Paris, France

We spent a short time in Paris before heading on to London. This is my second time here and I truly love it! I love all of the fresh veggie and fruit markets, the fashion, the food, the architecture, the museums, the people walking around with baguettes…It’s like the perfect place for people to spontaneously break into a musical (or at least in my head). Josh and I spent our first day snacking on baguette, cheese and wine in a park near the Eiffel tower. Our second day we made it to the Louvre to take a quick look at the Mona Lisa before sipping on onion soup and hopping on an eco- friendly Tuk Tuk back to our hotel. We ended our lovely time here by gazing at the Eiffel tower lights and firework show….magnific!

Josh and I on the Tuk Tuk

At the Louvre fighting the crowds to see Monalisa

Here she is...

Picnic near the Eiffel Tower

Joshie and his Baguette

The tower by day...

The tower by night...

Hong Kong

On our way to Europe we made a short stop into Hong Kong. This is were we celebrated Josh’s birthday with a big juicy steak at Ruth’s Chris’ steakhouse…original I know. We didn’t have a lot time and both of us were growing travel weary so most of our day was lying in bed watching cartoons trying to rest up for the 12-hour flight we had ahead of us. Before boarding our flight to France, dinner we met up to have dinner with a friend of Josh’s from the states.

Our friend Chase who lives in Hong Kong

Jakarta, Indonesia

We spent a total of 2 days in Jakarta where Josh had a few meetings and where we visited with some friends from Atlanta. I tagged along for a few of the meetings and then my curiosity got the best of me and I signed up for a reflexology appointment. It was a rather painful experience, one because I had a number of “problems” according to my reflexologist and two because the reflexologist knew very little English. For an hour we struggled through numerous topics until finally I just acted like I had fallen asleep. We also had the neat experience of visiting a local Indonesian restaurant that had lots of interesting historical artifacts. After saying our goodbyes we headed off to Hong Kong.

Here are some photos from the local restaurant we visited

Jakarta, Indonesia

We spent a total of 2 days in Jakarta where Josh had a few meetings and where we visited with some friends from Atlanta. I tagged along for a few of the meetings and then my curiosity got the best of me and I signed up for a reflexology appointment. It was a rather painful experience, one because I had a number of “problems” according to my reflexologist and two because the reflexologist knew very little English. For an hour we struggled through numerous topics until finally I just acted like I had fallen asleep. We also had the neat experience of visiting a local Indonesian restaurant that had lots of interesting historical artifacts. After saying our goodbyes we headed off to Hong Kong.

Happy Birthday Joshie!

What a wonderful day to celebrate. 32 years ago in the small town of Brisbane, Australia my husband was born. I am so grateful and blessed to have him in my life. God is so good. Happy Birthday Joshie...I love you!

Bali, Indonesia

We took a short two-day trip to Bali to visit some friends who partner with Leading the Way. We encountered various humorous moments on our trip over but I think most of them fall in the "I guess you had to be there" category...let's just say Indonesian air travel is very different and disorganized. When we reached Bali we spent most of our time with our friends at Mercy Indonesia.Mercy Indonesia is a ministry which consists of a local radio station (which airs leading the way), a church planting team, and various teams that work to set up orphanages. We spent time visiting the radio team and one of their local orphanages and Josh was able to speak about Leading the Way on their local radio program. I was particularly touched by visiting the orphanage. Most of the children were rescued from refugee camps in East Timor and have no contact with their families. I was nearly moved to tears as they came together to sing songs about the joy of the Lord. We have seen some very unusual things as we have traveled across the country and we caught a few on Josh's phone...enjoy our photos...

sweet friends from the orphanage
Josh during his interview with Paulous
part of the radio team from Mercy Indonesia
at our hotel
a view from our hotel in Bali
some cool old-school vespas
hilarious...

Last Days in Sydney

We enjoyed a very fruitful trip in Sydney and had a great time touring the city and visiting with friends. We had great weather for the last few days in Sydney and spent most of our time walking through the city and jumping on ferries to see places like Watson's Bay and Manly Beach. Today we are on our way to Bali, Indonesia to meet with some partners of the ministry and to visit a local orphanage. Above are a few highlights of our time in Australia.Hope all is well with you.

Sydney, Australia

This is Beng's wife, Lee Wan, and me at Milson's point near the Harbour Bridge
Lee Wan and her daughter Kim , part of the Leading the Way family

a view from Balmoral Beach

Me touring the cochlear building





We have been in Australia now for almost a week. I can always tell when I have been here for a while because I start slipping things like "a bit" and "quite" and "how ya goin" into my conversations. It is winter here and everywhere you look you see little kiddies with their UGG boots on. We spent the morning jogging along the Harbour path which has beautiful views of both the Opera house and the Harbour bridge. Just a quick update: I had a neat opportunity to visit the cochlear implant headquarters here in Sydney. The Vice President of Leading the Way Asia Pacific, Beng, has a son who works for the company and set up a tour inside the facilities. There is a lot of neat history about the company and its founder and I was very interested to see how the device came about. Check it out if you're interested www.cochlear.com/au .We just got back from a short trip up the coast to Maloolaba, near where Josh was born in Brisbane. Maloolaba is a little surfer town about an hour and a half plane ride north of Sydney. We had a great time meeting and sharing with friends involved with the ministry. I dont have a lot of pictures to share this time but I will catch up in the next few days.

Iguazu Falls

click on the photo below to view pictures

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

Spectacular. Purely awesome. Breathtaking. These are the only words that I can think to describe the experience of visiting Iguazu Falls. Ever since I saw Iguazu Falls featured on Planet Earth I have wanted to make the trip down to South America to see it in person. This was both our first time being in South America, and we knew we couldn’t visit Argentina without making the short plane ride to the falls.

When we arrived we were both amazed to find that our hotel had a spectacular view and we spent most of our first day on the outside patio enjoying it .The next day we booked a boat tour into the falls. {aside: One thing I love about traveling overseas is that things always seem a little extreme and dangerous but nobody seems too concerned. I am fairly certain that if in the U.S., we would have had to sign our lives away before taking the boat tour or walking the overlook platforms.}
Both Josh and I had heard stories about the boat trip and were eager to see how close we could actually get to the falls. Much to our surprise the boat, which was an inflatable-raft motorboat thingy, took us up the raging rapids of the falls stopped for everyone to take pictures and then took us right underneath the falling waters. Needless to say we were thankful that someone warned us to bring our bathing suits because you get drenched! It was exhilarating to say the least.

The rest of our time there was spent traipsing through the various upper and lower trails and taking a train to the “Throat of the Devil” or “Garganta del Diablo “where we were able to walk right on top of the falls and stare down into the mouth. I have attached a slideshow of some of the photos of our trip but none of them really capture the true beauty of what we saw. Next we are off to Sydney. Stay tuned.


Interesting Facts about the Falls:

*Iguazu Falls consists of some 275 separate falls during the river's seasonal low. That number is halved during the rainy season when small rocky islets on the rim of the falls become submerged.

*Falls are the result of a volcanic eruption, which left yet another large crack in the earth.

*Upon seeing Iguazu, the United States, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly exclaimed "Poor Niagara!" Iguazu is Four times the width of Niagara Falls.

*The falls have been featured in several movies including The Mission, Happy Together, Miami Vice, Mr. Magoo, Moonraker, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Buenos Aires

We have just spent two days in Buenos Aires, Argentina touring the city while sipping espresso with our Spanish dictionary close by.The city was built with "eyes looking towards Europe" and as a result it has a very European feel displaying s touch of both Madrid and Paris. We have spent most of our two days touring the city with our friend Fernando.Unfortunately all we have to show are some mobile shots we took with Josh's phone. We head out today for Iguazu Falls (the largest chain of waterfalls in the world) to spend a few days. We will be back later with more updates.

Josh and I walking through a Buenos Aires park


Josh sipping on some Limoncello


What was left of my Argentinian Steak


The "Pink House" where the President lives and works


Flower stand outside our hotel