What In the World Am I Doing Here?

     About a month ago Greg and I once again found ourselves attempting to unpack boxes and set up house which is always a crazy time. Add on the that the fact that we had to make a quick trip back to Jakarta for visa paperwork. And while there we discovered that Franklin had broken his collarbone weeks ago and we had not ever noticed. Needless to say you could say that we felt a little overwhelmed, stressed, and tired but I will never forget what Greg said to me one night. We were moving boxes around and he looked at me and asked, "what in the world are we doing here? " After looking at each other for a moment I looked as him and said, " we are on the adventure of a lifetime" and then we both broke out laughing ( I think that we were way to tired at that point).

     However, that question stayed with me until the next day as I was trying to drive a truck through traffic and not hit any people, bikes, or moving vehicles. I even repeated the question to myself again. Why am I here trying to drive this vehicle in some crazy traffic trying not get hurt or hurt someone else? How come I have such a love for these people when I still struggle with the language and understanding the culture? How can Greg and I feel so at home in a place that makes no sense to us except that we feel our hearts cry this is where we belong?  Then just as I am about to make a turn that would lead me to the school I almost felt God whispering in my ear "now you know how I feel." This is were I started to cry as the realization hit and made me wonder if  this unexplained love for the people is how Jesus felt while on earth and continues to feel for us. He came and walked with the people, prayed with the people, did miracles right before their very eyes, and even went to the cross and died for us.  

     Man it made me stop and think what it would be like to have that kind of deep, unquenchable love that would stop at nothing. Sometimes I think that God's love for us is so great and amazing that I can not truly grasp it in my human mind.  And that is when it hit me that is truly why our family is here living with the Papuan people. God has chosen our family to love these people to the fullest of our abilities and in showing them that love we in turn will be showing them Christ love. So when Greg is flying those people in and out of remote places or is loading food or building supplies or doing a medical flight he is doing it with a deep love to help the people to see Christ in his actions. When I allow four little boys to take as many berries as they want off my bush or just wave and smile to people as I drive by I am doing it with the deep love that God has placed inside of me. And I have come to notice that is really what people are wanting and longing for. They want to know that they are not invisible and that someone loves them and thinks that they are special. If a person has never felt that way by another human how will they be able to grasp the love and acceptance by a loving heavenly father.  So the next time you see a ministry outreach about to take place or a missionary family about to head or someone is about to do something that just seems out of place and you are about to ask them "why in the world are you doing that?" Think about that unquenchable love and how God has given it to us all for a very special purpose and use.

Blessings

Julie

First MAF Ride Along

 Today I had the privilege of riding along with Tim into the interior of Papua.  Flight days tend to start early around here for a couple reasons the main one being weather.  Here in the tropics weather tends to build throughout the day making the earlier flights safer and easier.  If it means getting into an airplane a 4:25 am alarm clock is not so bad.  Arriving at the airport around 5:00 am for final flight preparations and pre-flighting the airplane and depart at 6:00 am.  Our first flight took us to Ilu were we dropped off a Caravan load of chairs for a local Church there.  On the return trip there was a bit of confusion as at first we heard there was a lady having difficulty in child labour but never showed up so we took two other gentlemen instead that were there at the airplane wanting a ride back to Sentani.  There was also talk of us picking up some others at Mulia as well which as another community about 7 miles away from Ilu.  That however changes as we are were overhead preparing to land they contacted us to tell us that they didn't have anyone for us to pickup so we turned for home to drop off our two passengers and pickup our next load.  

 Our second flight we carried a full load of mixed supplies and one passenger to Bime.  The first 3 pictures were taken while on the approach into Bime.  The first 2 are of what looks like a new runway under construction near to where we were headed.  The approach for Bime is one of the more challenging ones in Papua mainly because if one needs to abort the landing it requires a quick right turn and then a left turn of more than 180 turn safely back out.  All that to say it will be a while before they send me here which is okay by me.

Lying next to the plane was the cargo that we were taking back to Sentani along with 11 passengers, and yes that is a pig, hog tied (no pun intended) by Tim's feet.  This stop was a little stressful to say the least as we had weather moving in, one to many passengers, some confusions regarding tickets and total money required.  Thankfully Tim was dealing with that and I was basically just along for the ride.  That being said Tim did asked me to help make sure that everyone was seated and had their belts on correctly which also meant the children and infants needed to have a kiddy belt on.  I was doing okay helping the one mother in the back with her toddler next however was a mother nursing her baby that needed help.  Yes, a little awkward for this prairie boy, thankfully there was a local young man helping someone else up front that came back to rescue me, by taking over the explanation and helped the mother put the kiddy belt on her child.

PS: Pigs do not like the start up procedure, as soon as Tim hit the starter the pig started to wiggle and squeal, but once the engine was running couldn't hear it anymore but also didn't feel him move around much after that as well until we landed in Sentani.

Flowing with Change

Greetings dear friends and family,

General Update

Well this month has been filled with change.  At the start of the month we were still living at the MAF guesthouse next to the airport waiting for work permits and our stuff from Salatiga.  Well when it rains it pours here not only literally but figuratively as well.  Monday Sept 8 our stuff arrived which meant moving time to our house assignment up at Pos 7.  So we unloaded all our stuff and Julie had the day off from teaching so she headed to the house which wasn't quite ready as it needed a good cleaning.  That same day we got word that we needed to go back to Jakarta as our visa/work permit had come through.  It was decided we would go to Jakarta the following Monday and we could use that week to move into the house.  Praise the Lord all of our stuff made it and was in relatively good shape.  We are still waiting for paperwork before we can resume using our bike & scooter from Salatiga, hopefully it won't be to much longer for that paperwork to arrive.  In the mean time I bought a "homemade" trail bike that I'm using when it wants to work and Julie has learned to drive a manual car from the right side and she uses that when needed, (I've been using it to when required but I still prefer my bike even with it's unreliable nature). We are mostly moved in but still have a few things that haven't found a home and a few things that we can't find, that probably were left behind in Canada thinking we didn't need them. All in all we are settling in pretty good.

Franklin's collar bone continues to heal well.  This past week I've seen him reading a somewhat large book all on his own which was very cool to see.  We also got the report from his time in Singapore yesterday so Julie has started to read through it and see what we can implement at home to help his continual learning process.

Isaac is enjoying school and he has enjoyed the fact that Julie is often at the school for lunch and recess.  He scored 100% on a science test the other day which he was pretty excited about.  Math is still a struggle but it seems to be a bit better than last year for him.

Jaclynn is doing pretty good in school as well.  She is however complaining that she can't play as much and doesn't get as many fun activities this year in school.  I guess we forgot to tell her that every year school is going to get harder with higher expectations on studying.

Julie is doing amazing work keeping the house in order and teaching Franklin his acidemic courses.  Since I've started to report to work everyday I haven't been able to keep up on the dishes like before.  It seems that Franklin is picking up some of that slack.  She also put together a chore list today which I hope will help lighten her load as we work together as a family to keep house.


Greg's Work Update

In the MAF Papuan program the new standard for pilots is to start training in the Kodiak.  There are several good reasons for this.  So before we had our work permits to keep busy and productive,  I spent my time reading technical manuals in preparation for maintenance and flight for the Kodiak (and washed the dishes among other domestic things).  And to keep with the title of the blog earlier this week it was decided that the Papua program needed a Caravan driver sooner than another Kodiak driver.  So Tuesday morning I received word that I was being switched over to train in the Caravan instead of the Kodiak.  There was many factors that lead the Papuan management team to this change in directions for me, some of which I'm not privy to.  I'm  however excited about the change other than I had to restart all the reading and start working through the Caravan manuals.  The Kodiak is a great plane and someday in the future (likely on our second or third term) I look forward to flying it as well.  Since receiving a new set of manuals to read I was able to get through most of reading material for maintenance and a fair chunk of the flight related reading along with some hanger flying, all in all a good week. Not sure what all of next week will look like, Monday I will go on my first ride along flight into the interior which I'm excited about and then later in the week there is a Caravan coming from Timika for an inspection which I might have the privilege of working on.  The check out process will take 9-12 months depending on many things after which we will be posted to one of the other 4 bases in Papua for the foreseeable future.  The process for me to get checked out for solo operations is a long and what might seem laborious process, it is however for good reasons.  Papua's mountains are littered with aluminum (airplanes) of those that were unprepared and under trained, there are also a few of experienced veterans that let their guard down as well.  All that to say MAF has a well laid out training program to prepare and train me and other new pilots with the skills and attitudes required to get me home at the end of the day or next day if an overnight is required.

As we continue to flow with change please continue to up hold our family in your prayers.  

The following are some picture from when we first opened our crates that beat us to Sentani from Nampa.  Also some pictures from moving day and around our yard at the house in Pos 7.

Crates

One happy boy

Dinning/living room moving day.

Kitchen moving day.

Jaclynn's room moving day.

 

Pak Yerri, our night guard and yard keeper.

Pineapples.

Pineapple garden.

Mulberry tree.

Youth rec center next door.

Me installing our bedroom A/C

Sehari-hari Salatiga

The following video is a small look at some of what life was like for our family while in Salatiga this past year.  I apologize it does have a few small editing errors that I didn't have time to fix as I only had a short window to get it up on the web while we were in Jakarta.

Before we get to the video, here is a quick family update.  All the visa stuff is finished so once I return to Papua in the morning I can start getting my hands dirty which I'm excited about.  During our trip to Jakarta for visas, Franklin noticed that his left collar bone looked different and after showing it to Julie and talking with some very wise people here it was decided that Franklin and I would stay another night so that we could get a doctor to look it over in the morning while Julie and the other 2 kids went home on schedule.  I'm happy to report that they made it back safe and sound.  For Franklin, we were able to get into see the doctor first thing this morning and learned that his collar bone was broken and was already well into the healing process.  So nothing at this point in time needs to be done other than Franklin has to be careful and no more falling off play structures and the like.  We are not 100% sure when but we think he broke it about 6 weeks ago when we were on vacation in Jepara.  Our family was enjoying a banana boat ride altogether until it came to a very quick end dumping all of us in the shallow waters near the beach.  All five of us had something hurting and for Franklin it was his left shoulder.  His fall in Sentani didn't seem to have a sore shoulder related to it but I'm sure it wasn't good for it.  So Franklin and I are heading back to Sentani tonight and will join the rest of our family tomorrow morning.

I hope to have some more photos and videos maybe soon as I get my hands dirty and possibly see what Papua looks like from the air as well.  Hope you enjoy this short clip from what some of our life in Salatiga was like.  Sentani, Papua is quit different so I will work at putting together another video maybe for next year or the next time I'm in a location with internet that is capable of me uploading a video to our blog.

Sehari-hari Short from Greg on Vimeo.

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.