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!”

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

Lately our brains have been similar to sponges as we have been studying “bahasa Indonesia” (the Indonesian language). We go to class from 8-12 and do everything we can to “soak up” as much Indonesian as possible. By the time we come home for lunch we aren’t sure it would be possible to store another word in our teeny tiny brains! We never realized that studying this hard could make us more physically tired than we have ever been. But, sure enough if we rely on Christ He always supplies us with the strength we need to continue each day.

Every day we have to present to our classmates in Indonesian.

Logan is telling about his day, full of helping out the new families arriving on the field and visiting with our Indonesian neighbors.

In the afternoons we often visit with our neighbors (even though we still have a limited amount of language) and run our errands in town. Laken is getting to know our neighbor kids quite well and has been asking daily to go outside and play with the kids. Sometimes we think what he really wants is to play with their toys, but at least we are getting out and about and building relationships!

Laken playing with the little neighbor boy!!

We have been attending a small church just around the corner from our home. Though the service is entirely in Indonesian it is still a blessing to be surrounded by people worshiping our great God! We are beginning to understand bits and pieces of the service and we can follow along in our “alkitab” (bible) that is in both Indonesian and English.