What does your dream house look like?

Recently Logan got back from a trip into the village where he started building our future home! I am really excited about all the Lord has in store for us over these next few years.....well the rest of our lives I guess! 

As I was thinking about our future home something that I have struggled with for a long time came very apparent to me. It was really an issue for me in the states more than it is here. I have a problem with "house/home envy." Obviously that isn't a real thing but I have it!

When we were back in the US this past year talking to people about their new houses and their new apartments and their new furniture and their new paint job in the kitchen, sometimes I wanted to cry! 

I would dream about having plush carpet in our future living room, painting the kitchen aqua blue, a big comfy couch the whole family could pile on in front of our flat screen TV, a big claw foot bathtub, and lots of soft fluffy pillows on our bed. Then my dreams would come crashing down and I would begin to have nightmares about what my house could possibly be like. Hard wood floors that are uneven, dark dingy wooden walls in the kitchen, no couch-no TV, no bathtub, and pillows but probably not soft and probably not many!

However in all actuality neither the dream nor the nightmare are anywhere near what our home will be like. 

No I won't have my plush carpet, but I will have hard wood floors that my amazing husband carefully laid by hand. 

My kitchen probably won't be aqua blue (although I could do that if I REALLY wanted to but I will probably let that be a dream!) but it will have windows that look out onto a beautiful airstrip where I will be reminded each day of God's amazing creation.

I probably won't have a big comfy couch like the one in my dream (or like the one at my parents house!) but I will have a couch and my boys can climb up on my lap and we can chat about what they learned in school and what adventures they went on in the jungle and even watch a movie on our computer (or maybe a TV, who knows).

We won't have a claw foot bathtub or a bathtub at all (we could but are choosing not to because Logan wants to build a stone shower!) but I am lucky to have a bathroom at all! :-)

Of course we will have pillows on our bed! How silly am I to even think we would have to go without pillows! No they may not be exactly what I would choose if we lived in America but they will be pillows and they will be soft. I probably just won't have as many as in my dreams!

So my actual house won't really resemble my dream house in many ways at all, but in SO MANY ways it will be much better! I am so blessed to have the opportunity to live on the other side of the world and tell people about my great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Honestly who cares what my house looks like. It is all worth just to able to tell one person about Him who has never heard before!

Please pray for Logan as he continues to build our home. Please pray for me to daily be content with the house that I will have. 

Beach Day!

Going to the beach is one of our favorite things to do so when our friends asked if we wanted to spend the day basking in the sun we happily agreed! We had lived on this on this island for nine months before we returned to the U.S. for our home assignment but this was the first time for us to experience this particular beach.

After a long and very bumpy ride in the van we reached the little spot where we could load onto the boat. All 13 of us (6 adults and 7 kids) loaded into a little boat and headed off into the ocean!

After a short ride and much discussion with our boat captain ;-) we made it to a land of beauty! We were able to spend hours swimming, snorkeling, and soaking up some rays!

Israel and Laken LOVE to swim and they never took off their goggles!

My sweet boy Liam! He loves the water too and would just sit in the water and play so content all by himself!

Raquel and Laken having a blast!

Logan went snorkeling and brought back these crazy cool starfish for the boys to play with!

We don't have an underwater camera so I tried to capture a fish just looking into the water. If you look carefully you can see a tiny little blue fish swimming around the coral!

A sweet family shot before we headed back to the mainland on our boat!

We had such a great day, and we are so blessed and to have such awesome friends (who just so happen to be our coworkers!) to spend this blessed time with. Our trip back was very eventful as it started to absolutely pour about 30 seconds into our trip! Too bad none of us had water proof cameras to capture the moment!

Making our way back to Asia Pacific!

So here it is..........my first blog post in three years!
Last December, after 2 years and 9 months of living hundreds and thousands of miles away from where we call "home," we made our way back to our tiny home town in Michigan!
Our time in Asia Pacific was literally life changing in so many ways. God grew and stretched us beyond what we ever thought was imaginable. Ministry in a country/culture that is not your own is so humbling but also physically, emotionally, and spiritually draining! We were more than ready to be encouraged and loved on by friends and family.

We spent an incredible 7 months with family and friends. The boys got to know their grandparents all over again, they made best friends with their Teall cousins and met their little cousin Sage for the first time! We were so very blessed by our church family, they encouraged us spiritually and emotionally.

By the time our 7 months had come to an end we knew it would be hard to leave all the "wonderfulness" behind! Although we left with lots of tears we left with full hearts ready to begin our ministry with the Dem. We said our final good byes at the airport to Logan's two brothers and boarded the first of our 4 flights. Our emotions were all over the place! We were sad to leave but so excited to see what the Lord had in store for us in the mountains of Papua!

We flew 30 hours across the ocean and finally arrived in the hot and sweaty tropics! Man had our bodies adjusted quickly to the cool Michigan weather! We were so grateful for our amazing boys! They were so good on the flights. I even think Logan and I got some sleep! I think!

It was good to be back. To be honest it seemed like we had only been gone a few weeks. I hadn't expected that feeling. We quickly started unpacking and repacking all of our stuff. We only had two weeks before Logan would go interior to start building our home. It was exciting to see the boys adjust to being back in this country. They quickly fell into the swing of things and so did we!

To Blog or Not to Blog?

Well as you can see if you actually read this, I haven't blogged in almost 3 years! So I have been trying to decide if I should start blogging again. After hearing from three people that they would read our blog I have decided to go ahead and give it a try. So I hope you enjoy!

Baru Klinting (a legend from Salatiga, Indonesia)

In class on Friday our pelatih (teacher) told us a cerita rakyat (legend) about a giant snake that was killed at the foot of one of the mountains here in Salatiga. Many people believe the snake still lives in the swamp near the kampung (village) where the legend happened. So today, along with our friends the VanRensburgs we took a quick trip to the area. It was so much fun as we got to see a large dragon that was built as a monument and then we took a boat ride out in the swamp. It was a great cultural experience as many Indonesians visit this area as well. Many people who believe the legend also believe that when people die while fishing in the swamp it is because of the snake that still lives in its waters.

A family picture on the back of Baru Klinting!

The Baru Klinting monument!

These "perahu" are the boats most commonly used for fishing and gathering the swamp plants.

People have little sections of the swamp netted off to do their own fishing in.

Laken LOVED the boat ride! As a matter of fact he nearly went over board several times out of excitement!

Family picture at the fish place we had lunch at!!!

Happy Independence Day!

I thought Americans were patriotic until we came to Indonesia. August 17 is Indonesian Independence Day and let me tell you they know how to celebrate! They don’t just celebrate with one day of food and fireworks they celebrate all month long! There aren’t just flags lining main street and a few of your neighbors houses, there are flags literally everywhere; lining every street, in front of every home, and anywhere else you could possibly fly a flag.


They repaint all the white lines on the roads (which is a really big deal here), many people repaint their gates and the fronts of their homes. They have neighborhood parties where they get together and clean up the neighborhood, and every neighborhood just has a party in general with lots of food and games! Oh, and as far as fireworks go, you can hear or see fireworks almost every night every night of the month!


We didn’t get any pictures of the neighborhood party, but we had a party at our language school and thought we would share a few pictures of the games we played. You may get a kick out of these!

The Beach

A few weeks ago we were able to take a quick trip to the ocean. It was a wonderful time to relax and see some of God’s beautiful creation! We had a great time just hanging out. Laken LOVES the ocean and talks about going back all the time! He is also fearless of the water which can be slightly scary to a mother!



It was amazing as we were sitting on the beach how God continued to show himself to us. Everything around us screamed “There is a creator!” When we got home I was on the computer and turned on some music. The first song to come on was “How Great Thou Art,” and all I could think of was how amazing the beach was and how Great our God truly is!

“O lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul my savior God to thee, How great thou art, How great thou art. Then sings my soul my savior God to thee, How great thou art, How great thou art!”