Not quite settled

We have definitely been busy in these last three weeks.  I (Will) spent a couple nights in a local hospital with a bacterial infection, which caused us to miss the first three days of language school.  I am all better now, but we are now playing catch-up with learning Indonesian as well as prepping to move.  Right now we are in a dorm facility which is directly across the street from school.  Friends joke that the sidewalk to our gate doubles our commute time (it's 50ft).

We really love it here, but we are definitely excited to move to a house in about two weeks.  I think the hardest thing to leave here will be our hosts who have been in Indonesia for over 20 years and have made us feel very comfortable in this very unfamiliar place.

One of the blessings of being here at language school right now is there are eight other MAF families to help us out.  It is really quite amazing how many things we could not do by ourselves when we first arrived.  Getting food in the refrigerator seems like an easy task right?  Nope.  How bout just going out to eat?  Where am I?  I don't even know how to say food.  You kind of get the idea?

All the MAF families in Salatiga, Indonesia attending language school

Seven families are represented by these babies.  We are huge fans of the anak (child) on the far right.

Although we have not been starving, we do have a ways to go before we can do things on our own.  Part of the beauty of the community here is that everyone wants to help and constantly let's us know it.  That goes for expat and Javanese friends alike.

Although we have had a lot of fun here so far, it has been hard leaving Gracie with a helper while we are in class.  She is at school with us, but in another room.  Please pray that Gracie would continue to adjust well to this new environment and schedule.  We have been very thankful for the last couple nights of her sleeping through the night again, which is awesome considering how tiring life is even with eight hours of sleep.

Thank you again so much for all of your prayers for our family during this transition.  We will post pictures of our house when we get settled.

Gracie on her 6 month birthday staying dry from the downpour with dad.

Nan at the pasar (market) getting some coconut.

Recent Pictures

So in no order at all here are some more pictures from our other camera that we wanted to share with everyone.  Some from before we left and some from our travels to Salatiga.

One of our final speaking presentations to an awesome group at New Heights Church

Gracie's Dedication

Just a few of the goodies we got on the planes

One of the many meals on Singapore Air

Getting our last Krispy Kreme at the Jakarta Airport

We made it!

The Grant family on the SkyTrain in Singapore at 3:30am

It's just too bad if you want heat while driving.

Family Picture in Singapore

So that's it for now.  Thanks for looking.  We are quickly finding out that blogging while here in Indonesia could really be a full time job.  For instance I could do a whole write up on the 15 high school girls that came to our door during lunch to get a picture with a foreigner for a school project.  Let me clarify that each girl got their picture taken separately with us and then in a group.

Just got out of the hospital yesterday.  That story is to come...

We Arrived!

The view out our window from the Triniti Hotel in Jakarta

We got in to Jakarta on Wednesday around 7:30am... And guess what? All our bags arrived!!! Praise the Lord! We were met by MAF staff at the airport and we shared our first "meal" a waffle with ice cream and chocolate sauce :) it was quite good. Will was brave and immediately jumped in and was doing his best to thank people in indonesian...

This was a snippet of one of our cab rides while in Jakarta.

Our flights were incredible! Singapore air provides your choice of drink what seemed like every 5 minutes... Full meals every few hours and they were really good. They were so concerned with our stomach being filled, they woke Will up out of a deep sleep to feed him. We had a few people lean over to let us know the noodles should be dipped in the sauce as Will started to pour his sauce over his noodles. This got a good giggle out of the people next to us. Then they demonstrated the proper way, and we immitated :) i'm sure that will be the first of many things we will use gestures to learn! The stewardess gave Gracie bags of diapers, wipes, baby food, coloring books, a stuffed Shrek head, blankets... She was pampered! And such a good little flyer. She did wonderfully and only had one melt down as we decended into Singapore and her little ears started popping and she was so panicked she wouldn't nurse. Finally when she did start nursing she fell asleep...

We had an hour and a half to get off our plane from PDX, sprint over to LAX international terminal to check in, and then go through security.  Unfortunately the computers were down so boarding passes were being written by hand for the whole flight (Airbus 380).  Fortunately it started working again, but we were still at the back of the line.  Thankfully we made it to our plane with 5 minutes to spare.  I would have videoed the running we did but Nan was smoking me while she pushed the stroller...awesome.



In Jakarta we took a taxi to our hotel. We wove through the jakarta traffic in which the two lanes do not apply :) Nan held her breathe the whole drive as car pass within an inch of each other. We are so thankful! We ordered our lunch and were fighting sleep trying to make it until at least 7 pm. We decided to take a 30min nap around 2 pm. We had only slept 3 hrs maybe since our departure from PDX. Will said he wasn't going to sleep so i didn't need to set an alarm... Needless to say, we woke up at 11pm only because Gracie started to wimper to be fed. We fed her and then went down for another 4 1/2 hours... We woke up for good around 330 am... An hour later we heard the first call to prayer.

Gracie is doing wonderfully! She is adored by the Indonesians. Everywhere we go people stop to coo over her and chat in Indonesian. It is darling bc she LOVES them! She could be crying and the moment they come see her she giggles and coos back.




Each day we are here we are more and more comfortable. We look forward to starting language school on Monday which will improve our vocabulary above four words. We are in a dorm across the street from language school (IMLAC) which is great considering we do not have anything but feet for transportation. We will be here for about a month until an MAF house opens up.




Yesterday Will had a chance to ride into town with a seasoned language school MAFer who was able to show him where to go to pay bills such as electric, phone, internet, and water. He did his best to pay attention to the route and not the traffic as he road on the back of the motorcycle. As different as the driving is here there is a good flow to it and everyone understands that we are just trying to get from point A to B so hardly anything is taken personally. We are still just amazed how much texting goes on while driving scooters. Good stuff ;)




Thank you again everyone for all your prayers. There are many changes that come with moving here, it is encouraging to know all the prayer warriors we have.

Gracie and Nan all dressed up for our first church service in Indonesia.