A Weekend Away

Part of Jason's job as Athletic Director is to travel with the teams for their annual tournaments. This past weekend the basketball teams traveled 12 hours in a bus to Salatiga, home of Mountainview International Christian School. There, a number of smaller English speaking schools from around Indonesia gathered for a weekend of sport and fellowship.  For the first time, I traveled with Jason and the teams.  I have always wanted to go in the past, but between me nursing all last year and also not having anyone to watch the kids, I never went.  But this time, Jason really wanted me to go and I really had no reason not to -- so I went.  I was anxious about leaving the kids for three days, but I knew they would be fine and the time away with my hubby would be good.  And...I love seeing new places.

Although I don't think most people enjoyed the 12 hour bus ride, I was in pure bliss.  Twelve straight hours of being awake + having no demands placed on me meant 12 hours of reading, listening to music, napping when the urge struck, and talking with other adults.  Bliss for sure.

The rest of the weekend was great (minus the food poisoning experienced by about ten of our players/coaches/fans).  The town of Salatiga is beautiful and I LOVED the small town feel.  A town of 175,000 may not sound small, but when you live on Java -- one of the most densely populated places on the planet -- and you live in a city of 4 million people, a small town of 175,000 is heavenly!  I just loved walking around, seeing the people and the homes and the shops.  I love small towns!

Being away from the kids was hard and I spent considerable amount of time sitting at the playground watching lots of little kids play, but I have to admit that the time away was really good for me.  I spent lots of time reading and thinking and praying and being refreshed and renewed in my goals, both as a mother and as a child of God.  There have been some deep things (good things) going on in my heart the last few months and this was the first opportunity I have had to really try to process them. The highlight was definitely on Saturday night when Jason went to a banquet and I stayed back at the hotel.  I was able to fully prostrate myself before God and enter into an amazing time of prayer -- with little speaking and LOTS of listening.  God is so, so good.

And if being away for a little while was good, coming home was even better!  Jason was given the day off (due to our 3 am arrival home!) and we spent the whole day together as a family.  Lunch with friends, a beautiful drive, lots of wrestling and hugs and kisses...all topped off with a yummy dinner of cinnamon bun pancakes with white maple syrup. Perfection.

Comments

[Amy]

I'm so happy for you, what a wonderful refresher! I'm so glad that you had time not only to yourself, but to God... what a treasure!

amy in peru

[Heather Crawford]

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