Weathered In

Renae posted what was happening on the home front while I was out dodging clouds with my chief pilot Craig.  So here is my side of the story.

Craig and I started out our day with the typical pre-flight checks of the Kodiak.  There was no real cloud build ups yet or any reports that the weather was going to "tank" a little later in the morning.  We took off and headed towards Malinau (our main "hub" in the jungle, it is about a 25 min flight in a Kodiak from Tarakan) with only one passenger.  Our schedule today was to land in Malinau and then take about 800 lbs of medical supplies to a village about an hour to the South West of Malinau called Long Nawang.

Medical supplies all loaded up behind me

By the time we landed in Long Nawang we had been avoiding rain showers and clouds for about a quarter of the trip.  We dropped off the cargo in the rain and picked up three more passengers that wanted to go to Mahak Baru, a town about 15 min flight away.  One of the passengers was really sick and needed to go to the hospital in Malinua.  He hadn't been eating for 4 days because he couldn't keep anything down.  He also had considerable abdominal pain so trying to get him to a place of treatment was foremost in our mind.  We took off in a light drizzle and had a little difficulty getting to Mahak Baru because of low clouds obscuring the mountains around it. Once we landed we dropped off some more cargo and were literally climbing into the aircraft when a wall of rain and clouds shut down the airstrip.  Talk about a bummer, if we had just 5 more minutes we could have gotten out of there.  But we sat there with our sick patient laying on the cabin floor for about 3 hours.

My perspective of the rain

Finally after waiting and checking weather with other stations in the area, we had enough cloud clearances to takeoff.  Except the weather was not improving anywhere else on our route.  Malinau was reporting low clouds and rain plus our other pilots in the area where having difficulty navigating the heavy rain showers and clouds.  Craig wisely took on as much fuel as we could so that our options for getting to another airfield if our planned airport was closed due to weather.

Rain has stopped but clouds have not lifted yet

Rain comes again and the mountains run and hide again

Taking on extra fuel

See the mountain in the background...you don't?!? Well trust me it is there and before we can leave we need to see it, cause "Cumulus Granite"  is not a name for a soft cloud

Our little airport Kiosk that we waited the rain out in, to be honest this is my favorite stop because the airport attendant always has food for us like, fried rice and tea.  So we were not suffering

We finally got off from Mahak Baru and poked our way through the clouds. 

Once we were past our initial storm cells that had made us wait, we started to run into other storms that were more wide spread, black and nasty looking.  They kept pushing us off course and further away from our planned destination of Malinau.  Craig made the decision to try and just get back to Tarakan because one weather was bad and two our fuel was not going to out last the weather.  So we diverted for home.

This is what greeted us as we tried to get home.  The clouds on the left side are the advancing thunderstorm that has already engulfed the South side of the Island.  Right now you are looking at the Northern shore of Tarakan.  Also the airport is located on the Southern side.  We tried to make it to the runway but the turbulence was starting to pick up and we decided again to divert to another airport about a 40 min flight to the south called Kalimarau.  It was a big disappointment to see our destination and not be able to land, but we are trained to make safe, conservative decisions when it comes to flying the airplane.  Even if it means flying in the opposite direction from home and spending a night away from a wife that is not feeling well already and needs a help with the kids.

Another look as we turned away from Tarakan and headed toward Kalimarau

We just landed in Kalimarau and our patient was not doing too well.  He had already spent 5 hours in the aircraft and was in need of an IV to help give him liquids.  We were able to get them to a clinic and they got him an IV that helped him tremendously.  Because the next day he looked better and could actually interact with us.

The Sunset from the storm that has plagued us all day

The line "help" that came to keep up company

So this is the next day.  The sky was blue, or mostly blue, and there was not a hint of storm in the air.  We were able to fly the patient to there intended destination of Malinau and then had another call to go do a flight for a family in Samarinda that had their grandmother die.  They wanted to transport her to Malinau to be buried there because that was where she grew up.  We both thought that it was a good idea, fly down there, return to Malinau and fly home.  Simple, right?  Well, life and weather are rarely simple. 

Clouds started to form on our 2 hour journey to Samarinda and after loading up the casket and the 5 family members that were to accompany their grandmother the weather just "tanked" with low rain clouds, gusty winds and a storm front behind it that looked even worse. 

This is what it looked like.  But that is not all.  As we took off trying to find a way through, over, under, around or anywhere, we just were looking at a 15,000 foot wall of dark angry looking water holding clouds after only 20 minuets of flying.  We had reluctantly turn around and head back to the airport before that closed too from the storm moving in behind us.  Think this trip was exciting enough?  To say the least Renae was not thrilled to hear that we would be spending another day away from each other.


So Craig and I loaded up in a taxi and headed to another hotel for another night away from family.  It wasn't all that bad though for the second night.  We were in a slightly bigger city so they had ACE Hardware.  Not the same "ACE" as in the States but one that kinda has everything including hardware but all the way up to rugs, tubs and light fixtures.  So I got to shop around for a few things to bring back home, all the hazardous stuff that you can't take in the airlines like aerosol cans, sharp objects and corrosive liquids... or at least if I needed them.

The next day was a flawless weather day with just some clouds to help shade us from the sun.  We made the flight to Malinau and then back home.  And so ends our adventure for this month.

A crowd came to meet us and the carry the casket away

When it rains, it pours

Not to sound cliche, but the saying "when it rains, it pours" felt far too true for me this past weekend.  Now first, I must say, this was anything but a normal weekend.  Of course ever since moving to Indonesia, there really is not much of a "normal" to my life, but this was definitely far beyond the ordinary, even for living here.

First, almost all 6 of us have been sick with coughs for a week now.  To add to that loveliness, mine moved to my lungs and both Tyler and I could hear the gurgling/wheezing of my deep breaths.  My thoughts started drifting to pneumonia, just what I needed, right?  Well, life moves on, and Tyler went to work last Friday as usual, going interior on a flight with another pilot who is training him.  Well, because of weather later in the day the guys weren't able to fly home.  They were literally right over Tarakan but unable to land because of weather, so they  turned around and slept elsewhere for the night.  I tried to take this change in stride, but my blood pressure started rising as I was seriously getting concerned about needing to see a doctor and get checked for pneumonia the next day. 

As Friday afternoon wore on I could see storm clouds coming, and it began to rain.  Now because of how the city's power is run (on generators), they often turn off the power for the whole city when there is a storm with lightning nearby.  So, just as I was processing Tyler's absence for the night/what to cook for supper, the power goes out.  Boom.  Fortunately there is a reason most of us bring our gas ovens from America, and I could still cook up some eggs for supper despite the power outage.  However, we have no water when there is no power, so simple things like cleaning up dishes, washing hands, flushing toilets, etc, gets a bit tricky.  When the power didn't come back on after an hour and it was getting dark, I decided to meet a friend and her daughter for drinks with the kids just to pass the time (sitting in a dark house with no power in the heat is a challenge).  I load up all 4 kids in the rain and we go out for drinks (some restaurants and stores have generators for such outages).  When we finally got home the power had returned, thankfully.  I finally get all kids to bed, clean up the dishes as quickly as I can, try not to think about the gurgling/wheezing in my lungs and go to bed, knowing I"ll be up during the night with the baby and anything else that might come up.

Come Saturday morning...we make our traditional pancakes for breakfast.  By the time we finish and I am attempting to get things going for the day, 9:00 hits and BOOM, the power goes out.  Again.  Ok, so a few weeks back we were having LOOONG power outages, like 8ish hours for 2 days and then a day of rest.  Begin cycle again.  It'd been 1.5 weeks since we had a long outage, so I guess we got lazy.  This was no 20 minute power outage.  After 2 hours I was starting to feel desperate.  Tyler wouldn't be home until 4ish (at that point), we were almost completely out of clean drinking water, I hadn't set aside extra water bowls/buckets for washing dishes or anything else, and I was concerned about my health.  By the time my friend dropped by to pick something up, I pretty much fell apart.  Though her plate was already full with a busy schedule, she graciously took 2 of the kids with her for a little drive and to get us more clean water for drinking, and also offered to take me to the doctor to get checked.  After 4 hours with no power I was happy to load up all of us into the air-conditioned car and drop them off at her house for her husband to watch while she helped get me to the hospital.  Thankfully there was no line and someone was able to listen to my breathing, take an x-ray, and decide I do not have pneumonia.  I was very relieved about that but still a little anxious about the wheezing.  With that worry put to rest for now, we returned to my friends house and spent the afternoon there trying to wait out the power outage.  It ended up being another 7 hour outage.  During the afternoon talk started to come from Tyler and the other pilot that they might not make it back.  Again.  Bad weather had closed in around the city they flew to that day, and they were stuck.  Seriously??  I felt ready to drop with weariness and frustration.  We went out with our friends for supper, since I had obviously not had any time to work at home all day.  Unfortunately Katelyn had also not had great naps all day, and supper out was nice to be with people but I was completely exhausted and so was the baby.  We made it through that and finally headed home to clean up and get to bed.  Phew.  Made it through the day. 

That night I was so thankful to see an encouraging devotional that a friend shared  on her facebook page.  It was a reminder that He is enough.  God's grace truly is sufficient in our weakness.  When we are weak, He is strong.  I don't write this to say that I did a great job, or even a good job, leaning into Him and letting Him be my strength.  But even though I was "weak" and lost it a couple of times, He still showed up in the small things.  He still carries me through when I can't see it, when I am too weak to ask for help or even when I don't know if I trust Him to carry me through it.  A lot of what happened over the weekend was mostly inconvenient, uncomfortable, out of my control, frustrating. wearying, physically exhausting.  I know my situation could be 10 times worse.  I don't know how God can listen to all my whining and complaining about power outages and heat and illness and taking care of 4 kids alone when I have so much to be thankful for.  One of my favorite books to study this last year has been James.  I can truly understand and finally get what it means when he talks about trials and suffering (and I do mean more than power outage trials...it's been quite the journey for us in the last 2 years).  For most of my life I think I've observed how to avoid trials, how to overcome suffering and trials, how to pray through a trial and wait for it to be over.  But I've never learned how to LIVE IN trials.  How to walk through it with grace.  How to expect it.  To pray not for it to just be over, but for these trials to count.  Oh God, make this trial count!  Use it to humble me, to teach me how to walk WITH You in life.  We are not supposed to be surprised by various trials, but somehow I still am.  Every time.  And I want out.  I want my comforts back!  I don't like to have my character continually tested.  Didn't I already go through this?  Over.  and over. and over again. 

Another prayer that has been on my heart is to teach me STABILITY.  As I go around and around these same mountains, I want to pray "Lord, help me be more stable.  Help me learn from the past trials.  When they come again, may I walk through it a little closer to You this time. "  The Lord and His love and character never change.  If that is true and I want to be like Him, then that is a quality to strive towards.

So back to the weekend...  Sunday morning at around 6:00 a.m. the power goes out.  I'm still sleepy and it hardly registers, but I immediately think "again?!"  No way!  Will this be 20 minutes, or several hours?  Thankfully about 30 minutes later it turns back on.  Well, our day is started, so I put together our normal baked oatmeal for Sunday breakfast and try to think about how I can do "church" at home with the kids.  As I'm in the middle of an encouraging skype chat with Tyler's parents Tyler finally walks in the door.  It is 10:45 a.m.  Everyone is so happy and I am so relieved.  I truly can't do this parenting this alone, I miss the companionship of the love of my life when he is gone, and I appreciate all that he does for our family even more when he's been gone.  I also have to say that even though it was tough to be without him, I am thankful for the decisions the chief pilot made to be safe and land elsewhere.  I am thankful that our pilots are trained to make sound and wise decisions, even if it is inconvenient!  Praising the Lord for their safe return. 

As Monday rolled around today I was entirely unprepared for the start of a new week.  Caleb's first full week of school began today, as well as homeschooling Aaron in kindergarten.  I'd done nothing to prepare, even leaving the dishes last night which meant a VERY loving husband meeting a very real need to clean them up while I homeschooled Aaron (2 hours of dishes, folks!)  Well, only I will "know" all the things I couldn't get done or prepare for the week.  The kids will have crackers instead of healthy homemade snacks for a few days, and eventually I'll get caught up on stuff.  It's raining now and I can't help but wonder "will the power go out again soon?  should I get showered before we have no water for awhile?"  And life goes on.  Deal with it as it comes.  And pray for God's strength in our weakness, because He is ALWAYS stable.  Always loving.  He is Enough.

Caleb's first swim meet

Caleb had his first competitive swim meet a few months back, but I am finally getting to look at the pictures.  Caleb did really well for how young he was and because he has just started to swim well just this year.  It was a fun event to participate and it brought back memories when I (Tyler) was in Africa and competed in school swim meets.

 "Are we done yet?!?" ...and we have only just sat down

Caleb getting ready for his first heat, the backstroke

He did really well on his first heat and place 3rd, good enough to compete the next day

Starting the semi finals. Get ready...

 ...and they are off!

 We are so proud of you Caleb!

Parents filling the stands at the pool we regularly frequent 

Caleb did a great job, although he didn't place he gave it his all

  Who doesn't like donuts?!?

All smiles

Kampoeng Kopi Banaran

Kampoeng Kopi Banaran is a local coffee and cocoa plantation just outside of Salatiga.  It is almost like a small amusement park (not really anything like in the USA) with small rides, playground equipment, flying fox zipline, swim pool and coffee restaurant.  We had a few days off from language school so we decided to go with some friends and spend the morning there.  It was a fun time just to go to another place even though we were a little of the "attraction" because we are foreigners.

 Sharing a iced coffee with our friend Mariette

 Had the Wolff family join us too

Fun under the sun...no wait, shade!

Aaron having fun on the "flying fox"

Indonesian school field trip and they tried not to stare at us :)

Kids playing on the merry-go-round

Photo op moment

Sibling love

 Coffee berries just starting to grow along the stem, they should be turning red

around August and then harvested

One of the lookout points for "Lake Pening" a shallow lake just on the outskirts of Salatiga

 Kids are ready to take a tour of the coffee fields

 Still smiling after a bumpy ride of the mountain

 Then it started to pour like it usually does in rainy season here

Taking a little ride in the jeep

 We saw some coco trees too with cocoa pods already starting to show.  I didn't know they grew their own chocolate here

 Loosely translated means: "Drink coffee before playing sports can help women 'burn weakness or fat?' 31 percent more."  We saw some other really funny signs along these lines but I couldn't get a good clear picture of them.  Some of them said that coffee helps reduce cancer and have other  amazing health qualities.  So I should be living a long, 31-percent-fat-burning life, right? 

Walk through of our Tarakan House

While I was in Tarakan to unload our container and our crates into our house, I was able to do a late night walk through to help show you what it looks like.

Packing out!

We still may have around 2 months (give or take) to live in Salatiga, but we chose this week to officially pack and send all our furniture, appliances, and other belongings in a large shipping container to Tarakan.  In sending the container early, we are hoping it will get there in a couple of weeks so that I can make a quick 5 day trip to Tarakan to set up our house as much as I can before our family actually moves there.  This will be a big help as we transition with little kids and a brand new baby!  We are thankful we got all the packing done now and we can "breathe" a little before the next big thing...our baby girl arriving in May! Here is a quick look at the two days of packing, transporting, and packing again looks like.

Packing Day

Our front room with dissembled furniture

 Most of our furniture is wrapped in cardboard to help protect it from the long journey

 Having dinner while our couch takes a rest after being wrapped in plastic

 A bunch of teammates and friends came to help load items in a "truck" and transport them to the loading area.

 Almost all our earthly possessions are here

 View of our front yard with all our stuff

 View from our garage looking to the street

 Have curious and helpful neighbors come to see what this "orang asing" (me) is doing 

 Almost the last load for the day

Container Day

 We started at 6am with donuts and coffee

At least this guy came with a smile...

 We sat around yelling over the passing traffic and enjoying hot coffee and donuts while we waited for the container to arrive

At least it is nice and cool at this hour

 Here is one more helper!

And here is our container

 All nice and empty...and mostly clean

 Ok, no more donuts. Time to work them off

 First item is our chest of drawers

 It was heavy, I think that is why I was taking pictures of it instead of lifting ;)

 Things are coming along rather nicely, everything fitting in

 Almost half way done...

 But still a lot of stuff to fit in the container

 ...and more stuff.  Goodness who thought this was going to be easy?!?

 This is the part where I was getting a little nervous about items not being able to fit

 BUT it all fit!  We were even able to close the doors without having to take a running start

 See you in Tarakan!