"You Spin Me Right Round..."

So, I'm a bit excited because on my grocery shopping trip I found good-looking lettuce! For some reason, it has been difficult to find lettuce worth buying. But my search is now over. Now onto the cleaning and storing of it so that it lasts longer than a couple days before wilting. So, here is how I spent part of my night tonight.

First, I peeled each crispy leaf off my head of romaine lettuce, and let it soak in my sink full of water and a little bit of bleach (to kill off any "protein" or otherwise from becoming part of my future salads). Then, I needed to remove the moisture from the leaves...but where is my salad spinner? Oh yeah, I remember, I sold it a few years ago before we moved overseas in preparation for "overseas living" - oops. So, what shall I do? Shake each leaf by hand? Nope, I'd break them and it wouldn't prove very successful. Shall I set them in front of a fan on full power? Well, no, that would look silly! Hmmmm...what to do, what to do. Ah...I know! I'll use the spin tub on my washing machine to spin the lettuce!!! Hey, it spin dries my clothes remarkably well, so let's give it a go with my lettuce!

My bowl full of lettuce ready to be spun!

Gently place the lettuce into the spinner.

Good luck, little lettuce leaves!

All done! You all made it out alive! Time to tuck you away for later times of green deliciousness!

Now, to think about what type of salad to make from these beautifully spun and moisture-free lettuce leaves! Any suggestions?

Birthday Pics

This one is for the grandparents (as we've gotten slightly more than a few hints/suggestions/outright demands for these). So, here are some pics of the girls from their birthday weekend:

Our 5-year-old!

Silly girl!

Our 2-year-old!

Mmmmm!

DELICIOUS!

Both girls got to have their own special day. They each got to pick all three meals for their birthday, and we went and did all the fun things they wanted to do (go to the outdoor playground, indoor playground, go for donuts, etc.). We all had fun. Happy birthday girls!

More on our ignorance...

So, when we arrived in our first home in Indonesia (in Salatiga) we had a banana tree in our yard and learned that bananas grow upside down (or we think so anyway) - see our old post about that. And now that we're in our second home in Indonesia (in Papua) we have pineapples growing in our yard. But we were surprised at what we saw. We never knew they came from a bush, I guess we just assumed it was a tree...but really we never gave it any thought since in America it just is sitting on a nice little shelf with all its other pineapple friends just waiting to be grabbed. The things you learn living in a country without barcodes and produce shelves.

So, if you're ignorant like us...this is for your viewing pleasure and education:

Birthday Week

This coming weekend is our daughters' birthdays (Catelyn's 5th birthday and Ella's 2nd birthday!), so in celebration of birthday week...here is a recent picture of our two little sweetie pies!

It's All Making Sense

Today, I (Corey) got to go on another flight in our new Kodiak airplane. At this point, I have gotten to fly in a Kodiak three times since we landed here two weeks ago. Two of those trips were for RTS (Return To Service) flights which are typically done after a big service is done on the aircraft and today's flight was simply an opportunity to see what MAF does. Unfortunately, my pictures were quite limited because the weather was pretty bad but I thought I would share a couple and share a little bit about my experience.

We left around 6:30am this morning and we were scheduled to take a load of food to a particular village which is roughly an hour flight from our base. As we were flying, so many thoughts flooded my mind. One was, how in the world did people groups get through hundreds of miles of thick jungle only to eventually live on the side of a mountain in what would seem to be the middle of nowhere? Another was, why do the people need the food that we are taking to them right now? What did they do before there were airplanes? Anyway, there were about five hundred others but the reality is, I had no idea how these people could have ever even been found without the use of aircraft and my appreciation for our ministry here skyrocketed today. In addition, my respect for our pilots increased greatly as I really got to see first hand what kind of courage it takes for them to do what they do every day. There are hundreds of variables and though they are VERY well trained, they still have a risky job. Many of the villages that we serve have airstrips that go up hill. FYI, when a plane lands, it usually goes down so when a plane is descending and is approaching an uphill climb, it basically looks like you are flying into the side of a mountain at 100 mph. The pilots have to do some pretty wild things to keep that plane from losing it and keeping it's passengers safe. Very impressive. I've seen video and hundreds of pictures but to actually do it is a whole different story.

Back to the story. For about 45 mins, it was fairly flat but the jungle was dense. Picture a head of broccoli, a large one as far as you can see in every direction. After the 45 mins, we began to approach the highlands. This is basically just a bunch of mountains that can make you feel about 3 millimeters tall. As we were going through the highlands, unfortunately it began to rain and the clouds were coming in and it was beginning to become difficult to see where one mountain ended and another began so we had to abort our planned delivery. So we began to go back but thought we would land on one of the strips which was out of the bad weather just so I could experience it all. At this point, I was quite confident in our pilot so even though we were going 100mph into the side of a mountain, I knew he would pull up and make a very smooth landing out of something most pilots would never even attempt. We couldn't stay at the village because the clouds were rolling in so if we got out of the plane, we would have been there a while, maybe all night. But, while I was there, I took a couple pics of the people that our organization serves on a daily basis. The fist photo has a couple very malnourished children in it which you can see in the lower left corner. It was then made clear why we need to bring food to these villages. Even though they have survived over the centuries without us, many die because all they eat is roots and leaves. We can load up a plane full of basic foods that will prolong their lives so that little children don't have to die so regularly. Unfortunately, it is a very common thing for parents to bury their children and in some ways has become less tragic because of that. In the mean time, we get to play a role in giving them an opportunity at life, not just physically but spiritually as well. Thanks so much to all of you that play a role in our ministry. I am so thankful to be a part of this and I hope you are too.