11 Days and Counting!

Hello!  The time is growing short!  We are excited about the move, but so sad about leaving our family behind.  We just wanted to give a quick update on what is going on currently...

- On Friday, we said our goodbyes with Erin's parents.  It was a sweet, but sad time.  We know we parted well.  Thanks for your prayers regarding this.  Her parents are now enjoying cooler weather in Colorado, while we are sweltering in the Dallas area!

- On Sunday we went to the evening service at Denton Bible with my parents.  As the service was wrapping up, Erin whispered, "You know, this is our last Sunday service in the States..."  It was enough to tear me up!  We were blessed to be able to have heard a great sermon and worshiped with fellow believers.

- Today, Tuesday, is the day we are selling the car!  Our friends from San Angelo are driving up to get the car, and they are bringing all our boxes as well. (While a Prius is a great vehicle on gas, there's not a lot of capacity to take luggage and boxes!) The sale will be our last thing to go!  Then we will begin the process of packing our stuff into various suitcases and plastic bins.  It looks like we will have a total of 10 containers/luggage.  Praise God that the car sold, and please continue to pray for us as we do our final packing.

- Our time grows short.  We have less than two weeks.  It's hard to describe the emotions.  After being without a place of our own for the summer, it will be nice to have a home- even if it is on the other side of the world.  On the other hand, it is sad to think that we won't be seeing family for quite a while.  It tugs at our hearts when the kids talk about how they miss Nali or Chee (Erin's Mom and Dad).  Pray for us!  We are so close to our departure that we feel the stress almost daily.  We want to "be anxious in nothing" but our human nature has us tend to focus on the "What Ifs." Pray that our time with my parents, and my brother and his family will be full of sweet memories.  


- As our time to move gets closer, our friends across the pond have been frantically preparing for our arrival.  We have curtains, a stove, a fridge, and a washing machine waiting for us at our new home. The biggest change is cabinets in the kitchen!  Yeah! Our house is starting to look like a home! And thanks to the school tech guy, we have Internet at the house up and running as well!  Check our the slide show video if you want to see what the kitchen looks like now!  A ton of praise and thanks goes out to all our friends in Indonesia that have worked to get our home ready!  Thanks especially to Wendy and Ibu Beti!  God bless you all!


Lastly, we are playing with video now.  I figured out how to upload to YouTube, and hopefully in the future we can post some home-made videos of what we see in Indonesia.  We don't want the blog to be hugely time-consuming, but we would love to be able to post more pictures and video as we move and transition to our new home!  Thanks so much for your prayers and support.  God bless! -mekj

Notice the Changes?

Okay, I promise to make this short---
We made two changes to the blog.  Both concern the items on the right-hand side of the page.

1. We retitled the "Organizations We Are With" to "Useful Links" and we added a click-able third link that will take you directly to our support form.  (In our conversations with friends, it became apparent we needed to make it easier to access the support form, so we added a link!)

2. Instead of an "Upcoming Events" section, we converted it to some items to pray for.  We will try to update this as needed.

Thanks for your interest.  We hope this makes the blog more useful and user-friendly!  Let us know if you have any suggestions!  As always, feel free to contact us as well- we want to know how best to pray for you as well!  God bless! -mekj 

Being or Doing?

While visiting with some friends this week, this idea came up- are we too busy "doing" instead of just "being"? Ps. 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." While we need to be about doing Kingdom work, there are also times when we need to be still and just be with our Lord. Sometimes our need to serve him gets us busy doing good things instead of waiting upon him to show us the best thing to do. I thought we would share that idea with you. Busyness is not always godliness.....

Speaking of busy though, we have been- in a good way! :-) We have been blessed with the chance to meet with several friends over the last week. Each encounter has been such a blessing! It started out near Longview, seeing some friends on the way back from Mississippi. Our most recent visit was with some dear friends we had not seen in about 10 years. It was fun catching up on each other's lives! It's so neat to see how God works through all his people - in such a variety of ways!

We sent out an email the other day to everyone- thanks for your support! We want to especially say thank you to those who also took time to respond back. It is encouraging to hear how God is working with you as well.  We truly want this to be a team effort, so please know we are praying for you all as well.

I don't want to go over old news, but we would like to give you some more info-

1. We met with the ABC elder board on Thursday. It was a chance to talk more specifically about what we will be doing and what our needs are. Please pray for the board to have wisdom as they seek to know how much the church should get involved. We definitely want the church to be praying for us.

2. The ABC youth group started their mission trip to Thoreau today. We think this is the first time we have not been involved in the trip in about 23 years. It feels a little weird knowing the youth group we've come to know over the last 4 years is going to NM, yet we will not be there. Please pray for the kids as they work and provide two vacation Bible clubs in the area. Satan would love to mess things up and discourage these youth.

3. We have about 6 days left in San Angelo. Pray for us all- Erin, myself, the boys, and Erin's parents as we say goodbye. This truly is a bitter-sweet time. We have made some great memories with her family, yet the time is so short now that it is hard to not think about our final day. Pray that we part well- affirming and encouraging each other, and crying too. :-(

4. It appears I will be on KCRN radio again! Jim usually hosts the show, but since he will be in NM on the mission trip, he figured they would call in to the show. I could be at the station, and together we can talk about missions-short and long term. Pray for the show to be an opportunity for others to see the need and role of missions. Pray for me too- that folks could see how God has used missions to teach and shape our family. Not everyone is called to move overseas, but we all need to be about sharing the Gospel and short term missions can really allow you to see how God can use you. The show airs at noon on Thursday. (channel 93.9 FM if you're interested :-)

5. Finally, praise God for he has shown himself to be faithful! Things appear to be moving along smoothly, and while the boys have been slightly ill lately, that's it, despite all the moving around they have done. Continue to pray for our family and the actual move/transition to Indonesia. We are in for a lot of changes. Pray that we handle the challenges and demands gracefully and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (that way we show HIS fruit and not ours...) Pray for my history class too- that I will remember stuff I am reading now. 

I think that's it! I thought this would be a short post, but once again, I was talky.  God bless, and drop us an email! - mekj

Happy Past Fourth!

Hello everyone! PFO is almost over. This is a mixed blessing. We are all exhausted from the lessons, interaction, and late nights. It has been a great blessing being here and making connections. Even Kadin and Jace have made some good friends, and we are so happy about that! With the closing of PFO we have only about 4 weeks left in the States. We are praying for sweet times of fellowship with our family and friends as we wrap up our time together. It's kinda sad to think that we will be saying goodbye to Mom and Dad so soon.

Last night we participated in the PFO's "Almost Talent Show." Our team from Bandung decided to do a spoof on some of the things we have learned at PFO this week. We set ourselves up as a redneck family. If you know me, you know this idea was perfect for me! ( our days of living on the ranch or out in NM were a good pool of stories....) What was neat was watching how Jace and Kadin did onstage. They were absolutely precious! Needless to say, the skit was a hit! It was a ton of fun! Then after the show, we all went outside to the parking lot to watch the fireworks from Snowden Park. The kids loved it. The show was fun, and it was neat to watch Kadin and Jace interact with their friends. This evening, the boys will be part of their own children's program, and we are excited to see it. Kadin and Jace have begun to sing snippets of their songs, and wonder what the whole program looks like.

One last thought- how do you pray? I have been trying to start a bible study on prayer (it's by Timothy Keller) and he cites Jack Miller and the idea of "maintenance prayer vs. "frontline" prayer. Maintenance prayer is inwardly focused, short, and done without much thought (or heart) - it reminds me of the prayer we do sometimes with the boys right before bed. We are all tired, and we pray mechanically, sometimes without thinking much about what we are actually praying for or about. Contrast that with frontline prayer, which seeks to humble yourself, become aware of sin, and concerns itself with seeing/yearning for the Lord to reveal his glory. I know I am not saying it as well as Keller, but I just wanted to share how God has convicted me lately.

Okay, here's the last paragraph, I promise.... We just got our mail from PFO, and there are some returned prayer and donation cards. We have gotten a notice of a few of these, but some are new. So if we have not sent out thank you to you personally, please know we will be working on those in the next few days. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and thanks for your continued prayers and support. God bless! -mekj