A God-Sized Vision

Last week I came across this quote while preparing to talk about developing a vision of God that captures your affections. This comes from Mark Batterson, a pastor in Washington, DC, from his book Wild Goose Chase.

"I think vision is the cure for sin. One reason many of us get entangled in sin is because we don't have enough God-ordained vision to keep us busy. The more vision you have, the less you will sin. And the less vision you have, the more you will sin. It is a vision that keeps us playing offense spiritually.

Too often we try to stop sinning by not sinning. That is what psychologists call a double bind. It's sort of like saying, "Be spontaneous." You can't be spontaneous now that I've told you to be! The way to stop sinning is not by focusing on not sinning. The way to stop sinning is by getting a God-sized vision that consumes all your time and energy."

Pictures of the kids

Lost another pound

Kim went over to Dr. Susan's house this afternoon to get Ethan weighed. He has lost almost another pound. We're still giving him a medicine called Flagyl, which he'll be taking until next week. Then he'll begin another type of medication that is supposed to kill off the entire life cycle of this parasite . . . if that's what he has.

There are some indications, though, that this might be bacterial. The tests we ran last week did not show anything, but we discovered today that the lab did not check for every type of bacteria. So we're working on getting another sample to the lab. And we'll probably start him on an anti-biotic even before we get the lab results back.

It's also possible that Ethan has some kind of physiological gastrointestinal problem. If the above options don't work, then Kim and Ethan will have to go to Jakarta or Singapore. At least that's what options we're looking at right now. Hopefully, it won't get this far.

Since we still don't know what's going on inside him, we're still shooting in the dark. In the midst of this, it seems like he's getting fussier. Would appreciate you're continued prayers for our little guy's recovery.

A Psalmist in our midst

A couple weeks ago, I heard Aidan in his room singing at the top of his lungs, making up his own praise song. Here's what he sang to his own made up tune:

God I love you
You are the most powerful one
You made the creation
You made me
You made the trees
You made everything
Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God
Oh God, I love you
Oh God, I love you
Oh God, You're the one that I trust.

Ethan's parasite

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that Ethan has been on the mend from having a parasite. Well, it seemed like he was getting better, but then he regressed. His tests continued to come back negative, but the blood in his stool tells us differently. We're still not sure what's going on and he's lost a pound in the past two weeks. Now, he does have plenty to lose, the big bub, but it's still disconcerting. The best guess right now is that we didn't get the complete life cycle of the parasite. So he's back on this icky medicine - and he's learned how not to swallow! It's a challenge every time (3x a day) to get it down him - for the next 20 days.

Would you guys please pray for Ethan . . . and also for Kim as she bears the brunt of the concern and having to get the medicine down and facing his moments when the pain in his stomach sets in. Thanks. We'll keep you posted on his progress.

Cotton Mouth

It's been a busy week of teaching at the learning center and also speaking to our local English service on Sunday night. Do you ever have those moments where you know what you want to say, but it doesn't quite come out of your mouth the way you planned it? That's been my week. Ugh. Prime time for a little humiliation and discouragement.

Interestingly, one of the points I was speaking about on Sunday night was the quality of being relentless or steadfast. It's like the Lord was telling me that I needed to preach this to myself. This has been my prayer . . . "May the Lord direct [my] heart to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ." (2 Thess 3:5).

More Independence Day tidbits

Here's the front of our house. Every house has a flagpole in the front from which the Indo flag flies a couple times a year. It's part of being in the community. We're talking notices that go to each house reminding everyone what day to put the flag up and what day to take it down. Also, for those who have never seen our house, every house has walls, fences, gates all around it. They are a part of life.

At the learning center today, we had a special day of games to celebrate independence. Many of these same games have been played throughout each community over the past couple of days.

This is Bahrul right after finding the chocolate gold coin in a pile of flour.

A crowd favorite is eating "krupuk" from a bouncing string without using your hands. Krupuk is . . . uh, well, I'm not sure what it is. Kind of a light, wafery substance deep fried and can come in various flavors - usually fish.

Here's a fun one . . . get the pencil hanging from your, uh-umm, derriere, into the Coke bottle.

I can see a whole bunch of you right now reaching for a Coke bottle, string, and pencils just itching to try this one out in the family room.

And of course, you have to have a race with the spoon in your mouth carrying the marble.

17 August

Today is Independence Day here in Indonesia. I got up this morning to attend an early morning flag raising ceremony, but never made it there. Along the way, I bumped into Pak Firdaus (see previous post) which surprised me because it was so out of place. He lives on the other side of town and I had never seen him over here before.

Anyway, the streets are covered in red and white, which makes the whole atmosphere feel very festive.

All over town, you can hear Indonesia's national anthem.

After chatting with Pak Firdaus, and having missed the ceremony, we all piled into the car and went out for breakfast. And what better way to celebrate Indonesia's Independence Day than with America's number one donut at Dunkin Donuts!

Learning Center Parent's Meeting

I forgot to put these pictures up last week. At the beginning of each term, we invite the parents of the kids coming to the learning center to come in for a group meeting. This gives us a chance to connect with them and share our plans for the up coming semester.

Most of the time, it's just the moms who come. There's always a bit of food involved. Today, we had singkong chips (it's like a potato chip but from the cassava root and has been given a sweet salty flavoring - it's one of our family's favorites).

But sometimes we have one of the father's come . . . which is great cause I always feel outnumbered in these affairs. This is Pak Firdaus (Firdaus means "Paradise"). He actually spent time in Chicago back in 1990 and learned quite a bit of English.

Kite Season

We're in the middle of dry season, which means good strong winds for flying kites. Home made kites are up everywhere, many preparing for Independence Day competitions.

Just behind the learning center several kids in the community were testing their creations out. Notice the cement blocks in a couple of places along the hill. Most of this community borders and in some cases was built right on top of a large grave yard.

Health Walk

Every year around the 17th of August, every community holds several events to celebrate Independence Day. One event is the "Health Walk" where everyone in the immediate community gets up early and goes for a group walk for a couple of miles.

Yesterday morning, Brienzi, Delaney, and I got up before 6am to join our area for the walk. This is the coolest time of the year here in the higher elevations of Indo, which makes for a very refreshing walk.

After the walk, we all congregated at the local place of worship and ate breakfast together - chicken satay with spicy peanut sauce or rice and chicken.

Following breakfast, we had a couple of games. Delaney and her friend competed with the other kids. They had to dance without dropping the balloon from between their heads.

And then we had the door prizes. To our great surprise, we won! (Of course, everybody wins.) And here's Brienzi displaying our winnings of the day . . . two sacks of garlic - woohoo!

Healthy again

I probably should have updated sooner, but we're all back to normal health. Amazingly, Ethan missed the fever. It just ran through Delaney, Brienzi, and Aidan. Ethan seems to be still on the mend from his bout with the parasite . . . entamoeba histolytica. The medication took care of the parasite, but now his intestinal track is recovering. It will probably take the next month for him to completely recover.

Sickos

When one gets sick, everyone seems to follow. Aidan got the fever today. We're hoping and praying Ethan doesn't get it. Ethan's parasite may be gone, but we gotta get him tested again. He certainly isn't wasting away - a wopping 21lbs.

We were all over at a friend's house tonight for the kids to get checked out (Dr. Susan is a pediatrician from the US. She is an amazing provision from the Lord. Always willing to help us and other families out).

Learning Center Week 2

Last week, while we were still in Bali, the learning center got back into action for another semester. Kids here in Indonesia started school on July 14th after only about a month off of school. They go pretty much year round, Monday through Saturday, but the school day is only half a day. Because of the large number of students and limited space, many communities have to do schooling in morning and afternoon shifts.

Normally, we have classes at the learning center in just the afternoon, Monday through Thursday. This semester, though, we're adding an drawing class on Fridays and a morning class on Monday - Thursday for the students who have school in the afternoon.

Here we are meeting today for some time feeding on the Word and praying over the day.

August 17th is Independence Day for Indonesia. On many street corners, masses of red and white flags and banners are fluttering in the breeze as vendors try to sell them. Students across the country are writing about the Pancasila (Five principles that form the foundation of the country). In the picture above, our students are working on a collage of a map of the country.

Back from Bali

We're back and trying to recover from a great but exhausting conference. I've been fighting a nasty cold, Delaney is on the tail end of a 105F fever, Brienzi just picked it up today, and Ethan is getting a parasite out of his system! Obviously, I didn't get a chance to post anything while on the beach. Actually, we really didn't get to the beach, even though it was just steps away. We were too busy in meetings,

catching up with friends from around the region,


or getting the kids into the pool.




We did manage to dip our toes in the ocean for the baptism of several of the teenagers.

One of the blessings for us is watching our kids deepen friendships with kids they only get to see once a year or less than that in some cases.


Ethan even enjoyed making some new friends.


We even made it to a wedding . . . Brienzi's Sunday School teacher in Perth got married in Bali while we were there. They graciously invited us to observe the ceremony (though we think we crashed the reception, which we probably weren't invited to . . . but we didn't know that until it was too late. That's another story!) It was a beautiful Balinese setting, though, in the mountains of Ubud.

Aidan and Delaney got in the wedding spirit.

This says it all!

Even though we were wiped out, we came away with a renewed spirit and a reignited passion to keep pressing on in the work.