Kane's Korner

Taxes

2012-01-26T16:52:00.000+07:00

Charley Reese's final column for the Orlando Sentinel...
He has been a journalist for 49 years.
He is retiring and this is HIS LAST COLUMN.

Be sure to read the Tax List at the end.

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It's a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!

555 vs. 300,000,000 People
-By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House now? He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

What you do with this article now that you have read it... is up to you.
This might be funny if it weren't so true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he's fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for
peanuts anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid...

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
'Taxes drove me
to my doom....'

When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Sales Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom, if agreed, stayed home to raise the kids.
What in the heck happened? Can you spell'politicians?'
I hope this goes around THE USA at least 545 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!!

GO AHEAD. . . BE AN AMERICAN!!!

Isaiah

2012-01-05T05:30:00.001+07:00

So we are working on painting the inside of the house room by room as we have the time and funds. I had left a plastic container of that 'whole filler'. Thinking a 'closed' container wouldn't be a problem I was WRONG! Thanks Son. ; )

New Generator :)

2012-01-05T05:28:00.000+07:00

A big hardy THANK YOU to Freedom Fellowship in AZ, and the families in it for funding us with a generator for our family.

Here is what happened. I was talking with a friend of mine in AZ and in our conversation I mentioned that I'm a bit scared that if we get a big storm this winter and our power goes out then our heating system also stops working and then our pipes could freeze and burst and then that would be offal to say the least. Unbenouced to me he started a church collection and funded us the money to purchase what we needed. Isn't it awesome when the body of Christ helps each other! Something we wont forget.

Again, Thank you,
~The Kane's

Kane Update: Moving again... What?!

2011-09-21T08:23:00.000+07:00

“I will sing of the LORD’s great love forever;
with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.” Psalms 89:1

It’s been a few weeks since our last update and we have MUCH to share about God’s faithfulness in our lives. Some of you may not know that a few years ago with the help of my parents Ruth and I were able to purchase a house (just 8 min. away from Ruth’s parents). We’ve always had renters in the house and had hoped that this house would be a ‘home base’ for us when on furlough. Since being back our plan was to stay with Ruth’s parents until next year when the lease agreement was over with our current (Christian) renters. But.... instead we have epic news! About 10 days ago our renters called us and said, “We know you have plans to move into your house next summer and it would also be at that time that we would need to find another place and with our home business doing well, we’ve decided to move somewhere else and want you to move into your house while we continue to pay our lease agreement until next summer.” Can you believe it?! Isn’t God amazing! So, we now have plans to move into our house in just a few weeks. And seeing as how God has continued to close every door opportunity with ‘full time’ work. I’m excited to paint the interior, refinish the floors, and work on cutting/stacking 10 cords of wood before moving in. Please continue to pray for ‘full time’ work opportunities for me. I’m still waiting to hear back from a construction job, microchip job, and prison correction officer job, as well as continuing to look for anything else.

On other news this is our LAST month that will be receiving financial support through NTM. Any support sent to NTM for us after this month will be returned. If you would like to continue supporting us through the end of the year please send personal checks to our house address. We have continued to be amazed with God’s faithfulness in our lives and continue to look to Him to provide for our basic needs of utilities, gas, food etc.

Please note change of contact information:

Ben & Ruth Kane

167 Youngtown Rd,

Alton, NH 03809

Cell: 949-940-5530

Email: benandruthkane@gmail.com

We love you guy’s and are thankful for you.

~Ben & Ruth

Chloe, Gwen, Addie, Isaiah

Kane Update #2

2011-08-28T08:36:00.002+07:00

"In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight."

Proverbs 3:6

This verse above has become very real to our hearts over the last few months. There are so many promises of God that we continue to believe in and cling to during this time for us. How about you? Have you found yourself in a situation where everything was changed and you’re hope was in God to ‘make your paths straight?

As you can see from the picture above and the picture below we have continued to keep ourselves busy. We were able to find a nice 1998 Volvo Wagon that can fit 7 people for only $2,000. Praise Jesus! So far all it’s needed was some e-brake work and a tone-up but that’s all been things that I’ve been working on myself to save money. We are still on the look out for a good commuter vehicle for me in that I’ll most likely need to drive 45min to an hr for work. How is the job search coming you ask? That’s a good question and hard answer! The chaplain job that we were so excited about turned out to not work out for unknown reasons. But I have applied at a few other places both chaplain and not and I’m waiting to hear back from them. Our goal and hearts desire is to still see me find a new career that will work for a our family and we’ll be able to tell you “Thank you for your support and we are pleased to say we are no longer in need!” but we are yet unable to say that.Please be praying with us as the Lord guides and directs in His timing.

Other news. There is news on the farm! With the lack of ‘outside income’ we’ve decided to divide our efforts with ‘saved money’! Last week Chloe and I picked up our 75 baby chicks from the post office. We with 2 other families agreed to pitch in with the work load and we are caring for these little guys for the next 7-8 weeks before the BIG day. Why you ask? Raising our own chickens is looking to be better for us and way cheaper then buying at the store. These chickens will help provide us with meat through the winter. And onto other BIGGER news our 2 yearling beef cows (Jupiter & Reese)were just delivers 2 days ago! The idea with these cows is much the same in that we with 2 other families are buying in together but for the most part these two guys are in my care with the help of Ruth’s Dad. Me being a California boy, I’m pretty excited about owning 2 cows at the moment. Should make for some good BBQ’s next year! : )

On other, other BIG news please be praying for us and keeping us in mind tomorrow morning during Church times and through the day. Hurricane Irene is on her way and last I heard Ruth’s parents said that New Hampshire (where we are living now) is in a State of emergency and we can expect up to 9 inches or rain with heavy winds. With this in mind we’ve closes everything up outside, Pinned down the chicken coop, and pulled everything else inside. We’re praying the storm is exciting and not tragic.

OK, I’ve got to go to bed and get some sleep, big day tomorrow!

Grace & Peace,

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie, & Isaiah

What are the Kane's doing?! (with pictures)

2011-08-06T23:44:00.005+07:00

"This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him"

1 Jn. 4:9

First let us start with an apology. In our websites (benandruthkane.com) history and general effort to communicate to you over the last 6 years + we have never taken a sabbatical/laps of updates as we have presently. Again, sorry!

Life for us has continued to be a bit crazy but thanks be to God things are slowly settling down and we’re gaining more and more of a normalcy or stability here at Ruth’s parents house in the separate apartment in NH. It feels really nice to be settled down a bit in that Ruth and I counted our moves in the last 2 years and we actually counted 9 different moves (places stayed at for as least a month)! These were all moves that we had to make but looking back I just don’t know how we did it.

So what have we been up to you ask?

Great question. We have been keeping busy with our visit in CA for about a month. We got to visit many family and friends and even got to drive out and visit some friends and my Mom in AZ. Although we sure wish we could have seen everyone we just didn’t have enough time. :( After flying here to NH, I (Ben) have been doing my best to help our family adapt to life back in the States, our new living quarters and life on a small family farm. The kids have loved being able to take care of the chickens and check the eggs. It has also been a great learning experience for me with how to take care of a farm. We are hoping to be able to raise a couple of cows for beef this winter. It's just amazing to see how God works, with this being our first time trying to raise animals, it has been such a blessing to be living with Ruth's parents and just glean from their knowledge.

Since arriving back in the States, I was thinking, I would have to put formal ministry on hold and get a job in computers, construction, state prison officer, micro chip assembly work, or possibly a job with Indonesians in our area. But in the back of my mind I was thinking God had other plans and I just needed to wait for Him to revel himself. With this in mind someone from our church told me just last week that a job opening as a full time chaplain at the VA center (veterans home) about 40min away just opened up. We’re VERY excited about this new potential career in ministry. I have an interview this monday at 1:30. Please be praying! If I got this job it would be a huge relief on many levels for our family, not to mention the awesome opportunity I would have to share Christ with so many people at the home.

Please keep praying for us in that we are still looking for vehicles and are still trying to settle in as a family. We love you all and are so thankful for all the encouragement and support you have been to us! OK, without further a du I’ll show you some photo’s of what we’ve been doing (as promised)!

Because of His Love,

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwendolyn, Adelaide, & Isaiah

Our girls LOVE riding bikes and living on a dirt road in Indonesia made it hard for them to enjoy that childhood experience. But now they can't get enough time in ridding around!

Camping is something that Ruth and I both enjoy and our girls also love. We've gone camping twice now and hope to do more later. This picture was taken last night before Chloe, Gwen and Daddy spent the night together on the front lawn. We had s’mores and watched a little kid movie in the tent before going to bed. Fun time! : )

The girls really enjoy chickens and eggs so I built them a chicken coop! Chloe feeds them, gives them water, and collects the eggs every day. 5 chickens, 5 eggs...

This is a picture of 1 of the 3 gardens Ruth parents have at the house! We are enjoying sharing in the harvest of corn, pop corn, zucchini, summer squash, winter squash, butter nut squash tomatoes, peppers, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, green beens, water melon, brussel spouts, cabbage, cauliflower, egg plant, cantaloupe, blue berries, raspberries and more!

Here is a picture of a small 'part' of the cow field. We are talking with local ranchers to see where we can get two yang cows to 'take care of' until next fall. You think you have a lot of lawn to mow? Ha!

Happy Birthday, Ben!

2011-06-25T04:07:00.000+07:00

Happy 31st Ben! This year has had it's ups and downs, but you have always been faithful to look to the Lord for His direction. Leading our family where you know God is leading you. Thank you for being my friend to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, a nurse when needed, a Daddy that listens to jabbering kiddos, the fix it man, and so much more.

I love you and am excited to see what the Lord holds for our future. Happy Birthday, Love!

~Ruth

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-20T02:52:00.002+07:00

Back in the USA!

2011-06-14T05:15:00.000+07:00

So sorry for our late reply on getting back to the States and my health. Things have been crazy since we arrived. We arrived back on Thursday and we didn't get up to the cabin in Big Bear where we are going to be staying until after 8:00pm. With that said we eat dinner, showered, brush teeth and went to bed! I then found out the next day that I had been invited by an old friend, pastor, to attend a men's conference not too far from our new place of residence while in CA. Although I was thinking leaving Ruth and the kids the day after we arrived wouldn't be the best adea I was also excited about the idea of of being refreshed in my focus of Jesus and I'd get to go with my Dad. With permission from Ruth and knowing my step Mom was going to be to be there to help I headed off with my Dad. Needless to say my father and I had a great time and I really enjoyed the renewed focus on the Lord and came home wanting to be a better father and husband. So everyone wins! : )

As for my health praise the Lord since landing on US soil my fever went away (finally after 4 days) and I've been getting better every day with neck pain, sore throat, and sinus infection.

Thanks for so many of you who have been praying for us during this time of transition. We have already seen the Lord work in many ways to help us along the way! We'll be checking in again soon.

Until then here is our new cell # 949-940-5530

Grace & Peace,
~Ben & Ruth

We're in Singapore!

2011-06-09T07:01:00.002+07:00

Just wanted to check in with a quick update. We got into Singapore last night at 6:00pm local time and we decided it would be best to stay in the hotel in the airport so that we could get some good sleep. As for right now we'll be boarding our plane to LAX in about 1 1/2 hrs. Please continue to pray for me. This fever that I have has been relentless. It seems when I'm low on water or exerting myself it get worse for a while. Basically I've been battling it since we left and I've been on constant meds. When we arrived in Singapore they even called a wheel chair for me because they knew my fever was so high and I was feeling weak.

~Ben

Family Update:

2011-06-05T06:29:00.001+07:00

Wanted to write a quick note before breakfast to let everyone know that our sicknesses are mostly on the med and we're doing pretty good. We've sold most of our big things and that has been a big blessing. We still have the girls beds, couch set, and 2 AC's. Pray those sell in the next 3 days!

Last night we officially moved away from our house. Because we had sold our bed, fridge, coffee maker, toaster, washing machine, stove etc we thought it best to let everyone take their things and so the plan was to move into a missionaries house up the road that is on furlough. So we moved in last night and although I was a bit worried all our plane baggage would be stolen in the night everything was ok in the morning. :)

Thanks for your prayers during this time. It's weird feeling both very sad and happy at the same time for weeks.

Love ya,

~Ben & Ruth

Update on my girls

2011-06-01T18:25:00.000+07:00

Just wanted to write a quick update before going to bed to let you know how my girls are doing. Gwen is doing A LOT better! We bought some topical antibiotic for her face sores and they are just about gone now. Her fever also cleared up a few days ago. Ruth and Chloe though are a different' story right now. Ruth has had headaches, stomachaches and diarrhea for the past 2 days but is starting to feel better today. She says she still has waves of nausea that come over her and then she feels tired all a sudden. Chloe on the other hand is the worsted with being sick right now. About two days ago she started in with a fever (102) and then came down with a bad sore throat. We've had her on normal meds for the past few days and nights and we think she is pretty stable. Although today she was saying her neck hurt as well.

So.... During our LAST week in Indo we still need and do appreciate your prayers for our family. Not sure what is going on, maybe it's just stress with packing and getting ready for such big change.

Grace & Peace,
~Ben

Gwen Update

2011-05-28T18:43:00.004+07:00

God has heard your prayers! Thank you to those of you who have been praying on Gwen's behalf. Yesterday was a pretty hard day for her, with the boils on her face she was also experiencing neck pain and lower stomach pains. Gwen was often heard crying or moaning from the pain and discomfort. But today she has seemed to turn around! Her face is looking much better and she still had some neck pain but no words that I know of with regards to stomach pain. In general we think she might be dealing with a 'staph infection'. We have been told my a missionary nurse to continue to watch her and see if she's getting better on her own or if her fevers keep up we'll need to put her on a antibiotic.

In His grip,
~Ben

Indo_ 2011 House Tour #2

2011-05-27T07:29:00.001+07:00

Here is our latest video to show all the remodels and finishes of the house.

Here is the first video about 4 months ago.

Poor Gwen :(

2011-05-26T20:35:00.001+07:00

Gwen woke up yesterday morning (May 25) with about 6 'white head' pimples on her face out of no where! Ruth and I were really surprised and worried to see them. Sometimes Chloe gets white head pimple rashes on her legs or arms but this is Gwen's first and it was on/around her mouth and nose. We as parents living in a foreign country, of course, fear the worst at first, mouth Herpes. Could it be? Living a a developing country can be scary with little kids. The doctors here, in general, aren't really all that great, so we have no confidence in running out to the hospital. We've done what we know to do with white head pimples. Break them open with a sterol needle and apply Hydrogen Peroxide to infected area. Today has been the second day since the first outbreak and they seem to be healing up well and only 1 new one has appeared on her lip. We were thinking maybe all this has to do with the dogs/cats she was playing with the day before. It could be a face allergy thing, but unfortunately she now has been running a fever for the past 2 days. That to say her body is definitely dealing with something internally. We say all this, not for you to freak out (that's our job) but, so that you can better pray for our family and for 'poor Gwen'. This has been very hard on Gwen and for those of you that know her, know Gwen has the personality of a little girl x2. Today she was crying because her face lacerations hurt and she says, "but I don't want to be so sad" as a tear runs down her face. :( Please join us in prayer for her over the next few days. We pray this is a simple infection in her body that is acting a bit weird but will soon pass.

Thank you on Gwen's behalf,
Ben & Ruth

Hope your sitting down for this one.

2011-05-14T20:23:00.002+07:00

This is an email update that Ruth and I thought we would never have to write and it’s also the hardest email update that we’ve ever had to do.

I’ve wanted to be a missionary for the last 10 years, Ruth, the last 14. For Ruth and I our entire marriage has been pursuing missions. And now we are very sad to say that chapter in our life is coming to a close. Let us explain what’s happened.

Over the years, 2 years of Bible school, 2 years of missions training, 1 year of raising financial support, though it all we have always been certain without a doubt that God was leading us overseas to help build His church. When we first arrived here in Indonesia a little over 3 years ago are dreams of being missionaries, all the hard work, had finally come true. Our first 8 months had some challenges but over all it was very exciting and full of joy for us. It was after that time we found at that Ruth’s sister Joanna had terminal cancer. It was during these next few months on the field that I saw first hand how close and precious Ruth’s family is to her. It was then that we knew we had to go home and visit with Ruth’s sister and family during this time. After our time of sweet fellowship with so many of you, our dear friends and family, that we knew it was time to come back to the field of Indonesia. We eagerly jumped right back into language and built many cherished relationships that we still have today. As the Taliabo people were still heavy on our hearts we knew it was time to say goodbye again and move to the region of Indonesia were the Taliabo live in order to finish our language study. After arriving in our next location many of you remember the many hardships we experienced there. Things such as; kids starring in our widows, people stealing from us, constantly being sick, just to name a few. It was during this time that Ruth, being a mother of 3, pregnant, and living in a very stressful situation had a breakdown and thought it was time for us to come home. I on the other hand was still convinced that this is where the Lord had us. Ruth and I decided together that for the sake of our marriage and future ministry that God was going to have to change one of our hearts and we were determined to seek advice, be reading the scriptures, prayer, and seeking the Spirit over the next few months. Going through that time we realized that the Taliabo work was no longer in our immediate future. It was during that time that leadership wanted to help us in any way to continue with our ministry here. It was recommended that we move closer to the national training center to be closer to other westerners and to prepare for a teaching position at the school. Needing to leave our old situation quickly we moved into the NTM guest house for 3 weeks while our new house was being worked on. Through all of this Ruth was still having a hard time juggling relationships, communicating in another language/culture, being a mom of 3, a wife, 9 months pregnant, and dealing with the stresses of having a baby overseas. We know many of you were praying for us at this time and we really, really appreciated it. Praise the Lord during this time Ruth’s sister Leah arrived for her 3 month visit. We had just moved into our new house, still no running water, open well, constant construction, daily power outages, and no real furniture to speak of. After a very, very hard labor little Isaiah Michael was born. Soon after we noticed Ruth was having an even harder time copping with the day to day. It then came to light that Ruth was dealing with postpartum depression. Leah was a real God send, in that we don’t know how we would have done it without her. Through all this Ruth and I were continue to read God’s Word, pray, and seek and heed advice from leadership, family and friends. But it’s been over the past few months that I’ve been surprised to notice that God had began a change in my heart. God was beginning to show me that at this time in our lives living overseas is too overwhelming for our family.

One of my favorite life verses is 1 Timothy 3:1-5

“Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.”

I’ve been seeing a lot of these characteristics/qualifications slipping away from our family. It’s because of this that we know God is calling us home. God has always been faithful to guide and direct in our lives and we feel a peace and are confident in this decision. We are sad to say goodbye to Indonesia but we know that without a strong, healthy family it is impossible to have a strong healthy ministry. Our home churches and NTM leadership are all in support of our decision.

Our leadership has advised/recommended that we take some time to decompress, get through reverse culture shock and otherwise take a to rebuild our family, i.e. sabbatical, before I pursue full time work. It is because of this (and in line with NTM) that we ask you to continue to financially support us through the end of the year as NTM missionaries in transition. Our first 2 1/2 months we’re planning on being in CA and then driving across country to NH. It’ll be during those next 3 months that we’ll be adjusting and I’ll be looking for new work.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and please continue to be praying for our family during this time. In many ways following the Lord home is a bigger step of faith then it was coming to Indonesia. When we came here we knew what to expect, but with coming home there are so many unknowns its a bit scary. Please fill free to email or skype us over these next 3 weeks as sell and pack up our things. We look forward to being able to see many of you face to face soon.

God is good all the time,

Ben & Ruth

Chloe, Gwen, Addie, & Isaiah

Picture of the Day!

2011-05-12T21:07:00.000+07:00

Trip to Singapore.

2011-05-12T20:57:00.000+07:00

We left Indonesia yesterday morning and had a nice LONG 12hr day of travel from Menado to Singapore. We have been amazed at just home beautiful this city is and how nice the airport is. But we have always been amazed at the prices of things! We have spent $100 on taxi fares, $100 on food, and $500 to change our return flight from a week to 2 days. And we've only been here 24hrs! We are very thankful though that a local family has opened up their 'granny flat' to us to stay in instead of a expensive hotel and even now as I write all our girls are sleeping on floor mats, and Isaiah is in bed with Ruth and I. It works, but not something we're wanting to do 'long term'! Please be praying for us as tomorrow we get up early and do it all over again with heading back to Indonesia. These are hard long days for us. We are thankful though that this visa trip has been as smooth as possible.

Child Evangelism Fellowship

2011-05-02T06:05:00.000+07:00

Ruth and after going through 4 years of NTM ministry training, 1 year + raising financial support have had the awesome opportunity to meet and get to know many cool people the the Lord is using to build His church around the world. One such family is the Curier family and the world they are doing with CEF in VA. We enjoy getting their updates and today we were thrilled with them to hear about CEF new effort to expand their "Good News Clubs" in an effort to reach today's military children. To learn more about this new effort or ways to help check out this link http://www.cefonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=102&Itemid=100147

Upcoming Visa trip

2011-05-01T15:00:00.000+07:00

Continuing to move forward!

Well, life has been full these past couple of months. From the blessing of our fourth child, grumpy as he may be, to the visit and departure of my sister, Leah. I just wanted to fill you in on a few of the highlights.

Isaiah Michael, he has been a joy and a challenge. Being our first boy we weren’t sure what to expect. for the first few months he was quite colicky, so being low on sleep and not sure what the problem was I found myself more irritable to say the least. :) Praise the Lord and thank you to all who were praying, he is now very enjoyable to be around!

Leah Noel, my youngest sister, was here for just under three months. It was the first time in my whole married life (7 1/2 yrs.) that she and I have been able to spent significant time together. It was a very enjoyable and special time to say the least. She left this past Sunday, Easter, to fly back to New Hampshire. I still get a little teary eyed thinking about her being gone. She was a huge blessing and help to our family while she was here. Today, even one of our good Indonesian friends mentioned how empty it seemed with out her.

Ben is back in full time language study and has been for over a month now. He has been making great progress and really enjoys helping out where ever he can. The other day he had the opportunity to be a listening ear to one of our friends who just lost their grandmother. Not knowing if she was a believer or not was hard for our friend to work through. Ben was encouraged to have his first experience with being able to minister. He was thankful for the opportunity to encourage our friend that it’s a hard reminder, but we are in a true battle for souls and to continue on.

There is something that is in our near future that I would like to ask prayer for. We are getting ready to fly to Singapore, we leave on the 11th of May. This will our second time flying some where for visa work with all four of the kid. Let me tell you, it’s not easy and Leah wont be there to help us this time! Please be praying for smooth travel and no delays. Also, visa’s are expensive and having them come so close after moving is not easy. God has already provided so much through you, our teammates, please pray that we would continue to lean on Him and trust that He will provide.

Thanks for your prayers,
~Ruth for the Kane fam

Culture of the Month!

2011-05-01T14:58:00.002+07:00

One thing that we have noticed is Indonesian people know how to express themselves for events! Whether its a birthday party, Christmas or a funeral they make a BIG deal out of it!

This picture is one of many big crosses that have been build around the town and in neighborhoods. And they are not always in front of a church! On this Cross "Selamat" means "congratulations, happy, welfare" and "Paskah" means Easter.

We were all really excited to see this last week. It's a replica of the open tomb! I think this one was build in front of a church that is being build. The other one we saw was build on a vacant lot in a neighborhood.

Follow!

2011-04-26T06:29:00.004+07:00

Just watched this 5min video of "what if" Facebook was around when Jesus was around?! It's a pretty good idea of relating from our generation. We enjoyed it and hope you will as well.

Something about blogging - Paul Washe

2011-04-24T17:44:00.006+07:00

If you have 10 min. to spare you will be impacted by this video!

Someone IS posting!

2011-04-06T20:59:00.004+07:00

Our fondest apologies for lack of 'updates' on our blog the last few weeks. I've (Ben) found since Isaiah was born my limited free time has turned into no free time during the day and then mentally collapsing at night.

BUT…. Ruth's little sister Leah who has been here helping with a timely visit for the past 2 months and still has another month to go HAS been posting on "her" blog. So although I can't actually 'steal' her posts you can check out her blog at http://travelsofleahnoel.blogspot.com/ for some latest happenings with her and US! And yes, I'm hoping in the near'ish future to begin being a faithful poster yet again.

~Ben

Change of plans

2011-03-21T21:10:00.002+07:00

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. ~Proverbs 16:9

Ruth and I are very surprised to be writing this update to you from yet another region in Indonesia. Let us explain a bit, as you may remember we are in the midst of chaos with government paper work. Step 1 of all the paper work was waiting for a person from the American consulate in Java, Surabaya who was planing on coming to our home town on official business but also wanted to help us with all our paper work. Well, a few days ago on the day she was scheduled to arrive I got a call from the consulate that she had a medical emergency and was having to cancel her trip. Wow, what a shocker this news was to us! Our American paper work is already looking to be late and so I knew we (as a whole family) had to get on a plane ASAP and head to the island of Java for a consulate visit. we flew in on Sunday afternoon, finished all our paper work today, fly back to our home tomorrow. Some times we don't understand it, but God does choose to send us some whopping curve balls sometimes, does He not?! Honestly though, with all the expense and confusion of all these trips and paper work we've finally just gotten to the point on GIVING UP and resting in our Maker. After seeing how everything right now is so beyond us I find resting in Him is a VERY NICE place to be! We know somehow in the end this will all work out for His glory and He'll use to it to continue to shape us into the people He wants us to be..

Please be praying for us these next few weeks as you think of us and our family. Right now Isaiah's passport is scheduled to be done in two weeks and then it will be mailed to our government office to begin the process of applying for his visa. After that is finished we all get on a plane again to fly to Singapore for a few days and then fly back so that Ruth, Chloe, Addie, & Gwen can then be under a new visa (my work visa). Lot's going on! Right now we pretty much just want all this behind us, but will have to bare down for a while before that happens. :( Thank you for your many notes of encouragement and prayers for us.

Until every last tribe is reached with the Gospel!
~Ben & Ruth
Chloe, Gwen, Addie, & Isaiah

P.S. If you would like to help us financial durning this time in our lives please check out our project of the month on our side bar.

Visas and Paper Work!

2011-03-13T13:53:00.000+07:00

God is GOOD all the time

Dear Family & Friends,

Ruth and I wanted to write you an update concerning our recent issues with regards to our Visa’s in country as well as Isaiah’s paper work. It turns out that paper work for our family right now is monumentally complicated! :( Although difficult, I”ll try to explain what I can so as you can be better prepared to pray specifically for us.

1)After Isaiah was born we knew that he needed to get a CRBA (Consular Report of Birth Abroad), U.S. Passport, & U.S. Social Security Card. Normally this is done by having the mother & father fly (6 hrs in the air with a layover) with there newborn child to Jakarta to the American Embassy. Praise the Lord though when we were still at the hospital we got an email saying that someone from the American Embassy was coming to OUR town and is wanting to help with ALL our paper work (Ben also needs PassPort pages added, and the girls PassPorts are expiring this year and need new ones). The only problem with this goodness is her date to arrive is over a month later then if we had gone ourselves and Isaiah has to have his PassPort to start his visa paper work witch HAS to be done within 2 months of his birthdate.

2)Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, & Addie all need to switch there visa’s from there study visa to my work visa. I think Ruth and the girls passports have to be mailed to 3 different locations for applying and processing this.

3)After everyone’s visas are in the processing phase Ruth and the girls have to get a ‘clear to leave the country-one way’ form from the Government and it’s at that time that we all have to leave the country and fly to Singapore. Then after Ruth’s and the girls visas are done we can fly back under those new visa’s.

And to be honest this is the ‘simple’ explication of our situation. The long and the short of it is with Isaiah’s paper work colliding with Ruth and the girls AND having to leave the country at just the right time there are many head people right now in our mission working to help us get this done with as little bumps as possible. For this very reason we covet your prayers for the next 5 weeks or so!

On other news Addie seems to be getting a little bit better day by day now that she is on antibiotics. However, Gwen started in with a nasty coach last night and I (Ben) have been in bed most of the weekend suffering from some vertigo from a sore neck after playing volley ball with the guy’s from the mission school this last week. Hitting 30 has been a bit harder then I thought! : -)

P.S. Praise the Lord although a wave from the tsunami did hit the beach close to our area is wasn’t big enough to cause any significant damage.

Grace & Peace to you,

~Ben & Ruth

Chloe, Addie, Gwen, Addie, & Isaiah

Some new pictures

2011-02-26T18:31:00.000+07:00

New Family Photo

Gotta LOVE these types of photo's!

Pictures of Isaiah Michael Kane

2011-02-13T18:49:00.003+07:00

(Click on photo's to make them LARGER!)

Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie, & Isaiah!

(Click on photo's to make them LARGER!)

Please welcome Isaiah Michael Kane into the world!

2011-02-08T21:42:00.000+07:00

Isaiah Michael Kane

After an 11 hour labor and many hours of pushing meet our new baby BOY! Thank you to the many of you who have been praying for us during this time. It WAS NOT easy but we rejoice in it being over and praise the LORD for this new gift.

Isaiah - "God is Salvation
Michael - "Who is like God?"

Born 11:00am February 8, 2011 (central Indonesia time)
Length: 48 centimeters (18.9 inches)

Weight: 3,270 grams (7.2 pounds)

"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." Isaiah 1:18

"I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." 6:1-4

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the governments will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." 9:6-7

"O LORD, you are my God: I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago." 25:1

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal." 26:3-4

"Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" 30:18

"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." 40:8

"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak, Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." 40:29-31

"For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear' I will help you." 41:13

"This is what God he LORD says - he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it' 'I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
I am the LORD' that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols." 42:5-8

"I, even I, am ho who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." 43:25

"And now the LORD says- he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength- he says: 'It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may be bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." 49:5-6

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." 55:8-9

"Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool." 66:1

And many more....

--
CONTACT INFO:
Ben & Ruth Kane
***********************
Indonesia mailing address:
Kampus Misi PPMMP
Attn: Ben Kane
Kotak Pos 1036
Manado, 95011
Sulawesi Utara
Indonesia
***********************
Skype us!: benandruthkane (www.skype.com for details)
On the Web: www.benandruthkane.com
Email: ben-ruth_kane@ntm.org

INVESTING INFORMATION:
New Tribes Mission
1000 E First St.
Sanford FL, 32771
** Please make checks payable to NTM and
include a separate note stating its for
Ben & Ruth Kane

Nightly responsibilities:

2011-01-25T18:35:00.000+07:00

*Turn on porch lights to warn off robbers. Check!

*Make sure car doors are locked so as not to get stolen. Check!

*Bring the motor bike into the kitchen so as not to get stolen. Check!

*Unhook and bring in the washing machine from the porch so as not to get stolen. Check!

*Unhook and bring in the well pump as not to get stolen. Check!

*Check exterior doors are locked as to keep someone bad from happening. Check!

*Hit the ceiling with something to scare of the rats. Check!

Baby & Sister coming soon!

2011-01-25T05:07:00.000+07:00

Dear Friends & Family,

I just wanted to write to you to let you know of our latest news. I’ve been having some steady contractions over the past couple of days. I am now completely uncomfortable and ready to have this baby! Please be praying for me/us during this time in that this will be our first experience with having a baby overseas. I am fairly apprehensive about this in that they do many things differently as far as child birth is concerned. Pushing hard on the mothers belly to help the baby to be born, to only name one. Not to mention the language barrier that we’ll be facing!

On the brighter side of things my little sister, Leah, is coming for a visit! :) She has been planing this trip for a while to help with the new baby, and help take on some of my responsibilities to help me recover and then to free me up a bit for language & culture study. Please be praying for her trip and big adjustment to life here when she arrives on the 28 (3 more days!) of this month. Please also pray that this baby can hold off a while longer until she gets her!!! :)

Because of His love for us,~Ruth

P.S. Ben is excited that the birthing center has WiFi. It must be a guy thing...

2011 House Tour _Manado Indonesia

2011-01-17T19:50:00.007+07:00

We have moved!

As of this week we have officially moved yet again... Ruth and I (plus kids or course) had been living in an NTM guest house down the rd from our new house for two weeks while waiting for the owner of our rental to finish her visit and head back to her ministry in West Papau, Indonesia. As the day came for us to leave the NTM guest house and move into our place we kinda realized something very important was ‘missing’ and we then released how important this ‘thing’ is to everyday life. The answer, WATER! Our new house has been being built for 3 years and is still being finished. With that is mind the house is plumed and ready for water BUT the well isn’t finished yet! The guy’s from the mission school have been GREAT with coming over every day and working on fixing and finishing things in and around the house.

Please be praying for us during these next few weeks though. Ruth has found living in our new house difficult at the moment with so many people coming in and out and with so many things being unfinished. When you wash your dishes, cook, shower or clean remember to pray for us this week and maybe into the next! Also, it’s culturally appropriate to cook an afternoon meal for the workers. But without running water and ‘just’ moving in that too is very difficult. Ruth has asked for a helping hand from one of our neighbors to handle buying & making food for our workers while they are here. She is a smart girl. :)

On a more positive note our new house is VERY nice and we look forward to living here for a while once things are finished and set up. It’s also been such a joy to hang out with the guy’s from the NTM national training program and begin building friendships, studying language & Culture, and looking for opportunities for discipleship while at the house.

Grace & Peace,

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie & Baby to come soon!

P.S. Without further anticipation & seeing as SO many of you seem to enjoy or little movies I have spent some long nights and hours uploading a new 'house tour' video for you! :)

Prayer Request

2011-01-11T07:19:00.000+07:00

After talking with my parents yesterday I realized we have A LOT of prayer request this month that I would like to share with you!

1) We (I say we... ha!) are having a baby is less this 3 weeks! Yikes! Please be praying about this is that this is our first experience with having a baby in a foreign country. They have MANY different ideas of 'how to deliver' a baby here and that makes us very uncomfortable. Please Pray

2) Ruth sister Leah is coming to visit us later this month (Praise be to Jesus!) to stay and help us for 3 months with having a new baby. Leah still has much to get figured out with plane tickets, visas, packing, etc.Please Pray

3) Poor Gwen has been potty trained at least 3 times in her little life but when stress comes or a new move she starts peeing her pants again. After talking with a friend and doing some research we found out that some kids have a low level bladder infection that will cause inflammation of the bladder and therefor cause 'peeing oneself'. We have her on special meds that should clear this up in about a week. But, with stress some kids just react differently. Many missionary kids (MK's) show signs of stress with regressing, starting to stutter, or maybe in Gwen's case bladder infections. Please Pray

4) I didn't mention in our update but are new house isn't actually ready for us to move into yet so in wanting to be out of our last situation and wanting to be close by for working with the workers with our new rental we are staying in a NTM guest house close to the campus. Praise the Lord though we are planning on moving into our new house (although still not finished) tomorrow! We have MUCH to do in regards to transition at the moment and with having a new baby soon this is NOT ideal. Please Pray

5) With this being the first in our married life (7 years!) that Ruth and I plan on settling down for a while we suddenly find ourselves in need of furniture for the first time! All of our previous houses/places to stay have had loaner/rented furniture for use, this is the first time we need to buy and settle into a house all by ourselves. The reason I'm mentioning this and asking for prayer is buying 'new' furniture (dining room table, chairs, beds, dressers, living room furniture, visitor/front room furniture, desk, desk chair, book shelves, i.e. just about everything) and it's looking to be expensive (they don't have craigeslist, auctions, pawn shops etc. here)! Please Pray

Thank you for finding time to put your request before the Lord on our behalf. We are not too worried about these things and always trust the God has a plan, and that plan is a good one.

Grace & Peace,
Ben & Ruth

Far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.

2011-01-10T08:20:00.001+07:00

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many. 2 Corinthians 1:3-11

I'll 'try' and make this update short in that the verse is LONG but SO worth reading. Ruth and I started reading 2 Corinthians together as a nightly couple devotional and have SO enjoyed it! When we read the first paragraph, we could relate & sympathize on a COMPLETELY new level! After reading God’s Word and talking with other missionaries, I continue to see and hear that missions or ministry or life at times is HARD and that’s ok/normal. It during these times that we are forced to remember that we rely on not on ourselves on the Lord and the body of Christ, our faith grows! Let me back track a little and try to explain some of the massive stress’s of our last living situation; the pastor was female which was very uncomfortable for us, the house was very nice but it had A LOT of work to finish it and we were only planning on living there 6 months to a year before moving onto Taliabo, kids constantly playing at the house all hours of the day and night and looking into our windows, Bible study every night (not normal) that we felt the need to go to, horrible internet, found it very hard to find a language helper, our yard was a neighborhood walk through, and these are just a few… One of the other main stresses that we had was we had hired a neighbor lady who needed work to come over in the morning and do some cleaning to help her and to help free up Ruth a bit for language study and homeschooling the girls. We noticed after a short time of hiring her that things in the house started turning up missing! We assumed it was her but it is VERY, VERY, VERY, hard to fire someone or accuse of stealing here. The day before we were moving however I (Ben) was over at our house helpers place and saw some of our things and that confirmed she was stealing! Please be praying for this situation with our old house helper in that she is a leader in the church and part of the praise team. I’ve been studying language all week to be able to confront her on this sin issue with the pastor and I sure hope and pray that she repents/confesses her stealing and continue her walk with the Lord. All this to say, the stress of living there with all of that going on just continued to grow to the point of it being unbearable.

On a lighter note after moving away from our previous situation we are starting to feel much better about ministry here in Indonesia. After talking with our home churches, family, & supporters many of you have encouraged our hearts in prayer and with notes about the exciting possibility of ministry in equipping Indonesian nationals to join us (you and us) in reaching the lost for Christ. We are a large body with many functions!

Grace & Peace,
Ben & Ruth
Chloe, Gwen, Addie, and baby due in February!

Blog Update

2010-12-27T20:01:00.000+07:00

Ruth and I just wanted to write a quick update and let you all know how were doing. Thank You to so many of you for writing us and giving us many encouragements over the past few weeks! :) We are very sorry for not emailing/updating more lately. Our phone modem at the house hasn't been working for the past few weeks! We have been able to check emails a little while at friends house's over the holidays or at a internet store but my/our time is normally just too short to put in any good time! :(

Our latest news is that over the past few weeks our focus has been on wanting to find a new house closer to the NTM International school here. Praise the Lord as it can't be by chance there happens to be the perfect house available only 5 min from the school. Ruth and I are very encouraged in that we just sat down with the house owner (will tell more later) this morning and worked things out for us to move into the house in only 3 days from now! So as you can guess today and the next few days is all about packing up and moving again!

Please be praying for this move, Ruth and the kids. They have been through a hard year and we're really HOPING AND PRAYING that 2011 will be a year that can settle down a bit as a family, paint, decorate, put up pictures, and just make a house a HOME for the first time in (maybe ever)! My other huge praise is that in our new house we will be able to have GOOD internet again!!!! Having very bad and slow internet has been a massive stress for me and we miss emailing, skyp'ing & blogging with SO many of you!

OK, it's getting late here and I'm dying of second hand smoke from the kids next to me....

Love, Grace & Peace,
~Ben for the Kane's

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-22T12:36:00.004+07:00

"For God so love the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. for god did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:16-17

"this is how god showed his live among us: he sent his one and only son into the world that we might have live through him." 1 john 4:9

As the Christmas season has been approaching Ruth and I have found it hard to 'feel Christmas' . Christmas for us is: family, close friends, snow, seeing deer, having a fresh cut Christmas tree & snow! Seeing as how we don't really have any of those things here we get creative and do what we can! We listen to our favorite Christmas music almost all the time, we enjoy the advent wreath and tell the girls that Jesus is the true meaning of Christmas, and this year after watching a Christmas play at our church the girls decided that they too wanted to perform a Christmas play for their daddy! I've been thinking more and more this season about how when we decided to be go'ers and not senders for God's plan of reaching the nations we too were making a choice of sacrifice for the grandparents. With THAT in mind, during the girls Christmas play I couldn't help but record it and make a 5min video to share! Enjoy :)

Merry Christmas from Indonesia and A happy new year!

The Conflict!

2010-12-16T12:44:00.004+07:00

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 1:1-14

I just want to start out by saying “Thank You” to everyone who has written us and been an encouragement to us in that way. The power of prayer is amazing and I can honestly say Ben and I have truly felt up lifted these last few weeks.

I know that our updates have not been quite as consistent these past weeks. That is partly due to the extra stress that I (Ruth) have been feeling. I know that a lot of things can play into stress here, foreign country, different languages and culture, three little girls, pregnancy, homesick for the holidays, still dealing with the loss of my sister, etc... I found that I had come to the end of my rope and felt that I could no longer continue to function here in Indonesia. Ben and I talked about what we thought the possibilities were for us at this point. It seemed like there were only two; continue on until we reached the Taliabo tribe and pray that God gives me the strength OR for the sake of my sanity and for the welfare of our family return home to the U.S. Praise the Lord for you prayers and for the guidance of leadership! There was a third option presented to us. After talking to leadership at home and here on the field, it was suggested that maybe we need to take some time to settle in one place for a while. Looking back over the past two plus years, we have never fully unpacked and been able to call one place home. In fact I think we have moved about 8 times during that time! Option #3 is for us to take sometime here in Manado to do just that. We are greatly excited about being here in that this is where the national New Tribes Mission training center is located. The national training center is a 4 year course (same as us) and right now has 45 students that represent 25 different tribal groups here in Indonesia. Ben would be able to teach and help equip the nationals to do the job that is so close and dear to our hearts, the job of reaching the lost here in Indonesia. This is what we are praying about now. It would mean putting the Taliabo tribal work on hold for now, and letting me catch my breath, in a manner of speaking. We know that the life of a missionary is always stressful (this is normal and is said by all missionaries that we know...). But there are somethings that we can do to help reduce or minimize that stress, and that is what we are looking to do at this point in our lives.

Please be praying with us about this and future direction from the Lord. We would really appreciate hearing from you about what you are thinking and feeling on all this. We know that this might be coming as a bit of a surprise as it was for us as well. Please write and let us know. We are truly a team and know that we have to take this next step together.

Your partners in Christ,
Ben and Ruth Kane
Chloe, Gwendolyn, Adelaide, & Baby in February.

A flash mob singing the Hallelujah Chorus!

2010-12-02T05:35:00.001+07:00

Just for fun!

2010-12-02T05:32:00.001+07:00

Short Neurological Test

1 - Find the C below, Please do not use any cursor help.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

2 - If you already found the C, now find the 6 below.

99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
69999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

3 - Now find the N below. It's a little more difficult.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

This is NOT a joke. If you were able to pass these 3 tests, you can cancel your annual visit to your neurologist. Your brain is great and you're far from having a close relationship with Alzheimer.

Congratulations!

part 2

eonvrye that can raed this rsaie your hnad.

To my 'selected' strange-minded friends:

If you can read the following paragraph, forward it on to your friends and the person that sent it to you with 'yes' in the subject line.

Only great minds can read this. This is weird, but interesting!

If you can raed this, you have a sgtrane mnid too

Can you raed this? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Missions: The Best & Worsed Job

2010-11-21T21:01:00.000+07:00

The Yin & Yang of Missions

This last week we received some surprising news that Ruth’s sister & family (Jeremy, Beth Everson, & 4 kids) are living the mission field of Mexico. A quote that stood out to us from their newsletter was this:

“I have to tell you, though we try to update often and keep you informed as to what we are doing and how we are doing, it is difficult to adequately communicate all the stresses and pressures we experience at times. When we send you news of our ministry it is the ministry we have in focus and not our own struggles and trials. In hindsight, this may be a short-sighted approach to keeping you informed”.

With that in mind we would like to ‘open up’ and try to explain some of the hardships that many if not all missionaries face. Missionaries struggle with and often leave the mission field for reasons such as stress, finances, culture shock, burn out, relationship difficulties, non-agreements with leadership, depression, difficulties in children’s education, sickness, war or lack of safety, sadly the list goes on and on... In the case of Ruth’s sisters family it seems the Lord wanted them to experience missions first hand for a while, go through many trails, strengthen their faith and dependency on Himself and then redirect them to a new ministry back in NH. It just so happens that the pastor of our home church is resigning and honestly we don’t know of anyone better for the job then Jeremy. This news though has brought a mixture of feelings for us. We are happy and excited to see what the Lord has in store for them but to be honest there is a part of us that wishes it was us going home...

What we are trying to say is life on the mission field is HARD! Missionaries are on the front line of God’s army and there is a GREAT deceiver that often tells us we are worthless and should just go home. I don’t know if it’s because of a recent move or because of the holidays but the truth is Ruth and I have been talking and we have decided that we like living in the United States better then in Indonesia. Here, we will always be a foreigner and are looked at differently (when really, we just want to be normal). When we leave the house people around us stare, whisper and then laugh at us often, kids are often found staring into our windows, the food here is not food we would normally choose, and we miss all of you greatly. Please don’t think we are falling apart and buying plane tickets, but know that this is how life is here. We press on day by day because this is were we feel God’s wants us to be. Leadership has told us that the Talaibo tribal group needs about 10 years of ministry before being finished. Are plans are to see that work finished and brought to maturity in Christ, at that time maybe we will come home and help adjust our kids to life in America for a few years before they hit adulthood. What do you think? Are you willing to stand behind us for the next 10 years or so as we help build His church until we come home? We hope this update reads well in that our minds are going in a hundred directions as we write it! Always so much to say. :)

Just pray for perseverance, urgency, and that our skin will continue to grow thicker and that our heads and hearts wont grow hard as we press on day by day.

Missions is great, but it’s not all cake n’ ice cream.
~Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie, & Baby in Belly

Update/Culture/Video/Project of the Month! :)

2010-11-07T19:30:00.000+07:00

Settling into our new home/area!

Dear family & Friends across the world,

Things for us this past month have been crazy & tiring but GOOD! We LOVE our new place but not because of the building but because of so many quality neighbors to enjoy and glean from! Our new house is only 5 houses away from the church and pastor and to share a bit of culture this week the church body here meets often!

Sunday school 7:30am

Sunday Main church service 9:00am

Sunday Evening church service 5:00pm

Sunday Prayer time (normally at someones home) 7:00pm

Monday - Saturday there is 1 IF NOT 2 small groups church meetings at someones home in the evening!

All of these church meetings have been encouraging to our hearts to see the Indonesian church so active in meeting often. In many ways this is what I imagine it was like for the early church. Although as you might expect after reading through that list of church meeting times that this is a bit OUT of culture for us and can be a bit tiring! Am culturally still trying to figure out if they expect us/me to come to all of these meetings or just come to some or maybe when I can…. I don't yet know! :) Don't be fooled though in thinking a church body is healthy because they are willing to come together and study/worship our Lord. In many developing countries there tends to be a church trend/focus on the "prosperity gospel" or the believe "If things aren't going well or your sick you must not have enough faith!". Is this what we believe? Did not the Apostle Paul have a great focus with his faith and yet go through many trials and hardships? This brings me to my next point of excitement! Now that we live in a tight nit Christian community that meets for a church gatherings ever day and we live 1/2 from the NTM national training center for training national co-workers I have found myself (Thanks to the Lord!) in an amazing environment to not only learn language but then being able to directly apply it in the near future with offers from my Pastor and the National training center to TEACH while we're here! For those of you that know me there are two things that I love to do: work with my hands and teach God's Word. :) I'm always in awe of our God's plans!

Changing the subject real quick we could use some prayer for our girls. Gwen for the past 6 days or so has been experiencing some stomach pains. :( They started slight and then grew in intensity to the point of her not sleeping well (meaning we don't sleep well….) and we got worried enough to take her to 2 doctors yesterday. I felt bad for the doctors though in that Gwen is not experiencing any fever, puking, or diarrhea. Those are the normal signs of a problem. So what the doctors kinda did was gave her a shotgun of meds. to fix just about anything! We looked up all the drugs online at a friends house and picked the ones that we thought were good. With no confidence on our end though Gwen seems to finally be doing better today! :) Chloe and Addie too have been sick off and on but not as bad as Gwen. Some people just say this is a new area with new bugs and germs….

Video!

A special request from some friends of ours in AZ requested a 'house tour'. Below you will find the link of just that (14 min. long) below! Also for those of you who might be interested in an extra opportunity to give click the link here -> 'project of the month'.

http://blip.tv/file/4335983

Grace & Peace,

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie, & baby in belly (<-look at the list… pray for a boy!)

Blog Update (not a email update....)

2010-10-15T15:26:00.000+07:00

Hey everyone,

Thanks you all so much for your many emails and replies. I've been sitting here in the Internet place for about 2 hrs just reading through emails and trying to reply to some. It has been harder then I thought to come down here to the internet place in that during the day it's been hard to get away and at night when the day is over Ruth doesn't feel safe with me leaving in that we don't yet have any door locks on the house. Who could blame her!

Things are going really well and we have no real complaint! God has answered our prayers and given us a GREAT neighborhood to live in. It sure has been amazing to see the differences in living in a Christian area/neighborhood. Our neighbors act as if we're old friend and are very comfortable in hanging out with us and us with them. I often find my self over at a neighbors house in the evening drinking coffee from water that was boiled over fire and talking about life. To my utmost excitement I was even invited on a PIG HUNT! There were times I thought I would just die with the fast pace through the jungle with all the ups and downs on the hills and mountains but I made it through it all and unfortunately we didn't find any pigs. But as my Dad would say "The good part is you get to do it again then!". :)

OK, I gotta get going. I've already been away from home too long and we have a friend coming over for dinner. So even though it is now pouring rain outside I'm going to hope on my motor bike and head for home!

Grace & Peace,
Ben

P.S. hope to get internet soon at the house!

We HAVE moved!

2010-10-15T15:13:00.002+07:00

Everything seems new!

Wow, so much has happened, where to start?! Ok, Ok, Ok, I gotta try to get all the good stuff into this update. So Ruth and I with the kids wanted to pack up and leave Salatiga early in the morning and check into a hotel for the day/night to have a chance to relax, swim, and watch a movie with the kids before getting some sleep and having to wake up (as a family) at 4:30am the next day to get ready and catch our morning flight. Well, it was a good idea.... While were were in the airport town of Semarang one of our close family friends called and wanted to visit us because he was in town. He of course came at the worst time of showing the girls and getting them into bed early. We all hang out for a while and then said our goodbyes. Then later at about 8:45pm his sister (who we met once...) decided that she too (with her family) wanted to come and visit us before we left. Because she knew where our room was (her brother told her) she came up to our room and just started ringing the door bell! All the girls were asleep and Ruth too was almost asleep. So everyone was up again and saying good byes once more. The funniest thing for me was his sister wanted to give us a good bye gift. It was two big (20''X15') framed pictures for the girls. Here we were with ALL our things packed up to move and now we have two big framed pictures to bring on the plane with us!!! C'mom, who does that?! :)

We then arrive at our new home in Manado and after enjoying a nice lunch with our fellow NTM friends they take us to our new home (about 25 min away). OK, how to explain this part...... We drive in and our first impression was 'thank you God' the house looks awesome! We really had no IDEA what kind of place we were going to be living in for the next year or so. But.... This house has been a building project of a pastor for about 7 years now and it's still is NOT finished! LOL, basically we live in a really nice/big home that has no kitchen, door locks, screens, or window Bars! We are supper excited though to have an agreement with our landlord/pastor in that we are paying for the needed finishing's as our rent payment. This is really nice in that it is very common to pay rent and HAVE to fix up a house! Although, we have been a bit concerned with safety because of the lack of window Bars, and locks there is SOMETHING as a lock substitute.... there is a little piece of plywood with a nail pounded in the middle that you can hand turn shut or open! Ha! It's such an allusion of safety that it really is pretty funny! But, before you get too worried/scared for us our situation really does seem to be awesome. Our pastor here has been working in this church/neighborhood for the last 27years and seems to have done a great job. Everyone around us loves the Lord and live as one community, taking care of and watching out for one another. Chloe and Gwen are beside themselves in the best way possible with huge amounts of new friends! In our last house/neighborhood they had ZERO friends and now Chloe told me today, "Daddy, I now have hundreds and hundreds of friends!", I would say more like 20...

So some of you might be a little confused and asking why we as missionaries are now living in a 'Christian Community'? Well, this is a good question to ask! The quick answer (who likes long emails) is as NTM missionaries our first objective is to learn the language of the country we now live in. The language school that we were attending was in 'Central Java', which has a very large mixture of religions and people which was nice. But the biggest complaint that Ruth and I had was we found there to be too many 'English speakers' living around us. It was WAY to easy for us to hang out, play games, hang out, our have over our English speaking friends! There is also a 'study English' school is town and we found many friends that enjoyed speaking English a little more then we wanted.... But, with that aside after we become almost fluent in language we then MOVE AWAY to our region of service. With us wanted to work with the Taliabo people our region of service is 'central Indonesia' and not central java where we were before. After a person/family moves to there new region they Begin to learn the local dialect of that region and make long lasting friends there. We just though it would be a good idea for us to move to our region of service sooner then later and finish our language study with soon to be long term friends and companions in the work that God is doing here in Indonesia (NTM leardership also thought this to be a great idea). What better place for us to learn culture and language then beside fellow believers who crave for us to learn and grow! We have only lived in our new neighborhood for 2 days and we already see an amazing change!!! People are coming over and wanting to help in anyway possible and just want to be our friends. AND I have yet to see another white person! Our intentions for the next few months are to become 'learners only'. What I mean is we want to go to church, our neighbors homes and just watch and study, what do they talk about? How do they say it? How do you ask for something? Who starts and who ends things? How do they discourse? How do they argue? There are so many things that we assume are the same but are really so vary different here. These are the things that we are to learn to 'become' one with our new friends.

I will try to update more but right now that too is fairly difficult! I told our neighbor that we wanted to get Internet in our house. He says, "oh, you want Internet? Oh, you will fist need a phone line...."! This is the new world we find our selves in! :) Getting internet alone could take forever! To write this update I had to walk 15min down the street to a Internet store (If our email account gets hacked you'll know why....). Then I had to wait 1/2 an hr for 1 of the 10 computers that were being used for 'Facebook & online games'. Once someone was done I was able to snag a seat!

Thank you so much for your prayers and concerns for us and our girls! You are appreciated!!!!

Off the grid for a while,
~Ben for Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie, and baby belly.

P.S. the picture above shows where we moved to and the island the I squared is the island of Talaibu where we will be moving next, Lord willing.
P.S.S. Sorry if this doesn't read well. It's 10:05pm and I'm exhausted!

Packing -up again...

2010-09-21T21:18:00.004+07:00

You maybe as surprised as we were, in that things have quickly fallen into place for us to move to Manado in about 3 weeks! We appreciate your prayers, we have much to do before we move... buying, selling, sorting, packing. Things sure look different here. We can’t just rent a u-haul and take off, we are talking different islands here. If anyone is thinking of writing or sending us a package here is our new address in Manado:

Kampus Misi PPMMP
Attn: Ben Kane

Kotak Pos 1036

Manado, 95011

Sulawesi Utara

Indonesia

Please be praying for Ruth. With all the packing and business here and being pregnant, today at 5 p.m. she said that she was feeling sick and had to go lay down. Hopefully once everything settles down we can get back to a routine.

Thank you for all your prayers and notes. We will up-date again soon!

Grace & Peace,

Ben & Ruth

The Waiting Period

2010-09-05T21:43:00.002+07:00

Many of you have expressed that it’s been TOO LONG since we’ve updated! We do apologize and are very thankful that so many of you ‘really do care’ about us and our wanting to hear our latest news....

The big question that we have been getting on email is “When are you moving?”. This question at the moment is still a bit up in the air but just as of two day’s ago we received some very good news! We have been trying and trying to move to the city of Manado where are long term base of ministry is located. After continues closed doors we just found out the the easiest door of all has always been open. It turns out that “I” Ben the ‘head of the household’ carries the main responsibly for the family and therefor is should be ok for us to move under my visa alone and then have the girls changed over to my visa in December. We are still waiting to hear the final ok on this but we pray that this is true. If this is true then we are looking to move in 4 to 6 weeks. We are very excited! : )

As Ruth and I were talking about prayer request we were delighted to see God's faithfulness for us since we arrived back in Indonesia just 5 months ago. We continue to make ourselves available and God continues to be faithful. Here is a list of prayer request with some recent praises!

-Praise! Ruth after having a rather hard/sick first trimester with this pregnancy is now starting to feel better. But with that in mind we are a bit worried in that Ruth's schedule is 110% right now with having a language tutor coming every day (some days twice), the kids, and we are now starting to pack our things for our big move in 5 weeks.

-Prayer! As I mentioned we are getting ready to move soon! With this move in mind things will get pretty tricky with finishing here strong, saying our goodbyes, & packing and mailing (no U-hales here!) all our things. We also covet your prayers with this 'new' lifestyle in Manado. We will be living in a small community and a church has agreed to be our host church. This means that in this new situation will be fully dependent on Indonesians instead of fellow American's for anything & everything! This may 'sound' like a good thing (and it is...) but in the past this 'new' living situation has been or can be very hard/stressful on a family. So please be praying! :)

-Praise! Our finances are up! A year ago our monthly support was at about 45% but now it's at about 63%. This is great news for all of us in that we have been told that we need to be at least 65% to live in a remote while working in a tribal group. Praise the Lord for His provision of this in that we are 'just' about there! :)

There are stories after stories of the amazing work we are apart of all over the world! May you find your joy & peace in our Savior this morning!

Your Indonesian missionaries

~Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie, and one in the oven!

Culture of the Week!

2010-09-05T21:34:00.009+07:00

Motor Bikes & Cargo!

As most of you know we don't own a car here in Indonesia but we do own two motor bikes. This might not seem like a big deal off the top of your head but then again what would you do when you go grocery shopping or need to buy something kinda big? Well, in many of these cases you can get something delivered but myself and some friends we like to 'do what we can' by ourselves if you know what I mean....

This picture is of Gwen and I going to the 'bird market' and buying our family bird. What do you do with a bird care and a motor bike? You cover the cage in newspaper and tie it to your back of course! Not impressed yet?

To mow our lawn at our house I have to drive to another mission house and borrow the lawn mower. Normally I borrow the mission truck but when I got there the truck was gone. No worries though, my Indonesian friend was willing to help!

This picture is of my best/stupidest 'carry ons' yet. We bought Addie a crib (picture below) and I figured the box wouldn't be THAT big and I could just fit it in between the front space of my motor bike. But the box was too big so I said tie it on my back! I got A LOT of looks driving home with this one. : )

Let's just say it was big & HEAVY! Your worth is though girl!!!

This is a picture of my friend Nate when he was moving homes. He took his entire rattan chair in one load! What an inspiration you are to me Nate!

**I apologize in that is 'culture of the Week' is NOT about Ramadan. I was planning on 'filling you in' with a bunch of little culture tidbids but my plan now is to make you a video next week. So stay tuned!

Weekly Culture Archive:

www.kanesindoculture.blogspot.com

Culture of the Week!

2010-08-15T22:07:00.000+07:00

Ramadan

(This photo was taken in Jakarta-Indonesia)

That’s right, the Holy Muslim month of Ramadan has begun! Seeing as how the month of "Ramadan" is such a BIG part of life here in Indonesia we will be dedicating our 'culture of the month' to Ramadan this month.
Part of the Ramadan month is fasting all day (no eating or drinking). Muslims will eat a early morning breakfast before the sun comes up and then eat dinner after the sun goes down. During this time we too have to be sensitive with NOT eating or drinking when out in public.

This 'being polite' to others has also effected local restaurants here. Some places choose to close all together during the day while others just 'some how' block the view of people eating in side!

Even the 'small' sit and eat places will cover up!

Encouraged

2010-08-15T22:04:00.000+07:00

As we look back on this last week we are encouraged! Ruth is starting to feel better with her pregnancy (huge praise!). Gwen is doing better and better with her long adjustment back to Indonesia (huge praise!). Also, total miracle happened this week. I had been stressing over our external hard drive (that had our entire old computer on it which had then broken in our move here) and found out that it would cost between $700-$1,300 dollars to get it fixed. I was praying about it and just not sure what to do. As I was praying about it, I felt that the Lord was directing me to get out of bed and try to fix it myself (maybe not a good idea) but praise be to God when I plugged it in it worked! I was beside myself with joy! :) Since then I’ve been able to pull everything off and retrieve all our files. The other thing we wanted to mention was how thankful we are for all of you. Your support and friendship to us has been the ‘extra push’ and smile in our day’s since coming back from the United States. So for that “Thank You” :)

God bless,

~Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie and baby in belly

P.S. We have created a "Send the Kane's a care package" if your interested... http://kaneministry.blogspot.com/2005/09/care-package.html

Update

2010-08-05T21:07:00.003+07:00

Dear Family & Friends,

Just wanted to let you know that lately no news has been good news! Things here in Indonesia have been fairly normal... Ha! Even as I just finished that last sentence of ‘normal’ I look down and see an ant coming out of my computer and I laugh and think “ha!, normal is a hard thing to come by when living in Indonesia!”. One awesome thing that happened this week was Chloe got a hair cut! Why is this so great you ask? Chloe has been growing her hair out for a year now for ‘Locks of Love’ and just this week her hair was finally the 10” inch length needed and so we cut it off and mailed it off! She was so excited. :)

A prayer request and ministry update this week is my Indonesian Tuesday night Bible study. As a group, we have been working through an NTM study guide from creation to Christ and the last few weeks we’ve been working through the beginning of the story: Creation (6 days), Adam & Eve, Sin, Cain & Able, Noah’s Ark, and then the tower of Babel this last week. It’s been an awesome experience for me to just see and listen to their questions. One really hard issue that we have been working through is the age old debate of “creation vs. evolution”. The problem that we have been facing with our Indonesian friends is that in school they were taught that the Bible is true and evolution is true (sound familiar?). The other hard thing for them is to think about a smart Dr. who has studied evolution and so he just can’t be wrong. Right? Wrong. In Indonesia people are also taught from a young age to except one another and value each other. This might sound great, but it also moves into the realm of “we are all worshiping the same God but in different ways...” With working through this mind set we’ve been going through the Creation story and we’ve been asking lots of questions of them and answering questions from them. It’s safe to say I LOVE THIS about living here. It’s why we’re here right?! To help people and their world view the best we can, whenever we can. There sure is such a great need here for grounded Christians who have studied the Bible and are walking with our God!

As for a visa update, thank you for your prayers. The language school that Ruth and the girls have their visas through is a Christian school and they are working with us and our org. to allow us to keep the paid visa’s through them but allow us to move early to our region of ministry. What’s happening now is they are finishing a 3 to 4 month language study abroad program. We are pumped about this! What we’ll be doing is picking two culture topics like weddings & funerals and study them in depth here in Central Java. Then restudy those same topics in our new region looking for differences and writing up a paper on our findings. This study abroad program should allow us to move to Manado in early October after the holy month of Ramadan for the Muslims is finished. A BIG thank you for everyone who financially helped us out this last month. Your gifts are greatly appreciated and really helped with our visa bill.

Working together to reach Indonesia,

~Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie & Baby in belly.

Culture of the Week!

2010-08-05T21:02:00.006+07:00

Internet Ad's

You know how sometimes in the United States when your on the Internet you'll see a little ad on the side of your screen that catches your attention? Something maybe like "Lower your mortgage!" or "Loose weight now!" Well, here in Indonesia we have some different kinds of 'pop up ads...' :)

Weekly Culture Archive:

www.kanesindoculture.blogspot.com

Culture of the Week!

2010-07-19T20:12:00.004+07:00

Rat's

My new hobby is awesome! Many of you probably don’t know that RAT’S are kinda a big problem/annoyance here in Indonesia. And unfortunately for us we had a BIG family of them living in the roof space directly above our bed room. We would hear them fall, chew, run, & fight in the night and during the day pretty regularly. I had though about buying some d-CON poison but I then though if a rat was to die up in our ceiling that could be an even BIGGER problem. But praise be to God I found another solution. They make a wire cage here that has a nice weighted drop down ramp on the front and when something (rat) walks in to eat the bait it can’t get out! And the best part is.... Ladies you may not want to read on.... I have multiple awesome ways to exterminate them:

I have a traditional tribal bow and arrows that I can shoot straight through the brain killing it fast with minimal blood.
I have a BB gun (enough said).
You can drop the cage in a 5gal bucket full of water for a min or two. But, I don't prefer this method.
The dog that we are borrowing (A big golden retriever) is an Indonesian dog, meaning that he too catches and kills rats...
And this one really is the best. I have a friend who has a pet hawk that will fly down and kill/eat the rat.

So needless to say I have yet found another great hobby that also helps keep things healthy and safe around the house! : - )

Weekly Culture Archive:

www.kanesindoculture.blogspot.com

The last two weeks have been full!

2010-07-19T20:12:00.003+07:00

First off we just wanted to 'thank you' for your prayers for us these last full weeks. Looking back one of the the best parts of our last few weeks has just been feeling healthy again! With that in mind we have been able to rejoice with being back into relationships/ministry/language learning/family with full energy and excitement! One of the high lights these last few weeks has been watching the world cup with some of my friends here. The final game was really fun/interesting in that I was invited to a neighborhood party/get together to watch the game from 1:00am to 4:00am. It was a blast though in that many Indonesians from that neighborhood come out to watch and even though it took me a good 2 days to recover I think it was worth it!

Today’s ‘high light’ IS Ruth’s birthday! Our day today started with an Indonesia friend of Ruth’s sms’ing her at 6:00am to wish Ruth a blessed and long life. Ha! We should really never be surprised at some of the things that happen here. :) All in all we had a really fun day and enjoyed some spaghetti (Ruth’s favorite) with some other missionary friends (who we will dearly miss!) who are moving from our town this week.

Your Co-partners in Indonesia,

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie, and baby in belly

Culture of the Week!

2010-07-05T10:58:00.000+07:00

Superstitions!

We had a school assignment recently that was to ask our Indonesia friends about what kind of superstitions they have here. Boy, were we surprised at the answers!

*If a bird poops on a person they will have a bad day (this one kinda makes sense!). :)

*If a girl sits and eats on the front porch of the house she will end up marrying someone who has had a divorce.

*If you step on a frog you will have a ugly spouse.

*You have to be careful about cutting down big tree’s because spirits live in them.

*If you poop in your dream that means you will loose something that day.

*If you loose a tooth in a dream that means someone in your family or extended family is going to die.

*You have to be careful not to die is a dream because you WILL die for real!

*If a snake comes into your home then someone in your family or extended family is going to die.

*And our Favorite! We have a newt/lizard that lives in our homes here in Indonesia and it’s called a “Cicek”. They mostly come out at night and they walk on the walls and some times the ceiling (this is normal...). O.K. here it is.... If a Cicek falls on you then someone in your family or extended family is going to die unless you catch it and break it’s jaw open! And they still believe this and do this today!!!

Weekly Culture Archive:

www.kanesindoculture.blogspot.com

Talks of Moving...

2010-07-05T10:56:00.006+07:00

Hey,

First we want to wish you all in the United States of America- a Happy Independence Day celebration! What a blessing to have the freedoms we do! May it be a continual challenge to those of us that are both citizens of a free nation and citizens of Heaven to make our lives count for eternity! Seeing His kingdom come on earth the same as it is in heaven!

Ruth and I just wanted to write a quick update to fill you in on our latest happenings. It seems we’ve been SO busy lately! We have been ‘playing catch up’ after at least one member of our family being sick for a period of 2 1/2 weeks. And now, as if that weren't enough, Addie started CRAWLING this week. That girl sure has been keeping us on our toes! We even went around the house and taped over all the 220volt plug-ins because we ‘just’ wanted to be safe!!! :)

So I’m sure your all wondering about the picture above, right?! Well, There has been a younger Indonesian guy named Yohanes that has become one of our really good friends here but sadly he is moving today. It is very cultural here to have parties here (an excuse to get together and eat!) and so we decided to have a going away BBQ for Yohanes on Saturday this week. We had so much fun Barbecuing 3 chickens that we bought at the meat market, made potato salad, and provided the soda. We had the best time building relationships with the ‘excuse’ of a party with our Indonesia friends who have become so dear to us.

As for us thanks for all of you who were praying for our health and for us to get better. Those prayers have been answered! We ask that you would please be praying for our future here in country. As we wrote in a previous update we as a family are looking to move to the region that we’ll be ministering in sooner rather then later because of Ruth being pregnant. How things work here for missionaries is first everyone moves to central java to learn/study the language of bahasa Indonesia. After our fluency is pretty high we then move to the region that we feel God would have us work in. After we move to that region we then ‘finish’ our bahasa Indonesia language study and either work as a ‘support roll’ missionary to the local church and to the missionaries in the remote tribal locations or“Be” one of the remote tribal missionaries (which is what we want). As of right now NTM leadership has excepted our request to move to the island of Sulawesi (our region of ministry) but we are having some ‘visa’ issues with our move. This is going to sound complicated (and it is...) but I Ben have a visa that is under a ‘sponsorship board’ that allows me to be in country. Ruth and the girls though however are here under a ‘student visa’ which allows Ruth to be a ‘full’ time student with the government. So in order for Ruth and the girls to leave central Java they need special permission or a change of visa which could get expensive. Please pray with us as we discuss our options with leadership here in trying to find the best salutation for ministry and our family.

**We do have a NEW ‘Project of the Month’ below for those of you who are interested. Thank you!

Because of the cross,
~Ben & Ruth

Project of the Month!

This last week we got the bill for Ruth and the girls student visa’s that allow them to be in country. The total was about $2,600 dollars. This is a lot of money and we really weren't expecting the bill to be this high. This bill is totally our bill and our organization doesn't help in these expenses.

**If you would like more information on how to 'help' with this Project of the Month click on this link to our Project of the Month page on our website ->-> Link

BIG News!

2010-06-20T20:46:00.003+07:00

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6

What is this ‘BIG’ news you ask? Ruth and I just found out this last week that................... Ruth is pregnant with our 4’th child! Although this news came as a bit of a surprise to us we still can’t help but rejoice in the Lord for He ‘makes our paths straight’.

Other then ‘Ruth being pregnant’ we do have some urgent prayer requests to bring before the body of Christ today. Praise the Lord Chloe is all better from (what we think to be) Dengue Fever. Although, our prayer request is now Gwen has it and I (Ben) came down with a fever today. Gwen though, the poor girl even spiked a HIGH fever of 106 yesterday! This fever can be grueling and is something to watch out for in this part of the world. Our other BIG concern is that Ruth would NOT get this sickness! If Ruth was to get this Dengue Fever sickness it could really do a lot of harm to a little baby at this point in Ruth’s pregnancy. We know there is A LOT going on huh?!

Thanks you for your prayers on our behalf with sickness & health for our family.

As you acknowledge Him, may He make your paths straight!

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, Addie & Baby?

P.S. "HAPPY FATHER'S DAY"!

Please Be Praying For Gwen this week!

2010-06-18T20:19:00.000+07:00

Gwen has Dengue Fever! This has been a bit of a hard week! Chloe had Dengue Fever for 4 days, now Gwen has Dengue Fever, Addie has Thrush, and Ruth's not feeling good! Good thing the 'Man' of the house is here to save the day. ha!

But back to poor Gwen though. Last night the fever started at about midnight and we started her on meds. Today she topped off with a 104.2 fever and so we had to strip her down to just her undies and let her body cool back down to a safer temp (although she felt freezing). For those of you that know our girls you will know that when Chloe get's sick she's GREAT, but when Gwen get's sick she is DRAMA! So with that said Ruth & I will have to be constant nurses for the next few days/week to help get Gwen back to her normal self again soon.

Please be praying that Gwen get's better soon and that this infection isn't too hard on her little body. With Dengue it gives you a hight fever for 3-7 days which will then cause your body to ache all over, give you a head ache, and can cause puking (Gwen already puked 4 times today, one time on me...)

Thank You for your prayers on her behalf. I know she appreciates it, as do we!
~Ben

Chloe is doing better!

2010-06-16T20:33:00.000+07:00

Just wanted to write a quick update before we went to bed. Chloe had a REALLY hard night last night with lot's a body pain. I ended up even taking down her bunk bed mattress and putting it on the floor next to our bed so we could keep an eye on her. But praise the Lord today she seems good as new! Thank You so much for praying for her over these last 24hrs!

Your partners on the other side of the Globe,
Ben & Ruth

Please Be Praying For Chloe TODAY...

2010-06-15T22:14:00.000+07:00

As many of you know from our last update Chloe most likely has Dengue Fever which can be a very serious infection. Yesterday she was feeling pretty bad: entire body is very hot, head ache, and dizziness, and muscle/joint pain. All this is caused by her fever. Dengue Fever usually last 3-7 days and is constant. The only thing to really do when having it is to take Tylenol to help keep the pain and fever down.

I'm writing you right now (I should be asleep) because I just woke up to give Chloe her next dos of Tylenol and she gave us a bit of a fright. Her last dos of Tylenol had wore off and so her muscle and joint pain was pretty bad. She couldn't speak and was just in pain for a while. We called over a local NTM nurse to check Chloe out and Chloe was coming around at this point and talking again. She doesn't complain much and just says that she feels cold and her body hurts...

We took her to the doctors today and had her blood tested to check her Platelet level and 'thank God' they are still high enough to not need a blood transfusion. Please, be praying with us today as we sleep that God begins to heal her little body soon. I would gladly take her place if I could, but instead we have to watch her go through this...

Thank You for your prayer to our loving Father,
~Ben

Quick Update....

2010-06-14T06:32:00.000+07:00

I was thinking that not much had happened these last two weeks but after just sitting down and talking with Ruth a bit we realized that it’s been busy and eventful as usual! Our big excitement is Ruth and I have almost finished our first whole unit at our language school and have seen a lot of much needed growth in our ability to communicate after forgetting so much from our time in the States! My personal big accomplishment was after many late nights I finally finished our 2009 taxes! I know it’s already June but the IRS automatically gives a 2 month extension for citizens out of country. Nice eh?! It’s taken me a bit longer because this has been the first year we’ve really learned ‘how’ to file with being missionaries out of the United States working for New Tribes Mission. Of course in this process we learned that our 2008 taxes will need to be amended... bummer

But moving away from boringness, our highlight this week was tonight! We had a family from our church here just ‘drop in’ for a visit tonight! It’s cultural here to drop in on people now and then and we had the best time talking and hanging out for a few hours until it was starting to get late and it was time to depart. But it’s relationships like these that help encourage and spur us on in ministry here!

We do have some prayer request for you as we finish out this update. I Ben got pretty sick for a day this last week. I’ve been getting up early (5:00am) to start my days (which has been awesome) but there are some nights after Bible studies that I stay out late with my friends. It’s because of this I think I had a bad bought of vertigo and was pretty much useless for a day with dizziness and migraines. Please be praying that I can continue to figure out a schedule that works well for our family and my body to NOT see this happen again or often. Then as of today Chloe has been very sick. Our local nurse said that she has dengue fever. Dengue fever can be a very serious infection that is normally spread by mosquitoes. To learn more about it Google it and see what you can find. Some of the main symptoms include a hight fever, headache, muscle and joint pains. Pretty sad for a 5 year old... :( Please be praying with us that she get’s better real soon!

Culture of the week - Chicken Feet!

As some of you may have guessed We some times run into some pretty strange/unusual foods here in Indonesia. One of my favorite this past month has been eating (for the first time in my life!) fried chicken feet! My friend had ordered some and insisted I give them a try. And yes, to my surprise it tasted like chicken!

God Bless,
Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen & Addie

3 become 1 & 2 new additions!

2010-05-31T06:25:00.000+07:00

God is active

These last two weeks have been full of goodness! Let me first start 'breaking down' the title of this update for you. The "3 became 1" is about our girls. Addie has always been a horrible sleeper and Ruth and I had gotten to the point of not being able to handle our exhaustion anymore because of this. We decided to try something new... We put Addie in the same room with Chloe & Gwen and all three of them love it and Addie is sleeping better! Praise the Lord!

Our “2 new additions” are awesome! We have been a little worried in our new house rental because it’s been broken into in the past and so when ever I hear a noise at night I have to get up and check things out (doesn’t make for a good nights rest!). God knew all this in advance and worked things out where there happens to be a nice big golden retriever named Shack that needed a home! The girls were thrilled, to say the leased!!! Then as if that wasn’t good enough Ruth was walking out one night this week to lock the front gate and she found a house bird standing in front of our door! It’s called a Kutilang bird here and Chloe and I got to go buy it a cage and some food today. God is SO good to us! :)

Ruth & I have started up back in school as of two weeks now and have really appreciated being back. We spend 4 hrs a day Monday through Friday at a school studying our brains out with Bahasa Indonesian! With our main job at the moment being language Ruth is expected to get in between 20 & 30 hrs a week and I’m expected to get in my 40 hrs. We’ve been finding that with class, home work, Bible studies, town meetings, church and just walking around and enjoying our neighbors that it’s been easy to go above and beyond whats expected of us! I was even super excited to be able to lead a Bible study this past last week on the subject of "God's Will for your life"! But it was mostly in English... One of my main passions right now is to study all the words needed to be able to give my testimony at church and Bible studies here in the area.

We also have a praise and prayer request to finish this update. Before coming back to Indonesia our monthly support was at about 40%. Sense then it’s grown to about 57%! We wanted to again say “Thank You” to you who have become part of our team in joining the work that God has started here in Indonesia. It is truly a huge praise! Our prayer request is that you would continue to pray with us for more financial partners in our ministry. NTM leadership has told us that our monthly support needs to be at least 65% to enable us to live in a remote location with our family while working with the Taliabo people come this next year. We don’t want you to give less at your local church and if your already supporting a missionary we don’t want to distract you from that either. But if your not would you pray and consider joining our team? Please contact us if you have any questions.

Because He said "Go!"

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, & Addie

Indonesian Bathrooms _ Culture of the week!

2010-05-30T19:06:00.004+07:00

Weekly Culture Archive:
www.kanesindoculture.blogspot.com

Addie is getting all 6 top teeth at ONE TIME!

2010-05-30T18:03:00.001+07:00

Click on picture to make larger

Resurrection Sunday Dance, Budapest, Hungary

2010-05-23T13:20:00.005+07:00

Let's do this in the U.S.A. What do you think?

At the end of another week.

2010-05-16T19:49:00.005+07:00

Life has been full, like usual, and God has suppled the energy to get up each morning. There is a saying that I like to remember. It goes something like this, “ Start each morning as if it were on purpose”. It helps me put things into perspective. We are on this earth for a reason, God has given us a job to do. I need to have that in view when I start the day.

Ben has really been enjoying his Monday night Bible study. It has really helped solidify some of our friendships here. He is also able to attend one on Thursday nights too.

Gwendolyn and Chloe are enjoying being here more and more as we get settled. It has really been a help to Gwen as our life is getting more structured. Adelaide, the poor little thing, six of her top teeth have broken through over this last week. She had been a little extra grumpy and I wasn’t sure why. I was tickling her tummy and I looked in her mouth and there they were, six brand new teeth.

We are continuing to move through our language study. Its slow, but we can always see some progress! The Lord has brought these verses to mind many times this week.

Philippians 2:14-15 “Do everything with out complaining or arguing . So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.”

I hope these verse encourage you, like they do me. Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

Culture of the week!

The most common way for Indonesians to travel/get around is by a motorbike. We have found that it is the most affordable way to travel in and out of the city, not to mention that easiest way to travel. Here is a quick shot of what we look like headed out for a drive. Can you find the umbrella?!

Living life with purpose,
Ruth, Ben, Chloe, Gwen & Addie

New Bible Study and Peter Pan!

2010-05-09T21:57:00.004+07:00

Another FULL Week!

This week was SO full it’s a bit hard to remember what all happened! But to keep your attention I’ll try to “just” hit the highlights. Starting on Monday I was invited to a new Bible study that is all in Indonesian (as apposed to my Thursday English study). I was again blown away at the hunger for truth that so many of these people have! The Bible study was on the Holy Spirit but other questions such as:

Somewhere some people claim to have seen Jesus. Was it really Him?
Are we above or below the Angles?
Why didn't God just punish Satan and send him and his angles straight to the lake of fire?

I really appreciated these questions because they are honest/real questions that we’ve all had or sometimes think about. Some of the questions we searched the scriptures (Alkitab is the Indonesian word for Bible) and tried to answer their questions and other questions sometime the real answer is God didn’t tell us that. Some day for all those who believe in Christ will have eternity with our Savior and we can ask Him! :) But for now let’s focus on the ‘already big’ Bible (God’s Word) that we have...

Another totally cool thing we got to do this week! There is a local International School here in central Java and they decided to put on a Peter Pan Play (upper right picture)! Because it was later on in the night I just bought tickets for Chloe, Gwen & I. I was thinking Gwen might be scared of the pirates & the crocodile. But at the end of the first half they were ‘beside themselves’ with excitement and joy! Oh,

what fun we had together!

Scorpions, Spiders, & Rats "oh my"!

“Culture of the Week” this week is what we found in our back yard ‘just’ this week! The Spider is a BIG spider that lives up in some trees/bushes behind our house. We looked it up on the Internet and think we found it, it can eat birds when it gets big enough....The scorpion is also a fun story. Ruth saw a hole in the ground and said “I think that is a scorpion hole.”. Luckily for me, when I’m in the States I try to watch ‘Survivor Man’ on Discovery channel as much as possible! He says to dig out a hole in front of the hole and then place a cup in the ground so that when it comes out of it’s hole it falls in the cup and can’t get out. Sure, enough Chloe and I did this and in the morning there it was! I just chose not to eat it..... As for the rat, the girls were playing out back (why do we let them play there again?) and they quickly ran inside saying they found a big rat! And big it was! You can see for the scorpion and the spider I used a quarter and for the rat I used a bic pen to show you the size!

***On a side note Ruth and I wanted to thank all our family and friends for the support you have shown us. We receive our local field account statement this week and with visa expenses, travel, new motor bike, girls in school, and needing to supply our house with some things we’ve spent over $5,000.00 dollars. But with that said, we are thankful that we were able to save a bit while in the States for these expenses. Once things settle down a bit with expenses here we’ll start saving for our move to the island of Sulawesi then to the island of the Taliabo tribe. After that our monthly expenses will mostly go to our ministry with the people and living in a remote location.

Grace & Peace,

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen & Addie

A one minute message. Wow!

2010-04-26T06:31:00.001+07:00

Culture of the week!

2010-04-25T19:16:00.000+07:00

Light Switches!

This may sound funny that I'm picking 'light Switches' as a 'culture of the week' but it's been one that I've been WANTING to do for a while! Check out the picture above: The 'turn nob' is for the room fan (a must for ALL rooms to keep it cool and keep the mold down....) and the double switch below is the normal looking switch here in Indonesia. The think that you DON'T know it the switch is opposite/backwards then what you (from America) think is normal! HERE up is OFF and down is ON! When ever I go to use a light switch here I always have to think first.... O.K. not what I think....

Weird eh?!

Culture.... It's a funny thing!

Week Four!

2010-04-25T19:00:00.003+07:00

Another jammed packed week in Indonesia! Our main job this week was of course ‘studying the language of Indonesian’ as that will be our ‘main’ job for quite some time, but we also found ourselves fixing an overflowing water tank behind the house, driving our whole family on a scooter, while getting caught in massive rain storms, having to take apart the washing machine to find a lost ring, and getting our internet working again after it died for 4 days!

Besides the ‘normal’ routine in living here in Indonesia we have 2 prayer requests.

The first one is; we were in a meeting this week to talk about what this next year might have in store for us! The main idea of how to learn a foreign language well, is to learn it from the people who speak it. That may sound obvious at first, but the alternative is to learn language in a school/class room. The school setting is nice in that you show up and practice the curriculum and do your home work and progress in the language. Right? Although this is true and helpful, it’s very hard to gain a high fluency level in a class room. The other problem we are having is (and this might sound weird at first) there are too many American’s (english speakers) living around us! We find it’s too easy to visit with your American friends outside of our job of language learning. So... What are we getting at?! With that said and with our meeting with leadership this week we think it’s best to limit our stay here in Central Java and move to a city on the island of Sulawesi. This new city would be a good choice for many reasons. It’s a city where the Indonesian dialect (one of many!) is a lot closer match to the Indonesian dialect that a few Taliabo tribal people speak. This city would be a possible hub for us in the future with relationships and supplies, and for the time being a big benefit would be there are no other NTM missionary living in that area. So although it would be hard for us living on our own for a bit, it would be a HUGE benefit for us to HAVE TO rely on Indonesians and the Lord for EVERYTHING! So please be praying with us about these many details. We are still planning on being where we are for a while studying language here before moving on....

The second prayer request and concern of ours right now is Gwen (our 4 year old). We have known for a long time that Gwen is a VERY sensitive little girl. After our family “Crash” we too has been having a bit of a rough go with all the changes we’ve been having. Ruth and I counted and we have moved about 8 times this last year from house to house and back to Indonesia. That IS a lot of moving! Gwen is a girl who does well in a structured environment (as do most kids!). But this last week has been hard for Gwen in that she started not liking her school (use to be her favorite thing!) and now has started to pee her bed again... All this is say our prayer and goal is to give Gwen as much stability, structure, and love to begin working through this time and to build her back up again!

Thanks you for all your support and for being apart of our lives! We couldn't be functioning here without you and our Lord giving us what we need!

Because the world needs Jesus,
Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen & Addie

P.S. We did get to have a ‘day off’ this weekend and LOVED it! : - )

Culture of the week!

2010-04-25T18:59:00.001+07:00

Time!

This last week it was Gwen's 4'th birthday. Yeah, Gwen! But the weird thing was having to deal with the time differant from here in Indonesia and back in the States. What I mean is New Hampshire (where Ruth is from) we are 11hrs ahead and we are 14hrs ahead of California (where am from). So what we had to do was call family on Gwen's B-day in the morning say 7:00am. Well, that meant it was 5:00pm California and 8:00pm in New Hampshire. So when it was Gwen's B-day here and we called the States it wasn't yet Gwen's B-day there... Pretty weird eh?!

Here is a link to a 'real time' map of the world with times to help you keep track! We are considered in the Jakarta, Indonesia time.

http://www.worldtimezone.com/

Week Three!

2010-04-25T18:25:00.003+07:00

Three Weeks!

Starting a new week is always exciting for me… who knows what's going to happen! In our last update we talked about "The Crash", and man, was it ever. Needless to say it's nice to be on to a new week. Ben found out that the hard drive is probably not fixable. He is going to send it to Singapore and see if they can do something there. Keep praying! The guitar on the other hand is fixable and for a very reasonable price. So yes, Austin, he will able to learn all those songs you gave him. :o) Most of the ants have gone and just an occasional cockroach, God it good! He really does care about the little things too!

This week we were able to find some time to do a little shopping. Hallelujah! We bought a desk for me and a much needed, bench to sit on, along with a few other things. There is a guy here who makes furniture out of old pallets, pretty cool, and very inexpensive. Also, we got some good language time in this week. You kind of start to think, " did I really forget THAT much?!". It's totally coming back, just takes a little work, and my Dad always said, "a little work never hurt anyone".

On the other hand, Adelaide has finally decided that maybe it's okay to sleep at night. Getting some uninterrupted sleep really helps your out look on life. Gwendolyn, as we all know, is the excitement in our family and she had her birthday this weekend! The big four years old mark. I can not believe that she is already four! We are so thankful that God has entrusted her to us. It's amazing the amount of times a day she will make me smile, she is a clown. Every family needs one.

This weekend we hosted our small group. Ben was able to share his testimony and some of what God has been showing him this past year. We played a little badminton after our brunch. And let me tell you, there is a BIG difference between the girls game and then the boys game that followed. The girls were having fun. It was okay if you didn't know how to serve, you get two free tries! It's okay if you don't know all the rules, fill them in as you go. :o) But the boys, well… they were spiking it, (yes, you can spike in badminton) They all talked over the rules before starting.They were able to keep it flying back and forth over the net more then, say, three times. We sure were created differently, huh!

Well anyway, good week, very full but we enjoyed it. Maybe next weekend we'll take a day off, maybe..

God is good,~Ruth for the Kane Family

Storage _ Culture of the Week!

2010-04-11T22:40:00.002+07:00

With coming back to Indonesia and un-packing our thing let's just say even Ruth and I were surprised to see what had occupied our things while we were gone!

The Crash

2010-04-11T22:38:00.002+07:00

With writing these weekly updates we hope to keep our relationship with you informed and moving forward together. So our goal is to be able to sit down at the end of the week and just write a bit on the highlights both good's, bad's and everywhere in-between!

What's "The Crash" that we are talking about you might be thinking? Well, praise the Lord we're not talking about a 'real' crash between cars & motorcycles with us! We are however talking about theemotional crash that we noticed happened this week. With all the unpacking, cleaning, organizing, socializing, prioritizing, taking care of the girls, school, visa work, tax work, it's been a LONG-LONG-LONG week! There was a day where seemingly out of no where we just felt exhausted, tired, cracky, & moody! It was then that we realized that the excitement & adrenaline from packing, plane rides, and arriving on the field had finally wore off! But noticing the problem is 1/2 the battle they say. So Ruth and I have been extra vigilant in watching our mood/attitude and communication to each other and with our girls while trying to make sure we get much needed sleep during this time in our lives! Our unpacking in general is going fairly well. We have the big things pretty much set up and now we just have stacks of boxes/bins with piles of papers and things in each room waiting for us to buy furniture so we can put them away (upper left photo). Please be praying for us during this time that we'll be able to finish unpacking and settle in soon. Also please be praying for Chloe, Gwen & Addie with regards to sleeping through the night. Addie has ALWAYS been a bad sleeper and Gwen has been having some hard nights as well.

Another story Ruth and I wanted to share with you to help explain life being different here is how we finally 'got on the internet' in our new house! When we first arrived our missionary friends said "Here is your new place and we already went ahead and contacted the internet company and paid the bill for you (charged our mission account for us) so you SHOULD be 'all set' with emailing and updating family and friends". Sounds great right?! That's what we thought too! :) So I then went and hooked everything up and the internet wasn't working…. Huh, so I called the phone company and they sent a guy out to check on it and he said the phone line was dead. The next day a man from the phone company come and installed new phone lines (gave me a bill…). I then of course tried to connect to the internet but still no luck! I called the phone company back and the next day they sent a man over and he told me the outlets in my office were all DEAD! Man! Thinking this whole thing a bit funny at this point I called a handy man over and he found a neutral (white) wire loose up in the attic (I fell through the attic last year- try to stay out now…) and fixed it for me (gave me a bill…). I then of course (you know where this is going…) tried to connect to the internet but STILL NO LUCK! I call the phone company (feeling pretty stupid at this point) and told them that my internet still wasn't working and PLEASE send a man out again to check it out. After the weekend goes by the phone man comes out and tells me that my modem is malfunctioning and he will come by tomorrow to replace it. The next day he returns with a new modem and alas the internet works! Yeah! He then told me though that with your phone line being dead, your wall wires not connected, and the modem malfunctioning your house was most likely hit by lightning. Scary! We have many storms that blow through here and our new place in kinda on top of a hill. So now whenever a storm comes around I try to go around unplugging everything!

This week we were also saddened because we found a few of our things broken either from the move or from long-term storage in a harsh environment (heat, rain, humidity, ants, cockroaches, mice, rats lightning & robbers!). My 500Gig hard drive (middle picture) that has my complete old computer on it didn't turn on when I plugged it in 2 days ago. I'm pretty bumped about this because it has A LOT of information on it that I haven't yet transferred over and some of it is sensitive information. I'm hoping to see if I can take it to someone local and work out a deal with him letting me stay and watch him work on it while I study for a few hours if needed. That way I can make sure he doesn't decided to make a copy of it before returning it to me IF he can even fix it! Please be praying this burden is lifted and that it can be fixed! Our other sadness is TODAY I finally had some time and decided to open my guitar case (w/ guitar inside) that I had to leave here when we went back to the States. When I opened it I noticed the string were all really loose, then I noticed that the head of the guitar had broken forward (upper right photo) from the neck do to the tension of the string I suppose. So no more guitar for a while. I hope to take it to someone when I get a chance and see if it can be fixed. If not I'll look into buying another one in the future so that I can continue to practice worship songs for my family and for the church.

Well, I think that's enough said for this week! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS and SUPPORT and FRIENDSHIP. You are greatly appreciated!

Hope this all makes some sense in that it's 10:30pm and I'm fighting to stay away! I'm also getting up at 5:00am : )

Grace & Peace,

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen, & baby Addie

Ephesians

2010-04-10T05:17:00.002+07:00

I was reading through Ephesians this morning and as I was finishing one of the last paragraphs stood out to me.

"Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should."

Isn' that awesome?! I really enjoyed the whole read of course but really felt that last paragraph as something that I wanted to think about and hold onto for today. I know it's true for me and I trust it's true for you as well!

Grace & Peace,

~Ben

7.7 Earthquake in Sumatra

2010-04-08T09:30:00.001+07:00

We have been getting some emails of concerns of people who have heard about the recent earthquake here in Indonesia. We just wanted to post and let family & friends know that even though the earthquake was in Indonesia it was in Sumatra. We are living in central Java which is still very far away from Sumatra and we were not effected by it here. Thanks for the emails and checking in on us! :)

Here is some info on the earthquake at the one in 2004 which you might remember:

(April 7) -- A 7.7-magnitude earthquake rattled Indonesia's Sumatra island this morning, sparking fires, felling utility poles and triggering a small tsunami that sent panicked coastal residents running for higher ground.About a dozen injuries were reported, but most were only minor.

In December 2004, the 9.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Aceh triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed quarter of a million people in 13 countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.

Happy 1/2 Birthday Addie

2010-04-07T20:49:00.001+07:00

Addie has been such a joy! We have really been thankful for this gift from the Lord and rejoice! Happy 1/2 birthday kiddo. Mommy & Daddy love you VERY much!!!

She sure has come a LONG way from her baby photo!

USA to Indonesia! (movie)

2010-04-06T21:53:00.000+07:00

Arrived back Safe & Sound

2010-04-06T21:16:00.000+07:00

We are excited to be back!

We are back in Salatiga, central Java - Indonesia and we 'hit the ground running' as we had expected. But it sure is GOOD to be back! Every day we've been unpacking, organizing, cleaning, watching the girls and tryingto get some sleep! Since being back I (Ben) have been very excited to have already had some ministry opportunities. When I went to the post office I met a man from Australia and as we got talking I told him 'why' I was here and we couldn't help but start talking about how he only plays the role of being a Christian and goes to church on Easter & Christmas to please his parents and earn some kind of points with God. I shared some verses with him that I had memorized and really pleaded with him to read the Gospels and Romans and pray that God would help him to understand truth. Then as we we're driving to the airport our taxi driver was a Hindu and after I explained why we were here he asked me if we as Christians had merit.Another great open door! I got to share with him John 3:16 in Indonesian and explain that Jesus is our merit. He paid the 'full' price for our sins and we have complete acceptance with God and don't have to try to earn it. He will always except us and love us as He sees His Son in us! We are thankful that God has been encouraging us through these experiences and many others. This mission field is truly ripe for the harvest but we just need more workers!

Ruth and I want to again thank you for your friendships, prayers, & support for us. We understand in a very real way how vital you are to us being here. Without you holding us up in prayer and sending us we couldn't be here serving our Lord as His hands and feet in Indonesia. Please continue to be praying for our adjustment and support. We still have a long way to go to Begin to feel comfortable here again and we are hoping to find out what our monthly support is soon but we are waiting for our new supporters so we can make a clear assessment. But we are hopeful that we are getting close to the NTM recommended support of 65% to be able to work in the remote area where the Taliabo live.

Because the world needs Jesus!
–Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen & Addie

– Matthew 28:18-20

Happy Resurrection Day!

2010-04-05T19:01:00.001+07:00

We had a really nice day yesterday! We started the day with reading from Luke about the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ and talked all about it the best we could with a 5 and soon to be 4 year old. We also had our old friends the Abbotts over for an Easter dinner and an egg hunt. What fun we had! We enjoyed some American traditions and even had some roasted chicken, ham, salad, and mashed potatoes for dinner. Yummy!

We've known the Abbotts for 8 yrs plus and met them back at the NTM Bible school in Jackson, Michigan. It's so amazing to have so many good friends over here that we met on the other side of the world! : ) Thanks guy's!

What did you do for Easter? Any fun/good family traditions to share?

Where am I and what time is it?!

2010-03-26T20:15:00.000+07:00

We have made it to Indonesia! Thank You All SO MUCH for your support and prayers in helping us get here. We could not have done it without you! As for now we're working through the transition of moving across the world! This is what we did to give you an example of what it's like...

Wednesday:
-8:00pm leave for L.A.X airport in California.
-9:00pm arrive at airport and say 'good bye' to family.
Tuesday:
-1:00am fly out!
-4:00pm arrive in Taipei Taiwan. During this flight Ruth and I receive about 3 to 4 hrs of sleep, not running on 'full' batteries at this point.
-7:00pm leave for Indonesia!
Wednesday
12:00am arrive in Country.

That gives you a quick look at our over 24 hrs travel time! But if that's not 'fun' enough here is the good part. Now we've got to tell our bodies that not only does everything look different, smell different, taste different, but now it's also 9 hrs ahead of what you 'think' it is! As of right now we fall asleep at about 7:00pm and wake up bright eyed at 3:00am. Fun stuff eh?! Not really.... That is why the title this this update is "where I am & what time is it". I find myself asking this question constantly!!!

But outside of complaining about travel Ruth and I with the girls are doing super! Ruth and I decided to take a few days 'out' here at the port city that we flew into to help adjust our family to this new environment and time change. So far this idea and time has been much needed and very helpful!

During this time please be praying for us as you think of us.
-Pray that we would continue to be healthy even though we fight exhaustion and are eating foreign foods.
-Pray that we would adjust to this time change and new environment soon.
-Pray for continued smooth travel as we fly and taxi to central Java in a few days.
-Pray that Ruth and I would stay strong in communication and in Love for each other and with our Savior.

Will will write again when we arrive at our new home in central Java.

Thank You & Grace and Peace to you from Indonesia,

Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen & Addie

Taipei

2010-03-25T06:01:00.000+07:00

Just wanted to write a quick update and let you all know that we've made it from LAX to Taipei Taiwan! The flight was LONG and Ruth and I are working on limited sleep but all is well. We fly out from here in about 20min to Indonesia! :)

Thank you for your prayers and we'll update again when we can.

Grace & Peace,
Ben & Ruth

This picture below was of our $7.00 snack at the airport!

D-Day

2010-03-23T21:45:00.000+07:00

WE CAN'T BELIEVE today is our last day in country! Last night was our last night sleeping in the U.S.
At least for a long time.... Today we have a few things left to buy and then it's finishing our packing and then off to the air port.
To our family & friends in the U.S. you will be missed.

~Ben & Ruth

P.S. the hrs are counting down

Chloe Lost Her 1'st Tooth! (video)

2010-03-22T10:16:00.001+07:00

New Project of the Month!

2010-03-19T22:12:00.001+07:00

->->Click Here<-<-

Family Photo Shoot

2010-03-19T00:19:00.000+07:00

Our new friend Michelle Blair is a photographer in the Temecula area and as a gift to us she wanted to use her camera skills! We got dressed up and went to the country side for a photo shoot and Ruth and I are totally excited about how GREAT the pictures turned out!

'Click here' to watch a online 'slide show' to view the rest!

What do you think? Pretty awesome eh?! If you live in the Temecula area and would like some great family/wedding/birthday etc. pictures taken by an awesome Christian gal then please check out Michelle's website www.michelleblairphotography.com

Thank You Michelle!

St. Patrick's Day

2010-03-18T11:56:00.000+07:00

Today was a great fun day and a sad day. Today we had to say goodbye to our new dear friends the Hinrichs' family who so graciously let us stay with them in their home these last 2 & 1/2 months while in California. We SO enjoyed getting to stay with them and get to know their awesome family durning our time here. But we had to say our goodbyes for now. Ruth and I with the girls are taking a family bonding trip in Big Bear to take a break and enjoy time with my local family before leaving back to Indonesia for four year in less then a week!

Ruth and I on our drive up today were reminiscing on what an crazy time we've had in the States this last year while being in New Hampshire, Arizona, & California. From great sorrow and grief to amazing fellowship and memories. 'Thank You' to all of you that made that happen for us durning this year furlough. You will be missed!

Some history on St. Patrick's Day:

Little is known of Patrick's early life, though it is known that he was born in Roman Britain in the fifth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father and grandfather were deacons in the Church. At the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken captive to Ireland as a slave.^[1] It is believed he was held somewhere on the west coast of Ireland, possibly Mayo, but the exact location is unknown. According to his Confession, he was told by God in a dream to flee from captivity to the coast, where he would board a ship and return to Britain. Upon returning, he quickly joined the Church in Auxerre in Gaul and studied to be a priest.^{[citation needed]}

In 432, he again says that he was called back to Ireland, though as a bishop, to Christianize the Irish from their native polytheism. Irish folklore tells that one of his teaching methods included using the shamrock to explain the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to the Irish people. After nearly thirty years ofproselytizing, he died on 17 March 461, and according to tradition, was buried at Downpatrick. Although there were other more successful missions to Ireland from Rome, Patrick endured as the principal champion of Irish Christianity and is held in esteem in the Irish Church

Countdown

2010-03-14T11:40:00.000+07:00

We can't believe we only have 10 days left! Our leaving the States is coming so quickly.

Reverend Fun

2010-03-02T04:24:00.001+07:00

Don't Forget!

2010-03-01T06:30:00.001+07:00

Tonight!!!

If you are a local resident to Southern California or of the Temecula Valley area we are having a ‘live’ presentation of our video and showing the amazing Taliabo video that NTM also made, Tonight at the Temecula Hills church office at 6:30 pm! If you can come we would LOVE to have you be there to see the videos and enjoy some fellowship!

Temecula Hills church office address:

42145 Lyndie Lane, suite 112, Temecula CA 92591 (map)

Raining Day Treat!

2010-02-28T07:10:00.002+07:00

Ruth's family didn't have cable TV growing up and had to play outside most of the time BUT it was a family tradition to be able to watch a video on a raining day. So in light of such a great idea it's raining today and our THREE girls get to sit together an enjoy a good classic now and then!

Do you have a family 'raining day' tradition? What is it?

Taliabo Survey DVD

2010-02-25T10:52:00.005+07:00

We want to provide a way in which we can express to the prayer warriors and supporters standing behind us a glimpse of what they are involved in and are taking part of. So, recently we have finished our first ministry DVD of our journey into the Taliabo tribe!!!

Our desire for this video is for people to have a better understanding of what tribal missions is like and what kind of things missionaries experience as they carry the Gospel forward into remote villages. To better understand what God is doing for His glory in the world of frontier missions work. For this reason, we have made a 17 min. DVD that includes footage of our 25 plus hour boat rides and our 2 ½ hr hike through the jungle to the Taliabo tribe in the dark and what they did when we arrived! We have included some information about the Taliabo tribe. This is the tribal group we feel the Lord has been directing us to work with. Also information about the mission’s work that we hope to accomplish to see the Taliabo people come to maturity in Christ such as translation, teaching, discipleship, literacy etc.

If you are interested in receiving this DVD then simply write us an email sending us your mailing address at ben-ruth_kane@ntm.org and we will get one in the mail to you as soon as possible. This DVD is available free of charge. If however you would like to cover the cost of the material used to make the DVD and the postage it would be much appreciated. May God, every day, give you a greater passion for Himself and what He is doing in the world!

If you are a regular supporter, the DVD will already be on its way within this next week to your address as a token of appreciation for your partnership in our team and soon, ministry to the Taliabo People.

Also….

If you are a local resident to Southern California or of the Temecula Valley area we are having a ‘live’ presentation of our video and showing the amazing Taliabo video that NTM also made, this Sunday night at the Temecula Hills church office at 6:30 pm! If you can come we would LOVE to have you be there to see the videos and enjoy some fellowship! If you would also like to bring a snack to share that would be fun too!

Temecula Hills church office address:

42145 Lyndie Lane, suite 112, Temecula CA 92591 (map)

We appreciate you very much. We cannot do this without the partnership of the body of Christ. Thanks for being involved with our lives.

New CPR Technique

2010-02-22T11:54:00.001+07:00

You could save a life. Do you know how?

Addie is doing GREAT

2010-02-21T06:53:00.002+07:00

Thank you all for your prayers for Addie being sick. She is doing much better and now doesn't seem sick at all!

Please be praying for Baby Addie

2010-02-19T06:50:00.003+07:00

As a parent there is always a side of you that tries to make life 'perfect' for your child. We had been doing well at this little goal for over 4 months, never dropped her or had any dramatic things happen (other then birth!). Unfortunately this all ended this week! No we didn't drop her but she did get a diaper rash (gotta hurt) and know has her first cold! The poor thing has been burning up for the past 2 days... We've bought some 'Motrin Infants' drops' and it has helped keep her fever down and with the sleeping at night.

We appreciate your prayers on our little ones behalf!

I guess we don't live in a 'perfect world' after all. BUT..... Some day those of us who have been redeemed will!!!

~Ben

Great News! (diaper grant)

2010-02-19T06:49:00.001+07:00

Coming Together

As our time here in the States is beginning to come to an end (about a month left!) we have been overwhelmed to see God take care of us through so many of you! In this past week a family has taken us to Disneyland for the day (SO much fun for us and the girls!), a local church covered our tickets to a 'sweet heart dinner' for Valentines day, my parents babysat our girls and let Ruth and I have some much needed rest just the two of us (well.... AND Addie of course!), and we’ve thoroughly enjoying getting to share a meal with so many! All of those things and more have been wonderful and much appreciated.

Today we had a new surprise! As many of you may know from our website we posted a ‘Practical Needs List’ for things that we ‘practically need' before heading back to Indonesia. One of those items was “Cloth Diapers” because we’re not going to be able to buy disposable diapers nor be able to properly dispose of them while living in a remote village in the jungle of Indonesia. Well, we had heard from some of our missionary friends that the major brand for cloth diapers is a Christian company and they give diaper grants for overseas missionaries. We applied for the grant and today we were accepted. All the cloth diapers and accessories they are sending is saving us about $350 dollars. Isn’t this awesome?!

As for now we still have much preparation to do for our return to Indonesia. This week we're planning on buying plane tickets to go back to Indonesia in mid March and were going to the Indonesian consulate in Los Angeles for our years in country visa's. Please be praying that we find plane tickets for our whole family at a good price and that our visa application/process goes smoothly and fast.

We appreciate you very much. We cannot do this without the partnership of the body of Christ. Thanks for being involved with our lives. Thanks for your friendship over the years.

Because the world needs Jesus!
–Ben, Ruth, Chloe, Gwen & baby Addie

Sign up for our Newsletter's!

2010-02-17T22:08:00.006+07:00

As we prepare to head back to Indonesia in about a month we wanted to 'invite' you to join our newsletter team! Just click on the link below to sign up!

->Newsletter Sign Up<-

SO proud of our girls!

2010-02-10T07:40:00.007+07:00

(This picture WILL NOT

Straighten

for some reason!)

Today has been A BIG day around the Kane household! Chloe has been LOVING perlerbeads and she is showing you her new turtle (and the best part is we already have it potty trained!), Gwen went to bed last night in her 'underwear' for the first time and woke up DRY, and Addie rolled over for the FIRST time today! Wow, gotta love these moments!

Thought we would share,
Kane's

Do you have days like this? What happened?

NTM Aviation

2010-02-03T01:24:00.007+07:00

(click on pictures to make them larger)

How does aviation play a part in global missions you might be thinking? Well, we had the overwhelming pleasure of getting to visit NTMA (New Tribes Mission Aviation) this past week and found out a little more for ourselves!

Let’s back up for a moment and tell you of our trip into the Taliabo people.

If you were to be living in the Taliabo tribe of Indonesia (which is our intent) and needed groceries or supplies you would have to do this:

1) Hike 2 ½ hrs to the beach. 2) Hire a driver for a 40ft.-hollowed tree (canoe) with an outboard motor for 3 hrs. 3) Get on a cargo ship for 22hrs to another island with a city. 4) Do this all over again to get back to your house in Taliabo but this time you have ALL your supplies with you for the next month or two depending on what you can hold/bring and depending on ‘how often’ you want to make this 55hr round trip excursion!

And our story is just one of MANY like this! That is without NTMA!

NTMA has planes & helicopters in the main regions of countries that we work in. It’s because of these pilots and aircraft tools that make stories like ours a thing of the past! For instance, NTMA has a base on the island region of Sulawesi with a Jet Ranger helicopter that can get us and/or our supplies to our tribal location is about 3 hrs. And you know what the best part of it is?! There is also support missionaries living in that area that do ‘supply buying’ for the tribal missionaries. What this means is we can email a list of supplies that we need, a support missionary then goes out and buy’s all those items (bills us), and then puts them on the helicopter for us. The reason why all this is SO great is because we belong to ‘a body’. A functioning body that when correctly used get’s things done faster & better! This frees up the tribal missionary’s to study language, teach, translate & disciple w/o needing to worry about a 55hr round trip excursion for Tylenol or salt!

This leads us into our next point! Helicopters are GREAT for when a remote tribal location can’t have an airstrip but when an airstrip is possible a plane is the best. They can carry more and fly a lot faster! But right now there is a problem especially in Indonesia. Aviation gasoline is in increasingly short supply at steadily higher prices as refineries are cutting back and even eliminating this product! The days for being able to fly aircraft on this kind of fuel in Indonesia are numbered.

This is where the “Kodiak” comes in!!!! Can you tell we’re excited! :) The Kodiak airplane is a special airplane that can fly faster, carry more, and runs on Jet Fuel instead of aviation gas! And jet fuel is less expensive and more readily available! But as you can imagine these airplanes with cost of buying, flying & insuring are not cheap! NTM has one of these planes (going to our area of Indonesia) and has on order 13 more for around the world. NTM is intrusting the Lord that they finances will come. Would you ask the Lord if he would have you financially help in this ministry? If you would like to give you can go to this NTM website to find out how
http://www.ntm.org/news/srkodiak01.php

**Also a special thanks to our friends the Glidewell family who invited and hosted us at NTMA. We had a GREAT time! You can check out their website here http://glidewells.blogspot.com/

Also to our new friend Ben. It was cool getting to meet you at church this last Sunday. And for those of you who go to Sunridge church we'll see ya there this Sunday!

Practical Needs List

2010-02-02T05:28:00.000+07:00

Practical Needs List
Updated!!!

As we prepare to fly back to Indonesia soon we had began to realize there were a few items that would be really 'helpful' to have (and you can't 'buy' these things in Indo.) while living in Indonesia and soon to be in a 'remote tribal group'. With that in mind Ruth and I wanted to post this list for someone or a church that might consider helping us with the following 'Needs List'.

Thank You!

(Provided-Thank You!)

$536.00 THREE STAGE WATER PURIFIER (we buy this through NTM ourselves)

STAGE #1 is a fine (150 mesh per inch) washable screen which removes much of the silt and organic matter. The screen is housed in an opaque housing to reduce algae and bacteria growth in the screen. It is equipped with a manually operated flush valve at the bottom which uses source water to flush out the collected debris. The screen can be removed for more thorough cleaning.

STAGE #2 is a standard 7" British Berkefeld silver impregnated ceramic element inside an opaque housing to remove bacteria and micro-organisms such as amoeba. The housing can easily be drained and opened for cleaning. There element can be cleaned and rinsed in place.

STAGE #3 is the ultraviolet light water purifier by Pura as described above.

(Provided-Thank You!)

$350.00 http://www.fuzzibunzstore.com

Fuzzi Bunz Cloth Diapers!

We are not going to be able to ‘buy’ and ‘dispose’ throw away diapers in the tribe!

We need about 12 small and 12 mediums of these FuzziBunz cloth diaper!

(Provided-Thank You!)
$69.99 www.amazon.com Frieling Stainless-Steel 35-Ounce French Press
We had brought a 'glass' french press last time but realized that if it broke (and they often do!) that we would be out of luck! So with that in mind we are looking to upgrade to a stainless steel one.
Gotta have our coffee! :)

(Provided-Thank You!)
$296.45 www.amazo ng.com Garmin GPS 60CSx Handheld GPS Navigator
As we minister on the many island of Indonesia a trusty ‘easy to use’ GPS is always appreciated!

Camcorder: We’re not sure ‘which kind’ to buy. We would really like a camcorder that has a ‘internal hard drive/memory. This could be important because mold has a way of ‘getting inside’ things living in Indonesia! The other option that I like is the mini DV but again, we’re just not really sure. Do you have a camcorder that is still ‘kinda nice’ that you’re not using or you want to upgrade? Maybe that could work for us!

(We are going to buy in Indonesia)
Pack N Play!
Does anyone have a Pack N Play that they are no longer using (still in good shape) and wouldn’t mind donating it to us? If so, we sure would appreciate it for baby Addie!

(Provided-Thank You!)
Johnny Jumper! Does anyone have a Johnny Jumper that they are no longer using (still in good shape) and wouldn’t mind donating it to us?

(Provided-Thank You!)
Table Booster Seat Does anyone have one of these that breaks down or travels small that they are no longer using (still in good shape) and wouldn’t mind donating it to us?