Daniel, Becky, Reece and Joe

www.FullnessofHisGrace.wordpress.com

2011-02-10T03:51:00.000-08:00

I finally made my move!! Keep up with us at:

www.FullnessofHisGrace.wordpress.com

See you there! :-)

Borobudur and Updates

2011-01-31T04:42:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, the four of us took a day-trip to Borobudur, an ancient Buddist temple built in the 800's. It was about a 2 hour trip in the car. We hired a driver to take us there. He is a man that works with MAF people a lot and is good for language practice because he talks...nice....and....slow.... Daniel got a lot of practice since he sat up front the whole time.
The highlight of the trip was definitely the elephant ride! For about $5 per person, you can get a 15 min elephant ride complete with someone else taking your picture for you! It was so neat to be so close to these huge animals. I had no idea how tough their skin is or how they have a kind of prickly hair on them. We got to get right up close and pet them and Reece even fed one a piece of candy! She wasn't scared, but Joe kind of was. I don't blame him! I was a little scared, too!

You can see the temple in the background here. After the elephant ride, we joined the crowd and climbed the steep steps to the top of the temple. I can't even explain to you how many people wanted to touch our kids and get our picture taken with us! It was crazy! That happens sometimes here in Salatiga, but we were overwhelmed with it at Borobudur! Literally, we couldn't stop walking for a second without a crowd forming to take their picture with us. At first, I thought it was kinda fun, but after awhile it was just too much. Our kids were tired and hot and sick of being poked and touched. I hated to be the one white person they've met that was rude, so I tried to be really nice about it and say "no" gracefully!

I have a lot of really great pictures of this trip, but to be honest with you, the blogger web-site and Indonesia have never gotten along very well. Our Internet is fine here and Daniel doesn't have problems uploading pictures to wordpress, so I'm just going to start blaming blogger. I have blogged from here for over four years now, but I think I will have to make a change. This week is our last week of unit 1 in language school, and next week are on break, so I think that is when I will make my move. It's just been so frustrating when every time I have a minute to blog, the pictures don't upload or the whole thing gets erased. Grr!! Most of my blog posts are pictures because I know people want to SEE my kids and SEE what life is like here instead of me just rambling, so I'm hoping wordpress will be more picture and Indonesia friendly.

Quick Update:

-We are finally settled into the house we will live during the rest of our time here. We were in temporary housing for about 1 1/2 months, so it's nice to be settled. Pictures to come...

-We are getting to know our neighbors and able to have basic conversations with them. Some of them are very familiar with people who are trying to learn the language, so they talk really slow and even know a few English words if we get stuck.

-The twins are rapidly expanding my belly! I have always been bad about comparing my belly to others that are about where I am in my pregnancies, but this time it is just sad! :) I feel that I am quickly passing up people who are farther along than me! I just have to keep telling myself it's because I have two, but I really hope it's not all the fried food our helpers make and all the whole milk I drink... :) I hope there is room for the both of them!

-Daniel is having many adventures as usual! One, is that he went to get a hair cut and tried to explain to them how he wanted it...he ended up with a buzz! :) Two, he joined a true Indonesian gym, which he describes as "rustic." I just can't imagine Indonesians working out! They are just so little and thin! :) And, three, he got an invitation from our neighborhood leader yesterday for some kind of event. I will let him explain in further detail, but the letter was all in Javanese, which is the local language here and totally different from Indonesian (we are not learning Javanese). So, we asked our teacher at school what it meant, and he gave us this long explanation of how it was a "M" prayer meeting where they would pray for the souls of the dead and pray for the villagers. He told Daniel that since he got a personal invite, he must go. Well, another one of our MAF neighbors told Daniel later that it was just a birthday party!! SO, either our teacher is playing a trick on us, or there is some kind of misunderstanding. Look out for a blog post from Daniel on that! He is going to check it out tonight!

-The kids love school! They go 3 days a week and stay with our helpers the other two days. They both wish they could go to school 5 days a week, though. It is just cultural that the helpers are more interested in doing their work than actaully sitting down and playing with the kids, so I think the kids get bored. We may start sending them 5 days a week next month.

-We get a report about the kids at the end of each month from the school. Their report said that Reece is a "fun girl" and Joe is a "cute boy." It said Reece loves to read and asks her teacher everyday to read to her (they have a small library in English there). It said Joe is quiet and just walks around and plays by himself all day. And, he always wants to be with Reece (sometimes they separate the big and little kids). It also said that Reece doesn't participate during circle time when they sing songs and do the hand motions. I asked Reece about this and she said it was because she was embarrassed and didn't know any of the songs. This is not like her! We sing and do hand motions to song almost everyday! I asked her teacher today what the songs were, but she said they are all in Indonesian! So, now everything makes sense! I would be embarrassed, too...I actually AM embarrassed because we sing Indonesian songs at MY school and I don't know any of them!

-We swapped our mattress in our new house out with one that wasn't being used in a different MAF house. The old mattress is still in our front room, the the kids' latest game is to get the mattress down and jump on it and do "tricks." Joe even dragged our Indonesian neighbor in yesterday to watch him! He cries if we leave the room because he wants us to watch him, too!

Okay, so that wasn't a quick update. But, there it is. Look for a new post of my big move next week. Hopefully I can fill in the blanks of my ramblings with some good pictures!

Where have you been???

2011-01-21T07:54:00.000-08:00

Sleeping.

That's mainly where I have been! It is so tiring living in a foreign country and trying to learn a new language, so naps and going to bed early are definitely in order here!

PLUS...

I am pregnant with TWINS!! SO, that is really my main excuse for being an absentee blogger for the past few weeks! I have been SO tired, plus, what else to do talk about on a blog if you know you're pregnant with twins but aren't ready to share it with your blogging friends yet!?

For those of you who like the details on subjects like this, I'll elaborate for you a little bit! :-)

We found out the DAY BEFORE we moved to Indonesia that we were pregnant. I was SO happy and excited, but didn't tell anyone but Daniel since it was super early. It was so hard, but we kept it a secret for 3 whole weeks of living here until finally we had some friends of ours (Thanks, Megan and Corey!) help us see a doctor in a near-by town. Megan stayed with the kids while Corey went with us to translate for us. He ended up getting stuck with Daniel and I in the ultrasound room, which I know was really awkward for him! What a friend! :) We went to this particular doctor because he speaks some English and a few women I know have gone to him for their pregnancies. We talked with the doctor for a little bit, and then he proceeds with doing the ultrasound. I am always so nervous at these things because I'm always convinced I'll receive some terrible news. But, we saw the baby and it's little fluttering heart beat, and I was pretty relieved.

BUT

Then I saw something else on the screen fluttering around, and I asked the nice Indonesia doctor, "What is that??" I was pretty sure it was some kind of tumor or terrible growth or something very, very wrong. (I'm so positive, I know...) His first response was to just blow it off as some fuzz on the screen, but then he stopped mid sentence and said, "Do you have a history of twins?"

WHAT?? NO, I do NOT!!

But, there ya go, you have twins! I think he was pretty shocked, too. This weird American lady comes into his office and can't speak a word of Indonesian AND she has two men with her... what's up with that? And now she has twins? Crazy! PLUS, now she is crying and I'm pretty sure not a lot of Indonesians do that sort of thing in front of a doctor. Yep, she's crazy..

The babies first picture. It is just a picture of the screen since they do not print out pictures for you. There is one fluttering blob in the upper right and one fluttering blob that the doctor is pointing to.

Anyway, the rest of the visit was kind of a blur. All I remember is that he kept saying, "Ya, bagus." Which is common to say here. It just means, "yea, good." But, more of in a matter-of-fact sort of way and not so much an excited sort of way.

We were in shock for the next few weeks after that. It was so hard to believe, even when we told our parents, but I was (am) SO nauseous and my belly was already growing, so I knew something was up.

We went back to the doctor yesterday for a check-up and received another good report! I am 14 weeks along and the babies are measuring 13 weeks each. They share a placenta, which means they are identical! So, two boys or two girls. We will probably find out the gender just because we don't have a mall or wal-mart to run to when we have the babies and need to buy the right color clothes! It will take a little more preparation than that. Plus, I think Indonesians always find out what they're having. So they might think we are even weirder if we don't!

We are really excited! We are so overwhelmed that God would choose our family for these babies! It is crazy timing, but HIS timing is perfect! He knew this would happen and it is His plan. There are SOOOO many decisions we have to make about having these babies, and we just pray that we would do just what He wants us to do. The health care here is obviously NOT the same as in America, so we have a lot of research and planning to do.

But, for now, we PRAY a lot, take one day at a time and just praise God for His goodness! Thank you so much for praying for us and being excited with us!

This is the best picture we could get of the both of them yesterday. You can see each of their heads, and feet, and you can see the spine on the one to the right. It is actually two separate shots of the babies individually. They are actually positioned like this right now:

0---< >----0

So their feet are kicking each other. And they were moving so much! My weekly email said they are the size of lemons right now. I'm surprised I can't feel them seeing how much they move already!

Baby #1. Awww, so cute already! :-)

This is baby #2. I think they will still be moving around a lot, so it's probably too early to keep track of which is which. But, that's what the doctor said yesterday.

Babies and Mom are tired, so that's all for now! Stay tuned for pictures of our elephant riding adventure soon! :-)

Catching Up

2010-12-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

Like I said in my previous post, my blog and I have not been getting along! This has been erased several times, so I'm praying it works!

It's been awhile, so I thought I would just catch you up on a little bit of life through pictures.

The latest addition to our Christmas traditions! I got this in the mail right before we moved to Indo and the kids have loved it! I hope it's something I can take with us to all our Christmases, since I have a feeling we won't be "home" (where ever that is!) for all of them. I usually tried to read a scripture every day to them. I hope to add more creative things as the years go on like a craft or special treat. I thought about getting a more "grown up" looking one, but I think the kids will enjoy this even when they are older.

I brought another touch of home, our stockings. Reece colored a wooden nativity scene on the left and the one on the right is from my Mom. Reece felt the need to "put them to bed" every evening, so the colored ones hide behind the stable and the wooden ones got put in the stable with the doors shut.

Daniel, Joe and the bat-removal tool. I really don't like to think much about that evening, so if you want the whole story, you can check out my husband's blog.

First day of school picture! Both the kids had a great time! Joe didn't even cry when we dropped him off, and Reece says she already has a best friend there named Normie. There are about 20 kids there with 3 teachers. It is about half Indoneisan kids and half westerners. They can't wait to go back, but they don't start for another 2 weeks!

Joe and his new big boy bed. He is loving it, but his Daddy and I are not loving trying to make him stay in it every night!

Another first day of school picture. And, yes, Joe had cowie the whole time at school! What will we do with that cow?!

This is our teeny-tiny Christmas tree! They actually have bigger, nicer ones here in Salatiga, but we chose to buy a tiny one because we have a nice one in our crate. It did spend most of it's life tipped over on the ground. We liked our little tree, but while we were out of town for a little 2 night trip, someone came in our house and put up a nice, big tree complete with lights and ornaments! So, now we have two treess! Thanks secret Christmas tree givers!

Reece is having a blast in our little blow up pool! Since it is rainy season, you really have to get going early if you want to play outside or if you want your clothes to dry for the day! But, we got in a good time of splashing this morning. Too bad it ended with Reece being overcome with itching! I really didn't see anything bite her (and I'm pretty sure she would have screamed about that!) but after a shower, dose of benadryl and a nap, she was okay.

The clouds are rolling in over our house fast!

More splashing.

Joe really enjoys wearing his helmet all the time. We didn't even have a scooter at this point, but he still insisted on wearing it all the time! He likes to wear all of our helmets now, and he is obsessed with riding the scooter! He insists on sitting in the front and throws a fit when it's Reece's turn in the front. I really need to get a picture of all of us on the scooter. It must look rather silly!

Reece enjoys wearing her helment, too. Just not quite as much as Joe! :-)

That's all for now! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!

2010-12-24T22:03:00.000-08:00

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas as you think about the birth of Jesus! He has changed the world!!

Much Love from Indonesia, Daniel, Becky, Reece and Joe!

Photo Credit: Our wonderful, awesome, kind, generous, talented photographer friend Jonathan Chang!!

He took so many wonderful pictures of our family right before we left. I wish I could share them all with you, but my blog and I are not getting along right now, so I will have to try to upload them again later.

Want to send us a package??

2010-12-05T01:30:00.000-08:00

Lots of our friends and family have asked us about sending a package. I wanted to give the details of the "do's and dont's" and then also list some suggestions of what to send. I've talked to several friends here in Salitiga, and these are some of the things they have suggested.

Our Address:
Daniel Perez
JL. Arjuna # 45B Rt. 03/05
Jawa Tengah
Salatiga, 50701
Indonesia

-From what I understand, the best option is to send a package through USPS flat rate boxes.
Here are the prices I found on-line
Small Box-$13.45 and 4 pound limit
Regular Box-$43.45 and 20 pound limit
Large Box-$55.95 and 20 pound limit

-When packing the box, please take everything out of the packaging (include instructions if needed) You can place things in ziplock baggies (freezer quality is best). This is for two reasons. One, I can re-use the ziplock baggies! :) And, two, this will cause the value to go down on the item.

-If the total value of everything in the box is over $50, then we will have to pay taxes on it, but I don't think it really adds up to that much, unless it is something really expensive, like electronics.

-You will have to list everything in the box and list the price. Since the items are "used" (out of the packaging), you can put garage sale prices. I think the reason they do this is because they don't want you re-selling the items over here in Indonesia, but don't worry, we won't do that :) But, I'm not saying you should lie, either.

-I hear the flat rate boxes only take 10 business days to get here, which I thought was pretty amazing!

-Oh, and if you are going to send more than one box, please make sure they are going to arrive a few days apart. If we get two packages in one day, then we have to add up the total value of ALL the boxes and then pay taxes on that.

Here are some things you might think of sending. Since we have only been here a few days, these are mostly things that other people told me they like to receive, so I may change it up a bit later:

Crystal light (or equivalent off-brand … strawberry lemonade or raspberry lemonade are faves)
Instant oatmeal packets (lower sugar preferred)
Zip lock bags (particularly freezer brand)
Candy: a few faves are peanut/regular M&M's, skittles, Snickers, Nerds
Sidewalk chalk
Water balloons
Corn meal (for sprinkling around the house to kill ants and/or making corn bread … Jiffy corn bread mix would work too)
Jerky or summer sausage (especially hard to get pork here and beef is sometimes avail but expensive)
Velveeta or Parmesan cheese (or any kind of cheese that doesn't need to be refrigerated)
Hair detangler-kids brand
Flushable wipes
TV series on DVD
Paper plates
Fall-themed items to give a taste of home
Childrens' Books
marshmallows
Salsa mix
Clorox wipes
Children's acidophilus
Mouthwash (fluoride)
Mac & cheese (you can sometimes find here)
Wax paper (i hear you can sometimes get at an import store here)
Magic cookie bar stuff
Canned pumpkin
Salt & pepper shakers (just the little cheap ones that are sort of 'disposable' and already have salt & pepper in them)
Peanut butter (they also have that here, but it is expensive for a good brand and only comes in small jars)
books & movies
Mayo (they have it here, but it tastes kinda bad)
Frosting
Microwave popcorn
Glow sticks
Canned tuna (solid white albacore in water preferred, any brand)
Scented candles
Crunchy taco shells
Campbell's cream soups for cooking
Kindergarten worksheets/work books for Reece
Magazines
Garlic powder and/or garlic salt
Small toys for kids
dried fruit (crasins) and nuts (I'm not sure how available these are here, yet, but I thought I would add this one in anyway.)

I feel a little silly having a blog post about this! We certainly do not expect you to send us a package, it's just that so many people have asked, I thought this might be a better way of getting the information out there. There is actually quite a lot available here (more than I thought!) so don't feel like you need to send something. Only if you want :)

And, thanks in advance! Terima Kasih!

Check this out!

2010-12-01T03:03:00.000-08:00

My husband has a blog!! He's a lot funnier than me, so you would be missing out if you didn't visit:

www.zero-degrees.org

New post coming from me tonight, hopefully :-)

Enjoy!

Come with us on our first outing in Jakarta

2010-11-30T02:58:00.000-08:00

Our first outing in Jakarta began by climbing into one of these babies. I can't even remember the name of it (some Indo-buddy, help me out!) but they are pretty interesting. Loud, stinky, sticky, held together by cardboard (at least the roof is) but CHEAP! It seems to us that most people in this city do not walk. The sidewalks are small and crowded with vendors and shops, so most people have motorcycles, cars, ride in these things or take a taxi. I prefer the taxi's. The are pretty cheap and very nice. They even have air conditioning. There is also a blue version of this thing, and those are pretty nice, too. They are faster, not loud and stinky, but I'm not sure if they are as cheap as the orange ones.

This is Joe's reaction to our first ride around the city. He did NOT want to get into this thing! Now, he always says, "I wanna get in a car," but he will get in these things now with out crying, at least.

These are some sights you might see out the window. We only took a 5 min ride to a nearby mall/grocery store.

People walking VERY closely to the traffic. It may seem completely crazy at first, but we've had several people tell us the drivers here are better than western drivers. This is because there are less guidelines, so people have to pay attention all the time, with every move they make. Sometimes, people in America (or other places) think if they just stay between the white lines and go somewhere around the speed limit, they don't have to think about anything else (I know that's how I am most of the time!) Anyway, I thought that this made sense after thinking of it that way.

Parking anyone??

Apparently there was a law recently passed to require helmets while riding motorcycles. I was surprised to see that almost everyone does! I guess this is one law that is enforced. And, they just stick their helmet on their handlebars or line then up on a nearby fence. I wonder if they always get their own helmet back??

This is us going through an intersection while all these people wait at a red light. Notice Starbucks coffee and Burger King in the background!

Lots of tall buildings scattered everywhere.

The kids checking out the ice cream selection at a grocery store. We were at a big mall with lots of shopping, and this grocery store was on the basement floor. We were told that if you find a mall, which there are a lot of, there is always a grocery store on the bottom.

More grocery store.

Hanging out.

Of course, no Saturday would be complete with out ice cream from Granddad. Okay, so he wasn't really here, but we made sure the kids knew they were getting it because he wanted them to have it! (Since we've lived in Houston, we always went out to eat on Saturday night with my parents and my dad always got them ice cream afterwards!)

On our way home.

And that concludes our little tour. Our lack of language is definitely noticeable and we do get a lot of stares, but the people are really friendly here and they are always nice stares!

We've enjoyed seeing a little piece of Jakarta, but we are glad that we get to go to our home in Salatiga tomorrow!

Looking for the blessings-our trip in Indonesia!

2010-11-26T20:33:00.000-08:00

A few days before we departed for Indonesia, our small group had a prayer time dedicated to our trip, our transition here in Indonesia and our ministry here. I think it might have been Jennifer who prayed that we would look for the blessings in the trip instead of focusing on the negatives. I was really challenged by this! I really expected there to be a lot of negatives, but I decided to focus on the blessings, and I was surprised that there were so many! I'll share with you a few...

It began Wednesday morning as we finished our packing. You can't really tell by this picture, but we checked TEN bags and had eight carry-ons, plus Joe's car seat. We were only planning on checking 9 plus Daniel's guitar, but right before our flight, we just couldn't fit all our last minute items into our bags. So, instead of unpacking and sorting through some things to leave behind, we decided to leave Daniel's guitar and just take another bag.

This is Daniel's family waving goodbye as we had just made it through security.

We had been praying a lot for the baggage check-in people to be gracious to us! God blessed us SO much by helping us get into the right line so that we could get the most gracious check-in person! We had several bags that were 1-2 pounds overweight, but he let them all slide through! I heard the ladies on either side of him charging other passengers the $160 it cost to have overweight bags. Also, he didn't make us weigh any of our carry-on bags, which I know some of them were very over the 15 lb weight limit. I also saw the other check-in people weighing other passengers’ carry-ons. But, the BEST blessing of all was when Daniel went to pay for the extra bags, they only charged us for one! This was really amazing because we were planning on having to pay $100 per extra bag, but it was actually $160 per extra bag.
Getting through security went pretty smoothly. They weren't using the full body scanners, and there didn't seem to be any drama about it. Picture above is us re-grouping after security.

Reece with her travel companion, Uni.

We got to the airport about 3 hours early for our 4:30pm flight, so we stopped for one last American meal. It was a really yummy meal of burgers and fries! Some man offered to take our picture :-)

Okay, so I've never been on a big airplane like this before, so thought I would take a picture for those of you who have never been on one either! I'm sure the other passengers thought I was crazy, though! This plane had 3 aisles of 3 seats. We were on the left. Reece and I sat together with one empty seat in our row and Daniel and Joe sat together right behind us with one empty seat in their row. So, that worked out really nicely for our first 11 hour flight to Moscow.

I'm really not sure what Joe did the whole time we were flying! I think he mostly slept and just sat with cowie. He did come up to sit with Reece and a I couple times, color, eat, play with the little toys I got him and I think he only fussed once before falling asleep. A couple times I walked with him up and down the aisles and we took visits to the bathroom for a change of scenery. He was such a good boy! We couldn't have asked for any better!

Reece and I had fun doing all kind things. We colored, played games, watched movies and ate a lot! She was so content to sit in her chair. I think she only got up to use the bathroom. It seemed like she only had to go on take-off and right when our meals came!

Reece loved all her new airplane surprises. We didn't even get to open most of them! They will keep us entertained for a lot longer here as we get settled.

Singapore airlines is amazing!! They were always bringing us something to make us feel better. And, this dessert right outside of Texas really made Daniel happy!! They were always bringing us hot towels, lots of meals and snacks, toys for the kids and they were always checking on the kids. If any of you come and visit, you have to take Singapore Air! They are wonderful!!

Reece making herself comfy! The kids went to sleep at about 8pm on Wednesday, and I think they would have kept sleeping except they turned on all the lights and started serving breakfast at 2am! Joe slept through most of it, so he got a good 7 hours, but Reece only got about 5. Daniel and I found it much more difficult to sleep since we couldn't stretch out. If Reece wasn't taking up most of our 3 seats during the night, then she was sleeping in the middle seat so I only had one seat to sleep in. But, the blessing was that the more tired we were, the easier it was to sleep in any position!

This is Joe coloring at the Singapore Airport, which is super fancy. But, I'll back up first to our first stop in Moscow. We had to get off the plane so they could clean it and take all our carry-on bags even though we were getting right back on the same plane. We only had about one hour in the airport, which was spent navigating our way through the smokey Russian airport. I guess it was really my first time to be a foreigner, and I really felt it! I felt like most people were giving me crazy looks, and maybe that was just because we had so many random carry on bags that we were lugging around, plus Joe’s car seat! But, after getting through the Russian security, we were able to get back on the airplane. I think the most difficult part of the trip was making our way through the different airports with two tired and distracted children, 6 carry-on bags and Joe’s car seat!

Our flight from Moscow to Singapore was about 10 hours, and it was much fuller, so we didn’t have our empty seat. But, that flight went well and we all slept more since we were so tired! I felt like we ate so many meals, including about 3 breakfasts!, but it was a good distraction. And, they made the kids meals special, so it was fun for the kids to eat.

We were so happy when we got to the Singapore airport because they had free luggage carts so we didn’t have to lug all our bags around! Another blessing! We were able to enjoy their beautiful gardens, have a Starbucks coffee, and all use the restroom before our short 1.5 hour flight to Jakarta. I did notice in the bathroom one stall that had a sign on it that said “squatting pan.” But, they also had a stall that had a child’s seat toilet, so it was just a very accommodating bathroom! :-)

On our first two flights, we sat in front of a mom with her one-year-old daughter and three-year-old, energetic son going to Cambodia! That poor mom! Her baby had a hard time sleeping, and I don’t think mom got any sleep! I was so thankful that I didn’t have to do that by myself!

Both the kids slept from take-off to landing on our last flight.

Reece had big plans to color and watch a movie, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open!

We got into Jakarta in the morning (Indonesian time) but it was just about our kids bed-time Houston time! We expected the airport to be crazy there in Jakarta, but it was fairly empty. Our line through immigration was very short (about 10 minutes) and ALL our bags were waiting for us at baggage claim. Some men loaded them all up on carts for us and we were on our way to find our ride. Once we found him, he said that he had never heard of anyone getting through the Jakarta airport that fast! What a blessing!

We got through the Jakarta traffic and arrived at our room in the guest house. There is a bed in the middle of the room for Daniel and I and another set of bunk beds to the left where Reece is sleeping. There is and air conditioner, which is nice, and a big common living/dining room area.

This was Reece and I right before our first outing into Jakarta! I will post more on that later. We have had a relaxing weekend trying to get over jet-lag (harder than we thought!) and we’re looking forward to getting to our house sometime later this week.

Now, hopefully I can get this posted if the internet will let me!

We are here!

2010-11-26T12:36:00.000-08:00

From Houston to Jakarta-we made it!! We had a great, uneventful trip with two pretty happy and content children. I really don't think it could have gone any better! (Unless we got bumped to first class! :)

We are now in a guest house in Jakarta until Thursday. This city is HUGE, but we haven't really seen much yet. Right now it is 3:30 in the morning and we are trying our best to be quiet in the common living room as our kids run around and play! :) We arrived here yesterday morning (about the time our kids would normally be going to bed!) and were warmly greeted by the Koens family. They are a MAF family of 7, so our kids got to play together and we all had Pizza Hut together. It was pretty good pizza, too :) I think mine had soy sauce or something instead of pizza sauce.

Anyway, after the Koens family left, we all passed out. We were only supposed to take a nap, but about 7 hours later I woke up at 9pm! The kids were still sleeping soundly, so we decided to just stay asleep as long as we could. The kids woke up at about 12 or 1am and we have been up ever since then! I think we will try to nap until breakfast and then check out the town.

I kind of left out the whole story of our trip, but I will upload the pictures later and share more of that experience.

We are all really doing well so far. Things are fairly "normal" here in the guest house, so we are excited to see and experience some of Jakarta in the morning.

The Big Day!

2010-11-23T20:26:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow is the day that we move across the world!! We have prepared for this for SO long, and many of you have been helping us in SO many ways along the way, so we know you've been waiting for this day, too!!

Wow, I'm kind of speechless as I try to gather the words I need to describe how I'm feeling right now. There are SO many emotions going through my brain and heart, and yet is still seems surreal.

We have had a crazy day of getting last minute details figured out and saying many hard goodbyes. I will miss my family and friends so much!! There are so many exciting things about moving and being right in the middle of God's will for us right now, but it seems the sadness and fatigue of the day are setting in now.

But, before I close my last post from this side of the world for awhile, there are some prayer requests we have. We would be so grateful if you would pray for us tomorrow.

-Pray for grace at the baggage check-in. Some of our bags are a tad overweight, and we are hoping they will overlook this for us.

-Pray for content and sleeping children as we fly.

-Pray for our hearts to be joyful and excited about what the Lord is doing in our lives and in the world.

-Pray for our families and close friends as they will be missing us (mostly our children, I think!)

-Pray for us to lean on the Lord and seek Him as we enter into a new culture.

Thank you all so much for support, prayers, encouragement, gifts and your presence to us during this crazy last week. We love you all and will miss you!

We praise the Lord for His power and we want His name to be known in ALL the earth!!

Visa Situation

2010-10-31T19:28:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

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

A Day at the Park

2010-09-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

We had a fun day at Burrows Park with Daniel's parents over Labor Day weekend. The weather was surprisingly nice and the kids had a blast running around. It is a great park-one that I would highly recommend!

Our sweet frind Ally passed down her princess roller skates to Reece and this was her first time to try them out. It was slow going, but she did great and was very brave!

Thanks, Ally!! You are such a wonderful friend!

Mmmm... hot dog picnic!! What could be better??

Reece enjoyed the slides and playing in the sand while Joe loved running in general and throwing sticks and stones into the water.

We had a fun day!!

Some Girls that We LOVE!

2010-09-10T20:44:00.001-07:00

ABIGAIL: She is cute and silly and she always makes us laugh. But, she is also very caring, loving and affectionate.

REECE: Of course...she's beautiful, smart, curious, imaginative, loving, giving and honest. And so much more.
ROWAN: AKA Ro-Ro. Joe especially loves his ro-ro. He's always saying, "Need Ro-Ro!" She is smart, spunky, funny, curious, adventurous and sweet to her cousins. And sometimes she forgets that she is shy and she talks to me! :) This is her being a veterinarian at the children's museum.

This is her workin' the shapes at the children's museum. She was very good at this! She also beat Reece at the scooter races.

ADALYN: She's new to the group, so I'm not quite sure how to describe her. So far she is sleepy and hungry. But, we love her just the same! Hmm... Who will Joe marry one day? Maybe Abigail or maybe Adalyn...both are excellent possibilities! But, Daniel says I shouldn't think about this yet. How can I not?? :)

And last but not least, the mommy of two of the girls we love: AMANDA! She just gave birth and is doing great as a new mommy of 2 girls. She loves our kids just like her own and she is very giving, loving and real. She's a great example to me of a godly mom, wife, neighbor and friend.

We love SO many other girls, but those are just a few that I've gotten some cute pictures of in the last few days! :)

Why Not?

2010-09-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

Why not enjoy a beautiful not-SO-hot-and-humid Houston morning with your favorite brown-eyed little boy?

Why not push him around on his sister's tricycle even though his feet don't reach the pedals yet?

Why not let two cute and energetic kiddos run in rain (and mud!) puddles from the day before?

Why not let her race ahead of her little brother and beat him in a foot-race while she still can??And why not let a boy be a boy and dunk his best buddy "cowie" in the mud puddle and turn him black?

Silliness and Birthday

2010-08-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

Joe is silly...but we all already knew that, didn't we!

My mom, some of the cousins, me and my kids hit the outlet mall to go to my favorite store in the world, Anne Taylor Loft Outlet!! I had to make one more visit before I won't be able to go again for three years!! You can mail me stuff from there if you want! :) Anyway, first stop at the outlet mall=Auntie Ann's pretzels!! In this picture, they're supposed to be saying "pretzel," but I think they're saying, "It's 1,000 degrees out here!"

This might be my favorite picture ever!! White hinies helping with dinner! The stool used to be Reece's, but now the kids fight over it, so Joe uses the chair to the kid table to stand on. Not the safest option, but I need to get out to Bed Bath Beyond to get another collapsible stool!

This is really Joe's first time helping me bake. "JOE DO IT!!!" is what I hear all day! Oooohhhh....toddler independence here we come!

Reece our photographer!

And last but not least! Bouncy Place with our best buddie Abigail!!

Balloon animals for everyone!!

Goodnight! :)

Crates are Built!

2010-08-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

Daniel is finished building our crates and they are ready to be filled with all our stuff! It only took him a few days...he is so talented! :)

It seems that God is providing in amazing ways every day!! He is blessing us with all the things we need and MOST of the finances we need. We are currently at 95.5% of our monthly support. That means we only need around $350/month to come in so that we can hop on a plane to Indonesia.

We are so excited that the time for us to go is almost here. We anticipate the next month and a half will be difficult with all the packing/sorting, good-byes and "lasts," but God has been so gentle and patient with us so far. We know He will not give us more that we can handle!

We can't wait to join our language-learning team in Salatiga! I think there are maybe 7 or 8 MAF families there now and 2 other families from a different mission that we know from Moody. At least they will be there to show us the ropes!

OH, and happy birthday on Sunday to the handsome, talented, funny, charming, patient, loving, funny, friendly, generous man that I have the privilege and honor to be married to! Happy 29th birthday, Daniel!

To homeschool or not to homeschool....

2010-07-31T12:04:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of my friends are getting to the point in their parenting journey where they are thinking of schooling options for their kids. I am at that point, too! Although, my options look much different than people that are going to live in the United States!

A lot of people ask me what we will do for the schooling of our children once we are in Indonesia. The truth is, we really don't know yet since we don't know the exact base we will be living at during our service there. Some of the bases have schools and some I'm not sure about. I know one base has an international school K-12 and some of the other bases have K-8th grade. MAF is really great about meeting the needs of individual families who are serving in Indonesia. I know one base in Papua had only one family with children (they may have been the only family at that base, too, I'm not sure). They had two children and MAF was trying to find a teacher to send there to help out with the schooling of only two children. I think that's pretty great! Our thoughts for now on teaching our kids is that we would love to send them to school in Indonesia if one is available, but we are prepared to homeschool the first few grades if we need to. I think it would also be fun to join some kind of homeschool co-op where a group of moms each have a role in teaching all their kids combined.

Daniel and I have been trying to stock up on supplies to take over to Indonesia and one thing on my list is supplies to help with the schooling of our kids. Daniel's mom took me to a homeschooling store yesterday and it was so fun to look around! They have TONS of new and used materials for sale there. Plus, the are Christians, so they had a lot of faith-based curriculum to choose from as well. For anyone in the area who is interested, The Homeschool store is off of 290 and W 34th street. The address is 1355 Judiway Street or http://www.thehomeschoolstore.com/.

I was looking at a curriculum called Sing Spell Read and Write. It looks like a great program that includes everything you need for teaching 4-year-olds and up. My mother-in-law used it for her children. They loved it and I've been reading of a lot of others who loved it, too. It is an expensive program, though. I think if I were living here, I could probably put together something for less money, but this looks like a good program to pack with us because it seems like it has everything needed to teach our little ones.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this program? I'd love any input or suggestions as we prepare to move to Indonesia and keep up with the schooling of our kids!

Bonus Picture: The whole Galveston '10 crew on our beach vacation!

Beach Time!

2010-07-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a re-cap of Wortley/Hill/Perez Galveston trip 2010. We had 15 people total under one roof for a week! It was a lot of food, fun, sand and playing.

Daddy and Joe trying to clear some of the seaweed away!

Reece actually took this picture. I thought it turned out really cute!

Mom and Dad on their beach house balcony. Usually they get a couple days to themselves in their beach house, but this year we were all there one day short of the whole time!

Michael pushing Will around in Reece Joe's doll stroller. It seems like every toddler is drawn to that stroller, whether boy or girl!

Grandmama with Joe, Rowan and Jacob. We fed a lot of birds on this balcony.

Blondie Rowan looking cute!

It took Joe a few days to warm up to the beach water. Of course, he was all about playing with all the yucky stuff he could find-sea weed, muddy sand, weird sea creatures... But, by the last couple of days, he was splashing like all the other kids.

Rowan and Reece... Wait for it......

And SPLASH!!

Diggin' in the sand.

The boat was a big hit this year. All the kids loved being pulled in in. Granddad did a lot of the pulling, but here it's Daniel's turn.

Beach Girls!

After a big wave!

This is the day he got really into the water. He would jump and then fall on his bottom and then roll around. We even had to put in his ear plugs because he was getting his whole head wet!

Snow cone time!

My sister brought her snow cone machine, so we made snow cones right on the beach. I enjoyed a Diet Coke snow cone...yum!

All the cousins! Reece, Rowan, Joe, Christian, Ryann, Will and Jacob.

We left after dinner on Saturday night and the kids were all worn out! So were Mom and Dad!
This trip seemed different than the previous trips to Daniel and I. Usually "vacation" with small children isn't really a vacation at all. But, this time our kids all slept really well (the whole family in one room!) and they took really good naps. Reece was always ready for a nap after staying up late with cousins and playing in the sun all day. Daniel and I even got to take naps and lie in the shade reading books. It was hard to get back to reality after this. Such a much needed, relaxing, fun trip!

SEVEN YEARS

2010-07-19T20:51:00.001-07:00

Happy Seventh Anniversary to Me and My Main MAN!!

Then and Now

2010-07-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

THEN - 2003

NOW - 2010
Daniel took me flying right before we had to leave Idaho. We realized that it had been 7 years since he's taken me flying! Way too long! It was fun to see him flying in action again. Oh, and all the MAF pilots have to wear their fancy flight helmets. You can see Daniel's reflection in the visor part of his helmet.

Quick Update:
When we left Idaho, we drove to Bellingham, Washington to visit Daniel's grandparents (hopefully I'll post some pics of that later). Then, we began our 4 day road trip back to Texas with a few stops to see friends and family along the way. We drove all day Saturday and night Saturday and got home Sunday around 8am. Then, Tuesday morning we headed to Galveston for a beach vacation with my family (AND hopefully some pics of that will follow...It seems I'm always about 2 weeks behind on blogging...oh well).

We are now getting back into the swing of support raising along with packing, sorting through all our belongings and doing tons of paper work to prepare our trip to Indonesia. On top of all that, Reece is attending a Bible camp put on by some friends in our Sunday School class. She is loving it!

Goodnight!

Fathers Day 2010

2010-06-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

We had a fun Fathers Day this year. We went to a place in Idaho called Jump Creek Falls. It's down about a quarter mile trail over some rocks and streams. The kids walked some and rode on our backs some, too. We had a picnic lunch and a fun time playing in the water. The trail was FULL of poison ivy and we even saw two snakes. What an adventure.

Daniel is a loving, fun, patient, kind and wonderful father. Reece is in love with him and Joe wants to be just like him.

We all love him and appreciate him so much. We would all be lost with out him!!

We are currently visiting Daniel's grandparents and are about to leave for our drive home and visiting with some people on the way. More pictures of our adventures to come!

A little something from the man...

2010-06-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

Greetings blog friends! Why is Daniel blogging you ask? I'm just giving the fans what they want. Here's a little update on what I've been up to:
These last couple weeks I have been learning to fly the "right way." It has been an enjoyable couple of weeks relearning most of what I've forgotten (It had been almost two years since I'd flown) and learning quite a few new techniques and procedures. As the weeks progressed we started working our way into more difficult airstrips and terrain. It has been a blast! The training will culminate with a 3 day trip into the Idaho Back Country to practice at some of the most difficult strips we train at. I made a quick video of some flying we did today and I will hopefully have some more footage after the trip.

Joe Talking

2010-06-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Here is a glimpse of some words Joe is really into saying these days.

He loves bubbles. When we say, "Joe, do you want to go to bed?" he immediately replies, "no nite-nite!" He's great at saying please and sometimes he'll just say mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy over and over again. But, he wouldn't really say it on the video. Anyway, I just thought it was a cute sampling of his words.

Reece's Song

2010-06-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

After Joe's Happy Birthday performance, Reece had her turn.

Joe's Favorite Song

2010-06-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

I have never been able to get a good video of Joe singing happy birthday. Until yesterday when I was putting the bubbles away and he really wanted to keep them out. So I told him if he sang happy birthday for me, he could have more bubbles. He sure did earn those bubbles!

Tea Party and Airplanes

2010-06-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

This morning my mom's 10 day visit came to an end. We had way too much fun to blog about it all, so I'll just blog about our last day. We had a fun girl day. We first went to the farmer's market here in Nampa and looked at all the fun jewelry and veggies and stuff.
Pretty girl in front of the flowers.

Then, we went on to the tea house for a REAL tea party! Reece was so excited to get a real tea pot and a pretty tea cup. Her tea pot had pink lemonade in it! She was one excited girl!

Pouring the "tea" herself.

Grandmama, Mom and Little Girl

Next, we came home to the boys and Daniel took us across the street to see the airplanes. I was so excited that Reece and Joe were brave enough to sit in the planes with us! We haven't been able to get Reece to sit in one of the planes Daniel flies until today!

All of us sitting in the fancy-shmancy Kodiak! I've never been in one before this and they are pretty impressive looking! I hope I get to fly in one one day!
Daniel is promising me that he will be a guest-blogger this week. He better come through with some fun flying footage and stories!

Latest Newsletter

2010-06-12T14:37:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to quickly post a link to our latest newsletter:

May 2010

Check it out if you haven't seen it already.

Also, see the side of our blog for the most up-to-date support levels. It is even higher than it was when we sent out our newsletter! God has been really faithful to speak to the hearts of people to support our ministry.

I hope to post more family and flying updates this week.

Bloggers Block

2010-05-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

My 3 or so weeks of blog silence has been due to a severe case of bloggers block (BB)!! Even though it may seem like we are exciting missionaries, I personally have not been doing much out of the ordinary during our time here in Idaho (except for the first 2 weeks which I pretty much blogged about already).

Daniel might be able to blog about some exciting things he's doing and learning, but he's too busy being in class and studying to sit down and type out some thoughts. Maybe I'll get him to contribute to the blog on our THREE day weekend!!

My BB has can also be attributed to the fact that my two wonderful, darling children have had a super serious stomach virus for the past week!! Okay, so maybe it wasn't super serious as in they had to be hospitalized, but super serious in terms of crying and complaining of tummy aches all day, lots of PBS kids to distract from the pain, toddler lying on the floor, no sleep, diaper changes or bathroom trips every 15-30 minutes (around the clock!!), fever, no sleep, a very stinky house, no eating, and did I mention NO sleep??!! Daniel and I have been fighting off a very mild form of the virus, too, but nothing like our poor kids.

They are getting better every day, and I am truly thankful for kids that are normally well. I really have been praying for mommies and daddies who have to take care of chronically sick kids all the time. There is nothing worse than a child in pain and no way to help them.

Anyway... on to the true topic of this post. BB.

I figure if I have nothing much to say about the past 3 weeks, I'll give it to you in pictures because I know all of you are dying to see my beautiful family! :)

We got a package from Grandma Val with a beautiful quilt she made for Joe and he loves it already! (This pic is really only the back-the front is super cute.) Reece already has her quilt from Grandma, which she loves and usually takes with her most places we go! :) My mom also send us a really fun cat and the hat game, which Reece loves, and I birthday cake toy for Joe since he loves to sing "Happy Birthday to You." (I've been trying to get that on video, but you know how toddlers don't like to perform on command!)

Daniel posing with his stack of flying and maintenance books. He has been studying a lot lately!!

Joe reading at a desk in an old used book store we found. It's called "Twice Sold Tales" and it has TONS of books and children's books. It is a really fun place to look around. We've been there twice and found some fun (and cheap) books.

This picture speaks for itself...I think...

Is it too early to start driving lessons??
(Obviously the car is parked for those of you who are freaking out right now!)

Random: some omelets I made for dinner.

We went to a parade right here in Nampa. It was fun, but no Macy's Day Parade if you ask me.

Lots of candy was had by all.

The fam waiting for the next talented high school band to walk by. I think Joe's favorite part was the tractor (he says "Whoooooaaaa" to all tractors, dump trucks and things like that...I'm trying to learn all their proper names!)
Reece's favorite part: the teen Miss. Nampa (princess) and the horses!

We also got a lot of stickers for political candidates. Our favorite was the one for "Crapo" :) We were sure to stick lots of those all over Joe's shirt! :)

A trip to the duck pond. Nice braiding job if I do say so myself! :)

Cute!

"Sad Reece"

I can't remember exactly why she was so sad. Was it because she missed her Daddy? Or was it because she couldn't find a fishing pole (long stick) to fish with in the duck pond like her friend Gabe had? Or was it because I wouldn't let her eat any more of the duck bread??

Okay, the story here is that the weird looking brownish-gray duck is the one who is constantly bullied and the nice looking white duck is his protector. If the outcast duck gets too close to flock (I don't know what a group of ducks is called??) then he is chased away, but his protector always sticks with him. Sad, but funny to watch, too.

Me and my smoothie by Reece the photographer.

Reece and her smoothie.

Playing on the big rock with buddy Christopher. He's so sweet to play with Reece and her princess dolls! Although, he is usually the mice or the prince. And, with him, they usually end up crashing or hitting each other! (The dolls, not the children!)

So, that's our life in pictures. This ended up being a long post for someone with BB!! Hopefully next time I can come up with something more meaningful to blog about.

Goodnight from Nampa, Idaho! :)

How's the Weather??

2010-05-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

After 2 1/2 weeks of crazy weather, today we made a trip over to the MAF coat closet! Renee hooked us all up with hats, gloves and bigger coats for the kids (the coats I brought were getting WAY too small...Joe's was a 12 month jacket and Reece's was from 2 winters ago, size 2T!)

So, we finally got to get outside without freezing our tails off. Okay, I say freezing, but it's really more like 50 degrees and sunny today. But the WIND is BRUTAL to these Houstonians! Yesterday our big double jogging stroller kept tumbling across the lawn because of the wind!

When we first arrived here, the first two days were sunny, breezy and around 70 degrees. Perfect, right!?! Well, it was all a trick. After enjoying those two days outside, the weather turned windy, rainy and COLD! And, it even hailed once! (see below)

This picture was taken THIS MORNING (MAY 4th!). I know some of you Texans may be jealous of this, but I'm longing for shorts, running in the sprinkler, baby pools and trips to the pool, NOT coats, gloves and hats!

"WHAT'S HAIL??" says Joe.

Daniel holding a sampling of the hail that pounded us a few days ago.

Craziness! I still can't believe it was this cold! I think it even snowed/sleeted a little bit later on this day.

But to make up for it all, God gave us this wonderful gift in the evening.

This was taken right outside our apartments and my friend, Erica had to splice it together since it was such a huge rainbow.

2 Week Re-cap

2010-05-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

Well, our "non-tech" orientation has come to an end. We had a great 2 weeks full of so many helpful seminars, classes and speakers. It was a FULL 2 weeks, but so much valuable information was given. We are very thankful that MAF has provided us with this training!

On our last day, we had an authentic Indonesian lunch. It was really a feast with some wonderful food! We are going to love the food in Indonesia if it's anything like the meal we had here!

In this picture, you can really only see the fruit (which is what Indonesians have for dessert) but also some cookies that weren't Indonesian, but really good!
I cannot really remember the names of all the different kinds of food, but the rice was called nasi goreng with an egg on top and then the chicken had a really good peanut sauce on it.

They had a "commissioning chapel" for us at MAF where they prayed for us and basically turned us over from the training phase to the "operations" phase. Now all we have to do is raise 25% more of our support, and we're off to Indonesia!! :)

There was cake with BLUE icing at the chapel, and Reece was lovin' it!

Here are the boys of our group right before chapel looking out the window towards the runway to see if they could spot any planes taking off.

This is the end where are whole group got on stage and the president prayed for us. We are on the left, then Andy and Erica Christensen (going to central Asia), then Chris and Sarah going to Tarakan, Indonesia, then Jonathan Blomburg going to the Congo, Africa, then Kurt and Jacqualyn Magnus and Jonas going to Tarakan, Indonesia, and then the Durkees (Ben, Becky Gabe and Christopher) going to Nairobe, Kenya.

We had to say goodbye to some people today, but our buddies the Andy, Erica, and the Durkees will be here with us for the next 2 months. We also had to say good-bye to Valerie today who was with us for the past 2 weeks helping out with the kids as I was in class all day. We will miss her and were SO glad she could come. Reece will miss her room-mate tonight!

I will update more later about some fun times we had these past two weeks. I'm back to being a full-time mom tomorrow and I'm excited about that! Daniel starts ground school tomorrow in the MAF hanger, and then next week he'll start flying.

Reunited in Idaho!

2010-04-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

Daniel got home from his 12 day trip yesterday! Well, I say he got "home," but he actually arrived at our new home for the next 2 1/2 months in MAF headquarters in Nampa, Idaho. We are really excited to be here for our 2 weeks of orientation and then the rest of the time for Daniel's flight/maintenance standardization (where they will pretty much teach Daniel the MAF way of flying)

We are in the same apartments that we were in last summer when we were here. It is fun seeing the group of people that we were with in our training last summer. We have all been doing the support raising thing for the last nine months, and we all have very different stories and experiences, so it's neat to see how God has been working in every one's lives.

The weather here had been amazing! Sunny and in the 70's in the afternoon and evenings. It's a little chilly for me in the mornings (but I'm a Houstonian, so I'm weird). We have pretty much been living outside watching the kids play and catching up with each other all weekend. We even had an impromptu pot-luck dinner tonight.

Reece enjoying some chocolate cake after dinner!

Joe eating his chocolate cake mixed in with a little pineapple and spinach leaves!

The whole gang eating dinner together.

Best-Buds, reunited! The kids will barely leave their Daddy alone. Joe wouldn't let Daniel put him down yesterday! So cute!

A lot of people have been asking us what we'll be doing during our 2 weeks of orientation, so here are some topics of discussion on our schedule:

Relationship Seminar (all day Monday and Tuesday)

Emotional health

Keeping yourself spiritually fit

Spiritual warfare

healthy living

30 days in another culture

problems of the world

embracing your adopted culture

cultural lunch

conflict resolution

"building your raft" (not sure what that one is about!)

safeguarding your children

"inside-out safety" this is a 2 day seminar also known as "emotionally based safety"

Looks like it will be a great 2 weeks. We are SOOOO glad to have Grandma Valerie here to take care of the kids while we're in class. The kids are having a blast with her.

Can't wait to update you all on what God is teaching us! Thank you all for your prayers and support. We would not be able to do this with out you!

Big Day for Joe-Man

2010-04-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

Joe got tubes in his ears today.

He has had trouble with some ear infections, but really the main concern was the build up of fluid in his ears that just would never go away. This was affecting his hearing and speech, so we decided to go ahead and to the surgery now while we have access to all kinds of wonderful health care, doctors and hospitals.

I was against the surgery at first because I'm the kind of person who wants to wait and see if anything else will help with the drainage of Joe's ears (like a chiropractor or other alternatives). But, God really lead Daniel and I to go ahead with the procedure now, and I am grateful for His leading and provision for us to be able to help Joseph in this way.

I was so nervous about handing my little boy over for surgery, but he really didn't even cry when they took him. We were only apart for about 15 minutes total. 10 minutes after I left him, Joe's doctor came out and said everything went fine. He said Joe had "rubber cement" fluid in his ears that even clogged up the suction machine! He said the fluid would never have cleared on its own. That was nice for me to hear. It confirmed that we made the right decision!

Joe was pretty groggy after the surgery, but we only had to stay about 20 minutes and then we were on our way home. I thought he would pass out in bed with me, but all he wanted to do was jump and play on my bed! I ended up putting him in his crib and now he is on his 4th hour of sleep! What a nap!

It will be exciting to see how different life will be for Joe now that he can hear normally. Thanks to God who graciously helped Joe through this morning and has given him a new chance to hear the world!

Joe crawling through a tunnel at the children's museum.

Joe sleeping after a fun time at the childrens' museum.

2010-04-10T19:03:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple things I just posted. I can never figure out how to re-arrange the order. Oh well.

Fun With Chalk

Rodeo

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL!!!

2010-04-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Visit to Tulsa-better late than never

2010-03-25T15:48:00.001-07:00

This trip really took place about 3 weeks ago, but time flies, I guess!

We took and weekend trip to visit my Grandmother-the kids' great grandmother. We had fun playing in her apartment, going out to eat and visiting with other relatives including my Great Uncle and my Great aunt Marion-who I didn't get a good picture with :(

Joe just climbed right up in my Grandmothers lap so she could read him this book. He has been more interested in books lately, which is exciting for me! This "reading" only lasted about one minute!

Us with Uncle David!

It was such a nice weekend so we spent some time in the courtyard of my Grandmother's building to let the kids run around. Quick family pic!

Best Buds....hopefully someday!!

Right before we said our goodbyes! Oh, it was a long flight home!!

But Reece was livin the dream with her own window seat on the airplane, her own personal DVD player with a NEW Dora princess show and her own snack while Daniel and I were suffering with a cranky, wiggly, tired toddler in our laps! Reece, unlike her mother, LOVED flying! She gigged and smiled when we took of and landed. Her Daddy was so happy she liked it!

Bonus pic of Mommy and Joe Man. He's going through a phase where he'll say "cheese" (his own version of the word) when I hold the camera up. It's so nice to have pictures of his handsome face!

Rodeo 2010...Yeeee Haaaaw!

2010-03-25T15:36:00.000-07:00

This is another one of those better-late-than-never posts... I've had it ready for awhile but for some reason or another keep forgetting to post.

Daniel and I felt obligated to take our kids to the Houston livestock show and rodeo this year since it will be our last opportunity to go for quiet awhile... I don't think they have rodeos in Indonesia! It is always fun to visit the rodeo, but we waited until the last week, so we had to fight the crowds of spring-breakers, but the kids had a great time.

Yep, this is a two stroller trip. What do people do when they have more than two kids??? And, notice Reece would have nothing to do with the boots and jeans look. Only pink, frilly skirts and shirts for this girly-girl! :) Oh, and we got to ride the metro rail down to the rodeo, and that was another big, exciting moment!

Joe trying to get IN the cages with the animals!

Now Reece has to give it a try.

"Look at THAT, Daddy!"

The petting zoo was a huge hit! I always forget how eager those animals are to get a treat!

After seeing Joe go for it in the petting zoo, I think this little boy might end up being a farmer!! He was SO excited about all the animals. It didn't matter how big or small the animals were, Joe went right for it. Reece has always been so timid in petting zoos, so it was fun to see Joe love it right from the start.

"I'm not scared of you!!" said Joe!

We thought it was so cute to see this little animal literally hanging out in a pouch!

Joe was totally pooped out! He fell asleep with Daddy walking him around as Reece and I waited in line to ride the ponies.

This was a shining moment for Reece. The line was SOOOO long, but she stuck with it the whole time. I'm not sure I've ever seen this little girl so patient before. She sat quietly in her stroller the whole time in line. I think we waited AT LEAST an hour. I kept telling her that we could go do some other things instead of waiting, but she kept saying, "No. I want to wait." And she did! She loved the pony ride. Her pony was named "Linda Lou," which delighted her. And, the lady behind us bought her a pony coloring book. The SIX dollars for the 3 minute ride was worth her joy and happiness!

Reece waiting excitedly and patiently with her little friends that she met in the line. She was such a big girl...didn't even need my help! (sniff sniff**)

Reece waiting with her ticket in hand. It made me laugh that the back said, "Good for one FREE pony ride." Yeah, except the ticket cost me SIX dollars!! I know...I'm so cheap.

So, that's our fun-filled day. We will miss you, Houston Rodeo.

Fun with Chalk

2010-03-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

We have been enjoying the beautiful weather by spending some play time outside! We have a nice play area outside our townhouse, but sometimes it's nice to contain the kids in our little patio. Reece is a great chalker, so we make whole towns for her horses and other play people and animals. You can see the sun she made in the middle of this pic. Kelly was over this day to help us color. Thanks, Kelly! :)

Fun times!

Fun at Grandmama's and Grandad's House

2010-03-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

These pictures are actually from February when Daniel and I went to Austin for the weekend. I just got the pictures from my mom's camera. I don't think Reece and Joe missed us much! They had many fun activities at Grandmama's house AND they got to go to their cousin Will's first birthday party!

Reece doing some kind of painting project.

Dancing maybe?

Jumping with cousin Rowan!

All dressed up and no where to go...

Making Valentines purses with Rowan. This came home full of chocolates, which we are STILL eating!

Waiting for some dinner!

These two had a blast on their grandparent vacation! Joe used to cry when we went over to their house, but now he just runs right in.

Thanks SO much Mom and Dad/ Grandad and Grandmama!!

Thoughts Worth Thinking About

2010-03-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I got on a house cleaning kick. I started receiving the Fly Lady emails everyday and was enjoying a good routine of cleaning. It was fun to get her emails and it has been good to clean things out and "de-clutter." But, after about a month of this, I started to get the itch to fill up my free time with something I really enjoyed doing and don't get the chance to do very much...READING!

I LOVE to read and I'll read basically anything. I have a bad habit of reading the first few chapters of a book or skipping around in the book reading only what looks interesting. (Hey, if you're a busy mom, you'll understand and you wouldn't want to waste your time on a chapter you didn't care about!)

I just finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and I today I finished Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot by Elisabeth Elliot.

This was a very thought provoking book. I would recommend it highly. It only took me about a week to read. It's a very easy read and very interesting. Jim Elliot had a lot of ideas that I have been thinking about lately, and here is one I'll share with you...

"I am now aware that my reasons for not being engaged [to his future wife, Elisabeth Elliot] are hidden in the counsels of God's Spirit. I simply know it is not for now-that knowledge is inward, God-given, and to be obeyed at whatever cost. There are no explanations except that God leads, and He does not let a man know why He leads. Faith binds a man to what he knows inside, like may coming to Ecuador. the world could not shake the persuasion. 'The just shall live by faith.' Faith-not alone in facts and a rational apologetic-but in the reality of the inward work of the anointing which he possesses though the gift of the Holy Spirit. I must maintain a surer belief in the Spirit of God. It is no mere tenet of faith that He indwells the believer. he does indwell, and there He accomplishes His work of informing the spirit of man."

Taken from Shadow of the Almighty, page 174&175

I can apply this to so many area's of my life right now. If we are "dwelling in the house of the Lord...gazing on His beauty," and, "seeking His face," and waiting on Him, He will lead and guide us. This is SO good and comforting to me!

Some other books that are in line for me to read:

Oxygen (given to me by my mother-in-law...not sure what it's about)

The Poisonwood Bible

Three Cups of Tea

I also really enjoy reading books to Reece (and I would love reading to Joe, too, IF he would sit still for long enough!) We go to the library about once a week and get as many books as will fit into our library bag. I think I'm just as excited to read them as she is! Then, we end up loving one or two of the books we've read and I have to put in on our Amazon wish list! :) A few books on this list right now are:

Where is Bear?

Puff the Magic Dragon

Skinny Brown Dog

Dora and the Magic Snow Princess (Reece's pick :)

Big Brown Bear's Birthday Surprise (and other Big Brown Bear books)

The Missing Chick

We have also been getting a lot of audio books, too. Haven't found many we really like, though.

Do you have any favorite books for either me or Reece to read? What about audio books? Any suggestions?

New from the Perez Family

2010-03-12T11:33:00.000-08:00

Hi, Friends!!

Here is our March Newsletter! We hope you enjoy reading about our family and news about MAF.

love,

becky

Video

2010-03-03T12:25:00.001-08:00

So, it seems that the MAF video I posted is a little finicky about working. If you are still interested in watching the video, you can go here to see all the different MAF videos. I like the "evangelism and church nurture" one.

For your viewing enjoyment

2010-02-28T18:23:00.000-08:00

This is a quick 7 minute video that does a great job of summing up what Mission Aviation Fellowship is all about. Enjoy!

We had a GREAT week at the CBC missions conference. We especially enjoyed our time meeting with small groups on Friday and Saturday night and Sunday morning. Thanks so much for your interest in our ministry.

If you have any questions about this video, please let us know.

We are working on our February...err...I guess now March :) newsletter, so that is why it has been quiet in the Perez blog-land recently. There is only so much creativity here, people!! :)

Our Valentines Weekend

2010-02-15T12:51:00.000-08:00

DANIEL AND I RAN THE AUSTIN MARATHON ON SUNDAY!!!

now, THAT'S love!!

It was SO fun!! It was thrilling for me to finally run a marathon! We were able to run most of it together so we could talk and enjoy the run and all the people watching and cheering. It was a pretty hilly course at times, but also very scenic and the weather was perfect for a run!! This is something I've ALWAYS wanted to do, so I feel very accomplished. I was so glad to get to run with my supporter, encourager, best-friend and coach! Daniel had already run one marathon before this, but he's just THAT amazing and did it again with me. I could have never done it with out his help. He always let me go out on my runs, he watched the kids for me, he gave me so much advice and encouragement, and he always changed his schedule around to meet my needs. What a guy! :)

Okay, I'm not gonna lie...we are hurting today!!! We stayed the night last night in Austin so we wouldn't have to drive home right after the race and now that we're home, we are having issues going up and down the stairs! Thankfully, Daniel got me a massage gift card for Christmas, so I will be cashing that in tomorrow!

We went up to Austin on Friday (the race was on Sunday) and stayed with our fun friends Justin and Cindy Girdler. They took us around Austin, cooked for us, and let us stay in their beautiful new home. It was SO fun to talk and catch up with them. Reece and Joe got to spend three whole nights with my parents. They had a blast, but they both were sick and on all kinds of medications, so my parents were SO nice to still take them in and care for them. We really missed them, of course, but it was so nice to not have to worry about schedules, naps, bed times, meals, toys, diapers, and all that stuff just for a few days. I'm so glad to have them back in my arms again, though! I missed them so much I even had dreams about them every night we were apart!

We are already searching for marathons in Indonesia. Anyone want to come and visit and run the Bali marathon with us??? :)

Daniel got this hat and matching gloves at wal-mart for $3 the day before the race! He had to dump them along the way...hopefully someone is enjoying them now.PUMPED UP!
WAY too excited!

AFTER: we spent a lot of time lounging in the hotel room!

Limited Edition Team Perez T-Shirt

2010-02-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to be offering a limited edition "Team Perez" t-shirt. We will be placing the order Monday February 8th so if you'd like one let us know what size. The recommended purchase price is $5 ($7 if I am mailing it to you). You can leave a comment with your size or e-mail Daniel at dperez@maf.org. We will be getting extras so if you decide you want one after the 8th just let us know and we'll see what we can do.

MAF Airplane in Haiti

2010-02-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

Here are some picture of the MAF Kodiak that recently arrived to Haiti. I'm just gonna post the link instead of trying to put them directly on my blog...I'm low-tech like that.

Click here for amazing pics of God at work through MAF in Haiti!

Growing up

2010-02-02T19:12:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I forget that my kids are growing up right before my eyes until they hit a major milestone. It always takes me by surprise!! I think, "He/She aren't old enough to do that yet!"

So, the other week Reece came home with a drawing she did in Sunday School at church. It had drawings of people on it. I asked her if her teacher helped her, and she said, "No, I did it all by myself." I didn't really believer her until later in the week when she came into my room and showed me the pictures she was making in her room.

MY BABY CAN DRAW PEOPLE!! I thought only big kids could do that, and she's still a baby....right???

After she drew the people, so wanted me to show her how to draw squares...she caught on to that fast.
This is a portrait of me! She drew one of Daddy, too which looked about the same except with short hair.

More people. She likes to draw the bodies really long for some reason.

Today, as Reece was sitting on the potty (in full princess-wear over her fairy P.J.s) and I was in the bathroom with her, she asked me some deep questions.

1. "Mommy, does God wear shoes?"

2. "Mommy, is God human?"

Then I asked her if she had any more questions for me she said, "I had question number one and two, but no question number three."

I love that girl SO much! :)

Sooo.. what's it LIKE there????

2010-02-02T14:08:00.000-08:00

I get this question ALL the time!

What's Indonesia REALLY like? From what do you cook to what do you buy to where to you shop...

Truthfully, I really don't know yet, but thanks to the Internet and a few good long-distance friends and their cameras, I can get a good idea of what life is like. If you are interested, here are their amazing blogs that thoroughly describe what life is like living in Indonesia as a missionary pilot's wife.

The first is from Nathan and Becky Fagerlie. There are currently in language school in the city where we will be, Salatiga and their web-site is here Look for the pictures of the "Pringles" Indonesian style. Too funny!!

The second friend is Sarah DeSalvo. Her and her husband and two little girls live in Papua, Indonesia in the city of Wamena. She is always so kind to answer my many questions as we prepare to move to Indonesia. See her blog here.

Hope this helps everyone get a snapshot or two into life in Indonesia!

MAF in Haiti

2010-01-19T18:53:00.000-08:00

Before the devastating earthquake in Haiti, MAF had 4 pilot families living and serving in Port-Au-Prince. These people went through the earthquake and despite a very scary event and destroyed homes, they all survived. The pilots remained in Haiti and the families were evacuated back to their family in the US and Canada.

It's amazing to see how God is using MAF to meet the needs of the people of Haiti. And it's not like they are strangers or outsiders... they live there and know the people and have relationships with them.

I wanted to post an article of what MAF is doing there now, but it isn't letting me for some reason. So, here is the link if you're interested.

There is also a really interesting blog I found of one of the MAF families serving in Haiti. It is a very real glimpse into their lives and what is really going on in Haiti. You can click here to see it.

Daniel and I are so excited to be a part of this organization that is truly the hands and feet of Jesus!! Not only do they tell of His love, but they show it in a real, tangible way.

MAF Update

2010-01-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

It's only been a few weeks since our last newsletter went out, but a lot has changed! Our outgoing needs are now up to 91% fulfilled and our monthly needs are up to 55%! It has been neat to see God provide so much in just a few weeks! The month of December has been pretty slow for us as far as individual meetings go, but God is still working in the hearts of people and enabling them to give to our ministry. Those people that are giving are making an investment in the Kingdom of God so that people will know His love and truth!

The last few weeks we (well, mainly just me) have had some moments of freaking out as we think about all we have to purchase and take to Indonesia. My amazing husband so humbly and gently reminded me today, "Have we forgotten what He has done?" Not only has God already provided abundantly for our ministry needs so far, but even before we started raising support, God generously and graciously provided all the funds and details we needed to even be able to apply with Mission Aviation Fellowship!

So, with much to be accomplished and figured out, we are reminded that this is God's plan and HE is in control!! He knows the end, He has provided thus far and he will not leave us now!! We are excited and energized by God's faithfulness and promises to never leave us or forsake us.

Christmas Pics, better late than never!

2010-01-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

So, I know I said I would post some pictures of our Christmas fun, and since they are so stinkin' cute, I thought I'd go ahead and post them even though it's a little late.
Here are our Christmas morning buddies. (Notice Joe's bed-head.)

Okay, so the story here is that Daniel let Reece pick out a Christmas present for me, and he let her pick out whatever she wanted to get me. She thought I would like some jewelry (which she knows I love) so he took her to the wal-mart jewelry aisle. She picked this lovely purple necklace, which happened to match the shirt I was wearing! Okay, so the necklace doesn't even look that bad in this picture, but believe me, it's bad!! And, it even has a matching bracelet and earrings!! I love her for her thoughtfulness and her princess taste in jewelry! :)
Reece and Aunt Elizabeth. They were cooking and crafting buddies during Elizabeth's visit.
Cute hat from Aunt Elizabeth! Poor Joe has a big head, though, so it's a little snug!

Rowan and Reece. Eatin' pickles and playing with there new goodies.
Joe opening his present with Grandmama.
Hanging out with Grandpa!

There is a lot of tooth-brushing going on it our house. Joe got a toothbrush and toothpaste in his stocking and he has taken to becoming obsessed with brushing. He screams when I take the toothbrush away, so now we have to have a whole "bye-bye toothbrush" ceremony every evening before bed. He's even learned how to climb the stool and get it off the counter when I'm not watching! So, of course, since Joe now loves his toothbrush, Reece does, too. Oh well, hopefully it will last and they'll both have nice teeth! :)

Merry Christmas!!

2009-12-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

We hope everyone had a nice Christmas! We had a fun and busy time, as usual! :) Christmas Eve we went to church as a family and then went to Daniel's parents' house for a nice Christmas Eve dinner. Then we went home and Christmas morning our kids slept in until 8:15!! Can you believe that?? They never do that:) So, we did the opening presents thing at our house and then went straight over to Daniel's parents' house again for Christmas waffles and more presents. Then, around 1pm, we went to my parents house joined by my brother and sister and all their children and opened more presents, ate more food and had more family fun! :) Reece had a hard time getting to sleep last night because she just wanted to play, play, play!! :)

Then, this morning, we bravely loaded up the kids in the van and hit the after-Christmas sales! We found some really good deals today. This was our first major "shopping for Indonesia" trip. I know we still have a few months, but we took advantage of the sales and bought some things we needed to take with us when we move. Daniel's favorite thing was buying kitchen knives. My favorite thing was buying SIX pairs of Crocs!! I've never even bought crocs before in my life, but today they had buy one get one FREE at the croc store in the outlet mall, so I decided to buy each child one pair for the next THREE years! I figure they would be good jungle shoes! I had to guess on the sizes, but I figure they will fit eventually. I'm SO not one who stocks up on things, so this is all very weird for me. But, we feel accomplished for beginning the process. Any advice from those who are good at stocking up?? It's really hard to stock up on childrens' clothes because even if they are on sale, the price adds up really quickly. I'll have to hit up some major garage sale/re-sale shops!

Well, Christmas wasn't all about presents and buying things for us this year. It was neat to see Reece absorb more of the true meaning of Christmas and Jesus coming to us as a baby, but then growing up to save us. I have been really overwhelmed the past few weeks of the thought of that precious baby Jesus. If you've had a baby, you know what an AMAZING, sweet, precious blessing it is to hold, nurture and love that little one. Can you even IMAGINE getting to be the mother of the precious baby Savior!?!?! To get to train, love, play with and feed that amazing child??? WOW! Such a neat thing to think about. Makes me want to have another baby! :) Just kidding, Daniel....not quite yet :)

I will be putting up Christmas pics later...for now, I must go recover from our shopping day!

Good night!

Fun in Rainy Weather

2009-12-17T18:44:00.000-08:00

It has been raining all week here!! We miss playing outside and seeing the sun. The other day, we were playing outside during a brief break from the rain and Joseph couldn't resist splashing in the puddles. Reece quickly joined in on the fun. You can see how Joe was forcefully hitting the ground with both hands trying to get a big splash in the face. I think he was disappointed with this puddle. The one we were playing in before I took this was a lot deeper.

Today was the best tumbling class we've had so far. There was no preschool at the church were the class is, so today about half the kids weren't there. They started off will an all-time favorite...the parachute! Reece is in the pink shirt on the right.

This was Reece's turn to sit in the middle as the others walked around. Then, the kids on the outside would quickly pull on the parachute making the kids in the middle slide around.
This is the kids under the "snow." All the kids were laughing and wiggling around. It was so cute!

Joe at tumbling. He was SO ready for his nap, but thankfully he was able to walk around and play on some of the extra equipment to keep him distracted. He also loved watching the parachute.
Joe on the balance beam.
So tired!

The best part: the HUGE slide that Coach Frank and the other coaches created.... you have to watch the video to get the whole effect.
Thumbs up and ready to go!

And a bonus silly picture of Joe! Daniel is blowing on him making his hair stick up!

2009-12-10T18:55:00.000-08:00

I don't really have much to say, but I did want to update everyone on how support raising is going. Our December newsletter should be mailed out this week or next, but the cool thing is that the "support raising" section is already old news! We are currently at 54% for monthly support and 61% for outgoing!! Isn't God amazing!! We have had some very generous gifts this month and it just keeps coming.

It's really un-real for us to thing that we are half way there!!! Soon after that amazing feeling, we get a reality check and realize that we have to repeat everything we just did to get 50 MORE percent! :)

No, but really this is all in God's timing. We know for sure that He has called our family to serve in this role and all we can do is do the prayer and the work and HE is the one that brings in the funds. It is SO great to see our God at work everyday in this way!

We have a lot of key verses that we think about during this time in our lives, and one of those is Ephesians 1:11-12 which is on our desk. It says, "In Him you were also chosen in order that you...might be for the praise of His glory," (that is paraphrased slightly). This whole process is just to reflect His glory to not only people in Indonesia, but people at home, too!

On another note, we have had a really "fruity" week here. Reece is downing the Cutie Clementines-about 3 a day! Why in the world Joe doesn't like them is beyond me...

But, he does love strawberries!! He was picking them up and taking bites of them all by himself and he didn't even eat the leaves...amazing!
Oh, and here is a picture of our Christmas tree. I don't think we've had a full-sized one in a few years because I just hate to spend the money and we've always had little people around that like to steal the ornaments off the bottom! But, this year, they were all a great price so we decided to go for it. We just put the wooden ones on the bottom so the kids can look and touch if they want.

Hope everyone is having a great Christmas season so far!

Merry Christmas from Houston, Texas!

2009-12-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

Reece and her Daddy built a snowman and then I helped her clothe him. We have been reading a book called "The Snowman" so it was exciting for her to get to make one today!

Proud Snowman builder

We bought our Christmas tree of few days ago. Decorating with a three year old is not as easy as getting it done during her nap time like I did last year! She, of course, must help do everything. Which is fun, until a nice ornament breaks... oh well :) We had fun decorating together. Then, Joe woke up and discovered he had lots of new "balls" hanging from a tree in his living room. He could almost reach, but we had to hang them all on the top two-thirds of the tree. It's so cute to see him toddle around pointing to the tree saying his version of "ball" which sounds more like "bah"

This is Joe's cow lovie that has been in his crib since he was a few months old, but I had never noticed him interested in it until just a few weeks ago. He has been carrying it around the house lately. I think it's cute that he has a new lovie friend, but the bad part is that I bought it from someplace like Stienmart for really cheap and when I got it home, I realized that it had a little pink trim on it! Oh, well! Oh yea, and he likes to suck on the nose :)

Build-a-bear...or pink unicorn...

2009-11-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

So, we went to build-a-bear to celebrate Reece's third birthday. It was so fun! She had a blast picking out all the things she wanted. Such a big girl to be able to make all those decisions. If you've ever been there, you know they have a wall of all the animals you can choose from. Out of all the cute bears, kitties, bunnies and doggies, our little girl picks the flashiest, sparkliest, pinkest unicorn. That's Reece for you! She also pick out a ballerina costume and named her unicorn "Flying Girl." She picked out the name all on her own. Daniel and I gave her many suggestions, but she decided to decide herself. So cute!!
Kisses for flying girl.
Hugs for flying girl!
Going home. She carried the big box all the way through the mall all by herself!
Opening presents from Mommy and Daddy....princess shoes!

Blowing out her three candles! It took her a lot of blowing and help from Daddy.Decorating cup-cakes (and eating the sprinkles!)

All decked out in princess gear.Joe was pooped from all the birthday fun! :)

We had a fun and busy day! Our little girl "is big" now (that's what she keeps telling us).

Pumpkins, Flower Fairies and Birthday Boys

2009-11-11T19:17:00.000-08:00

Well, these pictures are better late than never! Our Internet was down for a week or so, but here are the latest festivities going on in the Perez household...

Reece and Daddy carving the pumpkin. Reece would NOT touch the insides of the pumpkin. We have a book we've been reading that is about a farmer carving a pumpkin, but it incorporates the Salvation message, so we were able to talk about this while carving.

The finished product!

Joe wanted to help, too!

Daddy and Reece after a long trick-or-treat outing!

Here's cutie Abigail in her pumpkin costume. We went to a retirement community with our MOPS group to visit the residents, and our friend Abigail was there, too.

The cutest princess flower fairy ever!!

I guess these pictures are really out of order because before Halloween, we celebrated Joe's FIRST birthday!! I can just remember sitting at home one year ago holding my BIG newborn in his pumpkin shirt. He was so sweet then and is still the sweetest little boy ever. I just love him so much! He is just what this family needed: a laid-back, funny, and sweet man.

This was his reaction to the first sight of his birthday cupcake. I promise, he has never had one before, but he acted like he knew just what to do. I've never seen a 12 month old devour a cup cake like he did!

Tasty!

Here is Joe dancing to the gift we got him. It is a farm magnet toy for the fridge. He also got a set of blocks. But, he couldn't decided whether to dance to the farm toy or turn around and rip open the other gift. :)

12 month old Joeman.

Here are some of the things Joe is up to these days: Dancing to ANY type of music (including Reece's constant singing of princess songs :), giving lots of kisses, giving me the "more" sign language sign (which for him is just clapping) all day because this boy always wants to eat! He loves balls, escaping through the back door to the patio when we have it open, eating DIRT ~yuck~ whenever he can sneak it in at the park, climbing everything and practicing his walking skills. He's not much for saying words, but he's got many lovely boy grunts, yells and of course, baby gibberish. He and his sister are getting along better and better these days. Today they were cracking up while I was making dinner, and I said, "what are y'all doing in there?" and Reece informed me that they were, "playing a game." Love it!

We adore you, Joeman!!

Tomorrow we celebrate our beautiful daughter's third birthday. Build-a-bear here we come! :)

Latest Newsletter

2009-10-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

Check out our latest Newsletter!

Perez October 2009

Trip to Dallas

2009-10-25T19:40:00.000-07:00

Yay for road trips!!
We took a week long trip up to Dallas last week to visit with some friends and family and to tell them more about MAF. We stayed in a little cabin the whole week. It was cozy as it was only one room, but it was fun :)
We had such a great time with our friends and family. So many people were excited about what the Lord is doing in Indonesia through MAF and so many people decided to give generously. We are so thankful to God as He is providing for us and also revealing Himself to others through His work in Indonesia!

Best Buds! :) Sure, they look sweet in this picture, but things were not so happy in the middle of the night in the cozy cabin. Not much sleep was had, which makes for an interesting trip :) We really did have fun during the day and at all of our visits, but the nights were rough...The cozy cabin.

It sure was cold in Dallas!! One day it rained all day long! The cozy cabin got even cozier that day!! :) There was a small playground right next to our cabin and a TV/laundry room right next to that.One of the highlights of the trip was that there was a really fun mall right down the street from the cozy cabin with lots of fun things to do for the kids. The most fun thing was a Daddy/daughter ice skating adventure!! We were so proud of Reece for being so brave on the ice. Daddy had to help her a lot with the skating, but she learned how to stand on her own and she skated around several times with the help of her Dad.

Don't fall!

We got home on Saturday and had to prepare for our presentation on Sunday at church. So, after that, we had a relaxing Sunday afternoon/evening. We spent some time outside enjoying the nice weather. Our presentation went really well. Thanks for everyone who came to ABF on Sunday!

Beautiful girl on her tricycle. She's getting so good at riding it!

Good ole Joe in his walker. He actually took his first step last week! But, it was short lived excitement. He has only done it again a few times, so I think it will be awhile before he's running around the house.

I just think it so cute when they're playing outside together. We had a lot more races that evening :)

Random pictures:
Reece helping Mommy mop--in her boots, of course.
So, I'm getting motivated again to unpack the boxes that line our hallway and dining room. Reece and Joe "helped" me unpack the DVD box and then decided to get in it. Actually, Joe was in it before all the DVD's were out. Such a helper... :)

Pumpkin Patch Day!

2009-10-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

It was a HOT day here in Houston, Texas, but we pretended it was a beautiful fall day and headed out for our annual pumpkin patch day. The kids had fun exploring, and we even got a few good pictures.

Ahhh... the memories...

Reece 23 months and Joe 2 weeks from his birthday

Reece 23 month

Reece 11 months all dressed up in her doggie costume!

Fun in the Fall

2009-10-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

Reece has started a new tumbling class at Thompson's Tumblers. It is SO fun. She is loving it and doing really well with all the activities. I just love going and watching her. At home, we often have to "play" tumbling class.

All the kids lined up just before class is about to start. Reece is fourth from the left. I just think it's so fun to watch her interact with other kids and see how she responds to other adults. She has been doing great so far.

Reece is somewhere in the middle (I think on the left).

Reece attempting a cartwheel.

Reece on the rings with Coach Frank. This was her second time on the rings, and this time she actually flipped over! The first time she didn't want to because she was too scared. I'm so proud :) I have a really cute video of this, but I can't get any videos that are over about ten seconds to upload. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong??

We have an ally behind our house that is great for riding the trike and Joe practicing his walker skills. I have a cute video of Joe and Reece "racing" but I can't get that one to upload, either.

Reece giving Joe a little push.

Joe's 11 month picture. He will not hold still anymore for these! :)

Joe's latest trick is putting things up to his ear and pretending they are a phone. He even makes a sound that sounds like he's trying to say "hello?" Too cute!! (this is a play thermometer)

This is Joe showing of his pat-a-cake skills.

Joe Walks with Walker

2009-09-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

This is mainly for Abigail's viewing enjoyment. I hope she doesn't drive her mommy crazy wanting to watch it over and over again!! I know I should not video things with the camera turned like this. Sorry for that.

Clarification

2009-09-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

The picture of Daniel sleeping in the chair is not really him working!! I think I took this after I made him haul around a bunch of boxes and suitcases. I love having a strong husband! But, he really is a hard worker. He does all the things that I don't want to do and he does them well. Sometimes my "control-freak" side wants to take over and but into all his business, but then I realize that I have to let him be in control and PRAY for him all the time and let God work through him. When I can keep my role as a wife straight, Daniel can really be used by God and things in the Perez household run MUCH better.

I love you, Daniel!! You are the BEST husband and father!! You are patient and kind and generous. And you love our kids and I know they look up to you. I hope Reece marries someone just like you and I hope Joe grows up to be just like you!! :)

We Have Arrived...

2009-09-11T18:40:00.001-07:00

...No, not in Indonesia. Still in Houston, but in a new location. We are moved in (sort of) to our townhouse that is in basically the same area as our old house was in. We have been here about a week and a half, but only had our internet turned on just two days ago. That's why I have been so quiet in the blog world.

We are getting settled into the swing of things in our new jobs. What is our new job, you ask? Well, we are building up our financial and prayer team who will help get us to Indonesia so we can help meet the physical and spiritual needs of the people in Indonesia.

How do you build up your team, you ask? Well, we call and email people to see if they want to meet so that we can share more about Mission Aviation Fellowship and see if they would consider being a part of our team. When we are not meeting with people, we are praying, keeping up with people who are already a part of our team, meeting new people, keeping up with all our MAF paperwork that we have to turn in weekly. It may not seem like much, but we are required to log 50 hours a week, and we have even been going over this for the past few weeks. It also requires us to be on the go quite a bit. We are driving from on event to the next with our two kids in tow. We also hope to meet with churches in the area, small groups and any other group that would want to meet us and hear about MAF!

We have been at it one month now, and we have really been enjoying ourselves. Most missionaries say that this is their least favorite part of the process of going overseas because it's really all about money, which can be uncomfortable and awkward to talk about at times. But it has been fun so far. This past month, we have really been blown away by the Lord's generosity to us. It is so exciting to see the group of people that He has picked to be a part of our team. We are really not in control of this process. We can only share our passion and ministry, but the Lord is the one who moves hearts to give. We have been surprised and humbled by the individuals who have stepped up so far. And, we really have only had one week of meeting with people. Our first two weeks were spent with Daniel's relatives and traveling back to Houston. Our third week was spent getting settled in and re-connecting with family and close friends. This is the end of our first week of making appointments and meeting with people. It's been so fun so far.

How are the kids, you ask? They are doing great! They think our new townhouse is really fun, especially Reece because of the stairs! We are all enjoying our own rooms and more space to spread out!! We are trying to daily get boxes out of our storage unit and sort things out. We have four categories: get rid of, take to Indonesia but store until we go, take to Indo but use in our townhouse until we leave, and things we want to keep but not take to Indo which means have to permanently store here while we’re gone. Whew! Imagine making those kinds of decisions for every single item you have!! How many flash lights do we bring?? How many and what kind of toys?? What about all our pictures?? What about the dart board from the garage????? AHHHHH!!!!

Okay, so I'm not really freaking out. At least not at this moment. :) But, I do have my moments! :) Daniel has been working from home, and it's been so fun having him around. We are all bonding as a family! I love it!

Here are some pics to enjoy!

Here's Daniel "working" from home :)

Joe got a buzz cut!! Daniel really wanted to give him a moehawk, but it is really hard to give this squirmy boy a hair cut, so it ended up being a buzz.

Awww... cute! Right before the buzz cut.

We stopped in Seattle on our way home and went to the aquarium. Reece got to ride a shark.

Reece the Octapus

This is from our campfire on one of our last days with Daniel's grandparents. Reece throughly enjoyed the s'mores! And so did Daddy.

10 month old picture!!

Joe riding on the tractor with Grandpa Dale. Reece was too scared to ride, so her baby brother did it instead :) I think the next day she did ride with her Grandma, but I didn't get to see that.

I know many people are confused and still have questions about our ministry. We are slowly but surely making it through our list to talk with people one on one or in groups. I’m also working on a “Frequently Asked Questions” page for this blog and I’m trying to organize the blog to be more focused on what in the world is going on with us right now.

Thanks for hanging in there with us! Let us know if you have questions, want to meet with us, or just want more info on our ministry. We would LOVE to do any of these things. Email us! BeckyPez@gmail.com or DPerez@maf.org.

What Now???

2009-08-21T13:42:00.001-07:00

We are finally finished with our training time at Mission Aviation Fellowship. It was a long five weeks, but God was so faithful to us during that time. He took such great care of our children while we were in class, He helped us work well together as a team, He provided for us financially and He kept us safe and healthy throughout all our travels.

Soooo.... what's next for us?

The last Friday of class, we quickly packed and cleaned our apartment and then headed to Sandpoint, Idaho where some amazing friends of ours had a wonderful lake house ready for us to relax in. We spent two nights there, and then two nights in Spokane, Washington with the Chareltons. Thanks SOOO much to Ross, Piper, Sophia, and baby Simon for taking such great care of us.

Now we are in Bellingham, Washington where we will spend the week with Daniel's grandparents and other relatives. We will also be speaking at a church here at their Sunday evening service. We are very excited about our first official opportunity to speak about MAF to a church!!

From here, the kids and I will fly home thanks to some super cheap tickets. Daniel will drive home making a few stops along the way to visit friends. We will be sad to miss out on these visits, but are glad that we don't have to spend hours in the car anymore! :)

When we get back to Houston, we'll be setting up our home where we'll be working on building up our ministry partnership team. More on that later! :)

For pictures of the Lake house, go here.

For pictures our time in Washington so far, go here.

The infamous MAF Kodiak!!

Lakehouse mini-vacation

2009-08-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

Sophia and Reece looking for fishies on the dock and making their Mommies very nervous!! Don't worry, we were holding on to them!

Daddy and Joe bouncing on the dock.

This is the view from the dock of the back of the lake house. It was an amazing log cabin and a great place to rest after our intense 5 weeks of training!

Hanging out on the porch. And, YES, we all have jackets on. It was cold to us Texans!

We got to celebrate Daniel's 28th birthday at the lake house. Here Reece and him are blowing out his fake candles on his requested fun-fetti cake with cream cheese icing.

The Daddies took the girls on a canoe ride.

Reece and her buddy Sophia reading together.

The neighbors were so nice and offered to take us on a boat ride on the Lake. Here we are: Joe, Me, Simon and Piper.

Reece fell right asleep as soon as the boat got moving. Sophia was sitting on the other side of Daniel, and she fell asleep right after Reece. It was funny to see their little heads bobbing the whole time.

Joe love the wind in his face! He did great, until he decided he wanted to get down and crawl and I wouldn't let him. He protested by crying and screaming, but at that point, the ride was almost over, so it wasn't too bad.

The friendly neighbor with the boat also has a little Piper Cub float plane. Ross and Daniel were really hoping to get a ride in it, too, but I guess the friendly neighbor wasn't THAT friendly :)

Reece and Sophia played SO well together! Reece happily let Sophia put lots of pretty bows in her hair. She barely lets ME fix her hair!!

Reece was in Heaven when we went back to the Charelton's house because Sophia has princess dress up clothes!!

Daniel got to speak at Moody Aviation, and then he hung out there most of the day. Ross let us practice our Segway skills in the hanger.

They are so fun!

Our friends, the Chareltons, really blessed us with their kindness and encouragement. They went to a lot of trouble to cook for us and make us comfortable. They are awesome and we love them!!

Washington Fun

2009-08-20T21:11:00.001-07:00

Daniel's Grandparents have a beautiful home with amazing landscaping including vegetable gardens, flower gardens, a fish pond and more. It's every little girl's dream!

Here we are picking blueberries

Reece is goin' on a berry hunt!

Reece and Grandma picked green beans for dinner. Reece is snapping them here.

Joe is just thrilled to be here!

This little girl LOVES the dirt!! She can't stay out of it!! Daniel's cousin Jacob who is five years old (in the background) came over and spend the night with us. Reece had a blast playing in the yard with him. We even went across the street to the neighbor's house to see their baby goats!

This week is fair week which is a pretty swingin' time around here. This is Grandpa and Jacob and Reece walking to the fair.

The carousal ride was Reece's favorite.

Joe and Mommy at the fair. Joe was such a good sport to ride in the stroller all day while Reece got to play. Daniel had to help Grandma Lin most of the day with cleaning the fair bathrooms, but he came to hang out with us after his shift was over.

Some baby pigs and their Mama at the fair. Wow, I'm glad I'm not a nursing Mommy pig. Those babies are aggressive!!

Reece got her first tattoo at the fair. I think it says "Jesus is the light."

Reece rode a ton of rides and only had to be escorted off one. It was a fun-house with a mirror maze which she did fine with b/c her cousin helped her through, but then to get out of the house, you had to slide down a huge slide, and she was too scared, so they walked her back through the maze and everything ended up okay.

She surprised me by going on lots of rides I didn't think she would like. Like the spinning dragons ride. She said it was "too wiggly" but I think it helped that her dragon was the pink one! And, her sweet cousin Jacob was there to help her.

This is for Rowan

2009-08-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

Backwards and Upside Down

2009-08-03T18:18:00.001-07:00

Reece knows her letters backwards and upside down!
Here's a video of her reading some letters off of our couch.

"This is 'Y' that I know. This is 'O' that I know. This is 'B' that I know..." :)

Life in Idaho

2009-07-30T14:23:00.001-07:00

So, we have been here in Idaho for over a month now. We have made some good friends so far! The only other couple with kids here has two boys, 5 and 6 years old. There names are Gabriel and Christopher. Their babysitter is the sister of our babysitter, so they often get together and play or watch movies. Since we had the security seminar this past week, there were several other families here in the apartments for that. Our new neighbors had two little girls, and one is three, just a few months older than Reece. Her name is Kaitlyn and she and Reece became buds right away (it helped that she had a set of "princess barbies" that Reece loved to play with.) This week, the kids have been roaming from apartment to apartment playing with all the different toys and making up games. Here they are in our apartment today while we were at class...

Christopher (I'm pretty sure they were taking pictures of each other!)

Kaitlyn

The gang

Kaitlyn and Christopher

The gang making silly faces

The Pout - It's hard to say no to those beautiful blue eyes! (I think she was pouting here because she wanted to put more of my lip gloss on, which you can see is already all over her face.)

Last weekend we all went to part of a lake called Lucky Peak. We went there last year
but it was fun to go back this year with all the new friends we have made. Our whole class, plus the short-term teacher Erica all came and spent the day there together. The water is ICE COLD and I was determined NOT to get my swim suit on because it did NOT want to be pressured into getting in. But, of course, in order to chase my two kids around, I ended up getting suited up. But, I only went in to my knees! :)

And here's our sweet boy yesterday on his 9 month birthday!! He is crawling, pulling up, making all kinds of new sounds, eating three meals of baby food a day, throwing small balls, kissing, and I've caught him clapping a few times, but he doesn't do it on command yet. I remember at this age with Reece, she was almost completely feeding herself bits of food for every meal. But, with Joe, he is still so gaggy. He can eat bits of Cheerios, bananas and other soft food, but he still gags a lot. So, he's really all on baby food, even though I'm ready to make the switch. I guess every baby really is different! :)

Here you can see Reece at 9 months old eating all kinds of food (avocado, cheese and so kind of orange fruit)

Reece's nine month picture for comparison.

The next two weeks were are focusing on learning how to build our ministry partnership team. Look for our very first official newsletter in the mail coming to you soon!

Our Country Assignment is.....

2009-07-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

INDONESIA!!!

We were kinda hoping for this assignment, but didn't really want to admit it so we wouldn't be disappointed or seem like we were unwilling to go someplace. So, we're very excited!! There are four MAF bases in the country of Indonesia and we won't know which one we will be going to for awhile since the needs change so frequently. We have MUCH to learn about this country and its people.

We have a three day weekend this weekend to rest up and soak in all the changes our family will be going through. Then next week is security training and then the next two weeks after that we learn how to raise support!

If you want to know a little bit more about MAF's work in Indonesia, keep reading:

The MAF bases in Indonesia:

1 & 2. Kalimantan

Indonesia's province of Kalimantan occupies the largest portion of the island of Borneo (there are two MAF bases on this island, which is the big on kind of in the middle) and shares its landmass with Malaysia. One of the world's most isolated and remote areas, it remains largely undeveloped. The geographical and logistical barriers are forbidding. Dense rain forests, impenetrable mountains, arduous terrain, and the absence of roads leave villages isolated, limiting access to the Gospel and life-sustaining services such as health clinics and education beyond elementary school.
THE SOLUTION
In 1969, MAF began to serve mission groups and the emerging indigenous churches of Kalimantan.

3. Papua
Note: Papua, Indonesia, should not be confused with Papua New Guinea (PNG), which covers the eastern half of the Island of New Guinea and surrounding islands. MAF-Australia operates in PNG.

In Papua, unreached people groups in the western half of the island live hidden away in rain forests, mountains, and swamps. From six bases of operations, MAF reaches deep into the interior, penetrating some of the world's most remote areas to bring the Gospel and improve the quality of life for isolated Papuans.
As recently as 1997, Stone Age tribes were being discovered in Papua, still untouched and unreached. Today, other primitive tribes still live in the hidden crevices of the island. Yet to hear of Jesus Christ, they are bound by spiritual darkness and live in fear of spirits and the outside world.
Basic services such as schools and health clinics are unavailable in remote areas. As a result, countless Papuans unsuccessfully battle chronic malaria, rampant skin fungi, malnutrition, and intestinal worms.
The need in Papua is so great that MAF pilots report being able to accommodate less than half of the flight requests they receive. Throughout Papua, there are few viable alternatives to Mission Aviation Fellowship air service in the regions served by its planes.

THE SOLUTION
Since 1952, MAF has brought hope and support to this rugged and forbidding place. Today, 38 MAF missionary families, two short-term staff, and more than 80 Indonesian staff members serve from six bases in Papua. Thirteen MAF aircraft, as well as three email hubs and communications networks, multiply the effectiveness of some 65 agencies and hundreds of churches ministering in Papua. MAF services impact more than 250 ethnic groups by maximizing and sustaining evangelism, Church nurture, medical assistance, community development, education, crisis relief, and the training and leadership development of Papuans.

4. Sumatra
Sumatra is the second-largest island in Indonesia, and home to approximately 45 million people. In ancient times Sumatra was known as the "Island of Gold." Despite its deposits of oil and natural gas, as well as other resources, some 27 percent of the people of northern Sumatra live in poverty, compared to 17 percent in Indonesia as a whole.
In December 2004, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake caused a devastating tsunami to crash across the Aceh area of northern Sumatra. More than 170,000 people were killed and 550,000 displaced. Geographical areas were disfigured, and the transportation infrastructure was destroyed.
Though MAF did not have a base in Sumatra at the time, the agency was one of the first to respond to the disaster, initially sending aircraft and personnel from the MAF program in Kalimantan. MAF also provided communications services to support the relief efforts.
Four years later, life is assuming a semblance of normalcy for many people in the tsunami-stricken area. Most of those who were displaced now have homes to live in, and the healthcare system is continually improving.
Many of the humanitarian agencies involved in the rebuilding efforts have departed. MAF is one of only a handful of Christian agencies remaining in the area, providing the predominantly Muslim population with a tangible expression of God’s love.

THE SOLUTION
Having served in Indonesia since 1954, the long-term commitment of MAF is recognized and deeply appreciated. Government officials have invited MAF to extend its ministry indefinitely in the province of Aceh. This opens a door of unequaled opportunity to demonstrate practical expressions of God’s love while establishing transformational relationships.

If you want to know even MORE about MAF, you can go to there website (where all of this was taken, but there is a lot more info there) at www.maf.org

If you want to know EVEN MORE about MAF (wow, you must REALLY want to know a lot about MAF!) you can watch this 3.5 minute video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgty36Zo3o8

More Apartment Pictures

2009-07-17T15:51:00.001-07:00

By the way, I guess you could tell that I found my camera charger! I remembered in my sleep that it was in the back pack pouch that we put Joe in a the Grand Canyon which was still in the trailer. :)

This is the small playground next to our apartment. The kids love the airplane.
Reece sitting on the big turtle.

The park. They also have lots of outdoor toys for the kids to use. Reece likes to ride on the "razor" with Daddy and get pushed in the big car.

The apartments.

On the left is the apartments and on the right is the MAF headquarters where our classes our. So, it's literally only a few yards away, which is great.

Our apartment.

The back porch of our apartment. There are three building and each have one two bedroom, one one-bedroom, and one studio (only one room)

And a bonus pic of Joe in his dragon towel (or dinosaur or lizard...we aren't sure :)