A Visit from My Parents

What a whirlwind this week has been! It has been full of laughter, prayer, long talks, and a few tears. It had been 19 months since I last saw any of my family, which is the longest I have ever gone without seeing them. I should preface all this to say that this is the first time my dad has been outside of the US. Let's just say being in a car on Indonesian roads was an experience for him! My mom had made the trip out by herself in 2005.

So here is their trip in a few pictures...

Arriving at the airport in Pontianak after a very long trip! The Indonesian crowd enjoyed our reunion :) 

In front of my home with my dad after church on Sunday

After church on Sunday with my mom

Meeting the Nursing School staff

Meeting the OB Ward staff (who had only patient that day so were busy planting flowers outside the ward)

Getting to know some of the staff I work with. 

The Pediatric Ward staff

With the staff on our Class III medical/surgical unit 

With one of my friends - Dr. Irene (our radiologist) 

Attending the Children's Program for our Hospital Birthday Celebration 

My dad had no problems making friends, especially with the kids :) 

And with adults too!  

We had a lovely dinner with Wendell (Opa) & Paul Geary after their arrival at Bethesda

We also worked on a few "nesting" projects like putting in shelf liner paper in a couple of cupboards, hanging a mirror, and curtains.  

We finished up our trip with a night in Singapore, so they could see some of the sights and catch their early flight

This weekend we celebrated Chinese New Year. (This area in Singapore was absolutely packed with people watching a performance, shopping, and eating) 

It ended all too soon though and just 8 days after I picked them up they were boarding their flights back to the US. 

As I write this they are just a 5 hours or so outside of Portland. Thanks to the international date line they left Asia on Saturday morning and arrive in Portland on Saturday morning. They will take the next couple of days to rest and I imagine be back at work early next week. It was so lovely to see them and share a bit of my life here with them but it was really hard to say goodbye knowing it will probably be another 18 months before I see them again. Right now I am scheduled for 6+ months of home assignment starting in August of 2016.

After a night of rest in Singapore I am headed to a 2-week medical education conference in Thailand tomorrow. Right now though I am battling a fever and bad cold or flu, so please be praying that ends quickly so I can enjoy this conference, plus the new roommate I will meet tomorrow probably doesn't want a sick roomie :(

Underhills are Here!

On Friday night I had the joy of meeting the Underhill family (minus two family members) at the airport in Pontianak. They had been traveling for a long time, so were very tired. We got them loaded in the car, gave them some snacks and then quickly found them a shower and bed.

After a night of sleep though it was time to do a whole lot of shopping for household things because no one had lived in the house in awhile. My favorite moment of that day though was when we went to the cargo section of the airport to pick up their luggage. I had never been there before, so that in itself made it an adventure. Once there it took us awhile to figure out where to go etc and then we were faced with the fact that we didn't want to pay for them to keep the luggage until Monday but we really didn't have the truck needed to pick up all almost 600 pounds. We did however have a van and decided that it was worth a try to get all 16 bags (large duffles and crates) inside. The guys in the cargo area all seemed rather amused with our plan and our driver thought we could only fit 5-6 bags in total. Imagine his surprise when we got 5 bags just in the back. While it was crowded, in the end we managed to fit 700 pounds of luggage plus much of the food and household supplies we had purchased in the van. While there was no applause at the end from our audience you could tell they were impressed :)

The van was then sent on ahead of us to Serukam. We followed on Monday after some more shopping and resting. Hopefully in a coming blog post I can introduce you to the Underhill family. In the meantime please be praying for Brian, Holly, Hattie, Isaac, Eli and Annie as they make this big transition. Please be praying especially for the kids, as they work on re-learning Indonesian and making friends.