August the month of Anniversaries

This August we celebrate some exciting anniversaries for our family.

The big one being the very special day which happened on the 28th, 15 years ago my soul mate said "I do"  yep 15 years already, some days it feels like it was just yesterday.  On a side and hopefully only funny note our visas expire the same day but so far we haven't been told we need to leave the country, not necessarily the ideal way to celebrate a 15th year anniversary fleeing the country.  Okay "fleeing" probably not the best word choice but it's more dramatic.  I think we will enjoy a nice quiet supper without any children and maybe once things settle down for us as in we are adjusted moved into our house etc. we'll plan a bigger night on the town and maybe spend a night away in Jayapura or something like that.

The next exciting day was on the 23rd which marked 4 years with MAF.  Over the course of these past 4 years we been on such a amazing journey that it is hard to know where one would begin.  We are so thankful for all those that God has place in our path along the way many of whom have journeyed with us through prayer, friendship, financial support and so forth.  There have been many challenges faced, physical, spiritual, emotional and along with the many challenges we have seen amazing blessings and triumphs.  We are by no means on the same level as Paul but I want to borrow his words to express our thankfulness to all those that have and continue to walk with us.
Philippians 1:1-5 (NASB with personalized wording) 
¹ The Dole family, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Canada & USA, including the overseers and deacons:
² Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
³ I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,
⁴ always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all,
⁵ in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.

And related to our time with MAF August 5th marked our one year anniversary here in Indonesia.  We really enjoyed our time in Salatiga making many good friends there during our time.  Our hope is that here in Papua we will be able to continue on building new life long relationships that will have an eternal impact.

On a side note just a quick update on the family.  The kids are all doing well and enjoy school.  We are very glad we were able to make it in time for them to start the first day of classes.  Julie and the kids are up at the school from 7:10am-3:15pm Mon-Fri.  We are still waiting on work permit/visa so I can start working.  In the meantime however I've been spending my time with running a few errands and reading manuals and handbooks.  My hope is that I will have all the reading out of the way before our work permits come through so I can start straight away getting my hands dirty so to speak.  We are also still waiting for our stuff from Java to show up at which point we will be moving across town into a very nice house.  The Lord is good and we look forward to what is ahead for us this year.

Sentani

Around 4:30 a.m. there is normally a very distant and faint call to prayer heard then sometime around 5:30ish the sound of turbines spooling up as airplanes get ready for their morning flights is heard now.  That is right we are not in Salatiga anymore!!! In Salatiga we heard the calls to prayer which were rather close and rather loud at times and rarely an airplane was ever heard.  As we move on to Sentani we do however leave behind some great friends. These are just a few of our dear friends from Salatiga that I was able to find photos of.

Salatiga Team

Pak Aryono and Ibu Yani.

My older brother Pak Sutrisno and his family.

We arrived in Sentani Saturday morning off the red eye from Jakarta.  The kids hit the ground running making new friends quickly with the other MK's here in Sentani.  We got a tour around the area and later in the evening they welcomed our family and another new family also from Canada with a group pizza party.  The party however was cut a little short after Franklin took a dive off the top level of the playground bouncing a couple times on the way down.  Praise the Lord however he came away with only some scrapes and bruises.

Base Playground

Home sweet home for the next few weeks

Guesthouse common area.

The next few weeks we will be living in the MAF guesthouse until our stuff from Java arrives. After which we will move to Pos Tujuh (Post 7) a community that was previously used by Gen. MacArthur during WWII to house his staff.  The kids started school yesterday and are enjoying it for the most part except getting Isaac ready on day 2 was a bit of challenge. Hopefully he will adjust to the new routine soon.

Isaac and Jaclynn off to school.

The school bus (not all school buses are yellow)

Franklin and Julie hard at their studies day one too.

Julie and I have had a tour around the MAF facilities here so it wouldn't be right if we didn't at least share a few photos as well so you can get a small taste of what things look like here.

Main entrance

Kodiak on the flight line

Caravan on the flight line

Old retired 206's waiting for a container to ship back to the US

I'll try and take some more pictures and add to the tour in later blogs.  One of my favorite parts of the tour was the book case full of Bible translations that MAF has been apart of helping become a reality through supporting those that have faithfully worked through the translation process over the past 60 years here in Papua.  I will have to take another picture however the first attempted didn't pan out.

Blessings to all that have and continue to walk this journey together with our family.

the dole clan

The Container Day

Not sure what to say outside of what the pictures say.  Sunday morning we had a 20' sea container arrive and we filled it with our furniture and belongings along with 3 other families that shared with us.  We had lots of wonderful help from our team mates as well as Indonesian friends.  We started around 8:45am and finished the main stuff around 1:00 and since we still had some room I ran downtown and bought a fridge and freezer.  We weren't sure if we were going to have space so we held off buying until we knew for sure.  It all fit and hopefully in the next 5 weeks we will be reunited with it in Sentani.  We made it safely to Jakarta today and will be spending the next few days here.  We are tentatively booked to fly to Sentani Thursday night around 11:50pm arriving around 8:00am Friday.  But we are waiting on some visa issues to be sorted out first so our stay in Jakarta might be extended.  We had some hard goodbyes to say, I'm thankful that I can say that I left a piece of my heart there just like our past moves from Alberta, Manitoba, Michigan and Idaho as well.  We had a great time in Salatiga with all the highs and lows this past year.  We are looking forward to Papua with fear and trembling as we go through another transition from normal to unfamiliar territory again but also knowing that a new normal will develop again soon or later in Papua as well. The following pictures are a collection from our filling the container day.  

Blessings Thank you all for continuing on with us through this journey serving our Lord and Savior here in Indonesia.  We couldn't be doing this without you being apart of our team through prayer support, financial support, encouraging cards a letters and so forth.

One Year Ago/Twelve Years Ago

Greetings,  Wow one year ago August 5th we landed in Indonesia.  Not only did we get to celebrate our 1 year in Indonesia at the beach we got to celebrate Franklin's 12th birthday.  August seems to be the month for change for our family.  Almost every year for the past 6 years except maybe one year our family has moved, or had a major career change in the month of August.  So keeping with times after we return from our short vacation here on the north shore of Java we will pack our sea container with our belongings and head to Papua next week.  Monday we will be flying to Jakarta for a few days for paperwork and visa processing things and later in the week likely Thursday night we will make the final leg of our journey to Papua and arrive sometime there Friday morning.  Then hopefully in the weeks to follow our stuff will join us there as well.

A little more on our vacation in Jepara (north shore of Java).  We found our self staying at a nice little resort with beach front property and a pool.  Which means we have been doing a lot of swimming.  We also found ourselves a boat ride to a small island off the coast which turned out to be a relaxing walk around an Island.  I was hoping for some snorkeling no luck on that one.  But maybe in Papua I'll be able to find someone that knows the right places to go.  I was able to enjoy a sunrise and a couple sunsets from the beach.  We also made an unforgettable family memory being thrown from a banana boat only minor injuries for most of us :-).

Here are a few pictures for our trip.

Family Photo-shoot

Day 2 at the beach

Not sure what to say on this one :-)

The boys checking out the dock.

Sunset night 2

Sunrise day 3

Cursing to Pulau Panjang (Long Island)

Buildings on Pulau Panjang

A tree looking like a snake wrapping around another tree.

Strolling around Pulau Panjang.

Some of the beach on the island.

Vegetation in the center of the small island.

Around 45 minutes to circumnavigate Pulau Panjang. 

Get ready to board our ship again to the main land of sorts the Island of Java.

Our sturdy ride.

Kids enjoying the beach near our hotel.

I think Franklin's got a hitchhiker on the back of his boat.

Me watching some small fish swim around my legs

Snake that I happened to see just outside our cottage.

Franklin celebrating the big number 12

In a couple days I'll try and get a post up regarding our move we are in the middle of at the moment.  Blessings from the Dole clan.