Need for Privacy

I've been bad at blogging lately. Like, really bad. I know it. I can own it.

I recently asked myself why I lost my desire to blog, and I came up with a few main reasons.

1. I'm just tired.
2. Most days just seem too unremarkable to blog about.
3. A lot of the unremarkable things feel too personal to blog about.

I can't do much about the first one. It is what it is. I'm mentally exhausted when I get home from school. And I don't often feel like sitting down and writing.

The second one is just the result of having lived here for over 10 years. My days seem more ordinary than adventurous. There is always something new to be discovered or explored or experienced, which is one of the things I love about Indonesia. But back to number 1...

I think I can do something about the third thing. Right now, my blog is public. Anyone can access it and read any/all of the posts. But there are a lot of things lately I've stopped myself from writing about because I don't always know who my audience is. So I've made a decision. For my own safety and privacy, as well as that of the people/places I write about, I'm going to make my blog private.

This means that only people with permission can access and read it. If you would like to be one of those people, feel free to send me a message however you normally send me messages. Or you can also comment on this post. All I need to give you access is your g-mail address.

Jehovah Jireh

**EDIT - I started writing this blog post in September. Then I paused. For a minute. Then it was January. Somehow.

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After a thoroughly enjoyable time in America this summer, I am now back in Indonesia and back into the swing of teaching. This school year has been a tough one. The loss of last year's graduating class has been felt very keenly on campus this semester. I'm not sure how many students have come to me and cried over missing their beloved upperclassmen. This year has also brought the announcement that two families that I have worked with for 7 years will be leaving at the end of the school year. Though we still have this entire school year left to work and serve together, it feels like there is a dark cloud over our time together knowing the bitter goodbye that will come in a few short months.

As for me personally, I've moved into the new(ish) role of teaching 7th grade math! I wrote that with an exclamation point, but I feel no exclamation points in my heart when I think of teaching middle school. It's been challenging working with this age group. They get very emotional about things and I don't understand why. They argue when they should be listening. They sometimes forget how to add and subtract. And two months into the school year, many of them can't even remember to write their names on their homework. Teaching 7th grade feels like an awful mix of herding cats, teaching color to blind people, and working in a zoo. But somehow, I love them. They are precious and they are trying so hard to make me happy and I see that. 

We have had three students come forward this semester and confess a desire to hurt themselves, and we have one other student who so far has tried to hurt himself at school twice - once in my classroom. It's hard to watch people so young struggle with things so heavy.

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**EDIT - ^^ That's where I left off in September when I felt like this post was getting too depressing to post. So I'm going to continue the story now.

In October, a family who has lived and served here for several years made the decision to return to America after their son attempted to harm himself while at school. In a matter of three days, they packed their belongings, said their goodbyes, and went home to seek help and healing for their family. We have been hearing positive reports, but goodbyes are never easy, especially in circumstances as difficult as this. 

Three staff members have lost their fathers in the past three months. Thankfully, God has provided for all of them to be able to travel home to be with family during the initial stages of grief. But that has left a lot of gaps in our staff as we work together to cover for people travelling.

Currently it seems that our town is experiencing a dengue epidemic. Four school staff/family members have been hospitalized in the last week. One person spent the night in the hospital hallway waiting for a bed to open up. The hospitals are full of dengue patients. I am currently terrified of getting bit by a mosquito. I'm avoiding the outdoors and ruthlessly murdering every insect I see, mosquito or not, just to be safe. 

This has been a challenging school year, to say the least. I'd like to end this post by noting the many ways we have seen God's hand in the midst of the struggles, but if I'm being honest, even that has been hard. This school year has felt like a series of unfortunate events - we're just moving from one disaster to another, putting out as many fires as we can along the way. It's been exhausting. It has often been hard to see the good. One thing I can say with confidence though is that God always provides. 

Unexpected

Today started out just like any other. On my walk to school, I admired the mountain. I even stopped and took a picture of it! 

I got to school at 7:10, had a morning prayer meeting with my fellow teachers, and by 7:30, I was back in my classroom preparing for my day. At 7:42 I got a text from my boyfriend asking if the mountain was erupting. I was like, "What?? No? WHY??" He was eating breakfast in town and snapped this picture:

That would be on the OTHER side of our mountain. So I went outside to look and saw this:

You see all that ash through those trees? Anyways, I sounded the alarm (not literally) and unintentionally sent the administration into a panic. They suddenly wanted to shut down the school. I said that was probably not necessary. We are very protected by our mountain, Merbabu. The one erupting is the one behind it, Merapi. The only possible danger we are in is receiving ash fall. We're still waiting to see which way the wind blows. 

Of course, homeroom was a joke this morning. The 7:45 bell rang within one minute of all of us realizing there was a volcano erupting 15 miles away. Just about all the students whipped out their cell phones (which they are not allowed to use at school) to take pictures, and nobody would go in their classrooms. It was chaos. Eventually we got everyone corralled. 

We contacted the head of Volcanology and Meteorology on Merapi, and the guy there said this was a "normal" eruption and there is "no status" there. The scary thing about this is that at 7 AM the same department posted on Twitter that all activity was normal. Forty-five minutes later, there was a relatively large eruption. Which means that nobody evacuated. My greatest concern is for the residents of Mount Merapi and all of the ash that is undoubtedly falling on them. No matter what the volcanologist says, this is NOT normal activity for around here. 

It is now 8:30 AM. School is still in session, but administration has declared it a half day, just in case of any further volcanic activity. We are also getting face masks ready for all students and staff. Better to have a contingency plan now than to have to create one in the moment. We have all windows and doors closed, which means that I am currently locked in a room with 25 middle schoolers and no ventilation. We are baking as they prepare for their Geometry exam. 

So the theme of the day is spontaneity and flexibility. When a volcano erupts, we do what we gotta do. 

For the past 45 minutes, my fingers have been itching to go home and get my camera to take some good quality pictures of the eruption. But since I have back-to-back classes all day, that can't happen. The best picture I got is the one I posted earlier. So instead, I'll leave you with a photo I took from a local news outlet's website.

Soccer Field Conversations

"You know, transition is rough and there's a lot of things we really miss from home. But she really likes your class and she really likes you, and that just makes things so much easier." - The father of a new student.

In a week that has involved sitting in vomit, grading a blood smeared assignment, and cleaning throw-up off the sidewalk outside my classroom (not the same as the vomit I sat in!), it's encouraging comments like this that keep me going and remind me of why I do what I do.

(Also, I'm three for three this week in terms of bodily fluids. Can't wait to see what gross thing I get to touch on Thursday!)

Things Kids Say

After I judged a school talent show:
Elementary student: *runs up to me and stares at me open-mouthed*
Me: Um... hi?
Student: Are you a JUDGE?
Me: Yes, I was!
Him: Whoooooooa, COOL! *runs away*
(I'm basically a celebrity)

9th grade girl: Miss, how do you draw circumcise?
Me: Uhhhhhhhh...... Are you sure that's what you mean?

Student: Can you check what I wrote here?
Me: Let's see... um... what does this word say?
Student: It says anonymous.
Me: Oh. I can't really read it.
Student: It's a work of art, and if other people don't see that, it's not my problem.
Me: But if people can't read your handwriting, it kind of is your problem.
Student: It's abstract art, OK?

Student: Did you dye your hair?
Me: No. Does it look like I did?
Student: No.
Me: ...................

Little girl: *flops down on the seat next to me* How old are you??
Me: I'm 31. How old are you?
Little girl: I'm 6.
Me: You wanna know a secret?
Little girl: Uh-huh! *nods vigorously*
Me: In TWO days it's gonna be my birthday. And then I'll be thirty TWO!
Little girl: Whoa....
Me: Is that pretty old?
Little girl: Yeah, but that's OK. My daddy is older. He's about.... um.... 81 or 82, I guess.
Me: Are you sure?
Little girl: *scrunches up her face in deep thought* Ummmm.... pretty sure!
Me: Maybe you should ask him about that sometime...
Little girl: Maybe! *runs away*

A friend made me a birthday brownie with a candle. Her two daughters watched me blow out my candle. Then the 3 year old had some comments.
Kid: Did you make a wish for one hundred and ten million babies?
Me: Um... well... that's kind of a lot of babies.
Kid: Yeah. And if you wanna move, then you should wish for 25 airplanes to carry them too!

In 11th grade math...
Me: Turn with me to page 831....
*Waits about 15 seconds for students to get books out and start flipping pages*
Me: Page 831, guys...
*Less than 5 seconds pass
Student DH: What page?
Me: I've said it twice now.
Student JM: Twice is not enough.
Me: Twice is once more than enough.
JM: No. Once is not enough. Twice is basic.
Me: Are you calling me basic?
*Class collectively gasps*
JM: Wait! No! That's not what I said! I mean... NO! I didn't say that! What page are we supposed to be on?
Me: Please. *eye roll* You can't even keep up with someone basic like me.
*Class collectively dissolves into hoots and raucous laughter

Sunday Drive

There is a student teacher working at my school this semester. She is only here for a short time - just 5 weeks. Of those 5 weeks, only 2 remain. This student teacher is an avid photographer, and someone told her that I was as well. So she asked if I would take her on a photo taking expedition sometime. Of course, I agreed, and yesterday was the day we agreed upon. I asked what kinds of things she enjoys photographing, and she asked specifically if I would take her someplace where she could see the mountains. I one-upped her and took her to THREE different spots that have a great view of the surrounding mountains! Our little excursion was a great excuse for me to dust off my old DSLR and snap some photos too. Here's what I ended up with.

Location 1 - A rural neighborhood on the outskirts of town

Location 2 - On the tracks through the lake outside of town

 Location 3 - Rice fields located within city limits

The beauty of this country that I get to call home never ceases to amaze me! And mountains will always be novel to this Midwesterner. :)

#goals

Are you familiar with the bullet journal craze? If not, you can check it out here. People ask me if I have a bullet journal, and I always say no. But I know that deep down inside, I've really been doing it since before it was the latest craze. I live by calendars and checklists and I always have a gridded notebook in my bag that I use to keep track of all my obsessive calendars and lists. (Sometimes I put things on my to-do lists that I have already done just so I can have the satisfaction of crossing it off the list. Like seriously, SO. MUCH. Satisfaction. That's how bad it is.)

Anyways, one of the things on this month's to-do list (and something that will be featured on every other month's list for the rest of the year) is to update my blog. I've gotten really bad at keeping this old blog updated over the past couple of years. I waffle back and forth between thinking that keeping my friends and family on the opposite side of the world updated is the responsible thing to do and that it's also kind of vain to just sit and write about myself and who cares anyways? I think blogging once a month is a nice compromise. It's responsible but not too self obsessed, right?

So that's where I'm at. And I'll be honest - sometimes it's hard to find things to write about. There are times when what I want to say feels too deeply personal for a public audience. There are other times where really cool things happen but I know that words could never do them justice, so I don't bother trying. Many times, I hear or see something funny and I think to myself, "I could blog about that", and then two hours later, I have completely forgotten about it. Starting this month, I'm trying to be intentional about finding at least one thing in the month to write about.

This month, what I want to write about is some veryveryvery exciting news. At the beginning of the year, boyfriend and I decided to apply for a visa for him to come to the States this summer. We knew it was a long shot, but we wanted to give it a try anyways. We finished the dreadful online application process the first week of March and then we were able to schedule an interview at the US Consulate during my spring break. I was trying to have a realistic level of expectation with the knowledge that it is very difficult for single Indonesian men to obtain tourist visas to the US. But the process went so smoothly and boyfriend was granted his visa!

This means that I will come to America at the end of May as planned and that boyfriend will get to join me sometime in July. We are in the process of figuring out exactly how long he can take off work and looking for tickets. Our plan is to fly back to Indonesia together at the end of July. Besides being unspeakably excited to have him there with me in America, I am ALSO very excited to have someone to travel with! It will be the first time since living here that I won't have to travel all the way around the world totally alone.

So there you have it. One blog post for the month of March. I can't think of anything more worthy of sharing than this fabulous news! :)

They Come in Threes

You know the saying about how bad things come in threes? Well, I wouldn't consider myself a particularly superstitious person; however, I'm pretty much convinced that saying is true, just based on my own experience. And this past week has been another example of that.

Friday morning I woke up to the news that the mother of one of our school guards passed away fairly suddenly on Thursday night. One.

Within an hour of hearing that news, our high school secretary got a call from a family member saying that her mother had just died and she needed to come home from work. Two.

That felt overwhelming - having two deaths in our small community within 18 hours of each other. I wondered what the third thing would be. We were hosting a basketball tournament all weekend, and I just kept praying that no students would get seriously injured on our watch. The tournament ended on Sunday with no trips to the ER (a successful tournament in my book).

Monday brought number three. Right as I had almost forgotten about it...

Years ago, when our school built our current music room, it was constructed in such a way that a second floor could be added. We are in need of better art facilities, so we are currently in the process of adding on that second floor to be used as an art room. Construction began in December.

Yesterday, one of the construction workers fell off that second story and landed on his head on a tree stump below. Three.

The construction workers are outside hires - I've seen them around campus, but I don't know any of them personally. Throughout the day today, more details kept emerging, and the more I hear, the more heartbroken I feel for this family. The worker who fell is named Widodo. He is 19 years old - the same age as some of my students. He's an only child working to support his aging parents. His family lives in the village in a house with dirt floors and no furniture. The fall caused one side of his head to cave in.

Right now he's in the public hospital here in town, which is one of the worst places I can imagine being with an injury like that. He is in the ICU which is a basically an open air pavilion that anyone can come and go from. Doctors already performed one operation to remove skull fragments from his brain. They say that if he makes it five days, they will be able to make a prognosis, but right now, they aren't hopeful that he will survive that long. He goes through periods of semi-consciousness where he is in so much pain that he begins thrashing, so doctors have tied him to his bed.

One small grace in all of this is that there was no school on Monday when the accident happened. We had the day off since the entire staff had worked all weekend long hosting the tournament. The construction site is adjacent to the lower elementary playground, and the fall happened during lunch time  - when that play ground would have been full of 4-8 year old children. Our kids were thankfully protected from the trauma of seeing that happen, and based on stories I heard from some of our other workers, it was gruesome.

Please pray though. Pray for this family that is hurting and unsure of what tomorrow - or even the next hour - will bring. Please pray that the doctors will know what to do to help him and not to worsen the situation. Our local public hospital is ill equipped to handle routine health issues, much less emergencies such as this. Please pray for provision for this family. They have so very little. Please pray that they will know Peace and Love, because right now, they do not. Please pray for us as a community, that we will know how to bring love and light and encouragement and that we would have eyes to see the needs that we can meet.

2017: A Photo Essay

2017 was an okay year. If I could summarize it in one sentence, it would be “The year in which I did not keep up with my blog”. It had its ups and downs like any other year, but this year in particular, the lows seemed lower than normal and the highs seemed higher. There were a lot of emotions, and that might be part of the reason why I didn’t blog so much. But I don’t want to forget about many of those times. And I’ve had some requests to update people on my life. So I present to you the highs and lows of the past year of my life.

January

Basically the only unusual thing I did in January was to help orient and work with a team of 20-somethings that came from America to experience life in Indonesia. They came through an org that a friend of mine works with, and I had the privilege of helping them get to know more about this place I call home. They stayed for a month, but because of my work schedule, I wasn’t able to interact with them as often as I’d have liked. One awesome thing I did get to do with them was to travel to Jogjakarta and spend time in a slum there that I wasn’t even aware existed. The team put on a children’s program, and while they did that, I spent time just talking to people in the neighborhood and hearing their stories. One thing I learned about myself in 2017 is how much I love hearing people’s stories.

February

In February, I was asked to chaperon our students as they participated in a basketball tournament in East Java. It was my first visit to the city of Malang. I had a TON of fun cheering my students on, hanging out with them at the malls there, and eating LOTS of good food. I also got to watch our boys AND our girls bring home championship trophies!

March

March started out with spring break! This time for spring break, I chaperoned our senior class on their traditional senior trip. It’s always fun to spend time with students outside the classroom, especially as they are about to graduate and move abroad. They had lots of fun activities planned for their trip, but two of my favorites were going to the beach and doing “white water” rafting (the water was more brown than white. I was convinced we were all going to get typhoid and die…).

Also in March, school held its annual Junior/Senior banquet. I got all dressed up and apparently turned into a dancing maniac!

 

(Me with almost all of my Advanced Calculus class. They clean up nice.)

April

In April, our school hosted a badminton tournament for multiple schools, and since I’m the math teacher, I was given the task of keeping score. Because… numbers. So in preparation for that tournament and then during the tournament itself, I spent a huge amount of April learning about and watching badminton.

My 31st birthday fell on Easter Sunday in 2017, and I really enjoyed getting to spend my birthday at church celebrating the resurrection of Jesus! One of my little 3 year old friends brought me some lilies for my birthday, and it was a fitting reminder of my church in America decorated with lilies for Easter Sunday!

May

First and foremost, graduation happened.

That’s always a good but difficult time of saying goodbye to the humans I’ve spent the last four years with on a daily basis.

Shortly after graduation, I also said goodbye to a co-worker and neighbor. In honor of one of her last days in Indonesia, three of us single ladies got up SUPER early to go watch the sun rise over the rice fields.

 

While I am definitely not a morning person, this view is ALWAYS worth it. Especially with sweet friends like these!

June

The first week of June, I traveled to Kalimantan to visit a friend there. I also got to set foot in the northern hemisphere for the first time in 8 months! The equator runs through the city of Pontianak on the west coast of Kalimantan, and we visited the monument. Here I am with one foot in each hemisphere.

While in Pontianak, I also saw this gorgeous double rainbow right at sunset, which I thought was worth mentioning. :)

The month of June also brought about more goodbyes. My boss for the past five years moved back to America in June to be closer to family there.

July

July was a BIG month! First and foremost, my parents came to visit me in July! This was the second time they had visited Indonesia, and it was so special for them to be here and to see my life and meet my people. I will be forever grateful for the time we had together last summer!

On July 19th, I celebrated my 9th Indoversary – the anniversary of the day I first landed in Indonesia! To commemorate the event, I dug out my old passport and found the immigration stamp dated July 19, 2008.

Two VERY important graduations happened in the month of July as well. First, my friend Cinta, whom I have known since she was just a kid in middle school, graduated from COLLEGE! She has big plans for her future, and I’m excited to see where she goes! Also, my dear friend Aldi finished his PhD at a university in Australia. He spent the past 3 years living away from his family, so this was a HUGE deal for him – it means he is finally back home where he belongs! I also proofread his dissertation, so I have awarded myself an honorary PhD as well. Doesn’t he look doctorly?

 

During summer break, I made a goal to start working out regularly in the weight room at the school. I have this facility available to me for free, but I’ve never taken advantage of it! Not knowing how to use most of the equipment held me back during the school year, when the weight room was busy and I didn’t want to look dumb in front of all the pro worker-outers. But during July, while everyone was gone and I had the weight room to myself, I figured out how to work all the doo-dads and I got pretty consistent about working out! So consistent, in fact, that I demolished the only pair of exercise shoes I owned. So as a treat to myself for all my hard work and dedication, I bought myself a much nicer pair of athletic shoes!

Unfortunately, my streak of consistency was ruined by a trip to the beach. The trip itself was great, and I had a lot of fun with my friends!

However, at one point as I was running through the sand Baywatch style, the pinky toe of my right foot came in contact with something incredibly hard that did not give. Instantly, I thought to myself, “I just broke my toe”. It immediately began to swell, and within a few hours, it looked like this.

Grotesque, I know. Once the swelling went down, I was able to move my toe, so I convinced myself that it was a bad sprain and not actually a break. Three months later when it was still bigger than my other pinkie toe and hurt to put my full weight on, I rethought that conclusion. I never did get x-rays, so I guess I’ll never know whether or not I actually broke it. But I will tell you that to this day, I cannot sit cross-legged with my right foot on bottom – it squishes that pinkie toe and it hurts!

August

August brought about the start of the school year. This is the lovely teaching staff that I get to work with this year!

I was also featured in a local photography exhibition at an art gallery as well as on my gym’s Instagram page. Guess which one I’m more thrilled about…

 

While exploring my local grocery store, I also found the following two items that caught my eye. Your guess is as good as mine…

 

September

September was a month of change. Rainy season started, which meant saying goodbye to gorgeous sunsets like this…

…and saying hello to walking home in torrential downpours like this.

Yes, there is a soccer game going on in that picture. Yes, they are playing in what appears to be a lake. But if we cancelled games on account of rain, nobody would play sports from September – April.

All this rain did mean that my yard went from the photo on the left to the photo on the right in the matter of just a few days.

 

Melanie, my very best friend on this side of the world, told me in April that she would be returning to America for good at the end of the year. I grieved that loss when she told me in April. But then I also felt moments of deep sadness throughout the rest of the year as I contemplated life here without her. It was – and is – a very hard loss to deal with. It was around September that news of her leaving became more public, and it was also when we decided working on a bucket list of things we wanted to do together before she left. One of those things was driving two hours by motorbike to the closest Starbucks! This Starbucks is located at a rest stop on the nearby toll road. Unfortunately, two wheeled vehicles are not allowed on the toll road. So we got creative and found an access road that wound through villages and rice fields and rubber tree forests and eventually took us to our location! I was quite the adventure, and I love this memory of our day together!

My brother was also deployed to the Middle East in September. The day he was deployed, a friend here sent me this verse, and it is still hanging by my desk at work, right next to my brother’s patch from flight school.

October

I quit yoga, and my cat thought this would be a great time to start napping on my desk. He does it regularly now.

November

There is only one thing to mention about November, and that is saying goodbye to this guy.

This is my pastor in America. He went to the hospital one day with a bad virus, a few days later was diagnosed with end stage leukemia, and within a matter of days, he had passed into his eternal home. I got to know him well when I was last home, and I was so thankful that my home church had him. He was such a blessing to me, to my family, and to my church family as well. Grieving this loss from a million miles away was difficult to say the least. Going back to America this summer will be hard too. The America I left still had Pastor Paul in it, and it won’t feel right without him there.

December

I had one of the most interesting experiences of my life in early December. Our school was asked if we would be willing to have a guest speaker give a speech to our students and faculty. The administration agreed, and one day we were all called to an assembly in the school auditorium. The man who wanted to talk to us was North Korean. He had escaped from North Korea and wanted to tell us what life was like there. He spoke no English, so some of our high school students translated for him. I’ve seen pictures of North Korea, but none of them do justice to this man’s story. His entire family died there, and he himself only barely escaped with his life. He now lives and works in South Korea doing all he can to bring awareness to what is happening. The things he said were fascinating and tragic and heartbreaking all at once. When I think about atrocities happening in North Korea, I think of them happening years ago. But this man is my age. His story could be mine.

December, of course, also brought about Christmas and all the festivities that go along with it! I’m not sure how many Christmas parties I attended this year, but I sure baked a lot of cookies!

One other thing worth mentioning about December is that I got to spend my first Christmas with THIS guy. We began dating in mid-2017, and in the midst of all the ups and downs that 2017 had to throw at me, I am so thankful to have had him by my side as a friend, as an encourager, and as someone who always speaks the truth that I need to hear.