Nusa Lembongan. Indonesia

 https://www.lonelyplanet.com/indonesia/bali/nusa-lembongan

We spent 1 week on Nusa Lembongan. The fast boat to Nusa Lembongan is interesting. We had a driver pick us up at the airport and we had just enough time to make it to the boats that leave daily for the island. When we arrived at the boat area, there was a little  confusion as to where our boat was parked. The tide happened to be very low at the time and os the boats all moved to a different area along the beach. After our amazing driver ran up and down the beach asking about the boat, we finally got to the correct area. Had we not had a driver that worked so hard to get us there on time, we would have not made the boat and would have had to find an alternate place to stay that night. all our bags were loaded onto the boat by the boat company. We were asked to put all our footwear into the green basket and wade through the water to hop onto the boat.  

When we arrived on the island, the basket of flip flops was dumped onto the sand and it was a free for all to find our shoes.

We took an amazing snorkel trip to snorkel with the mantas and then the next day we couldn't resist going back to dive with the manta!! The trip to the location was an experience in itself. The scenery was spectacular!!

The morning we went on the dive, we left fairly early so we could get to the dive site before all the other boats arrived and we'd have the mantas all to ourselves. The plan worked perfectly and we  were able to dive with 12 mantas for 55 minutes before anyone else showed up. It was one of the most serene dives. Sitting at the bottom of the ocean watching as all around us these huge majestic creatures swooped and slide by us. Not seeming to mind one bit that we joined their breakfast swim. 

This is not our video, but it was close to what we saw while snorkelling the first time and then we were at the bottom scuba diving the second time. 

 

We decided to go for a day of touring the island. Scooter rentals are the most common and really the only way to go exploring. It 

Some of the streets were a little scary to maneuver  around. 

 Drying seaweed along the road. Maybe this is seaweed that we eat in our sushi??

We would occasionally hike over to the hotel down the road. They had an amazing infinity pool that they let the public use after 6pm if you ordered a drink. 

Our hotel view from our room front door.

We ate well every day.

We had a room for 3. Miranda got the mattress on the floor

The view from along the road when we went on our scooter trip. This is looking back over to the island after we crossed the little yellow bridge.

We found another infinity pool

One of the pools at our hotel. They were;t fancy, but they were all very refreshing.

More food. Mmm 

The room at Tanis Villas. Our home for the week we spent on Nusa Lembongan.

http://www.tanisvilla.com

 All in all Nusa Lembongan is a place we really enjoyed and a place I would recommend going to for 5-7 days 

Why Travel?

I was given the gift of hearing two stories of parents going through one of the most trying times imaginable, the illness of a child. To most parents it would be the worst possible thing to have to go through. The first story was of a mother who has a little girl with Autism and many other serious health issues and the other is a family with a child named Elliot who was never supposed to live one day but lived 99 days. It is amazing to see how both families persevered through life and trusted that God would lead them through it.
There was no choice in either of these family’s lives, but to hope, pray and trust that God is in control and has a plan.
Once again it is a story that helps me to know that our choice is to spend time as a family. We don’t know how long we have on this earth. We have to do what we can to make memories and to do the best we can for ach other.
We were born with the traveling adventure in our blood. This is something, which is hard to explain – it’s just there. It’s something that happens to us. Maybe it’s even who we are. It’s not entirely rational or logical or explainable. It just is.


We have always been intentional about our own lives and our kid’s upbringing. We have listened to people talk about how great it would be to give their kids the education of living in another culture, but no one seems to actually carry through the dream (unless they are missionaries). We agree that the experience of living somewhere different, of living a life other than middle class suburbia is a great idea – so we are just going to do it! We want to show our kids something other, other than the “norm”. It feels like a gift we can and want to give them.
In many ways “the trip” will not be too different to our living here. We will just be our family doing what our family does! Only we’ll be in different locations. Instead of inspiring our kids through books, we will be living the story. Instead of a summer camping holiday, they’ll spend winter swimming in the ocean and hiking through the jungle. Instead of not buying toys here, we’ll not buy souvenirs there. We’re hoping to have the opportunity to serve at an orphanage on our travels. We will go and “be us”. We don’t think we will change the world, but we do hope to make a little bit of difference to people we meet along the way.
We love learning and learning takes many forms
. We love history. We can’t wait to walk on old cobbled streets, climb turrets of castles. We love language. It’s exciting to engage, to communicate, and to cross barriers, to understand. We have had fun learning how to do that in the past.

We love creation. Jungle and beach walks, sunsets, collecting things, shells, rocks, discovering geckos and bugs, snorkeling, fishing and scuba diving. We are learning to see God in all these things.

We want to bring to our kids’ attention the needs of the world. Of course we don’t need to look past our own community to find people we can serve, and our kids do take part with us in meeting the needs we come across. But there is also a bigger picture. And while you can see some of that bigger picture on a television screen, there is something about smelling the smells, seeing the sights, hearing the noises and actually interacting with real people that we hope will plant seeds in our kid’s lives that will grow with them and help lead them to a life-purpose outside of themselves. Although we talk about the conditions most people live in today, most kids do not understand. They do not understand *hunger* or *orphan* or *naked* or *homeless* or *war*. We cannot tell our kids what to do with their lives, but we can choose what we show them and pray that they will be even more grateful for the blessings they have and be moved to share with others, to live their lives for others.
Instilling gratitude in our kids is one of the jobs we have always tried to be aware of. We want them to be grateful for the country that we live in and the friends and family that we love. We also want them to be aware that there are many other people who do not know the blessing of freedom and peace.
Part of me is scared, that what we are teaching them will one day make it easier for them to move far away from us and I won’t see them often. But the other part knows that spending this time with them will also bring us closer as a family. Hope, trust and faith, these are the things that I continue to learn more about.

This Christmas we will be traveling to Honduras. We will be visiting an orphanage where we will learn another hard truth. The truth about God's little ones that are homeless and without a parent to take care of them. I know it will be hard to see in real. To see what we see on t.v. and I know we will once again fall in love with another culture of people and another country.