Visa Situation

Dear Friends,
We wanted to send out a brief e-mail to give you an update on our status and ask for your prayers. As many of you know we had originally planned to leave for Indonesia on October 2nd, when our visas didn’t come through we pushed it to October 30th. Today is October 31st and we are still enjoying the warm fall weather in Houston. While we have enjoyed this additional time with friends and family we are anxious to start this newest chapter in our lives. With the Holidays rapidly approaching we are hoping that the Lord with bring our visas through early this week. If they do not come in by Wednesday there is a strong possibility that we will be delayed till after the Holidays. Would you please pray that if it is the Lord’s will that He would allow our visas to be approved this week? We know it is in His hands and we desire His perfect will but our hearts long to begin our ministry in Indonesia. Thank you to all of you who have stood by us, prayed for us and continue to pray for us. We cannot do it without you!

Daniel and Becky Perez

Happy Birthday, Joe!

My Baby is two today!!We started the morning with some special birthday pig pancakes.

Joe blowing the candles out on his pig pancakes!


We actually had Joe's party two weekends ago because we had planned on moving out of the country tomorrow! But, our visas didn't come in, so we are not leaving tomorrow.

This is the train cake I made for Joe. It was fun to make and not too hard for me as I am NOT a cake maker.

A view from the back.

We had the party at my parents' house complete with a train bouncy house. Everyone got in on the fun of jumping, especially Reece!

Joe bouncing!

Mommy and the birthday boy!

We opened Joe's presents outside. He got a train set, so all the kids had fun playing with the trains, jumping and eating snacks. I'm so glad we had a pretty afternoon to play outside.

Taking a rest after some big jumping with cousins Rowan and Jacob.

Jazzy and Reece taking a juice box break.

Abigail showing one of Joe's trains.

"Happy birthday to JOE!"

Family Picture! I can't believe Joseph is already two!! I miss him being a cuddly baby, but this is such a fun age for him because his speaking ability is exploding! He is talking SO much, using complete sentences, and singing songs. Some of his favorites are "Jesus loves me," "Twinkle twinkle little star," "Old MacDonald," "He's got the whole world in His hands," "Rock-a-bye baby," and "SNAP that monkey right outta that tree!" He LOVES to play trains now, which is really the only toy he has much interest in. He would rather be running around outside or throwing rocks into water (I think that is his favorite thing of all to do). He is just now getting his 2 year molars in with out any complaint that I can tell. We tried to take the front off his crib so he could transition to a big boy bed since that's what he'll have in Indonesia, but it didn't go so well, so we ended up putting the crib back together at 11pm at night!

We are SO thankful for this sweet, funny, loving, silly, smart boy in our lives. WE LOVE YOU JOE MAN! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! :-)

Floating the Guadalupe

Last week we took advantage of the "off-season" rates in New Braunfels and we stayed two nights by the river. I used to do this with my family all the time as a kid, so I really wanted to do this with my family before we left for Indonesia.

This is Daniel and the kids walking down the path to the pool and river.
This is the view of the condos from the pool. It was so much nicer than we expected, and we were so excited to get away for a few days.

The water was pretty cold in the river, but the kids didn't seem to notice. They splashed and had fun!

Reece by a really big tree!

The pool had a beach entry, which was nice because the kids could splash around with out us actually getting in because the water was freezing cold!!! The second day, I did get in with Reece for a long time, but it was frigid. I must really love that girl! :)

Having fun, being silly.

Joe was not a huge fan of being cold.

The second day, we rented a raft and floated the Guadelupe river! The weather was so amazing and there was only one other person on the river the whole way (a man fishing). We were going to rent tubes, but the raft worked out so much better for the kids. They were able to move around a little bit and snack a lot! The people we rented the boat from told us that it could take up to 8 hours to get to the pick up point and we did not think our kids would make it 8 hours! We paddled most of the time (with a couple breaks to let the kids splash around) and it only took us a little over 3 hours.

Joe was a little grumpy during some of the boat ride. I think it may have been because he was a little scared of moving around on the boat so he just stood still for a long time and wouldn't move. He eventually warmed up to the boat...as long as he had a snack in hand!

Mommy saying, "Don't smile! Don't smile!" and, of course, he did!

Reece was SOOO excited that the lady at the boat rental place had a pink flower life jacket for her to borrow!

Taking a break splashing in the freezing water. We were trying to see how far out we could make it in the cold. Reece made it farther than me!

Taking a rest. I thought they might feel asleep, but we came up on some rapids, so things got too exciting to rest.

Woo-hoo! We made it to the end! The float trip was such a peaceful trip. I think this was the most fun family vacation we've had yet! We also got to spend some time in a cute little town near-by.

We are so thankful for this time we had together!

Texas Fun!

SO, what do you do if you're supposed to be in the jungle, but your visas didn't come in on time so you are living at your very gracious in-laws home sort of in limbo? You do everything you can to have some good-ole American fun!!

We had been meaning to go to an Astro's game before we moved, but the last game of the season kinda snuck up on us, so we bought tickets to last Sunday's game at 11:00pm on Saturday night! The game was at 1:00pm on Sunday afternoon (pretty much the WORST time to take young children to anything!) but we did it anyway, and had lots of FUN!

This first picture is from Reece's first Astro's game in July 2008.

And this picture is from last Sunday. Still her favorite spot...her Daddy's shoulders.

We spent some time towards the end of the game running down the huge ramps at Minute Maid park.

Joe had lots of cranky "I-need-a-nap-SOOOO-bad" energy to burn off.

Reece taking the lead!

Joe had a fun time, even though he was tired. He enjoyed the baseball for as long as an almost 2 year old boy can sit still, and then he was off climbing over all the chairs and walking up and down the stairs.

ICE CREAM!!

We took one of those bicycle wagon rides from our car to the field. We had never done that before, and it was really fun!

More fun Texan things to come! :-)

Being Flexible

Two Sundays ago, we had our commissioning at Cypress Bible Church. It was a very special morning where we got to see the love and support of all our friends and family come together in one morning. We were prayed for at all three services with a lot of our family present at the middle service and members of our "prayer and care team" at all three services. Our missions pastor shared that "today is a win for the Perez family, Cypress Bible Church and Indonesia!"

We also got to share a tiny bit of our story and how the Lord has been working in our lives for many years to lead us to a life of serving in Indonesia with Mission Aviation Fellowship.
The lyrics to one of the songs we sang that morning really spoke to my heart: "Take my life and let it be all for you and your glory! Take my life and let it be yours! Glory to God!"

SO, after being commissioned TWO weeks ago, why are we still here in the states and not on a plane to Indonesia? I'm glad you asked :) because below is an e-mail that we sent out yesterday to many of our friends and family. If you didn't receive it, here it is again for you to read and get the latest news! :)

Today, October 2, was the day we had originally planned on boarding a plane to Indonesia. Well, we are defiantly not on an airplane right now headed to our new home! We wanted to explain what our delay is all about and what we are up to until we leave.

Our visas are still in Indonesia waiting to be processed by the Indonesian government, so there is really nothing we or anyone else in MAF can do to speed this process along besides pray! Also, some of the leadership in our team in Indonesia is in transition right now, so it is probably better that we are not there right now as the new leaders are getting settled into their new position. By the time we make it there, they will be ready to welcome us into the country and help us get settled. The final reason it seems it's better for us to wait to leave is because the team right now in languages school is so large (8 families, I think) that all the MAF houses are occupied! So, the new leadership is trying to find a house for us to rent our in Salatiga while we are in language school.

We hope now to depart on October 30. This will put us into Indonesia with a couple of weeks to get settled in and then we will begin language school on November 15. The language school there starts in the middle of every month, and MAF wants us to get there about 2 weeks early to get all of our paperwork in order and to get settled into our new home before we start school.

We were disappointed in this delay at first because we are so excited to get to Indonesia, but we can already see a few reasons why the Lord has us waiting. As you can see, there are a few things you can be praying for us:

-visas would come in with plenty of time for us to leave on October 30, if it is the Lord's plan.

-for the new leadership to adjust well to their new role in Indonesia.

-for the perfect house to become available for our family to live in during our 9 months in language school.

In the meantime, we will be in the Houston area and would LOVE to spend time with you. Our weeks are numbered here, so let us know if you want to hang out! We are also finishing up packing our crates and getting all those last minute doctors appointments in. Thank you so much for you r support, love, encouragement and partnership in the journey. We love you all!

Much Love,

Daniel and Becky Perez