NTM

We’ve been praying all along that God would quickly provide friends for us here. He is a faithful God and we are so grateful for that. We have been in country for 2 months now and already God has granted us some amazing relationships. Being here alone and away from home is not easy. But, having people who care for us and walk beside us while away has been a life source to us. We eat out, go on walks, swim together, pray together, practice language together. What a blessing they have been. Jordan refers to them as “my big friends.” We are trusting they know his intent in calling them his big friends is not that he’s referring to any form of obesity:). Thought you would enjoy seeing some of these friends. Thanks for praying.

What all of these lovely creatures have in common is that they each have been found at least two different times in our new home. Don’t get us wrong. We are not complaining. Our new house is a great house. There is just something about rodents big enough to carry off small children and scorpions who’s sting brings excruciating pain that cause us to report to you a little bit about our new roomates. I only wish they would help pay the rent. Settling into our new home in central Java is going alright but is not without its challenges. Thanks for your prayers as we continue settling in. Check out some pictures in our photo album titled “Our Indonesian Home”

Later today we will board our last plane for a while to move to our new home. There is a house waiting for us In central Java where we will study the Indonesian language. It is wild to think we are moving to a house we have never seen. Yet we are so looking forward to having a place we can call home. Being in transition and moving for 3 months has taken a tole on us. God is faithful and we grateful for his provision. We will show you pictures as we are able. Thanks for you prayers.

Tuesday afternoon (your 11pm Monday night) our plane landed in Indonesia. What a thrilling thing it was to finally be here on the ground. As the plane touched down in Jakarta (Indonesia), as loudly as he could, Jordan informed everyone “the plane landed”. He then looked at me perplexed and asked, “are we almost to Indonesia?” It was a great feeling to respond to him, “Jordan, we are finally here. This is Indonesia!” This place we have been talking about for years we finally have arrived at. Though it felt great to be here, what felt the most amazing were the wonderful showers and a full night rests we received up on arriving to the New Tribes guest house. We are all transitioning fairly well and are about to head out on a shopping excursion. Thanks for all of your faithful prayers. We really felt God working through the details to make this trip go well. Case and point- the airline lost on of our bags, and today has already called to tell us it was found in Hong Kong and would be arriving here shortly. How cool is that.

Please continue to pray for our next transition as we fly away from the capital city of Jakarta (on Friday) to our home waiting for us in central Java.

LAX to Hong Kong is a long flight. However,the Lord really was in the details in caring for us throughout. In all seriousness though, traveling with an 18 mo old and a 3 1/2 yr old can be challenging. We will be boarding our final 4 hour flight into Jakarta in about 30 min. So far, all are healthy (though very tired), and all are looking forward to a bed/shower tonight. Catch you all later.

Our flight leaves shortly and we are ready to go…we think. I wish we knew all that was ahead of us in these next few weeks, but at the same time I am grateful for the chance to depend on the Lord. Will continue to update as we are able.

This Sunday evening we are departing. Interested in what our travel time will look like?

Portland, OR->LAX 2 1/2 hrs
Layover 4 hrs

LAX->Hong Kong 15 hrs
Layover 2 hrs

Hong Kong->Jakarta, Indonesia 7 hrs

Upon arrival in Jakarta, the capital, we will be staying there for 3 days to rest and recover. From there we will travel a few more hours to our final destination, a small town in Central Java. Some friends there have already been working to set up a house for us and we look forward to sharing pictures with you once we see it our selves.

Stay tuned!

Please pray that our passports with Visa stamps come back from the Indonesian consulate in San Francisco. Without them we can’t go.

Also, this transition is not the easiest for any of us, so please pray that amidst transition we would remain patient and compassionate with one another as we make this move.

It is amazing how one little stamp on our passports means the difference between going to Indonesia and not going. We are still eagerly waiting for the proper papers to come through allowing us to study language in the country. So far that has not happened. We are told it will happen soon. With July 5th days away we are waiting in eager anticipation.
Please pray with us that this would happen quickly and we would not run into any roadblocks.