Our Time is Coming to an End

Our family is now in the last stages of our time here in Salatiga before we head to the island of Papua. That means that we are finishing up the packing, starting to say good-bye to our beloved friends and doing all of our favorite things just one more time. And since this is a pretty high expat area we also found ourselves helping other people move onto their next destination as well. Which is what we ended up doing a large part of two weeks ago for a family and we are learning the benefits of having a large front porch. As the family that we helped move was not able to get everything into their container we were able to offer them our porch as a storage area. And then that storage area turned into a work area as they made three extra crates that would allow the rest of the remaining furniture be shipped to there destination.

At the moment we have about a week left here before we take a small family vacation then we return to our house for just enough time to fill our own container and then send it on the way. We are looking forward to completing this next move but it is also so hard to say good-bye to everyone. Thankfully we got to be here for the end of Ramadan which is called Idul Fitri which will allow us time to visit with our neighbors and learn more about this holiday as well. We just had a hard time getting to sleep as it is a very noise time as well!!!

Along with all those activities Greg had the special honor of standing in for our friends daughters baptism that they could not attend. It felt a little strange to us when they explained the situation but also a great honor to be a part of the the event. They have become such dear friends and we will dearly miss them when we leave. Please keep our family in your prayers as we prepare to leave and make the adjustment to another Island which means the kids will be attending a new school, Greg will be going back to work, I will have to learn where to shop again, and just adjust to a whole new environment.

Stuff ready and waiting for our sea container to arrive.

Smaller stuff waiting for a home insides a piece of furniture.

Building the box to secure our motorcycles in the sea container

Box finished and waiting

The other family's stuff that just won't fit in their container.

The crew sorting and sizing up to build the extra creates.

Mbak Fani's Baptism.

Baptism was a local pool after the baptism a lot of the kids went swimming.

The reason her parent couldn't come.

Cooking and filling boxes of food for lunch.

115 boxes loading into the angkota (public bus).

The youth retreat where the food was needed.