or thereabouts, depending on how you count it! 

About twelve hours until we leave the house, about 24 goes until we leave to go to the airport, and 29 1/2 until we take off. 

I look around the house. Bags are packed in the front room. Our things are almost all put away. The kitchen is almost clean, counters all cleared. The refrigerator is almost empty, I just finished the last of the milk. We’ve run all of the errands. We’ve had most of our last meals with friends and family. It is difficult to name all of the feelings going on. 

Sad to miss friends, especially those who are moving away while we are gone and the neighbors we are used to seeing every day. 

We are excited for a big adventure: new sights,  sounds, smells, and tastes. 

There is definitely some nervousness and concern. 

I am concerned about our first flight out, I would really appreciate it if you would pray about that with us. For our first flight (over twelve hours), we don’t currently have any seats together. I really do not love the idea of my sweet kiddos sitting next to complete strangers. We will be getting to the airport plenty early to see if there can be any movement. 

We are so excited to arrive in an area of the world that is so unknown to us. We will be in Indonesia for the first three and last three and a half weeks of our adventure. The middle three and a half weeks we will be touring  Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia.  I am anticipating learning so much about people, language, food, and culture. We have watched videos and read books in preparation, but I can’t wait for it all to be “real” to us. Bandung, here we come! 

Above all, I have a huge feeling of something amazing about to happen. 

Continuing to live out what we call our S.A.F.E. principles for this time: 

• Service (our friends and people we meet) 
• Adventure (um, everything about this trip from eating to moving from destination to destination) 
• Fun (see amazing cultural and natural sites) and 
• Education (again, just about everything we do well be a learning experience) 

I really don’t know what God has in store for us, but we are ready to see!