Time to go

It's Saturday evening. Today was our last full day with our family before we head out tomorrow. at 8:15 we are going to leave our house here, with help from lots of family to take our mountain of duffle bags to the airport. It is hard to know what to think or feel. We're feeling all sorts of emotions, from grief to excitement. We've gotten lots of timely encouraging notes from friends and family. I believe the Lord will be upholding us through prayer during this separation and trip. To say the obvious, we've never done this before! Thank you friends for remembering us and our family members in prayer this weekend.

We hope to post updates about our trip RIGHT HERE on this blog. We do not plan to put updates on facebook. We also plan to try to keep our parents updated on the progress in addition to the blog. Thank you all so much for your prayers during this big move.

So long stuff, see you in a year!




They came to pick up our crates this morning. They will meet us in Papua after language school. I hear its like Christmas when you open your crates back up. There's a lot of stuff you forgot you had!

We were pretty happy to get to see one of Heather's sister Madison's volleyball games before we leave. It's her senior year, they had their first game last night. Here's Ian hanging out with auntie Holly at the game.



Clearly volleyball isn't his scene. And then he fell asleep....



It's been a while since I've shared some pictures. I hope this isn't picture overload!!




So we leave for Indonesia on Sunday! It's getting very close.

Letter from a 5 year old

Every now and then someone does, says, or writes something that helps remind us why we are getting ready to move to Indonesia. Yesterday we got this letter from a 5 year old. If it's too small to read you might have to click on it to read it.



Thank you Kevin. We will.

The Mountain Flying

I wanted to share the pictures I took last month at my Mountain Flying Training in Idaho, also known as the Back Country Course. The first group of pictures are flying related, as we trained each day on the nearby airstrips. Then the last group of pictures are all related to the fabulous place we stayed, called Allison Ranch. Myself and two other students, Aaron and John, and two instructors, Tim and Scott, set off for northern Idaho one Sunday. We stayed three nights at Allison Ranch, heading out each day to practice on challenging airstrips down the Salmon River gorge from Allison Ranch. There are no roads into Allison Ranch, just a (very challenging) airstrip. The care takers Jim and Gloria made our stay wonderful with good conversation, good food, and amazing stories of the many bears that Jim has encountered in the area and the harrowing adventures he has had navigating the Salmon river by boat. The majestic roar of the Salmon River, the breathtaking pine covered mountain sides, and the amazing tranquility were not captured on camera but they were captured in my mind! The lessons learned in the airplane were intense as I experienced the types of extreme approaches and airstrips I will face in Indonesia. When flying, Aaron and I split time flying and observing/taking pictures. We had a blast. Some of these pictures are me photographing Aaron, and vise versa.