Our adventures of late

Coming back to Vanuatu has been a great joy.  God continues to lead and guide and it is incredible to be tossed about in His perfect timing.
While in the Melbourne airport we had the great pleasure of waiting for repairs to be done on our plane.  Who doesn't LOVE that, right?  We then got to hear that our flight had to be canceld for the night and would take off the next morning. More fun news.... but as always, God has His plan and we have ours right...so along with His plan...

After the commotion of going down to baggage claim and getting all of our 11 bags back onto trollies, I notice that a Ni-Van couple was having trouble locating some of their luggage.  Because I am nosey (yep, just tellin it how it is people)  I had noticed that they were looking for a couple items that I knew were in "oversized baggage" claims and so I went over and in Bislama (which TOTALLY threw her for a loop...this random white chick coming up and speaking her language, with a lot of flaws mind you...it has been a whole year for me lol) explained to her where she could find her other luggage. 
So we pull and push our luggage trollies through the airport and customs and then through to our hotel on the other side of the street from the airport.  All the while I had the strong feeling that I really should have just invited this other family to tag along with us as then we could all figure out what we were supposed to do and where to be together.  But I didn't force it as I didn't want them to feel like they needed to be with us.
So and hourish later we find ourselves (us and Laura) sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for room assignments.  I finally cannot numb the feeling that I should make sure this family got to where they needed to be....so I suggested to Hought (yep, so kind of me right?) that he should go down to the airport and make sure they found their hotel etc.
Hought heads that way and long story shortish, he finds that they havn't been able to find their hotel for TOTALLY good reasons because it was on the other side of the parking garage for the airport!  So he is able to point them in the right direction.  Just a fun little way of meeting people ya know?

Long story longer, Hought and Laura show up at customs for our container the other day and low and behold guess who helps with all the logistics on the wharf with containers...but  Rosalyn!  So it has been a lot of fun to see a familiar face at the wharf as things get settled there....

God's plans are funny.

Pics to come as I am able to upload...were talking snail paced internet. :)

On to the next stage...

We were able to visit with my family (Gretchen) in SD before we left for CA

But here are some photos of our glorious time in CA visiting with Houghton's side of the family (apart from his sister and her family which live in GA)

And a glimpse at our time here in Australia.  We have been having an awesome time re connecting with friends and meeting new people as we share in various churches and Bible studies and such.  Melbourne really is another home for us and we consider ourselves to be SO blessed to have such amazing people in our lives.

What it looked like to pack our container

Merry Christmas

Well, this is a busy week for all of us isn't it. :)  Either travel, cooking, wrapping, family, preparing, or all of these tend to take up our time this week.
It has been a busy week for us too.  With all of the above going on in our household.  We are getting ready for our move back overseas ad that has been an extra boost on the "to do" lists. :)  We have been enjoying Christmas concerts from Gwen and Addy's pre-school and will get to hear Jesiah's tomorrow.  Then on Thursday we have the joy of celebrating Jesiah's 7th birthday!  Wow, time flies.

Please check out our "Praise and Prayer" tab for some current ways you can be rejoicing with us and praying with us.  Thanking God for His ultimate care and concern and involvement in our live,

Houghton, Gretchen, Jesiah, Gwenyth, and Adalaya

Back to "settle in" for the short winter

We are back in MT now and will be sticking around here for the next 4 months until we head to Australia and then on to Vanuatu.  Our tickets are purchased for Melbourne, South Australia for the 5th of February!  We plan to visit supporters and churches in the Melbourne area for a couple weeks before heading to Vanuatu for the next 4 years.

February will come SO quickly!  We have LOTS to do before we are ready to leave the U.S. and so we are going to have kick it into high-gear (haven't we been in high gear ever since we got back in the states- LOL) to accomplish all that needs to be finalized in just 4 months.

For more details on what we will be doing in the next couple months, click on the "Newsletter" tab to read our latest Newsletter.

Here are some pics that might show you what we have been up to these past month.

Laura and I went to a medical training geared specifically for missionaries in remote places...we met up with Christina Widup who also lives in Vanuatu with her family. Here are some pics during that time...

                         
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During the two weeks that Laura and I were in North Carolina at our medical training, Houghton was spending one week in Colorado at a solar, water, waste training with Casey.  Casey and his wife are considering partnering with us in Vanuatu.  Here are some pics from Houghton's trip.

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Just two weeks after this training ended we took off for some more training in Florida where we met up with two families interested in heading to Vanuatu.  And then to New Jersey to meet up with Casey (same Casey as in the previous slides of Hought's solar training stuff) and Val to talk to them about their interest in North Ambrym as well.                                    Click picture to play

And some family photos from our recent days

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A little bit of fun

Are we allowed that! OOOHHH yeah! :)  Just a fun little pic taken the other day for you to enjoy with us.

pumpkins fumpkins

What is it about taking a large vegetable and cutting a picture in while eating its roasted seeds that is SO stinkin fun?  I was pumped to find some little carving tools at Wal-mart the other day so I could acutally let my kids carve this year.  Last year we just made faces out of paper and yarn for hair etc.  (also we were in Vanuatu and didn't feel that we could use a source of food as a decoration).
Here are some pics of our creations.  And we plan on doing more in a week or so!  So many designs so few pumpkins! :)

 Dad's puking pumpkin

 Si and grandpa cutting out a spider

 Kids with their finished products

 Cool eh?