Travel Tango!

Ok, so maybe we aren't doing the tango over here in Nampa, ID, but with all the packing and details of getting ready to leave plus the butterflies in our stomachs as we anticipate the trip in a week, sometimes we feel like we're dancing around and trying to make sure we don't miss a beat!

This may be our last update from this side of the world, and we just want all of YOU to know how much we love and value your support and prayers!!  We would NOT be here without you.  Your generous sacrifice, committed prayers, and uplifting encouragement have carried us this far and will continue to carry us as we cross into the unknown and continue our journey in a new country.  We are ecstatic to be so close to our leave date, and feel a peace about getting everything finished up here and having said farewell to our families and friends.

In just a little over a week we take off on a journey that will take approximately 40 hours, around 20 of it being in the air.  As you can imagine, this can be mentally and physically exhausting for adults, not to mention three little bodies ages 5 and under!  We want to do everything in our power to make the trip an adventure for our family, but we still value your prayers that everything would go smoothly.


PLEASE PRAY that: 

1. We will all stay healthy
2. All of us would get at least a little sleep, especially the kids (our flight leaves at 9 at night!)
3. Restful layovers and smooth transitions to find our next gates
4. The kids to look in WONDER at the new places/people they will see, and not be scared or nervous
5. Wisdom to keep the kids calm and treat this as a new adventure with so many new changes
6. PEACE in all of our hearts and joy in the LORD to shine through us
7. That all of our luggage to arrive together and undamaged

Here is a look at our itinerary.  If you feel led, please pray specifically during our flights for the above requests!!

AUGUST 2:  
    Depart from Boise, ID:  9:05pm to Seattle, WA
            Layover of 4 hours
    Depart from Seattle, WA:  2:10 am to Taipei, Taiwan
            Layover of about 4 hours
    Depart from Taipei:  9:00 am to Jakarta, Indonesia

We arrive in Jakarta on August 4, with the time difference being a 13 hours  (ahead).  You can also pray for our bodies to adjust quickly from the jet lag since we have to flip flop our bodies normal schedule!

We'll spend 2-3 days in Jakarta for immigration before flying to Semarang, then drive to Salatiga where we will settle into our new house and gear up to begin language school.  

 *Salatiga is where we will live for the next year while we learn the language. 

 It is on the island of Java, which is also where the capital Jakarta is.  

We are so excited to be able to share more news with you once we get to Indonesia!  Pray that even before we learn the language we'll radiate love and joy to our neighbors and classmates at school.

If you have any questions feel free to call (for the next week) or email us.  We'll probably be out of commission for a few days/week while we adjust and get internet connection, but we'll try to get back online as quickly as possible.

Again, we can't do this without all of you.  From our hearts to yours, THANK YOU!

Tyler, Renae, Caleb, Aaron, and Jocelyn Schmidt

Also, we'll send out an address where we can receive letters and packages soon, along with specific instructions for sending packages.

3 weeks and counting....

In case some of you have lost track of us, we really are still around and we have not left for Indonesia just yet! 

Using Tyler's parents garage as a staging area

When we finished our training at MAF in May, we moved in with Tyler's parents in Nampa, ID, and began the tedious process of sorting through all of our belongings and deciding where to put it, which is one of 4 categories:  pack in one of 4 crates (to be shipped to our base after one year of language school), to go in checked luggage to language school with us for the next year, to be stored in the states, or to get rid of.  As you can imagine, sometimes the decision making gets a little overwhelming when you have to analyze and catalog every item, down to the last sock and spatula!

Jocelyn "help" pack are belongings

While we packed the boys had time to catch up on their tans

Grandma Schmidt reading bed time stories

As I write this, we are taking a short break from the packing and visiting my (Renae's) family in ND and trying to finish up lists, shopping, business details, etc... and processing through the emotions of saying goodbye to family for possibly the next 3.5 years. We are so thankful for the full support and encouragement of our families because we know that not only are we missing out on several years of time with them, but it is also costing them to send their family so far away for such a length of time.

Cousin time at the picnic table

If you think of it, please pray for us these final weeks before leave!  Here are some more specifics:

Pray:
Good closure emotionally as we say goodbye to family
Final details, checklist, and paperwork to be completed
Packing readiness:  speed and wisdom for the decisions
Peace in our hearts and minds during the transition
For us to have as few expectations as possible when we arrive in Indonesia
Safety and calm during our flights (a 48 hour journey), we leave on August 2
Wisdom as we make decisions about childcare/preschool for the kids and also as we hire a househelper (Pembantus) when we arrive in Salatiga
Adjustment for all of us, especially the kids, to a new country and culture

Praise:
Our visas arrived very quickly, so tickets were bought last month, we leave August 2!
That our Orientation training at MAF was a wonderful time of preparation for what we will encounter once we arrive on the field
For the time we've had with family before we say goodbye for 3.5 years

Our timeline is....

Aug 2-4:  Fly to Jakarta, Indonesia
Spend 2-3 days in Jakarta getting immigration paper work complete
Fly to Salatiga, Indonesia, get adjusted to our home and surroundings (about 1 week)
Aug 12:  Language school orientation
Aug 13:  Language school begins

 THANK YOU from the Schmidt's 

MAF Back Country Flying

Here is a quick video of what we where doing while training with MAF in the grand back country of Idaho.

The comment that kept coming up was, " I can't believe they are letting us do this!"  MAF has been training us for 8 weeks know and the "final exam" was going out to the mountains and put all that we have learned into practice.  I feel that I have been given the tools that will help me on mountains of Indonesia.

While the boys are away...

Tyler and three other students in Standardization left yesterday morning (Monday) for 4 days of back country Idaho flying!  I did get to hear from him this afternoon, and it sounds like they are having a great time learning new skills and appreciating the beauty of Idaho mountains.  While it may sound like they are "roughing it", they actually get to stay as guests at a ranch house and enjoy the stillness of the mountains around them. 

So....while they are away, we women are holding down the fort with our kiddos.  This is our last week of swim lessons for Caleb and Aaron.  Aaron is fighting a cough and both him and Jocelyn had eye infections requiring eye drops.  Despite some not so restful nights, we are keeping busy with our swim lessons, today we visited a Wildlife Refugee in Nampa, and tomorrow we'll complete our last swim lesson followed by a picnic with our friends from swimming.  Of course we are also enjoying sweet fellowship just as wives and the bond that is created from depending on each other when our husbands aren't around.

The guys should get back on Thursday, and on Friday we all begin Orientation classes for the next two weeks.  After we finish that training, we'll move out of this apartment and in with Tyler's parents.  Then it's time to "wade through our stuff" and focus entirely on packing.

Speaking of...a few people have asked us if we have a list of physical needs that they can help with as we prepare to go to Indonesia.  We have put together an Indonesia Wish List on Amazon, and you can view it here if you are interested in helping in that way:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1FPJMVUF3RGG2/ref=topnav_lists_2

If you have any questions about the list or other needs we have, feel free to contact us!

Pray that we would make good decisions about what will really be useful and stand up to hard use in a 3rd world country.

God is good, we are thankful that He is in control of every situation around us.  Be encouraged!

Sweet fellowship

You know that feeling of joy, fulfillment, thankfulness, encouragement, enrichment, companionship, and community you get after an amazing retreat with fellow believers?  or after a really good Bible study/small group or church service?  Or maybe after you've had a holiday with your family?  Imagine experiencing that almost every day for 10 weeks!

I think all of our families here for Standardization would agree that living in community hardly ever gets tiring.  We may not accomplish much inside the house, or keep a normal schedule, or maybe the bread burned and the floors didn't get vacuumed, but hey, it's SO hard to come inside to work when there is constant fellowship to enjoy when we are all outside just hanging out together and watching our kids play and ride their bikes all day long.  Yes, this is a snapshot of our lives here at MAF while the husbands are doing the dirty work fixing and flying airplanes as they prepare for their future in aviation overseas.

So...here are some pictures of our life in community.  I am thankful, humbled, and encouraged that we get to serve alongside these beautiful families with MAF.

 In only 1.5 weeks, we celebrated 4 of the kids' birthdays,

including Aaron (3) and Jocelyn (1)

 It was fun to invite all the families to Tyler's parents to 

celebrate their birthdays!

 This girl is such an encourager!

 We went to the zoo one afternoon with another family

that is headed to Indonesia

 The boys visiting Daddy in the hanger

 During Easter week, one of the wives did an awesome kids 

lesson on the Passover

 Learning about the Passover

 Drinking their first cup of juice for Passover

 "Who's the cutie with the carrot?"

 Another Easter lesson on the Resurrection

 Using marshmallows and crescent rolls to demonstrate Jesus

in the tomb and rising again

 Egg hunt on Easter morning

 First time flying a kite with the kids!

 love of my life

 Playin' games with the neighbor (he already left for Indonesia, sadly)

 Always have to have one kitchen drawer just for the baby

 Fun times in the sandbox (they were making the sand fly from behind their back tires)

 Community meals at MAF on Friday nights

 duck duck GOOSE!  games for another kids birthday party

Another MK birthday party

Until next time!

Tyler and Renae

"Mech-e-nick" (Mechanic) time

For the past 3 1/2 weeks I (Tyler) have been going through the standardization for mechanics.  Just learning how things are done in Mission Aviation Fellowship and having to get my hands dirty with grease :)  Here are a few photos from last week.

 "Wow...that is a lot of twirling gears and buttons."

 "I don't think I want to touch it"

 Doing a 500 hr magneto inspection

"It is the new turbo encabulator"

Watch this video to get the joke. 

Standardization

Tyler is on day 12 of standardization training here at MAF in Nampa.  It's hard to believe that 3 weeks ago we were driving down here with all our belongings in a moving van, unloading it all at Tyler's parents, and moving into our apartment at headquarters.  We are thankful for a relatively smooth transition and the AWESOME community of 3 other families here to do standardization also.  We have all moved out of our homes, are in the process of or have already packed our stuff for our assigned countries, and are trying to figure out how to do this with little kids!  If you can believe it, there are 9 kids here between our 4 families and Caleb, who is 4, is the oldest!  We are all pretty busy mommas, re-learning to do daily life without our husbands as they are at training, but enjoying the help and encouragement that living in community provides.

As for Tyler...I can't really tell you all the details of what they are learning right now, but so far it is a lot of classroom lectures to go over procedures and everything else they need to know before they jump into the maintenance and flight portion.  Tyler will first spend a couple of weeks doing maintenance, and then switch to flying.  He is definitely looking forward to getting back in an airplane!  If you want more information about that, you'll have to ask Tyler!

A little of what life in community looks like:

 

 Headquarters (will post more pictures of the grounds

and our apartment later)

Tyler's classmates and instructor looking for an ELT (Emergency Location Transmitter) signal
or looking for ET...one of the two

 The MAF hangar

 Sitting in classes

 Doing "story/craft" time for the no-nappers in the 

afternoon.  we made friendship necklaces and trail mix

 The kids made friendship necklaces to exchange and

gave one to their buddy Ethan, who they play with 

pretty much non-stop every day

 Aaron, Ethan, and Caleb; Ethan leaves tomorrow to go back

to Indonesia...they will miss him like crazy!

Soon I will try to post some more pictures of the MAF buildings and our apartments here.  The kids have adjusted pretty well to being here, helped a lot by having many other kids to play with!  Thanks for your prayers for our family. We are thankful for each of you.

Tyler, Renae, Caleb, Aaron, Jocelyn