Beach Trip with Isaac

Thursday morning Isaac and I headed out on our beach adventure.  We enjoyed a nice uneventful drive to the beach which is always a blessing with these roads and traffic.  Leaving the house around 9:30 am and with some leisurely stops we made it to the beach around 2:00 pm  We started our stay eating at a local warung makan which is kind of like a local diner in America but a lot more rustic in methods and style, which fits my personalty well.  Isaac and I well mostly I enjoyed a simple dish of nasi goreng which is a standard meal of fired rice.  Usually Isaac really likes nasi goreng but this time it was a little to spicy for his liking.  We then took some time to explore around the beach and examine some shoreline creatures.  The weather wasn't quite as nice as my previous trip with Franklin.  The waves were bigger, windy, and overcast but Isaac still had a blast.  We spent the night there and Isaac slept well as he has a knack for sleeping anywhere.  In the morning the tide was high and the waves were even bigger than the first day. Isaac gave me a couple good scars but he did pretty good obeying and staying in the shallows.  Around 10 am we were back on the road heading for home with another thankfully uneventful trip.  Well almost uneventful I saw my first live snake here in Indonesia crossing the road in front of us and it was a big one too spanning half the road.  Below are a few pictures of our adventure at the beach.

Selesai Hari Ini

As the title states "Complete Today" meaning that the "day" has arrived for me (Greg) to be finished my formal language training.  10 months ago when we arrived in Salatiga I didn't think this day would come but here it is.  Wow praise the Lord for His goodness!

The next two months will be filled with packing, goodbyes, and some traveling for Julie and Franklin.  Next Monday Julie and Franklin will be traveling to Singapore for some testing and evaluations for Franklin.  We are hoping to receive some information on how to help Franklin learn easier.

July 13th we are planning on loading a container with our belongings here that we want to take to Papua.  This will include our furniture and motorbikes and odds and ends.  After all our stuff is sent on it's way Julie will do her best to finish up her language studies as well we will be able to visit our neighbors some without distraction of packing for a few days before we follow our stuff to Papua.

Textbooks and notes can be packed away now.

Not sure when this box will be opened again?

Celebration supper at my favorite local diner.

Enjoying my favorite dish at my favorite spot.  Babi Kecap fried pork with a sweet sauce on top of white rice and cucumbers.

When I am weak then He is strong

I think that the title of this post can best explain how these last few weeks have been for our family. And I am so blessed that I can recall those words and allow God to give me the strength for the task that He has put in front of us. So much has happened in the course of only three short weeks that I still can't believe that it was all accomplished. Our two younger children finished their school year off and that means that they are know adjusting to being home everyday. Franklin is finding this a little hard as he still has to work through the rest of this month before he is done but I think that it is helping that mom and dad are still in school. Along with the ending of the school year the children have said good-bye to some very close friends which is never easy no matter your age. We have helped load containers for two MAF families and sent them on the way to their assignments and have welcomed one new family to Indonesia. With one more family due here in about two weeks and then one family will be leaving for their assignment at the end of the month. Greg completed unit eight and is now almost half way through his last unit. While I (Julie) completed unit 6 this past week and then began unit 7 as well. Through all of this we have been in the process of lining up some testing for Franklin that required a mountain of paperwork to be filled out for that to happen. And it looks like Franklin and I (Julie) will be making a trip to Singapore next month for this testing. And we are still trying to be out among our neighbors and friends and try to be a blessing to them as much as we can. The people here are so precious and like all our previous moves we are not looking forward to saying goodbye. And we hope that our time with them has planted seeds into their hearts that God will continue to help grow.

And for those of you who know us well our summer would not be complete without a big move involved as that is what we have done the last four years. So not wanting to break with tradition our family will be leaving Salatiga on August 4 and will be moving to the Island of Papua. That means that we have now add to our to do list, packing. Also in the month of August we will have hit the four year mark of being with MAFC which is really hard to believe.

Here are some prayer request for us during these last two months on the island of Java:

*  That everyone will be able to finish strong with school and not loss heart as even though we will be done with school the learning will still be coming on.

*  Safety for Julie and Franklin as they travel to Singapore sometime in the month of July.

*  Please pray for our support levels which seem to have dropped over these last few months.

Out With The Old And In With The New

Maybe a little cold heart-ted my title but it kind of fits.  These next couple weeks will mark some big changes here in Salatiga as we say goodbye to a couple families and welcome another new one.  We still try to patiently wait news of when we will look forward to packing as well.  Did I just say "look forward to packing" I must be not feeling well maybe Julie needs to feel my forehead.  This up and coming move will be like many of our moves before as we look forward to our next place of service yet we will have to say the hard goodbyes to many friends here in Salatiga as well.  We hope that this next week we will have some direction on when we will be heading east to Papua.  We are in communication with a number of people as we need to sort out some planning issues ahead of time regarding what we need to try and accomplish before moving on to Papua.

A prayer request attached to this is we can exercise patients as we wait for feed back in regards to different issues that have recently come up.  Nothing serious just some extra details that may effect our move date.  Once we have a date we can begin to seriously look at how to ship our furniture that we have acquired during our time here in Salatiga, and order our appliances and the like.  Prayer in regards to this is that the Lord would give us wisdom and discernment as to how to balance between what we need, want, and what is excessive.

One of the major of these minor issues is we are trying to decide on, is whether or not to take Franklin to Singapore for some testing which may or may not give us more information as to how to help and continue Franklin's learning process.  We are concerned that the testing will only prove what we already know and give us tools that we may already have as well.  If the testing reveals new information and or provide us with more tools to add to what we have it will be worth the money spent.  We have seen some huge improvements in Franklin's abilities particularly in the area of reading this year.  The other option and possible thought that has come up is to send Julie on a 2-3 week course that will give her training in a technique that Franklin has been taught with by a fellow teammate this year which seems to be the key that has started to unlock Franklin's reading.  This summed up please pray that we have wisdom concerning if there will be significant value in the Singapore testing to proceed or say no.  Either way that peace would fill our hearts once the decision is made.

Telomoyo Sunset

Telomoyo Sunset from Greg on Vimeo.

Creation Calls

Creation Calls from Greg on Vimeo.

Finally figured out how to upload to Vimeo so other who don't have Facebook can enjoy as well.

What's New?

Well looking back over the last couple weeks we have had a few new experiences here in Indonesia.  And even more recently today and yesterday for the first time we have had a bunch of Indonesian kids in our yard playing with our kids.  It was a little strange yesterday as Julie and I went for a quick shopping trip to a couple close by Toko's or stores.  And when we left the house, our neighbor was in the back yard trimming the grass as he usually does a couple times a week, and our kids were inside the house doing their usual thing of either watching a movie or playing a video.  Then upon returning home we found our backyard had acquired several kids playing with a soccer ball.  However, to our dismay our kids were still inside still in-groused in their activities.  But with some strong encouragement from mom and dad the kids went outside and enjoyed playing with all the kids.  Then again today our yard became a playground for a few Indonesians and Franklin as well as he was home at the time.  I'm very glad to see our kids playing these past couple days with local kids.  I'm unsure of what changed yesterday from never seeing locals come into our yard to having them enter in these past couple days on their own initiative.  I'm hoping over time this will continue and provide some much needed interaction for our kids with the local kids.

Two weeks ago I think I (Greg) also set a personal record for the number of kilometers driven here in a single week.  It started with Franklin and I heading to the south coast to find us a beach.  Then upon our return a friend of ours wanted to road test a bike he had just recently bought so I gladly jumped at the chance to ride with him around the lake that is not to far from Salatiga.  So him and I set out Friday morning for a ride around the lake with a detour through a mountain pass over to one of his favor spots to eat.  Then Saturday morning our neighbor was taking some of his goats to market to sell and then find some more valuable replacements.  So on the spur of the moment him and I were headed to a traditional market not to far from town but far enough to add another 30kms or so to my weeks total.  Then later that same day our friends from our first house SMS me and asked if I wanted to go to Kopeng.  Not sure what happen between the time I said sure to the time I arrived to head to Kopeng with them.  And at first I was a bit confused as to what or where we were going as Pak Trisno (husband) road with me on my bike and Ibu Surati (Pak Trisno's Wife) road with a friend on their bike and we weren't very long traveling together before my friend Pak Trisno mentioned we can go faster than them as we have further to go.  Turns out we ended up in Magelang to visit a high school friend of Pak Trisno.  Kopeng is about a 20-30 min ride depending on weather and traffic, Magelang a little over an hour if traffic and weather are good.    It was a great week of bike riding around Central Java.  All in all I racked up a little over 600Kms which may not seem like lots but take in consideration the average speed I likely traveled at would between 40-50km/hr.  My bikes top speed if conditions are favorable 90km/hr and occasionally and very rarely 100km/hr.  It likes 70-80Km/hr but most times the traffic and roads don't allow for sustained high speed travel.

Last week was a busy week as well I started back to school for unit 8 of 9.  Julie was busy studying as well with a couple of days break because her tutor was busy with some special activities at her university centered around an international theme.  Which Julie was also involved as she was asked to cook and bring some Canadian food.  She made some very tasty homemade butter tarts.  I heard from somewhere that there might have been a bad one or two so I took it upon myself to eat as many as I could to find the bad ones before she started to give them away to strangers.  Sadly, I failed finding the bad ones but I did enjoy all the good ones I ate.  Along with this special event at the university we along with some other families from different parts of the globe were invited to the Mayors house for supper Thursday evening.  I'll be honest I was a little nervous as a simple farm boy from Canada, it was intimidating trying to prepare myself with what to wear, what would be good to talk about.  Not only am I immersed in a foreign culture, then to add a meal with a person of higher social standing increases this farm boy's stress level.  All in all the event went well from my stand point.  I wasn't the most under-dressed person nor was I over dressed either.  Our kids were basically the only kids there and for the most part they behaved great, that is up until picture time.  There are more then a couple pictures taken with our kids making funny faces or actions, or another way to put it they photobomb a bunch of pictures.  Not sure if "photobomb" is an official word but it was the new word I learned that evening.  Even here I'm learning new English words on occasion.

Well this blog is looking a little long winded so I will close with a few pictures, sorry not all of what I've mentioned are recorded in photographs but what I have I share. For beach pictures you can find them on the previous post.

Mountain village

My friend and his new bike.  (Which he sold again shortly after this trip.)

Julie's butter tarts. 

New Friends from the university.

Julie's new favorite household pet.

Livestock Market

Cattle area at the local market

Same market but the goat section

Livestock Market

Tofu Factory

Anyone hungry?

Small house business/factory setting.

Mayor's house.

Traditional Javanese dance.

This was after the dinner at the Mayor's house.