How Great is Our God!!!

How you ever woken up one morning and everything just seems to go wrong.  That is how my (Julie) Sunday morning seemed to go as I was looking at our clocks wrong and was an hour behind.  And as most of us know getting your family ready for church can be stressful on any given Sunday without adding to the fact that you are actually an hour behind. Thankfully, I realized my mistake half an hour before church started and we where only about five minutes late. I must say that my children have become great speed walkers these past couple of weeks! On top of this we all of a sudden had no propane for our stove this morning (after just putting in a new propane tank) which can really throw a person for a lope there.  I was especially missing a McDonald's as we did not have any cereal or bread this morning and it is hard to cook eggs without any heat. So thankful for banana bread and apple cake as that is what we found to eat this morning. By the time I arrive at church I am pretty stressed and thinking ahead of how I was going to make lunch without a stove that is working.  And then God  just hits something home that had me in tears.  As we came to the to the part of the song where we began to sing "How great is our God" I realized that I really was putting God in a box and limited what I was allowing Him to do.  If He can move mountains, create the whole world and raise people from the dead  ( just to name a few things) then why in the world am I worrying about Him not being able to help me through my small problems. I am always amazed how God can take little things in our lives and teach us big lessons.  We do serve an Amazing God who is Great beyond description so let us live like we actually believe this deep down in the inner being of our soul!!
And after a great worship time we arrived home and Greg was able to figure out the problem with the stove and we were able to have a warm lunch. How Great is Our God!!!

Back Yard/Front Yard Wildlife

We have the privilege of cohabiting with several different types of animals in and around our house.  So far the only cockroaches I've see have been dead ones that the ants are harvesting for food.  Speaking of ants we have them in all shapes and sizes in and outside the house.  One small green lizard thing (about 8" long) in the back yard that somehow survived about 30-45 mins. of being Tina's play toy (Dog).  I think we have rats in the attic but I am not sure, whatever it is they sound big and tend to be up when we are trying to sleep.  I have managed to get a few pictures of some of the wildlife that is definitely not what we are uses to.  

Small Banana Spider I think.  He was only about the size of a silver dollar.  They get much larger here as friends found one the size of a man's face the other day in their yard.

This guy is a little harder to see.  Had he not moved his throat I probably wouldn't  have seen him.  

The common gecko.  We have these everywhere and the kids are still pretty fascinated with them too.  They help eat some of the bugs so we like them to hang around. 

Glad we found this one on it's back dead today.  It was about 4-5" long.  I have no idea why it was upside down dead on our front porch but that's how and where we found this one.

Same one just flipped over.  We did see a small one about an inch long the first morning we were here it was also taken to the second dimension via a big foot.

We haven't seen any live snakes or large reptiles yet.  So far the only snake was a small very flat 2 dimensional one that didn't make it across the road. One of our family's routines has been gecko watching just before bed as they tend to come out more after the sun goes down.  Usually our side porch has 6 or more running around the roof and walls.  The children's goal is to try and catch a gecko to keep but so far no luck!

Like a Child

These past couple weeks as we have been adjusting and learning bits of the language have gone pretty good.  With only having had a few bumps along the way to make life interesting.  The first bump was we had to make the decision to home school Franklin again this year due to some unforeseen circumstances.  We weren't planning on this and so it was a surprise that shook us a bit but we are getting back on our feet.  Franklin is in pretty good spirits as well as he readjusts his expectations but his heart was broken those first few days.  Isaac and Jaclynn are enjoying school and making new friends but like most children they don't like getting up so early but they well adjust as well :-).  Julie and I have also finished our first two days of language and survived.  We have even learned a few words that are allowing us to communicate a little with people.  Going back to school for language like this however has brought me back to being a child.  It has been humbling and stretching as we try to fumble with this new language and communicate.  During my quite time this morning I was reading in Matthew 19 and as I read verses 13-15 I felt I could relate a bit more with being a child as we are brand new at this and make many mistakes and have the feeling of utter dependency on something or someone other than ourselves, one becomes like a child.
Matthew 19:13-15 (NASB)
13 Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them.
14 But Jesus said, "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
15 After laying His hands on them, He departed from there.

Greg

Traveling Around the World

Calgary airport with all our baggage

1st stop Vancouver

Enjoying some A-Team before boarding our plane to Hong Kong

Hong Kong 2nd stop Monday morning about 6:30am

Finished Breakfast from McDonald's only costing $132.20HKD Which translated to $17.72CAN

Another view from the Hong Kong terminal.

Things kind of got busy and we forgot to take pictures from the Jakarta's airport and Semarang airport.  I will say that the Jakarta airport I think I could safely say they have more A&W restaurants than most small cities in the NA.  So we did enjoy a somewhat familiar meal for supper that afternoon before we boarded our last flight to Semarang.  After we arrived in Semarang we collected all our bags which we are happy to report made the trip without losing a single one along the way at the different connections.  It was then about an hour and a half I think (I slept a lot during the drive) to our home here in Salatiga where we were able to spend our first night in country in our beds for the next while.

Today is our second full day here and Julie is out shopping with some of our friends that have been here for about 6 weeks and have a pretty good feel of the place already.  And later this morning I will be going out to pick up sim cards for our cell phones so we can use them again :).

All in all it has been a wonderful experience so far realizing however that there will be some difficult times ahead. Particularly next week when we start language studies which will both be difficult but will help make day to day life easier.

Here are some pictures of our house for the next 6 months.  The house belong to missionaries whom are currently on furlough in the states. So we are kind of house and dog sitting until they return sometime around the new year.  We will then move to another house that is will be empty as the MAF family that is there now will be moved on to their program.  It's a very nice house with 3 bed rooms and 3 bathrooms which seemed strange but I hear that no two houses are a like here in Indonesia unlike many of our neighborhoods back in NA.  Jaclynn has a small bedroom on the main floor and the boys have the upstairs which has one large room and a bathroom.  Julie and I have a nice size bedroom with an en-suite.  Tile floors through out the whole house.  I'll take some pictures of the interior once we are un-packed a bit more and have less stuff stacked around looking for a home :).

Side Door which we use as our main entrance.

Back of the house where the upstairs is and the boys room.

Also on the back of the house is the laundry equipment and a screened in porch.

Our guard dog Tina.

Front of the house with a small garage.

Street outside our house which can be pretty busy with cars and bikes.

A big tree in our backyard which I haven't yet  figured out what it is yet.

Side yard vegetation