Back in Singapore

We are back in Singapore, after finishing our furlough with a trip to Mackinaw City and a few last visits with family and friends.

On Mackinac Island

Get-together with friends at Lawrence Park in Zeeland

Getting ready to set up one more tent for a camp-out 

with the Lanning cousins in Grandpa & Grandma's backyard

We drove down to Chicago on Monday, August 4, to fly out of O'Hare Airport.  My inlaws came with us, which was very helpful since we had much more luggage going back than coming!  That included two years' worth of homeschooling books for four kids, a little bit of food that is hard to come by here, and a lot of clothes for the next two years, since they are much cheaper and easier to find in the U.S.!

Our flights back went well.  After a night in San Francisco, we had an 11 hour and 10 minutes long flight to Seoul, South Korea, then another 5 hours and 35 minutes to Singapore.

In the Seoul airport--I just paid 4300 for four donuts, and I can't 

read the receipt and have no idea what the exchange rate is! :-)

We arrived in Singapore about 1:00 a.m. Thursday and were greeted at the airport by about 20 people from church.  We came back to a few changes in the neighborhood.  The most noticeable one was the installation of new "contraptions" (for lack of a better term!) for hanging laundry.  Before, each flat had little holes below the windows, where the ends of long poles with laundry hanging on them would be inserted.  Now instead of just holes, there are these contraptions where the laundry poles are inserted into slots at either end. It seems to be a safer way to hang the poles!

Also, progress has been made on installing new elevators in the buildings around here.

Flags are hanging for the August 9 National Day.

We also came back to find Ghost Month in full swing.  (You can read more about that here.) We smell burning often, as extra offerings are made to people's ancestors.

A lot of trash on normally clean streets, all from the papers people are burning

Offerings set up outside the nearest wet market (intended 

for the ghosts that are supposedly wandering around this month)

Once again we are thankful for God's grace in saving us and His saints in Singapore from the kind of fear that Ghost Month represents.  We look forward to worshiping Him with His people tomorrow.

Furlough Update

The last few weeks have been full of visits with family and friends.

My husband's family, minus sister-in-law Dawn

Football with the cousins in their grandparents' backyard

With Kurt & Ruth Kaptein's family

Jessica and Emily with Rylee and Lauren Engelsma,

very good friends from the Faith Church neighborhood

With Joel Mulder and Dave Korhorn

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With Rick & Jill Elzinga's family

Even had time for a little yard work!

The Key family (my family) celebrated my grandparents' 60th anniversary and also spent a week together at some cottages on Robinson Lake in Michigan.

Getting ready for family pictures

Two of the four new cousins / nephew & nieces 

that have been born since we moved away

Eric and his cousin Caleb on the lake

Two-year-old cousins wrestling

Megan and her cousin Luke, three months apart and good friends!

We had a visit from Justin & Cathie Koole 

and Rev. & Allison Spronk at the cottages one evening.

With the Spronks--The men were seminary classmates.

Jessica and Eric were also able to participate in one of the camps held at Covenant Christian High School.

Opening devotions in Covenant's library

Jessica and two of her classmates (and a classmate's sister) with their Lego robot

Eric testing out his group's robot

My husband preached in a number of the churches in the Grand Rapids area, and was able to do two infant baptisms.

With Jared & Sue Dekker and Chase at Georgetown PRC

He also gave a presentation on July 20 to a full auditorium at Grandville High School.

It was very encouraging to see the interest in the work God is doing in building His church in Singapore.  May He continue to strengthen the ties between these sister churches, the PRC and CERC!

Beginning of Furlough

Our first trip back to the United States since our move to Singapore began on Monday morning, June 23.

Saying goodbye to church friends at Changi Airport

About 31 hours after we left our flat in Singapore, we arrived at my parents' house in Loveland, Colorado.  The next day we spent a few hours with Dave & Linda Poortinga and their daughters and grandchildren.

During our few days in Colorado, we were also able to make it up into the mountains.  

Snow!!  The kids have missed that! :-)

While in the mountains, we saw a lot of damage done by last September's flood.

After that, our furlough plans changed entirely.  One after another, most of us came down with the flu.  We had planned to fly to Grand Rapids Friday evening and begin a week with my husband's family at a cottage on Saturday, but with three kids too sick to fly, we had to cancel our tickets.  After a long debate about what to do, we decided to hit the road and do some sightseeing while we worked our way to Michigan.  The sick ones could sleep in the car, and we wouldn't be sitting in Colorado indefinitely until we all got better. 

First stop:  Mt. Rushmore.  We had wanted to see this for a long time and had not expected to see it anytime soon!

Second stop:  the famous Wall Drug in South Dakota.

Third stop:  the Badlands--an absolutely amazing part of God's creation!!

We found out as we were driving that Heritage PRC in Sioux Falls did not have pulpit supply for one of their services on Sunday, so we headed there so my husband could preach.  He was the only one well enough to go to church, but Elder Paul DeJong showed a few of us through the church building when we arrived Saturday night.  We thank the congregation in Sioux Falls for your hospitality while we were there!

The next day we crossed the Mississippi River.  The water level was very high.

We stopped for gas and food in Wisconsin Dells and discovered a lumberjack show that was starting 20 minutes later, so we went to that too.

We arrived in Michigan Monday night.  Although our trip has gone far differently than we had expected, we greatly enjoyed seeing some of the beauty of God's creation that we had not planned on seeing.  Now we pray for health so that we are able to worship and visit with many of you in the coming weeks!