Some pictures for everyone--

Thanks, Amu for taking the family pictures!!

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A typical Saturday- fun with friends!  We washed and lubed the bikes!

Most days after school, the kids all get together and play around at the BAIS playground!

First day of school! 

Time sure does fly by!

Well, we arrived back in Indonesia on Aug 5th! We enjoyed our overnight stay in Japan and didn't feel too bad as we entered into our home around 3am.The flight home was uneventful! We thank God for the time we were able to spend with friends and family over the summer.

As soon as we arrived home the boys went straight to their play room and we started to unpack. Jet lag was definitely felt more by all coming back to Indonesia than going to the states. Our break was over. We started school in service on Aug 11th and the kids started school on Aug 14th. Ever since then we have been pretty busy. We cannot believe it is almost October! Time sure does fly by!

To get you caught up a little on what we are all doing this year - -
Erin is working at BAIS the first 3 hours of the day. She has a few hours in between her "work schedule" and her Indonesian class. During her free hours she is meeting with her accountability partner, preparing for the Good News Club (that starts Sept 18th and will meet every Thursday), meeting with a group of Korean mothers to teach English to, and is trying to eat lunch with each boy at least once a month. She enjoys her schedule and enjoys what she is able to do.
Matt is continuing to teach English to the middle school and high school students at BAIS. He has 5 classes a day. He is also taking Indonesian classes once a day for the first time! Matt is also helping out with a guys study once a week during lunch, mentoring a student once a week after school, helping out with an English class once a month, and tries to play soccer with the neighborhood guys twice a month. He tries to use his time wisely since he doesn't have much of it:)
Kadin is in 4th grade this year. He is one of two boys in his class of 12 students. He is having to learn how to manage his time wisely due to the amount of homework he has this year. He is doing his best and continues to excel. He enjoys playing soccer with the neighborhood kids and would like to try out for the swim team when the time comes.
Jace is in 1st grade this year. He is one of 10 boys in his class of 14. He is also having to learn how to manage his time. He also has quite a bit of homework each day. He enjoys playing outside and enjoys soccer as well.  He is doing really well.

Well, that's our schedule!  We continue to build relationships with friends and family over here. God has placed us in a very unique community which we are very thankful and grateful for. We thank you all for your continued prayer and support. Although we love where we have been placed for this season in our lives, we truly miss all of you and wish we were closer. We will end with some prayer requests as you remember us in your prayers - -
-prayer for the Good News Club that is held every Thursday from 4-5:30
-prayer for us to make the most of every opportunity set before us
-prayer to be able to balance our busy schedules, continuing to take time for Him and our family
-prayer for continued health
-prayer for continued safety

Thank you once again for your prayers and support. Have a blessed day!!! Mekj

Tomorrow morning we leave for home (or Indo, or our other home....what do we call it?)  It's been a blessing to be here in America and at home with our friends and family Stateside.  We look forward to meeting our friends in our other home back home in Indonesia!  But before we leave, we wanted to give a shout-out to all the great food places we have visited!

Soooo, in honor of American food, here's a list of where we have eaten in the last 60 days!  It's also the reason we have not lost any weight like we had hoped!  It's been fun eating at all those places we missed!  What's your favorite place to eat??

God bless, and let's stay in touch!  -mekj

A little taste of America--
Taco Bell
Rosa's
Francos
Henry's
Taco Villa
Sonic
Whataburger
5 Guys
Papa Murphy's
Zetners Daughter
Chick fil a
Mcd's
Little Caesar's
Chilies
Red Lobster
Rudy's
Blakes
Churches
Subway
Schlotsky's
Johnny Carinos
Loan Star Hamburger
Pei Wei
Frozen Yogurt with toppings
Donut Stop
And many of these places were gone to multiple times this summer!

Greetings again everyone!  We are now back in Texas, and will be in San Angelo for about a week.  We speak at Angelo Bible Church on the 20th of July, so you can be praying for us as we try to paint a picture of what God is doing in Indonesia.  It's been a busy summer- 4500+ miles and about another 500 to go!  Our time in NM was especially fun!  We will post pictures of that later!  Here are some picts from a few of our adventures......
Enjoy...

For starters, water gun fights are always fun! 

After arriving in Texas, we traveled to Georgia to see cousins.  Here we are at Vicksburg to check out the memorial park.....

  

On the way back to Texas, we stopped at the USS Alabama- it was a slight detour!!

next to the Alabama was the USS Drum, a WWII sub... 

We have added 4500 miles to my dad's car- Thanks DAD!- here's a pict of one of the state rest stops we checked out.... 

Ah, to have a riding mower- every boy's (man's) dream!

Amarillo is the headquarters for the American Quarter Horse Association... here is one of the many horses that you'll find throughout the city.... 

fun with cousins!  

God's grace!  See the blown tire?  It happened as we tried to pass at 75mph...  No one was hurt!  Thank you, Lord!

At the Durango museum... cool display.... 

We have been taking pictures of the boys with this bear since they were little.... 

The train in Silverton.... 

Site of the epic snowball fight... FYI- Dad won!  ;-)

Ahh, cherries!  Yum!  

Playing at Dana's house!  The dirt in the background was the site of several dirt clod battles....

Waiting for the parade to start in Ouray... Carl drove, and we threw candy!

The start of the parade in Ouray- lots of fun! 

Waiting for the fireworks to begin... (at Ouray, CO)

the view as we head to Red Mountain Pass... one of the only sections of flat road for 30 miles!

Pict from a pass on the way back to Farmington....

At the hotel in Aztec.... we have only stayed in hotels 4 times this whole summer!  Thanks to everyone who let us stay with them!!!

In case you didn't know.... We are in the States!  We have been busy travelling, spending time with family, and getting caught up on our doctor visits.  The kids have especially enjoyed going to multiple parks and swimming pools, going to two different churches, and trying out American fast food!  God has been good, and we are excited to meet many of you over the next month and a half!!  Currently we are in the Denton, Texas area, but we will be traveling to the Southwest later this week.  I will try to post some pictures of our adventures later, but for now, we wanted to at least post a quick hello- since it's been waaay to long since we said anything at all!  Here's a rough outline of where we will be over the next few weeks-

at Jakarta- ready to start the trip!

CO/NM- End of June to early July (We will speak at Crosslands
on July 6th)
San Angelo, Texas- July 13-21 (speaking at ABC on July 20th)
Denton, Texas- July-August

Erin has a new phone number as well- feel free to email us if you want it!  -mekj

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Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!!  

It is amazing how quickly the time goes by!  We have now been here in Indonesia for a year and a half!  The first six months are a blur as we struggled with transitioning to the new culture and job, but now we are finding ourselves not even noticing things we used to think were so different or alarming!  Our family is doing well, and we have been blessed by God beyond our expectations!  God has been so good to us and we are so thankful for the chance to work here with NICS at BAIS.  

Perhaps one of the biggest pieces of news for our family is the fact that we now have a car!  It has been a blessing to be able to drive the kids in the car instead of being out in the rain on a motorbike!  Having a car has enabled us to have much more freedom in being able to go where we need to go in a safer vehicle.  It's a Honda Brio, a car made in Indonesia and part of a low cost, green car program on the island.  Before we started shopping for a vehicle, I did not know that many of the cars here are three cylinder vehicles!  This one has four, and gets us around town just fine.  We thank God for the blessing of a car.  

The car was an early Christmas gift of sorts, and the other big blessing was Erin's parents coming to visit!! The kids have loved having them here to talk to face to face, and it has been fun watching them together.

Here's some picts of our latest adventures!

We started out the Christmas break with the boys!  We headed to our friend's house.  I usually don't ride with this many kiddos on the bike at once!  (but it is possible!)

We had a couple days to relax before Erin's parents came on the 24th.  The kids were so excited to pick them up at the Jakarta airport!  Our good friend, Amu, graciously drove us there to them up.  Her parent's flight had been delayed from the start in Dallas, so their whole original itinerary was ditched.  But the flight was uneventful, and everyone was very helpful.  They arrived in the afternoon instead of in the morning, which just meant they got to experience the traffic of Jakarta!  We even took a side road "short-cut" courtesy of Google Maps.  It actually worked out, and we all got to see a part of the town we normally wouldn't- complete with an open air market!    

at the airport!

After a couple of days, we took the family to a neat restaurant up in the Lembang area.  Kampung Daun is a popular place, and has pretty good food!  Everyone made it there before me.  I had to take the car in for its 1000km service (yes, the service schedule is different here-) and was stuck in another part of town that morning.  As I drove up to the restaurant, I was stuck in Bandung traffic- for three hours!  It was a nice place to relax after the traffic.  

Chee (Erin's dad) likes to play soccer with the kids.  The grandparents enjoyed seeing the boys' friends as they came to visit.  Jace learned to ride a bike over the break as well, so now he and Kadin are not only soccer buddies, but bike buddies!

One of the things we like to do with Nali and Chee is to play "42."  Here, Chee is teaching the boys how to play dominoes....

Earlier this week, Kadin had to go to the hospital due to his chest congestion.  When we left, this beauty was sitting in the lot near our car.  It's neat to see the older Jeeps and Toyotas here on the island.  This one was done up particularly well.  It reminded me of the Jeeps we had back home, and the fun adventures we had...

Curug Cimahi is a popular local waterfall.  It's kinda in the heart of the city, which makes it all the more amazing.  It's height is about 85 meters....   I had gone there at the end of summer with the new teachers, but this time it was with the whole family! The boys loved swimming in the area- they were all over the rocks and in the water- and stayed pretty dry- except for Jace- he slipped and fell in!  He dried off pretty quick, and we had a change of clothes!

Just the other day we went right downtown- the ladies to the mall, and Amu and I to a play center in the mall.  The kids had such a blast and were totally worn out.  Here's a shot of them as they zone out while waiting for the pizza to come!  (yes, this is Pizza Hut!) 

That's just the last week or so..... We will try to add some more later, but for now, we want to at least get something up for everyone to enjoy.... (besides- I have to figure out how to transfer some other photos first!)

Have an awesome new year!!  -mekj