Beautiful Bali!

Late Christmas Day after spending an enjoyable morning opening gifts and feasting on a big breakfast, we headed to Indonesia to spend a week on the Island of Bali. We first flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (5 hour flight) and spent the night in anticipation of a morning flight to Bali. We left the freezing temperatures of Shanghai and headed to the balmy, humid temperatures near the equator.

Only the strong and brave attempted to boogie board the waves of the Indian Ocean. Lucas and Lance were particularly persistent about catching the best waves. Surf's up, Dude!

Part of a one day tour of the island included a stop at a monkey forest. What fun seeing these Macaque Monkeys in action! The forests were so lush especially now during the rainy season. We did tote our umbrellas with us but for the most part the rain didn't interfere with any of our fun.

Bali has some beautiful scenery around the island which includes the view of some active volcanoes. Lance was wishing he could go on a climb of one of them but it is a long, full day and there were just too many fun things to do. Luckily, the volcanoes decided to stay quiet during our visit.

The kids had plenty of pool time in the expansive hotel pools. Wade has become a good swimmer since joining us in March. He had never stepped into a pool before his adoption and now has a confident stroke with rhythmic breathing. He loves the water and managed to spend hours in it over the week.

We took in a show which dramatized the battles between good and evil and how the evil god was not able to be defeated. The island is strongly Hindu and they believe and worship many gods. Spiritually it is a dark place. There are temples everywhere and the people make small food and flower offerings to gods for good luck and protection from evil spirits in their businesses, restaurants, etc. Even our drivers had offerings on the dash of the car for safe travel. How we wished these people could know the true God and be set free from the idol worship and fear they live with everyday.

The day we headed to the surfing beach we stopped at the Uluwatu Temple out on this beautiful rocky cliff. This was the southernmost point of the island accessible by car. There was a two week Hindu festival going on while we were there and throngs of local people headed to the temple with baskets of fruit and food to offer to the gods. Once again we were saddened by the dedication of the people to dead gods who can do nothing for them. We had a chance to attend a small Christian church on Sunday and were filled with hope seeing these people who are there to share the Gospel with the Balinese people. There is hope for Bali - God loves them!

We stopped to view the rice terraces which were being prepared for planting in a couple of weeks. It was a beautiful vista of these terraces built into the side of a mountain. We happened upon an old farmer who made hats out of banana leaves and Wade and Lance bought one from him. The boys also tried carrying his load which was quite heavy. The response from Lance was, "Wow, this guy is buff!"

We stopped for a picture in the monkey forest. Here is an example of the many rock carvings we would see throughout the island representing different gods. Most of them had offerings laid beside them.

We enjoyed some adventure thrills during our week in Bali. The kids enjoyed some time on a jet ski and the four of us below went on our first SCUBA dive. During our honeymoon Rich and I had taken a class in the hotel pool but it freaked me out so I never had any interest since then. At our hotel, they were once again offering free lessons in the pool and Rich and I along with Stacia, Lucas, Lance and Elise all had a try at it. It was fun and I was able to get over my hangups. Rich offered to have us all do a beginner dive but only Lucas and Lance were interested. I was ambivalent but he signed me up and I felt that I couldn't pass up the opportunity even though it was a challenge to my psyche.

Our first dive was a success and we were rewarded with some views of beautiful fish and starfish. They gave us food to feed the fish so we were pretty "up close and personal" with them. My ear is still plugged up!

Thank you God for this wonderful opportunity to visit this beautiful island and enjoy some close family time together!