Soccer games

Futsal or indoor soccer is huge in Indonesia. The kids are playing it every week. They had a game last week: Brienzi's team tied 2-2 and Aidan's team lost 2-1.

Ethan even came to cheer his older sister and brother on.

Kim and Tati

Kim and Tati working on hand bag designs in our front room.


Kim has found that designing and sewing them has been a challenge. She and a teammate have been piecing them together for a couple of weeks.


Now Tati has agreed to help. She lives in a village about two hours away and came into town last week to help sew the new designs. Then she taught some of the P-town mothers how to sew them, and will come back periodically to do quality control and more teaching.


The process continues to be a trial and error thing. We have concerns all the time . . . well, especially Kim. Will they sell? Will they be strong enough? Will the designs be something people want? Are they big enough? Do they look right?

Here are a couple more trial designs:

Gaze at the Gospel

“It is the unhurried meditation on gospel truths and the exposing of our minds to these truths that yields the fruit of sanctified character.”

- Maurice Roberts, The Thought of God (Carlisle, Pa.: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1993), 11.

Take some time today to set your mind on things above, not on things that are on earth. Often, I need to remind myself to focus not just on good things, but on gospel truths, and then not to quickly glance at them, but to gaze deeply into them. It ALWAYS brings refreshment to my soul. 

Via: Gospel Driven Church

Bag Project Update

Kim has been working very hard at trying to get more of the hand bags sewn by the ladies at P-town. Last week was a crucial and busy week. We asked a long time acquaintance to come in and help for the next two months. She is an Indonesian friend who has been working for a handicraft company called Agape. So she came in last week to learn the designs and begin teaching two of the P-town mothers how to sew them. Kim has also been getting down the the markets to buy beads, trying to find bead designs, and getting ready to have another mother add these to the bags. 

I have some pictures, but don't have them loaded yet (and I'm also trying to convince Kim that it's ok to put these first ones on the blog).

Ever wonder why books have the title at the top of every page?

No economic woes here

Aidan has discovered his own stimulus package. Losing three teeth in one week! The tooth fairy is hurting, though.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Russell Moore reviews a biography on St. Patrick which

. . . demonstrates the ways in which Patrick carried the Christian mission into the frontiers of the British Isles—confronting a hostile culture and institutionalized heresy along the way. With this the case, the life of Patrick is a testimony to Great Commission fervor . . . [and his] love for the Irish was an act of obedience to Jesus’ command to love enemies and to pray for persecutors.

This biography gives contemporary evangelicals more than a pious evangelist to emulate. It also reconstructs a Christian engagement with a pagan culture, in ways that are strikingly contemporary to evangelicals seeking to engage a post-Christian America.

Read the whole thing.

Perth Day

Celebrate with us!

One year ago this morning, by the grace of God, we had a doctor and nurse from Singapore fly into our little town to pick us up and get Kim, and Ethan, to good medical care in Perth. And so began our journey to the wide open space of Down Under.

Today, as we celebrated all that God did last year, we thought about how the joy we had last year in "the rescue", as Kim calls it, was a glimpse of the joy that is to come.

There is no joy like the joy of heaven,
for in that state are no sad divisions, unchristian quarrels, contentions, evil designs, weariness, hunger, cold, sadness, sin, suffering, persecutions, toils of duty.
O healthful place where none are sick!
O happy land where all are kings!
O holy assembly where all are priests!
How free a state where none are servants except to thee!
Bring me speedily to the land of joy.

from Joy
Valley of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions,
Arthur Bennett, ed.

Ethan stands . . . and walks

Love the hair, eh!

New program at P-Town

Today was the first day of a pre-school program that Ibu Wenny launched at P-town.

12 kids have signed up and were eager to get in on their first story book time.

Ibu Endong is the newest member of our P-town staff. She joined us at the beginning of the year and will most likely be heading up the pre-school program for the time being.

While you're thinking about and praying for the learning center, please remember to pray for Ibu Wenny. She really has a great testimony of how the Lord spared her life when she had colon cancer three years ago. But she's been having pain in her back for a couple of months and just last week she learned that her CEA levels have gone up (CEA is a test used to help monitor if the disease has recurred). This doesn't necessarily mean the cancer has come back, but it is cause for concern. Ibu Wenny is plowing along with a very joyful and content heart, though at times, I think she doesn't rest enough. On the other hand, her husband, Pak Bambang, who has spent a lot of time researching this, I think bears the weight of what this could potentially mean for him and his three little girls. So, please lift up Ibu Wenny and ask the Lord for healing and that their faith in the Lord will remain steadfast.

Tickets purchased

Airfares have gone down over the past couple of weeks, which is great news for us. With our home assignment scheduled to begin in June, this was perfect timing to get our tickets.

Ethan is excited and ready to go to meet you all on the other side of the world.

Ace Hardware in Indonesia

Several years ago, Ace Hardware opened a store in Surabaya. My memories of Ace Hardware in the US were of little stores that could occasionally be spotted in strip malls. Nothing much to speak of, especially compared to the behemoth Home Depot and Lowes.

We wondered why in the world Ace had come to Indonesia, but we were happy for it. It quickly became a stop for us and many of our friends since we could get Rubbermaid, quality tools, etc. But we were sure it wouldn't stay open for long. Especially when we would see riding lawnmowers for sale in a country where yards are usually the size of a postage stamp. Or luxury gas bar-b-q grills. Who was gonna buy this stuff?

Well, not only has Ace Hardware stayed open in Surabaya, but they've increased the number and size of their stores . . . and one just opened here in Malang. Amazing!

But we still wonder about where they get their marketing strategies from. The other day as we walked through our new Ace store, we saw these . . .

Anybody need a pulpit?

Excessive celebration

This was awesome. Sometimes, when everything looks down, you just gotta celebrate the small stuff.

Traveling, teaching, designing

I was in Jakarta last week for three days of meetings, and right after getting back had to prep for and teach in Surabaya. So blog time has been limited. Kim did an awesome job of managing the home and all four kids on her own.

In between home school, running the kids to activities, shopping, etc, Kim's been hard at work "baggin." She's come up with some cool designs, although since this is her first attempt at this kind of stuff, she sometimes breaks out into the "what if this all fails" cold sweat. The ladies down in P-town have put together around 35 bags in the past couple of weeks, like the one pictured below. These are being taken to Seattle next week. Now we're on to the next batch. 

A team member of ours who has sewing experience has also been a big help. She came over this week to begin putting together more of Kim's designs. They came up with the first sample this week, will be tweaking it some, and then will get it to the P-town ladies to begin production. It's been fun to see how this takes shape and the Lord providing each step of the way.