Washington.  We expect to be home this Friday.  Yay!  

Our timeline for leaving Indonesia is not set in stone yet, we still need to raise about $800 per month in support before we can purchase our tickets to leave.  It looks like the soonest we will be able to leave is the end of January.  We will be spending one last set of holidays in the states (Yay)!