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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Catch Up, Catsup, Ketchup

Wow. This thing called life is so crazy. At times, it's super slow and at other times it's waaaaaay too fast! We are in the midst of the waaaay to fast moments.

A few weeks before we went to Singapore, I was really getting down in the dumps. I couldn't understand why God wasn't allowing one more person to "work" for Him. Since I couldn't legally work as a teacher without a visa, I felt like I was just spinning my wheels without a clear direction. We still didn't know where we were going to live after we move out of this house. It was really very stressful. Then all of the sudden, things started to change.

In the course of a week and a half, I had been granted a work visa and we had some friends who we were talking with about staying in their house.

We left for Singapore on a Sunday morning. Singapore is totally different from our world. There are sidewalks, coke machines, crosswalks, lines, Chili's, steaks, grocery stores that sell Dr. Pepper, movie theatres, and Christian bookstores that sell books in English. BUT with all the glitz, that place is soooooo expensive! So we were thankful for our get away, but glad to get back. I didn't think we would miss Papua, but some how over the time we've been here this place is starting to feel more like "home".

We celebrated my birthday in Singapore. Josh's mom pointed out a really neat thing. This past year, Josh and I both celebrated our birthdays in two different countries. Josh's birthday was in March when we were in Malaysia, and mine is in September when we were in Singapore. We went to a Christian bookstore, walked around the botanical gardens and the orchid garden, and went to Chili's for dinner where we watched soccer on their televisions.











Saturday came and it was time to come back to our world. We were met with some "welcome back" gifts that only Papua has to offer. While we were gone there was a lightning storm that hit our phone line. Our phone line was down for a couple days but was repaired before our return. The modem was also connected to that same phone line and was down too. That night the power went out. This is not unusual, so we went to bed because we were soooo tired. We woke up the next day to still no power- now this is weird. The electricity didn't come back on until 5 PM Sunday afternoon. A transformer had gone out in our neighborhood, so no one had power.

Monday morning I was in the classroom. Let's just say 45 minutes is NOT alot of time to fit in a whole math lesson :) I've learned that I have to write out the information I want them to know BEFORE class. The second week was much better. This upcoming week we're adding on Language Arts, so I'm anticipating this week to be another "learning experience".

Josh also had a busy week when we returned. He was welcomed with a safety team from the States that were here to give us imput on areas of improvement. Josh was able to get his initial flight physical completed without having to take the 7 hour flight to Jakarta. He was also able to build some relationships with some of the saftey team members that really encouraged him to chase dreams and desires that he has.

This catches us up to now. The Muslim Community is celebrating Idul Fitri. This is the holiday that breaks the fasting month of Rhammadan. This is an important time for them, because it's a time of forgiveness and renewal. Our forgiveness and renewal came from the Cross, so we used this extended weekend as a time of rest. Josh went back to work today for some inventory, and I will go back to the classroom tomorrow for the start of a new week.
 
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