So Long Ordinary

Baby Abby is doing much better! She has now had three rounds of meds by IV and her fever has gone down considerably. She is still staying at the hospital for tonight and probably Sunday night to complete her medications but we are all hoping she'll be able to go home on Monday. We were able to go by the hospital and take a meal to the Pratts and they seem to be doing well, if tired. They have a pretty nice private room and can hopefully relax a little, though it is hard to keep a 14 month old content with an IV attached to her arm! Thank you for your continued prayers!  

I wanted to put out a prayer request for our teammates' one year old baby girl, Abigail. She came down with a very high fever today and went in for a blood test. The result came back that she has malaria. The hope was that they could take her home and give her the meds there but unfortunately, she wasn't able to keep the medicine down and has to spend the night in the hospital. Her mom, Robyn, will be spending the night at the hospital with her while they work to get the meds administered that will help little Abby get better. Please pray for the whole Pratt family - for a quick recovery for Abigail, peace in the midst of a trying and scary situation, and for wisdom in dealing with doctors and nurses in a different culture and language.

Goodness, where is the time going? Did you realize that March is almost over? We have pretty much settled back into life here. Here is a little taste of what has been going on: Homeschooling is going well, though it is challenging sometimes to get all three girls to cooperate with my plans for the day! Paige is now doing short lessons with me as well - it helps her be less distracting to her sisters. She's really having fun "doing school" each day and is quite proud of the things she has been able to learn. I am SO grateful for technology - we've found several online helps and Ipad apps that have made homeschooling a LOT easier for me. My girls love it when they get to use my computer or the Ipad, so it's one way to sneak in some learning. ;-) Sean and I are back to taking our weekly dates! Last week, we went out for sate ayam (chicken on a stick with an amazing peanut sauce) and then found this new coffee shop in town! It was very nice, especially for her...

The stories just keep coming! You know how hard Monday mornings are. You don't feel like moving. You want to sleep in. You move like your feet are made of lead. You can't wake up. Your routine starts slow, with eyes at half-mast. I have found the cure for you. Giant, man-eating spiders hiding in your toilet paper! I was pulling out a fresh roll of toilet paper when a HUUUUUGGGGE spider jumped out at me, landed on my hand, and then scurried down my leg. I screamed like a banshee who just saw a ghost. Sean heard me on the other side of the house and came running to check on me and was banging on the bathroom door, "Was that you screaming?" he asked. (I told you I screamed rather freakishly, he wasn't even sure it was me!) "I'm fine," I said sheepishly. "A spider was in the toilet paper. I don't know where it went." I went ahead and got in the shower, peeking around the whole time, looking for the now-missing spider. I was star...

I already told you about our exciting Saturday. It didn't end there.... Later that same day, our little door locker (aka Paige) struck again! The little twerp locked the door to our schoolroom, blocking us out of the front half of the house. We spent a long time trying to coax her to turn the key the right way to no avail. UGH! The front door! We ran around to try it, but sadly, we'd left the key in the lock. The thing about locks here is that if a key is already in them, they cannot be unlocked from the other side. So....we decided to try to talk Paige through getting that key for us. SInce there are lots of windows in our front room, we could see what she was doing and talk to her. But, that didn't work either. Apparently, Paige's skill with keys pretty much ends with locking things. Unlocking doors and removing keys are an altogether different matter. She just kept saying, "I tan't do it. I never tan do it!" No amount of pleading from he...

On Saturday, we got to experience our first ever collision in Indonesia! (Okay, I guess we've been "bumped" by a scooter a time or two, but those don't count.) It was quite an event. Praise God, nobody was hurt. It happened very quickly but long story short, a guy on a scooter suddenly decided to turn right in front of us and crossed into our lane before we even knew what happened. We were both shocked to find him there where he should not have been and there was no stopping in time. Thankfully, we were going very slow and the guy popped right back up. Whew! Well, it took a long while to get the whole thing figured out. The scooter guy was pretty unhappy with Sean and another bystander really wanted to turn it into a major ordeal but I was so proud of Sean. He handled it so well and kept a friendly smile on his face all while being told how stupid he was to hit a guy who had his blinker on...even if the guy did turn across oncoming traffic in a totally illeg...

At the museum, the girls got to pose in front of a green screen for a picture. Eeek! One last stop at Chipotle on our last day in Colorado! Oh, Chipotle, we wish you weren't so far away. Please come to Indonesia. I think you'd like it here. The requisite "we're on an airplane for the next 12 hours and we are smiling anyway" pictures. (Sean is on the phone with his mom, saying one last good-bye.) We spent way too much time on this floor in the Jakarta airport. Next time we have a layover this long we will be going into town or getting a hotel room for a few hours...this was by far the most miserable part of the trip. Thankfully, our other long layover (in Singapore) did come with a room in the transit hotel.  

We're back! What a whirlwind trip we had. Now, I'm in a bit of daze and asking myself, "Did that really happen?!" I don't think I can sufficiently describe every wonderful and memorable moment of our six weeks back in our Colorado home but it was just a joy to get to see our family and friends and be a part of their daily lives again for a while. Here's a random list of things I am so grateful to have experienced again: meeting up for lunch with my parents or in-laws...just because we could! late-night movies with my niece going to church and worshipping in English! visiting Grandma Jean in Kansas going to high school basketball games getting our fill of Mexican food, cheese, steak, hamburgers, Pizza Hut, taco salad, and so much more snow and cold and wearing sweaters and jeans our New Mexico date! sitting around and just laughing and chit-chatting with my sister celebrating my sister-in-law's engagement and the gathering together of family from Color...

Sean and I were able to take a few days to head south to New Mexico while the girls stayed with grandparents here in Colorado. We had such a great time! We LOVE northern New Mexico. The blue skies, the adobe architecture, the Mexico-like feel, the amazing food. We stayed a night in Chimayo and also went to Santa Fe for a night. We wound up spending a lot of time in Albuquerque as well, shopping for things we need to take back to Indonesia. We are now almost set for the next few years with fresh clothes, shoes, and other things we can't get in Palangkaraya! Ristras , or long strings of dried chilies are so beautiful. This little church in Chimayo is famous for being built on soil that supposedly heals people of all sorts of maladies. There is a little hole in the basement where you can scoop up some of the red dirt for yourself...I think the Virgin Mary appeared on this spot many years ago and that is why they built the church and proclaimed the healing powers of the soil...