Jesus Loves the Little Children

We had some visitors come through this past week - a young couple who is hoping to come out with our company and serve overseas so they wanted to get a glimpse of the work up close. They are a neat couple, and we are excited to see what God will do in and through them in the years to come. While they were here, we spent 2 days in a couple different villages, and they took some good pics. There are kids everywhere you look in the village, and they captured some great moments. As I was looking through these, I was reminded of the song about how much Jesus loves the little children of the world - regardless of what color they are. I am not going to re-arrange these pics - I think you can tell which ones are village kids and which ones are our kids in the village. :)

Ben kept "stealing" their little camera and taking pics - he took this one of this little girl who was following us down the trail.

He also took this one of his daddy visiting with this older man who was making a roof out of abaca bark.
He also took this one of this cute little boy. I cropped it otherwise it would be obvious to the world that he is definitely a boy.

LOVE this precious little one

Ok, so she's not a cute kid, but it was a great pic so I had to include it.

The local version of Wal-mart - everything from soap to sardines available here. Well, maybe not everything. But the cashier is sure cute!

Love the curly hair and those beautiful eyes

Just hanging out on the piles of coconuts. They were busy making copra - drying out the coconut meat and separating it from the shells.

Steve helping Ben get a drink from one of the coconuts. Everyone got a good laugh out of him trying it on his own first - and getting drenched in coconut juice.

precious

Another little tribal boy?

He has the squat down, holding his walking stick and eating a piece of coconut.

those eyes...

This girl is 10 yrs old just like Mikayla. But instead of going to school, she spends her days babysitting her 4 younger siblings so her parents can gather food in the mountains.

coconuts are everywhere here in our area so it is a common food and drink for the kids in the village

his eyes capture my heart too :)

the view never fails to take our breath away - granted by the time you get up to this height, you are already pretty breathless :)

the local bath tub and laundromat

This volcano blew its top about 400 yrs ago and left a massive crater. Unfortunately, the top of the mountain blocked off a stream and flooded the town so the old town center is under that lake. Actually, several of the locals have told us that the water actually "came out of the volcano - that is how you know the volcano is dead now - the water came out." Hmm. Any volcanologists want to weigh in?

Cresting the mountain. What a view.

Pls be in prayer for all these little children whom Jesus loves dearly. Pray that their parents would have ears to hear and soft hearts to accept the Good News that will transform their lives - and the lives of their little children for generations to come.

Precious Moments

When you live the life that we do, moments with family become incredibly precious. We are blessed to have my sister and her family as well as my brother and his wife living here in SE Asia so our paths sometimes intersect. On our way to our meetings in Bali, we ended up with a layover in their city so we extended for a few days.

This shot was taken as we boarded the plane in our little provincial town. I love the 2 volcanoes in the background.

One of the best things about this trip was FINALLY getting to meet our new niece/cousin. This is little miss Zoe, and she is absolutely adorable - and such a happy baby.
Ben and Gabby are actually only 3 wks apart in age, but we have always gotten a kick out of the difference in their sizes.

Zach is great with babies, and he had a blast getting to know Zoe. Mikayla got lots of baby practice too and loved every minute of it.

Precious

Was so good to watch the cousins together again.

Love this smile

Mikayla and Eli enjoying the playground.

The kids worked together to put on a little show for all the adults. This shot is of Ben peeping around the corner to the "stage" (driveway).

Taking a bow after the elaborate show, complete with costumes. We decided Mikayla was going for a 20's era theme.

Precious Memories

Bali

We just got back from a couple weeks on the road. While I probably should be working on all the catch-up paperwork, I decided to take some time tonight and put together some pics for the grandparents out there (and others who may care too :) ).

After our trip to visit my sister in her country (that post coming soon), we traveled to Bali for some meetings with our company. It felt like we were going to land right ON the beach as we approached the runway. After the 7 days of meetings (no pics of that), we enjoyed 3 days of vacation.

Here are some sights from around town:

These little food or flower offerings to their gods were scattered all over the sidewalks and beaches.

The architecture was incredibly intricate

We spent some time by the pool - the boys enjoyed the giant chess set (tnx to Aunt Megan who taught them how to play last year).

On our first day of vacay, we went white water rafting. We had a blast (and don't worry, the rapids were pretty mild!).

However, we have to admit there was one injury that day......but it didn't happen until we were "safely" in the car on the way back to the hotel!!! Having safely navigated the roaring rapids, the boys were playing with the reclining seat in the van, and it popped up and nailed Ben in the head. The bleeding head wound sent the driver into a tizzy, and he wanted to take us right to the hospital. But we convinced him to just take us back to the hotel (did NOT want to brave an Indonesian hospital if we could help it!). Thankfully, we had brought out medical kit which included one of the official "glue sticks" our ER doctor friend in the States sent us a couple yrs ago. We were thrilled when it worked great, and we were able to avoid the cultural experience of getting stitches in an Indonesian ER. Thanks, Steve and Laura, once again for the glue stick thingys - they have saved us from stitches in random Asian hospitals FOUR times now!!!

All patched up! We put a butterfly over the glue to give it a little extra support since we were planning to surf the next day. :) And then covered it all with a Batman waterproof bandaid. We called Ben "Batman" for the remainder of the trip. Here is sporting his best monkey face.

The next day we headed to the beach to learn to surf. Some friends of my sister who live in Bali actually came with us that day, but we forgot the camera so these pics are from the following day when we went back for seconds. Thanks, D&K & little C for a fun day on the beach and the surfing lessons. :)

Check out those waves! Was so beautiful.

we sure got our $ out of the rented boogie boards

the boys also had fun "body boarding" - just riding the waves without a board of any sort. Thankfully, the bottom was sandy and smooth so no coral rash to report.

Batman tackling the waves

Go, Mikayla! She and Zach both got up on the very first try. I guess their wakeboarding experience helps. :)

Even Ben-jay got up on the surf board. There are no pics to prove it, but I (Jen) actually got up a little too. :) And Steve surfed it up too.

Zach was such a natural out there. And I love the scenery behind him too.

On our last day in Bali, Mikayla got her hair braided on the beach.

Love it

Our little girl is growing up...

We had a wonderful time in Bali and were so thankful for the couple days to relax as a family.

Friends!

As MKs, our kids have very quickly learned the pain of saying goodbye since our friends and family are spread all around the world. Once upon a time (ok, a few yrs ago), this family lived only an hour or so away from us - now they live 2 flights away on a different island. So there were LOTS of smiles all around when they made plans to come for a visit last week.

Mikayla and Carly getting ready to head out on the kneeboard together.

Carly getting a kneeboarding safety lesson from Uncle Steve before heading out on her own.
Carly started the celebration for her 13th bday while at our house. We went out to a restaurant and surprised her with decorations and cake. Here are all 5 kids celebrating. (if Mikayla's eyes look a little teary, it's because she just had a run-in with the elastic strap on her party hat. The hat won.)

While they were here, we spent a lot of time in the water. Here is Zach doing a flip off his dad's shoulders. I really do think we are creating adrenaline junkies, but they sure have a lot of fun!

It was great to be with these dear friends again and look forward to when our paths cross again. They said it's our turn to come to them now. :)

This week we leave for 2 countries here in SE Asia - first a 3 day layover to see my sister and her family (and finally get to meet baby Zoe, our newest neice/cousin!!!). Then onto another country for a wk of meetings followed by a few days of vacation. Thanks for praying for safety and good health as we travel!

Kids Wakeboarding Tricks

I put a little high-light video together from the kids' riding these last couple months. They have been a lot of fun to watch lately. Know it's not the same as in person, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.

(By the way, for those of you who aren't used to You Tube - after our video, other suggestions for videos you might like will pop up. We don't have anything to do with those other videos and cannot recommend them.)