We are so grateful to all of you that have enabled us serve in Indonesia for just over 10 years now! The last several months have been challenging for everyone here in Papua. In March there were devastating floods that left over a hundred dead and more than 6000 houses that had to be evacuated. It seemed like as soon as things got back to "normal", rioting and civil unrest from ongoing racial tensions has been reoccurring. For the last month the tensions have been happening in the cities close to us and some that we serve interior. The internet was turned off for several weeks in September.  In the midst of this we have been kept safe and God is still at work in the midst of the storms around us. Lord willing, we will plan to keep serving here for many more years to come.  Below is a pic of our recent trip to the Immigration office to renew our visa.

Anne just became our first teenager! Her 13th birthday was celebrated in a low-key way at our home with a couple of her friends. She is glad to officially be a teen and is a sweet young lady. She recently has been involved in running the song slides for worship times and would like to learn to operate the sound system at church. Adelaide turns 12 this month and taking on her first year at middle school very well. She is looking forward to trying out for a middle school play later this year. David is 9 and loves to play. He enjoys bike riding, board games, video games and just joined a self-defense class one of our school teachers has organized.
We have been so blessed by the Christian International School here in Sentani and all our kids love their school. They each have some good friends and the teachers are here primarily for Missionary Kids. Our school is always welcoming and needing teachers whether career length or for 1 or 2 year commitments. Connect with us if you are interested to teach here.

Anne had a neat opportunity to spend three days in an interior village called Mokindoma during her summer break. The missionary family who is ministering there have a daughter Anne's same age and class. She was invited to go, along with one other friend, to have a tribal life experience and discover how the missionaries live and work there.
The girls had times of work and challenges as well as rest and play. Each day they spent time playing with the children of Mokindoma whether going on a short hike, or playing ball, talking, or teaching them games like duck, duck, goose or card games like matching or UNO.
The girls also were put up to the challenge of learning a few words of the tribal language.  By pointing at items, or by using Indonesian (most tribes know some Indonesian which is used in the cities like where we live), they listen to the person and write down the words to memorize. This gave them an experience of what it is like for a missionary to newly arrive in a tribe and need to learn the tribal language from scratch. Our missionary friends said Anne really has a good ear for this kind of thing. She's definitely observant and a strong auditory learner. It was neat to hear how she was able to make her own notes of the words and repeat it back later.
These are the kinds of places Courtney serves through aviation transportation, so it's great when our kids have a chance to go see it too and broaden their knowledge and world perspective, grow their compassion, and hopefully better their local relationships. 

Some of our coworkers have been working on a translation project in the lowland Mamberamo region. The local Papuans are excited for this translation to happen and have cleared land for them to build a house. The missionary family hopes to begin building by July 2020. Several of you have asked about projects you could come do to help. If you're interested in coming and helping build this house let us know and we can help make it happen.