Thank you for those who have been praying for renters for our house in Honiara. At last we have renters. We had to drop the rent price significantly, but we are glad that soon it will be generating income rather than draining it! Whew! Thank you, Lord!

Emily and Sarah have started school this week in the Duncanville School District. Emily is in grade 11 at Duncanville High School which boasts the second largest high school campus in the United States! The large school is a bit intimidating in some ways, but she is really excited about the classes they offer.

Emily applied to and was accepted into the “Ready, Set, Teach” program which is designed for kids who want to become teachers. She has classes for a double block and later in the year will have an opportunity as part of the program to visit local elementary schools, work in classrooms and even get to practice teaching. A graduation requirement is two years of foreign language. Emily is taking American Sign Language which is something she was interested in learning anyway. There are advantages to bigger schools!

On Sarah’s first day, she quickly became friends with a girl who ‘happens’ to share the same class schedule all day. Around lunchtime they realized that they are both Wycliffe MK’s (missionary kids)! What a wonderful way to start a new school.

We are thankful for the girls good start to school. Thanks so much for those of you who have been praying for them.

Our house in Honiara has sat unrented since we left in late May. We have lowered the price and still the right renters have not come along. We just don’t know what to do about the house. The price is appropriate according to local friends, but there just don’t seem to be people looking for a house in that price range at the moment.

We were really counting on some kind of income from that house to help us buy our house here in the USA. Prayers for renters in the Solomons are appreciated!

Jehovah Jirah does it again. Tim returned tonight from Las Cruces, NM with a 14 foot U-haul truck 2/3 full of wonderful things for our house! Lots of furniture, appliances, vacuum and even a steam cleaner!

If all that wasn’t enough, at the last minute our friends offered Tim their two bikes. They are the same type of mountain bike that Tim had years ago. He took his to the Solomons and never rode it much and it rusted and we gave it away. What a blessing to receive a bike like his much-loved bike from years ago. And, now we all have enough bikes to go riding together.

Tomorrow is our big day – we sign on the house at 9:30 am and we hope to be moving in the afternoon. Praise God for his wonderful gift of a place to call home in the USA for our family.

We are scheduled to sign on our new house this Friday – 17 July. We are all getting excited about the new house!

It’s been amazing to see God’s provision in regard to furniture and other things that we need. Some of our furniture has come from the ‘Furniture Boutique’ on our center here. People in the community donate furniture and other items – from clothing to baseball bats, to kitchen items, etc. are donated to the ‘Boutique’ where it is lovingly arranged by volunteers from Wycliffe Associates. WA (Wycliffe Associates) also gives furloughing missionaries towel sets for each family member and bed sheets. What a gift this has been.

Other furniture we have found on Craig’s List or the Salvation Army. We are still looking for a few items like bedroom furniture for Tim and I, desks and living room furniture.

Today Tim is flying to El Paso where friends will pick him up and take him to their home in Las Cruces, NM. A friend who recently married is donating a U-haul full of furniture, appliances and kitchen items to us! Our friends are renting the U-haul for us so Tim can drive the load back to Dallas. Friends in Michigan are making arrangements to bring down our belongings from there! It’s all coming together.

While we won’t have everything we need for our house by the time we move in, we will have the basics and we are so very very thankful. Jehovah Jireh – our provider, does it again!

On Tuesday Emily and went to Duncanville High School – the school she will attend beginning in August. Duncanville boasts the second largest high school campus in the United States and a student body of nearly 4000 students. Wow! That’s a big school!

We met with the counselors to determine how many credits they would give her for schooling she received elsewhere and we were happy to find out that she has more than enough credits for going into 11th grade. One of the requirements she needs to fulfill is 2 years of a foreign language. We are happy that they have ASL (American Sign Language) which Emily was interested in learning anyway!

Although the size of the school is a bit daunting, they offer a wide selection of classes and we are thankful for that.

This has been an exciting week for our family. We found a house in Duncanville that we love. Here is the outside of 514 Longworth. We saw the house on Wednesday morning, put an offer on it in the afternoon and received word on Thursday morning that our offer had been accepted.

The house has:

3 pecan trees

3 pear trees

an oak tree

about 1/3 of an acre

space for a garden and a dog…

The house was built in 1960. A realtor bought it in October 2008 and has totally refurbished the house. It has a new roof, air conditioner, water heater, stove and microwave.

We are in the Lone Star State – the front door features a lone star.

This is the living room/dining room. The wood floors have been re-sanded and varnished.

All the walls have been recently repainted and all the light fixtures are new.

The sink, fixtures, cabinets and window treatments are all new! The kitchen window looks out on the side yard/driveway.

These double doors in the family room open onto the back yard.

The house has two garages – this one is behind the first one. It must have been designed for a boat or trailer. We think it will make a great office and maybe one day guest room.

This beautiful sink is in the master bathroom.

The backyard is really a good size – room for a dog which Emily really wants. It looks like we may get a 6 month old yellow lab! The yard also has a nice garden – Sarah wants to have a garden.

We thank God for this wonderful house and we can’t wait to get all the paperwork done for the closing. A friend in New Mexico is giving us a refrigerator, washer, dryer, double bed and chest freezer which she no longer needs.

We have found a bed for Tim and I but have no other furniture. Please pray that we will be able to find some affordable furniture.

This week found the Matkzes landing in Dallas, Texas. The last few months have been a blur of activity as we have liquidated most of our assets in the Solomon Islands and prepared to leave the country for at least three years. It’s been a challenging and emotional time as the Solomon Islands has been our home for 11 years.

Tuesday morning in the DFW Airport, the US Immigration officer handed back our passports and said, “Welcome home”. Tim and I looked at each other and tears came to our eyes. Emily and Sarah looked quizical as the USA doesn’t feel like home to them. For all of us, it is going to take a while for us to feel at home in this country.

Over the years I have collected orchid plants from around the Solomon Islands.  We have tied them to trees in our yard where they have taken root and grown and blossomed.

Some of the orchid plants have been gifts from village friends who have gone out into the bush to find the orchids and give them to me.  Others I have purchased from the market.  At first I had to wait and wait for them to blossom, but now it seems like one or two are always blooming which is such a treat.  

The two orchid plants pictured here are ones that are high in a rain tree outside our bedroom where we can see the flowers. What a treat and something I will miss very much in Dallas!

As approach our departure day, May 26, we keep thinking about the things in the Solomons that we will miss – and truthfully a few things that we won’t miss! In that light, this is my initial entry in the list of ‘Things we will Miss’.

Even though we live in the capital city, it really is a small place with a population of about 55,000 people Like any small town, sometimes the ‘big’ news stories are a little funny!

The photo shows a truckload of cartons of peanut butter which overturned on the main road and stopped traffic for an hour. The caption read;’Peanut butter chaos halt traffic for an hour’. I happened upon this scene just minutes after it happened and it wasn’t surprised to see it make the front page of the newspaper today. You can read the article online at:http://solomonstarnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task;=view&id;=7878&change;=71&changeown;=78&Itemid;=26

It really did mess traffic up for a long time because there is only one main road that runs through town. Even though we can read the stories online, we are going to miss reading the Solomon Star!