10 days in...

Indonesia has been our home for about 10 days and we are just starting to get the hang of dorm life. Luke started his new school last Tuesday and is really enjoying it. There are 6 boys and 1 girl in his class (1stgrade) and his teacher is called Miss Ashley. She is new here too and is really lovely. There is a parent and teacher meeting tonight so I am looking forward to finding out more about Luke's day. After his first day, Luke said "I like this school, it's a playing school"! I'm not totally sure what that means (except they have a fantastic playground for recess) but at least he is enjoying it. Luke said in the bath last night that he couldn't wait to go back to school - I think he finds the predictable schedule and routine comforting in the midst of otherwise chaos. The boys are really enjoying the big girls, who are very patient with them and will play lego and take them to play soccer. I think the boys are not quite sure what the girls role is, so there have been some choice performances from both Luke and Isaac as they figure out what will happen and who will sort it out! They are both coping well with all the changes, given that they are in transition. Luke has hit this is all horrible stage saying he is bored of the country and especially of rice! Having said that, he chose rice for breakfast this morning when he could have chosen toast or cereal, so I think rice is just something he can project is confused feelings on to ( I hate it and I love it at the same time). Anyway, we have started to make the apartment feel a bit like home by putting up pictures of all you lot. If any of you have good pics of what's going on there, we would LOVE to have them - it'll help us feel connected. Luke and Isaac have pictures in a long line all around their room and they spend quite a bit of time just looking at them and thinking about what those people are doing.
Paul is getting into the swing of teaching. He has 3 students in his bible class and he is teaching about the prophets at the moment. Unfortunately he teaches firt period every day except Friday which is 7:40 am! We are all feeling the early mornings, but at least it is light and warm when we have to get up!
Well, that's all for now, please continue to pray for all our transitions and for our language learning. Also, for wisdom in being dorm parents and parents of the boys - there are some big cultural differences in parenting that we need to negotiate.
In Him, Emily, for the family

indonesian blog

ok, so we've just got hooked up to the internet and I sign on to blog and my computer knows before I do where I am and loads blogger in Indonesian. It took a bit of figuring out - posting baru = new posting. If this makes in online, consider it my first test passed! (i need to keep my goals attainable for now!)
We arrived yesterday and did a little exploring arond the campus. It was fun to catch up with people we met in February and move in to our house. With only 4 suitcases, it didn'ttake long to unpack and the apartment looks rather bare, but, we'll go shopping soon and get rugs and picture frames and make it a bit more ours.
Luke and Isaac are doing really well... although Luke did say "I'm bored of this country now" before having a great time looking at the papaya tree in the garden and watching chichas (like geckos) running around. I think Luke is looking forward to starting school on Tuesday.
I was looking at all the prayer requests we put out last time -well done you faithful lot, every one was answered. despite being well overweight, we weren't charged a penny. The boys travelled well and we had no visa problems or anything else. We were even away from Jakarta a few hours before an earthquake. PHEW.
We have the girls arriving on Saturday for their orientation weekend. We have loads of help with that which is a great thing (I have to get used to accepting and asking for help!).
Well, that's all for know. we'll update often now we have the internet up. I can recieve and send text messages on my regular mobile (i think it's about 25p for an international text but do check first!) and don't ring the mobile, because it will swallow our support account in one big gulp!
Love to all, EMily for the family xxxx

tomorrow tomorrow...

Well here we are with less that 24 hours to go before our departure. We are packed (mostly) and I think we are ready - apart from having every possible paper and emergency accounted for in triplicate. Ah yes, the only thing we don't have yet is a flight from Jakarta to where we need to be. We are expecting to stay the night in Jakarta airport before flying in the morning. So the journey from start to finish is looking at being about 4 days - give or take a few hours difference. Oh my goodness. It does give a real sense of the distance that we are travelling.
Please pray for Luke and Isaac as we travel - that they will be happy and sleepy at the right moments and entertained. Also that they would have patience with grotty parents and that they do not lose their favourite teddies... can you imaging the distress?!
So Sunday - train to heathrow and hotel over night
Monday - fly to Hong Kong
Tuesday - take in the delights of Hong Kong Airport
Tuesday night - fly to Jakarta, hopefully stay in a hotel
Wednesday - fly to town.
WOW. I can't believe we are actually doing this for real.
It is hard to imagine that we have our lives in 4 suitcases and that our address is now on the other side of the world.
Please also pray for safety, easy flights, easy entry to Indonesia and quick settling in.
With much love and thanks for supporting us all through this transition so far,
Em for the family xxxx

never use ebookers...

today Paul rang ebookers to confirm the flights we had provisionally booked for Sunday and had taken card details for a deposit. After much horseplay and promised confirmation of payment and flight details etc, ebookers finally admitted that they had sold our flights to someone else. Rubbish or what. What's more they had had no intention of telling us - we have spoken to them every day this week and the whole time they let us believe that our names were on the list.
ANYWAY, Paul was a hero and managed to find flights from Heathrow on Monday so we will train it down on Sunday and stay the night in a hotel before our final departure.
Praise the Lord for the availability of flights, and although it seemed awful at the time, enforced relaxation before we travel is actually a good idea since we will hit the ground running on Tuesday (so God does know what he is doing after all!)
Well, the packing is almost done so I'm off to bed.
Love Em x

visas - the final episode (hopefully)

Well, paul collected the visas from the embassy this afternoon and jumped on a train home. WHOOOPPPEEEEE!!!!!!!!

It seems we are finally on our way!
Thank you all, again, for your emotional, practical , prayer and financial support - what a great team.
We are expecting to confirm flights for Sunday.
Watch this space...
Em