New China Cabinet

Shane and I have had to buy new furniture and give back the mission furniture. We have replaced most, but are still living without some, but one thing we DO have is a corner cabinet for our dishes.

I do not like corner cabinets. So, I set out to design one I liked. It needed to have a goblet rack and I wanted it to look interesting. (NOT unusual for me.) :) So, after working on various designs with Shane, this is what we came up with!! :) (Thanks for the Christmas gift, Dad!!)

Before we headed off to Sulawesi we met the cabinet maker (who was also in charge of our kitchen sink -posted previously... I think.) and it was installed the second day we were home. It is amazing and we just love it.

Ahhh.... the joys of living over seas and the small but SO special gifts from the Lord.

Weekend Activities - January 10th

Well, this weekend was a full one and I feel that our life is like a sledder starting down a good slick hill. We are in for a ride and we are learning we have to hang on! :)

Saturday Shane spoke to a group of elementary school english teachers. They meet once a month and look for speakers I guess.... :) We found out about it through a friend/former tutor of ours, Mas Ariel. Shane spoke on what culture is and cultural examples. His gift for speaking was a VERY nice silk batik shirt! One problem is that it is TOOOO big! :) We hope that we can take it to someone who can make it smaller??








































































That evening, Saturday afternoon/night, we tagged along with our pastor who was the speaker to a large Christmas celebration for numerous churches in a big radius. There were about 450 youth there. It was a fun experience and a great time of building our relationship with our pastor and his family. (Culture: You leave your shoes at the door. Well, when you are planning for 500 kids the doors would be quite packed, so we got our own little plastic bags for our shoes!!! That was a first, but a super idea!)

Last but not least... a few MISC pics from Sulawesi.

My friend, Chi, who I met when she was a student at our National Training Center in Manado - when we evacuated in 2001....


















Shane and Alan eating nangka (jackfruit) seeds in their kitchen...













Alyssa and I... my poor neices and nephews get lots of hugs from their Auntie! :)














Notice anything about this picture besides Tim on his cell phone? :)

A Small Bit of Humor...

Happy Birthday to Shane!!

For Shane's birthday the men, along with Tim's 3 kids, headed to the beach for some spearfishing. The got nasi kuning before heading out, stopping twice under shelter as the morning was very dreary and overcast, and rainy.... they didn't give up hope but went towards Donggala a bit more. They found the perfect spot, fished and cooked their fresh catch over their fire. :) (Sorry... no pictures.)

They came home in the afternoon. The cake I ordered for Shane (Rachel doesn't have an oven yet) was given away and they had to make me a new one. We finally were able to pick the new one up and had our cake together.





















































































That evening we headed to a new 'meadows' that we saw coming back from Wera Falls. It was a fun hike, I'm sure frequented by Tim's family and Alan's family after we had flown back here to Java.















































































































After our jaunt on the meadows we we headed back to the bay for some of that YUMMY BBQed corn and fried bananas. Before the food came we sat around and enjoyed seeing Shane open his presents.

Donggala

Just a few pics of a trip to a beach....that is actually on most maps I have seen. :) Anyway, nice white beaches and pretty coral.




























A guy we passed on the way home....


















The OLD guest house and a house that the Whatleys lived in a long time ago. This is on the other side of the river, predominately of the other religion..... with the unrest a while back (years) it was decided that it would be better to move the guest house. It now sits pretty delapitated.

Wera Falls Academy... Used to be..

For our faithful bloggers... you have been here before but most of these are of the layout of the old school are for our Indonesian MK's to see recent pics of their beloved elementary school.... or for some not so great. Anyway, there they are....


Entrance and beyond....




































































































































































































































































Our gang also enjoyed the whirlpool area and then some of us hiked up to the base of the big waterfall.... where we were last time I got pics... but we actually crossed over and hiked up a bit more. It was kind of scary, fun, and VERY wet! :)














Ok, so this doesn't EXACTLY look exciting for lunch, but 'nasi kuning' (yellow rice) is SO yummy and a tradition for the MK's from Palu.














A termite's next at the base of a tree that we passed on the way up to the waterfall...




















































The school and probably the villages around gets their water from this waterfall. This is just on area where the water is just bubbling up and out...