Ok, I am going to try to leave all the silly little details out, I could write a book, but you already know this! Basically our whole 1st week here was people taking us shopping. We needed so much to set up house and let me just say, I wish there was a walmart here!!! Everything is in all different stores in all different places of town and takes so long to get a few things. So even though we went shopping everyday, we still didn't have everything we needed. I felt so bad for Eden because I felt like we were dragging her through the mud, poor thing was so tired and didn't get a real, proper nap at all that week. At "home" she would take two 2 hour naps, so this was rough for her:( We had to go when others could take us, so not much of an option, just thankful someone was helping us out!
How many people can you fir on a motor bike?!? These were our point people, the Abbott's, they were extremely helpful! Motorbikes is how everyone gets around, but we used the mission's van for a lot of shopping that week.
Just a cute picture of J and Eden with their helmets on


We also did not have to worry about meals that 1st week! We had meals at someone's house everyday and our "pembantu", aka: a house helper, made us the other meal of the day. This was a hard adjustment for me too, well, it was like bittersweet. We are required to have a house helper here, as westerners especially. It is very cultural to have a pembantu and it helps give Indonesian women a good job. I thought it sounded amazing to have someone come and clean my house, do my laundry and make a meal for me!! BUT, I felt like a slave driver…I was assured by so many that this is a good thing for so many reasons and I needed to focus on what I was here for and my family. OK! It has taken some getting used to having someone else in the house for several hours a day and not being able to communicate with her. But it has been awesome to have an Indonesian to learn from, build a relationship with and help me so that I can learn language, build relationships in the community and free up some time for me to play with Eden and not feel guilty. We have been being tutored at home until now and she is there to help keep Eden occupied so we can learn. It has been a huge blessing and I am so thankful to help provide a job for someone who otherwise would be struggling to make ends meet. I pray our relationship grows and by the end of this I have a good friend in her as well. I plan on learning many things from her, like shopping! Shopping was…a huge barrier for me. I would go to the store and wonder "what am i supposed to make with these ingredients?!?!?!" and "where is everything?!?!?"- they have lots of drinks, snacks, cookies, rice, sauces and… that's pretty much it! I plan on going with her to the more Indonesian markets and learning where she gets what and what she pays for what, etc. It was so nice to know we would have food even though I was unable to go and do this for my family. It took me several weeks to learn where to get what, what is available and what to do with it! It is encouraging to know I am not alone in this. Many of the women here say they barely cook because it is so hard to shop and cook, there are always leftovers and it is so cheap to buy a dinner off the side of the road for your whole family, so looks like I won't be cooking a whole lot, but I am excited, I have made a few things now! Reheating food took some getting used to too, no microwave, only old-fashioned skillet and oven reheating process, takes some more time and dirty's up some more dishes, but we have gotten used to that too, and I am sure it is better, as my dad says "microwaves genetically alter your food", lol! Well, we were trained for this, so now to put SOME of our simple living skills to practice.
One of the places we went to eat with some people. Eden has an obsession with stools, so it worked out well.
This is how they do take out a lot of times. They wrap the food in this brown paper that is lined with plastic 1st, and then wrap with newspapers and rubberband it together! The soup is in the bag.
This is Eden passed out from exhaustion! We called Grandma to tell her we arrived safely and she couldn't make it through the conversation! Poor baby!
This is one of our 1st meals made for us by our house helper...looks amazing! Soto Ayam, fried tempe with an amazing sweet and spicy soy sauce and watermelon (so excited they have watermelon here!). Soto ayam is like a chicken soup, very traditional Indonesian dish...and very good! Tempe is "fermented bean curd"! Haha, sounds so gross, but pretty good and very healthy, well, until they fry it! It is very popular here and is not always fried. Here is wikipedia's definition:"is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form.", they say tempe is high in protein, fiber and other vitamins, the healthiest way to eat soybeans. A dream to have this lunch prepared for us!

Our oven. We were borrowing the smaller one temporarily, but ended up buying a bigger one because nothing really fit in the little one, not even the small pans I bought, much less a 9x13! Doesn't look like much of a size difference, but it is the world of difference! You put one of these bad boys on 1 of your 2 burners to heat it up.
Here are our burners! So far, it has not been as hard as I had imagined to cook with 2 burners, and one being for the oven. So far, it works! But like I said, I am no chef here. And that tea kettle is the only source of our hot water besides in the shower so far. So we boil water to do dishes, etc.


Also, I thought I was going to lose weight here, but it's not likely! There is so much junk food here and they fry everything! It may not be good old American junk food, but it works:) We do LOVE the food so far which is a huge plus! There are missionaries who are having a harder time with this and I am thankful we are enjoying the foods here. We have been very adventurous and open-minded with the food, more so than I thought we would be, and we haven't really gotten sick yet. I am just rejoicing in how the Lord has taken care of us…Eden hasn't even been sick at all and when we were in the states the last few months, she was getting sick all the time! I expected to have been violently ill by now, but we have all just had a COUPLE little diarrhea episodes (sorry, tmi-too much information for some:)), that's it! Our stomachs seem to like Indonesian food, even Eden. She will come in the kitchen and ask for rice, haha. It is a good thing we like rice, we eat it every single day.

I feel like I am missing some information or all over the place because I am so tired, so I will add any missed information on the next one! Can't think anymore:)