Lost, Sick, Found...And a Little Bit of Dust.

It's been a while friend.  Let me blow the dust off this blog....(Whiffff...cough. cough.)  Okay.  Let's get started!

It has been a busy (what's new?) last year.

Newest news?......We are on home assignment, furlough....whatever you call it....it means we are back in America right now! And we will be until the beginning of October!  This is a normally scheduled event.  The schedule goes....3 years overseas, 6 months home assignment.   So, here we are! 

We come to America at the end of a rather eventful and hard year.  We had a year full of sickness.  Lots and lots of sickness, and several other hard events.  Some of those events you are well aware of (ie. Matt's helicopter losing signal and everyone thinking he was a goner)  and dengue fever for Matt, Audrey and myself.  Besides these things we had quite a few traumatic run-ins with drunk men, a pet eaten, several pets die, many stomach bugs, and flu, hand foot and mouth, and many colds. 

We came to furlough time feeling a little bit tired, a little beat up.  We are thankful for this time in America.  But let me assure you.  Papua is home, and we love it there (and already miss it)



Dengue:  We were not in Papua when we contracted Dengue fever (mosquito borne)  we were in Palu, on the island of Sulawesi (another island of indonesia) which had been rocked by a 7.5 earthquake 4 months prior to us being there.  We have a base on that island, and Matt was going to help out for one month.  The whole family got to go along.  We were there 2.5 weeks when Matt, Audrey and myself came down with a 104.5 fever.  Bloodwork confirmed.  Dengue.  That was HARD.  In lots of ways.But there were miracles too.  I should write a blog on that alone.  But this is an overview.  We flew to Jakara (capital of indonesia) for good care.  Audrey was admitted to the hospital 4 nights to get fluids.   We are all healed up.  The only lingering side effects are painful joint pain in Amanda's hands (this can last up to one year after dengue) and hairloss for Amanda.  This is also common.  We are thankful Audrey made a complete recovery.  (Important to note to anyone considering visiting, we do NOT have dengue or malaria in Wamena where we live, so you can still come visit ;)

Praying all night with friends for Matt

Matt missing:  He's done a lot of explaining to everyone he sees since being here.....and it has made us realize how loved he is, how much we all are.  You all really cared.  Churches, groups of people we have never met or heard of were praying for us during that time.  We will probably never know how many people God mobilized to pray for us! We are overwhelmed and feel loved by this. 

My dear friend came over immediately and spent the night

That was the worst night of my life.  I truly thought he was gone, I tried to remain positive, but I faced one of my worst fears.  Thank you Jesus the outcome was not what so many of us were thinking.  SO many people were on the brink of buying plane tickets to come support me.  <3 for="" in="" nbsp="" p="" part="" thank="" that.="" you="" your="">

AMERICA!  We are here!!  We will be in Washington June-Mid July  Montana Mid July-August
We will set up open house days in each of those places that you can come to, watch a video of what we do, see pictures, hug us, laugh together, talk together.
We want to see you. We can't drive everywhere to see everyone (unfortunately) So if you want to see us, and are able to come to us....please just ask us!  We would love it!

During Furlough:
This time is used to see our friends and family, (You!)  rest, and build support.  Some financial support has dropped off (which is normal) We have Grace starting school as soon as we get back, and we've yet to reach 100% support.    You can help us with this in several ways.  If your church or mission board is looking for or might be interested in partnering with us, please let us know and we can reach out and contact them, or you are welcome to give them our information.  We are available and willing to speak in churches.  If you personally are able to partner with us with a reoccurring monthly gift, or one time gift, we are thankful.  And pray for us.  For the mission, and us personally too. We really need this kind of support.

If you have any questions for us about ANYTHING, please don't even hesitate to ask us.  It is so nice to hear from you. You can reach us at (425) 588-5200  or helibladesoflove@gmail.com

We love you.  Thank you for reading all the way through this.  You make us happy.

Love, Amanda. Matt. Grace. Audrey


oh. and in there....Matt went to the Madagascar base for 2 weeks!  because..well..of course! ;)