Amber's Thoughts.

You know, I thought I would be so excited when we finished language school. Well, it's here. We finished (Praise the Lord!) but I don't feel "freedom". I have mixed emotions. This is the first city that we have felt settled. We knew it was a temp position, but I wasn't expecting to connect to people the way we have. At some point, all of our friends here will move to other countries or other islands, so in a way it's probably best that we leave first. Our teachers became like family, you know the rock that will always be there. They were there every day, rain or shine (trust me in Indonesia sometimes there is more rain than shine!) and always willing to invest into our lives. It's a bittersweet mixture of emotions for me.

Here's some examples of the mixed emotions I have:
happy, sad
anxious, nervous
excited, cautious
willing to move, clinging/grasping for life here

I feel what I felt when we made the move here from America, but now we know a little bit of the language. You can fill in the blank on the word you think fits best for how I feel.

Now we're turning to these next two weeks in Bandung. We'll go to Jakarta for a night, because Josh has a pilot test take. The week after that is strictly reserved for packing. When we moved, we had four suitcases, 2 hiking bags, and a backpack. That's our whole life. We've expanded since we moved here... adding a car and motorcycle to our family. A moving company will come next week to ship our things to Papua. We'll leave Bandung and head to Kuala Lumpur for switching our visas and "vacation" before going to Papua. We'll arrive on the morning of March 29. Terlalu cepat (too fast!)!

Once we get "settled" (does this ever happen in the Christian life???), I should have more time to update to fill you in on all our new adventures! Thanks for going on this journey with us.

A&J