‘It broke our hearts’: Maple Ridge family leaves Indonesia, following deadly earthquake

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A family from Maple Ridge has managed to leave the Indonesian island of Lombok after being stuck there for a couple of days following a devastating earthquake in the country on Sunday.

Jennifer Montgomery-Lay was briefly stranded with her husband Jared Lay, as well as their 20-year-old daughter Logan and 13-year-old son Brody. She said the problem was getting off the island to connect with flights back to Canada.

Around noon local time on Tuesday, Montgomery-Lay posted to Instagram, saying they made it onto a crowded boat to Bali.

The family was wrapping up a six-month trip checking off worldwide destinations on their bucket list, after Logan relapsed again in a long-running battle with cancer.

“It was a bit of a rough day because we hadn’t been able to give Logan her proper feeds and medications… she’s had a really tough day, she tells NEWS 1130 from Bali.

“We started out very early. We got to the ferry. We missed the first ferry. We weren’t sure we were going to get on the second ferry because there were tons of people.”

As expected, the entire family is exhausted.

“The day took us about 12 hours and we were really struggling. We’re pushing about 60 hours with no sleep. That’s not easy for somebody who is well.”

‘It broke our hearts’: Bittersweet for the family to leave the earthquake-striken island

More than 90 people were killed in the 7.0-magnitude quake. Montgomery-Lay says the family endured more than 100 aftershocks.

She tells us it was bittersweet for the family to finally board the boat off the island. “We were just crying and high-fiving. And then we all kind of paused, to be honest. We kind of felt bad to be leaving.”

“We drove through a lot of devastated areas and we saw a lot of people that were camping out on the side of the road with their families. It broke our hearts. We had a bit of a surreal moment to realize that the only thing that separates us from them is where we are lucky enough to live. We get to go home. There’s so much happening there, and we’re just leaving them. We felt so relieved and we felt sad and helpless, at the same time.”

She says the family is going to spend a couple of days in Bali to regroup. “I think there’s no possible way at this point that Logan could make about a 28-hour flight home.”

“We’re going to take a few days here to regroup and then we’re going to head to Thailand for a short stint and head back to Vancouver in the next week to 10 days.

In the last six months travelling with her family, Montgomery-Lay says she’s learned a lot.

“I think I started out thinking that we needed a break and we needed to run away from our problems — everything was just compounding and it was too much. I think what I’ve learned in the end is really that freedom is state of mind. It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, you’re going to find something fearful. You’re going to find problems. You’re going to find challenges. Finding freedom in yourself is a complete state of mind.”

I think we’ve faced a lot of challenges… we’ve done cool stuff together. I think we’re coming back a little bit more healed — a little bit more cleansed — and ready to face whatever we have to face in the next leg of our lives.”

 – With files from Dean Recksiedler, Estefania Duran, Adam Cooper