If you ever want to save time going through the customs line when going into Asia, just forget to pickup up your luggage in your connection city! We arrived in a coastal city and skipped right past our luggage claim and went straight through customs with our carry-ons to catch our flight to our final destination. Once we arrived, of course, we realized our mistake and went to the baggage claim office. Without any real trouble, they got our bags to us at our hotel within 12 hours! And better yet, it didn’t cost us any extra money!

Fast forward to today, we have our apartment and Saphira has done an amazing job at making it feel like home. We came to Asia at the perfect time: this weekend our host nation will be celebrating their New Year. This is the country’s biggest celebration and I’m excited for days and days of endless fireworks being let loose in the city. This holiday is like the 4th of July, except being celebrated for four days straight and with over 1 billion people celebrating it. Shops are closed and people are at their family homes, so this is a great time to rest and get ready for the upcoming season 🙂

Next week, we will be flying to Malaysia for the annual conference hosted by our parent organization. Most workers from our company will be there, plus others who share the Good News with Unreached People Groups in this country’s rural areas. We hope it will be a time of rest, refreshing, connecting with people we haven’t seen in awhile, and refocusing on the mission we are all called to here. Please be praying that everyone will have safe travels and that God will meet all of us there at the conference in a powerful way, speaking clearly about the future.