We made it! The long version.

I've been working on this for two days and I'm still not sure it makes sense. Chalk all the run-on sentences and bad English to jet lag. Thank you.

We have made it to Jakarta!!!!

I have to say, it's pretty stinking amazing to discover that this "Indonesia" place does exist.

Our 36 plus hours of traveling went remarkably well. The girls had their moments (as did their parents) but it was nothing we don't handle on a daily basis anyway ;-) I am glad it's over, though! Thank you for praying, I know it helped.

You can stop reading now unless you are my mother, in which case you can read it and then read it again and read it one more time....

We flew from Boise to San Fransisco, where we had a pretty long layover. That layover was hard because it was well past bedtime for the girls and they were exhausted but there wasn't really any place to sleep. They finally fell asleep sitting straight up (or on the hard floor) just before we were called to board the plane! We had to wake Madison up and that was just about the worst possible thing for her at the moment. Ugh. She basically screamed and cried non-stop until we finally got in our seat on the plane. Next thing we knew, she was sound asleep again and then Paige was screaming!

Eventually, though, everybody settled down. We slept some and played some and watched lots of movies on the 12-hour flight to Hong Kong. Yes! We didn't realize we'd have a quick layover in Hong Kong on our way to Singapore. It was fun - now we can say we've been there. I'm sure we'll fly through there again at some point but our two hours there gave us a nice break from sitting in a plane. We wandered around, took some pictures, and bought ourselves some Starbucks!

Here are two pictures from the airport in Hong Kong. We didn't take many pictures while traveling, but you can go here to see a few more.

We got back on the plane and headed to Singapore. That flight was a little over 3 hours long. I have to be honest, I don't remember much of it!

Singapore was amazing. What little we saw around the airport really impressed us. We had about an hour there and didn't do much but head straight for our gate. We had to take a train to another terminal and, wow, was it clean and all the trees and plants were perfectly manicured. It looked like some type of Utopia! We didn't get to explore the airport much, but it sounds like a pretty nice place. I hope we get to go through there again sometime when we can explore it a little more. Actually, I'd like to take a vacation to Singapore someday...

So, we finally got on our flight to Jakarta! It was a little over one hour to Jakarta and it passed quickly. We arrived at 1:00 p.m. Monday, Aug. 2. I don't know where Sunday went! Once we landed and got off the plane, it took us a little time to find our way to immigration. I was immediately struck with a few things. One was that the air had a different smell - not a bad smell, but it reminded me instantly of Nepal. I don't have any idea what that smell is. Smog? Humidity? Plant life? Food? Incense? Asia? I don't know, but it's a homey smell to me. It also clues me in to the fact that we are in a foreign world, now! The other thing that struck me was that this airport in Jakarta was not nearly has nice as Hong Kong's or Singapore's. We've entered the Third World, for sure!

We got to Immigration and were ushered to the front of a line because of the kind of visas we had - we passed a huge, long line of people. Yes! Well, that was great, but it took us a while to get our passports stamped. Oh, and all of a sudden, our Spanish was useless! We barely got by with our English! It was weird to go back to one word sentences and gesticulations to get our point across! By the time we were done, that huge line we'd bypassed was gone and everybody else was well on their way. We did get through fine, though the girls were losing it by then! Then we headed to the baggage claim and found ourselves a porter to help us unload our ten pieces.

We breezed through customs and made our way toward the airport exit. We had a little trouble finding our contact here. While Sean went searching for our friend, I stood around with the girls and the porter and our two carts full of stuff, sweat pouring down my back and face, trying to convince Maddie that she was going to survive the next ten minutes and Paige that the world would not end if she shared the footrest of her stroller with her sister! We finally borrowed our porter's cell phone and found our contact. Turns out she was waiting at the other international arrivals door, which is where we should have come out. As we headed over to the exit where our taxi was waiting, we passed a narrow corridor where several people were sitting along the sides. Most of the women and some of the men reached out a hand to pinch the girls' cheeks. The girls handled it very well! It was like a gauntlet, though! It made me chuckle...on the inside.

We had to wait while things were arranged for the bulk of our luggage to be driven to the MAF office where it will then be picked up and driven to our house in Salatiga. (Our flight there won't allow us to take all that luggage, so we'll live out of our carry-ons just a little longer.) Finally, we exited the airport, loaded our luggage to go a different direction in a van and got ourselves loaded into the MAF car with our friend.

Riding into the city of Jakarta was a surreal moment for me. We were here! Everything looked vaguely familiar but also so, so strange and new and different. We were driving on the wrong side of the road for one thing! I sat in back with the three girls (who zonked out right away) and just stared out the window, taking it all in. We might as well be on the moon!

We got to our guesthouse and settled in. Brooklyn went straight to a bed and went to sleep for the night and Madison quickly followed. I had to lay down with Paige since we didn't have a crib for her and I zonked right out with her! Sean had to come wake me up to sign some papers that our MAF guy here is working on for our visas and I was shocked to discover that I'd even fallen asleep! We stayed up for a little longer - Sean ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut and we each made ourselves eat a slice before we went to bed. I took a shower - oops! drank that water! - and then to bed I went!

We were up at around 2 a.m., each of us ready to go! Jet lag. So, we all came out to the little commons area at the guesthouse and the girls ate some pizza. We laid them back down(and found out that Paige can really scream when made to lay down against her will) and we all tried to sleep for another few hours before we got up for breakfast with the other guests (all missionaries) here.

It's all very exhausting! But it's also really wonderful. We're so glad to be here and we know that, eventually, this will all seem "normal." I wanted to write this all out right away so that I can remember later on! We feel so blessed and honored to be a part of God's work with MAF in Indonesia!

We'll be here in Jakarta for a few more days getting some things taken care of with our visas and getting over jet lag and taking care of some things we need to do here in the big city. At this point, the plan is to go to Salatiga on Friday.