Did anyone else cringe over that word? One of my least favorite life lessons is flexibility. The most memorable strategy God used was smoke seasons. In Indonesia, farmers use small fires to clear more land. During exceptionally dry seasons, these fires get out of control and go down into the peat soil, where they smolder and release toxic black smoke until the heavy rains come back. We knew it was getting weird when I took a walk with Samantha in her stroller and noticed ash was collecting on the stroller sun shade – quite the apocalyptic feeling! Jason had not been able to fly for over a month with visibility down to a few feet, and he and our base manager had completed all the hangar and maintenance projects they had. The final straw came when we were sitting in our living room one Sunday afternoon with the air-conditioning and air purifier running and suddenly felt dizzy. Our local airport had been closed for over a month, but an airport on the coast was still open. So we packed for our sister base in Tarakan where Jason could continue working, not having any idea how long we might be gone. Then we hired a driver and set out. The visibility was so low that our driver had to keep his door propped open so he could see the lines on the road. We prayed quite a lot on that highway. In Tarakan we moved into the spare bedroom of our program manager. We opened our suitcase and could smell the smoke coming out – more apocalypse! We tried to stay out of the way of the family hosting us, but it was hard to do with an almost one year old. Samantha was used to having her own room and quickly figured out that if she made any noise at night that I would pick her up so she wouldn’t wake up the whole house – smart little trouble maker. The five weeks we were gone included Samantha’s birthday, which we celebrated by letting her eat her first oreo and her first bit of durian. She liked both. Jason’s parents also had to reschedule their trip to come see us. Both of these things were hard and frustrating to wait to celebrate, but it felt glorious to go back home to Palangkaraya, and we knew we were blessed to be able to get out of the unhealthy air. I hate having to change my plans, but I have learned that flexibility often allows for something even better, a celebration of health and being back together with our family and our MAF family, an even sweeter time and more appreciated for having been delayed.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.