Road to Indonesia---Busy

 You might think that we are living rather frugally and without many things. However, we spent Sunday lunch with a man about our age. He had taught for many, many years at Dalat School, a Christian and Missionary Alliance school in Malaysia. When he retired at 68, one of his former students invited him to come teach at a school that he was forming. It is in the very deep bush of Indonesia. It is for Indonesian students. One flies into the site and then drives a few hours to get to the small small town. The village has no stores, no banks, no facilities. It has some small kiosks that sell a few things. A single egg costs  35 cents each!  There is electricity sometimes from generators or solar power for a few hours a day. Most of the time they can get chicken, but no other meats are available, etc. etc.   This is an island that still has incredibly primative conditions and there are many, many missionaries working in these conditions. The man we ate lunch with was feeling overwhlemed being in our little  town.  Eye-opening. 

Maybe we have found life insurance.  I should wait for the work week to start and it is confirmed for sure, but since I am writing I want to report.  I found it during the wee hours of the morning Sunday online. I hope it really works. It has been unbelievably difficult to find any.  We continue to need it to get our visas. We assume that Rick's birth certificate will soon be available. Prayers

We met today with an Indonesian notary public. She is going to try to find an agent who could walk our paperwork through the  Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the  Chinese embassy.  Her biggeset question was why is all this necessary. Our question is the same.  Pray finally we could find someone somehow who could help with getting our money out of China. Prayers.

We are pretty busy. Our spring semester at Peking University has started, which means many essays and presentations to grade per week (70-100). I also have been having difficulty with the platform we are using, so it has meant hours online with tech support trying to make it work.  Thank goodness for the support, but we still have not completely resolved the situation, but rather have worked a way around it. Prayers

Of course we also are still teaching at Hillcrest International School (HIS).  I have 13 Brit Lit essays on the Victorian Era due tomorrow, which will take some time. (Jane Eyre is wonderful for teaching about suicide, class systems, abuse, courting, and commitment to Christ, etc.) Rick is enjoying his 7th grade math. I made cheesecake cupcakes for my students for Easter since I needed to use some cream cheese before it spoiled. I wonder if they know what cheesecake is? Maybe it is an April Fool's joke...on me? Spring break starts on Friday for one week. The seniors are flying to Jakarta 5 hours away and staying at a 5 star hotel for their senior trip. They have worked hard for 4 years for the money for this and they are very excited.

So in this post I have reported on the very primative to the very highly civilized. Life is interesting.