What a week it has been! My goal was to try and update this thing once a week, but life is busy and living in a new country is full of exciting things, and so maybe I should just set a more realistic goal.

Anyways, we have lived here a month! It is unbelievable. We both really do love it here. Most of our time is spent in language lessons at the moment, but we are finding new adventures every day.

Most excitingly, we have a motorbike (unless you are my mother, then that is definitely not exciting). Nathan is very good at driving it. I, on the other hand, haven’t quite figured out how to differentiate between slowing down and speeding up. We will keep working on it.

We have bartered for some sunglasses at the market, bought some cute plants (only one of them is dying so far, hooray!), tried some more local foods, made our first trip to the doctor’s office (just a normal check up for Hez) and officially completed half of our language lessons!

Hez just continues to be such a joy! He smiles whenever we sing to him, and loves having all of the attention on him. He gets a lot of stares when we go out in public and is loved by so many. He is a pretty sweaty baby, and gets hot quick! If any of you mama’s have tips on how to keep a baby cool in warm weather, let me know!

I have begun dabbling in the cloth diaper world. It’s pretty overwhelming, but his butt just looks so fluffy and cute in those things. Not sure if I will stick with it, but it is pretty fun! I also got a Haakaa, and am in love with it! I thought it was pretty weird when I first heard about it, but decided I would try it. I have a love-hate relationship with pumping, but I love the Haakaa because I can build up my stash of milk without having to pump, I just use it on the side he’s not feeding on. It’s wonderful. Every new mom should get one! I wish I knew about it earlier.

Overall, we love it here! Nathan and I are really enjoying the warm weather, the laid back attitude of most locals, and learning more and more about the culture. I have been constantly reminded that as a daughter of God, I am not called to fall back into a spirit of fear. God has given me a spirit of power, love and of a sound mind- but fear has no place. There are so many times where I sit back and think of every possible thing that could go wrong while living here, I could literally spend years of my life fearing the unknown, but that is not what God has called us to do, and he is so faithful in our obedience. We have learned so much about dependance on Him, finding our satisfaction in Him and how this life He has called us to is so abundantly beautiful.

Anyways, thanks for reading this and staying updated on our life in SE Asia. If you have any questions or comments drop us a comment or shoot us an email! We love you all!

-The De Penning Family