seven quick takes

1. so i have this adopted family here, the linegars. they have a cousin, autumn. she is unable to have children, so she and her husband adopted an african baby about a year ago, and shortly thereafter, autumn found that she was, in fact, pregnant!  sadly though, right after THAT, she was diagnosed with aggressive form of cancer. the doctors told her that she was going to have to make some tough decisions. the bottom line was basically, “either you die or your baby dies. you choose.” if she got treatment rigorous enough to kill the cancer and save her life, it would kill her unborn baby. if they waited until after the baby was born to treat, it would be too late to save autumn. but she and her husband sought out other possibilities and walked by faith. ultimately, they chose to save the baby’s life, but autumn received less rigorous treatments to control the cancer throughout the pregnancy. last weekend, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. and autumn’s cancer is almost gone. she’ll be finishing up treatments in the next month or two and doctors are hopeful that she will go into remission!

2. within that adoptive family, i have several adopted siblings. linegars have 2 kids who live here with them and one in america. they also have 5 “adopted” indonesian kids. all of them come from families with no dad and they have really all become a family. four of their “kids” and i are very close (yohanes, gt, and wiwik being 3 of them.) but one of their daughters, harni, has been helping lead a discipleship training school in bali, then leading outreach trips to africa ever since i’ve been here. but this week she finally returned home! just getting to meet this sister of mine that i’ve heard so much about for the past year was a huge blessing. she is an amazing person doing amazing things for God. she’ll be going back to bali soon, but it seems like we will be serving together on the farm sometime in the near future. and that makes me excited!

3. monday and tuesday were emotionally hard days for me. monday morning i found out that a girl i had gone to college with died. she wasn’t someone i was friends with, but the closeness of it hits hard. also, tuesday morning i found out that a baby i had been praying for who was born to a friend of a friend died. she was born last week with something called trisomy 3 in which her brain was not correctly/fully developed. there was only a 50% chance of her even being born alive. she lived 5 days. tuesday was a hard day at school. i had a lot of heaviness in my heart. and totally out of the blue, two different students came into my room at different times between classes to give me a hug, just because they felt like it. that’s not normal. for what those hugs were worth to me, it might as well have been God Himself wrapping His arms around me. maybe He was… by proxy?  once again, i am blessed by my students!

4. our superintendent got in what could have potentially been a very bad car wreck this past week. he was traveling with his pastor (visiting from america for just a few days! – i guess he got the FULL indonesian experience!) and an indonesian pastor when they were hit by a truck whose brakes had gone out. it was part of a multi-car wreck and the car was completely totaled. one side of it was basically shaved off. but none of them were hurt… not even a scratch.

5. we had parent teacher conferences this week. and though i always get nervous about them, they are always a time of blessing. the parents here always thank us teachers for being here, because without us, they couldn’t be here doing what they do. we are all parts of the Body. and that is something that i need reminded of often. it’s easy to look at what the “real” missionaries are doing and feel insignificant in comparison.  but more often than not, parent teacher conferences are more like teacher appreciation day around here.

6. yesterday morning, i found out first thing that the child (josiah) of a very close family friend was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, which can basically be described as second best to leukemia. this family also lost their mom to cancer a few months before i moved here. nobody really knew much about the situation, and the internet wasn’t too helpful either. one of the dorm moms here is a nurse, so i immediately smsed her to ask if she knew anything about aa and if i could come talk. she said yes and yes. as it turns out, a close friend of hers from america had it and was treated for it about 5 years ago. so besides her head knowledge of the disease, she was able to share with me on a personal level about the ins and outs of the disease, what happens, side effects of the treatments, how it affects the family, etc. only about 500 – 1000 people per year are diagnosed with this disease, so the fact that she personally knew somebody who had this disease was unlikely. but through her, God provided a lot of comfort that i needed. i spent about an hour talking to her, and she told me that aa is VERY treatable and the treatments don’t usually make the patients sick.  that was GREAT news to hear!

7. with all that has happened this week – death, sickness, car wrecks – i’ve been reminded of God’s protection over my family. one of my big fears before moving here was that something would happen to my family while i was gone and i would be stuck here, unable to do anything. looking back, i think that was one of satan’s scare tactics to keep me from coming here. the last couple weeks before moving here, i was to the point of having dreams about my whole family dying. that made leaving even harder. but through all that, God was faithful in reassuring me that here is where i am supposed to be. and i can’t take care of my family. only He can. and He does.

dang koreans

i was walking home from school today. my usual route takes me through the gym. the gym is kind of built into the side of hill (we do live on a mountain), so when you walk through, you're actually walking along the top of the bleacher area and the gym floor is down below. it's all open air, so nothing fancy.

as i was walking through today, there were some kids playing around with soccer balls down on the gym floor. i wasn't paying too much attention. until someone short started kicking a soccer ball as hard as he could. in my direction. his first 2 shots were deflected by the railing that separates the bleacher seating from the gym floor (because there's about a 5 foot drop from the bottom bleacher to the gym floor). but his third shot sailed directly past my face and out into the grass. i was a little perturbed. that ball was going fast enough to hurt me had it hit. and someone was doing it intentionally. my revenge was to just keep walking without giving any acknowlegement whatsoever to the culprit, assuming it was a student just goofing off. but out of the corner of my eye, i saw the guy THROW up his hands in disbelief, like he couldn't BELIEVE i wasn't going to give him his ball back! (in order for HIM to get it, he'd have to walk around all the bleachers to get to the stairs leading up to where i was) that made me mad. so i stopped and turned to yell at him to get his own ball and next time to think twice before kicking it at someone!

aaaaaand i definitely realized it was some older korean guy that i've never met before. pretty sure he didn't speak english, because he kept saying things to me in korean and pointing to his ball. so i finally went and got it and threw it to him. in response, i got a "God bless". or at least that's how i'm choosing to translate "Go Bress". i wish i could speak korean. at least enough to say "oh, no, God bless YOU, you old korean guy for kicking your soccer ball as hard as you could at a poor defenseless female just walking home from school." yeahhh, i'll probably never be able to say that in korean.

it was very strange.

in other news, in a moment of wanting to feel not american, i downloaded the entire bbc top 40 music list for the current week. then i quickly realized that it might be worse than the american one. rough. australia's is better.

human trafficking

earlier this semester in the senior contemporary issues class, a speaker came to educate them on the reality of human trafficking. it really struck a chord with them, and as a class they decided to do something about it. so they put together a charity concert in which some of the incredible talent we have at our school was showcased but also in which money and awareness were raised. they showed pictures and read stories of modern day slaves. and by the way, did you know that there are more people in slavery right now in this very minute than there have EVER been before? i am very impressed by our students. God has given them some amazing talents and they are using them to glorify him. and i am especially impressed by the seniors. God laid something on their hearts, and they banded together and pursued that. it would have been so easy for them to just take a test over the material and let it go. graduation is in 2 months. their lives are crazy enough as it is.

seeing the pictures and hearing the stories tonight made me angry. i wanted to get up and leave because i didn't know if i could take it any more. it really takes a lot to get me mad. i get frustrated over little things too often. but deep down boiling anger doesn't come quickly to me. the only thing i know of that can make me feel that way almost immediately is injustice. just hearing about it can make me so angry that all i can do is cry. like back when my friend told me about the prostitutes in middle school. right here in salatiga. i listened to him and i cried. ever since then, and even more now, i am wondering if that is an area of ministry that God is calling me to. it's definitely something i'm passionate about - and i didn't even know i was passionate about it until just a couple of months ago! right now my primary task is teaching, but this is definitely something i'll be praying about.

after the concert it was raining, and i had to ride my motorbike home. the raindrops stinging my skin as i drove felt good. it helped the anger. the drive wasn't long enough though, and after i got home, i felt very restless and unsure of what to do with myself. i figured i was wet already, so why not go get more wet. i thought the rain would feel good. so i went and just flopped down spread eagle on the soccer field near my house and let the rain fall on me.

it was a good idea for about 30 seconds. then i was wet clear through and freezing cold. bad ideas like that are always better with friends. i miss you katy and amber and meg and ruthie.

but anyways, i stayed out there awhile longer. and i thought some thoughts and prayed some prayers. and then i came inside and took a nice long hot shower. now it's raining and thunderstorming outside, so that means bedtime. the rain always makes me sleepy...

seven quick takes

so there's this thing that some people do on their blogs. it's called 7 quick takes. and it's basically seven vervak snapshots of their week. like an overview without lingering too long on one thing. or it can be a place to share little things that were semi-important/memorable/funny, but weren't otherwise significant enough to earn an entire post. and i've thought about doing it before just to jump on the bandwagon. but i talk about pretty much everything during the week. eventful happenings, random school quotes, good times, bad times, etc. i don't really leave anything for a seven quick takes post.

but i had this thought... what if i used this idea but added my own twist to it? and i like where the idea went. so my new goal is that every weekend, i will be writing a "seven quick takes" post on my week, but it will be seven testimonies about my week. usually in church or at bible study or solafide fellowship, we have a time to share testimonies. and it is like pulling teeth to get people to share. sometimes i can think of something small that God has done, but it often seems too insignificant to share with the group. and more often than not, i struggle to think of anything to share at all! but i know that God IS working good in my life. i sense His presence on a near constant basis, and i see His beauty all around me. and i'm realizing that i need to be more proactive about consciously acknowledging the good that God is doing in my life and sharing that with others. maybe it can somehow encourage someone else. but on a more basic level, i just want to be more intentional about looking back on my week and SEEING what God has done for me.

so without further ado, my first ever seven quick takes.

1. i had an opportunity to share with some friends here about getting to share my testimony in sumatra. and i never really thought about how getting to share my testimony THERE would become a testimony HERE. it's been really neat to see how He has used that.

2. pretty much every time i drive anywhere, i am reminded of God's protection over me. i have had more than a few close shaves with crazy bus drivers lately.

3. i've talked before about charles and marie's youngest baby, kaleb, right? well, they can't legally adopt him, but last week, they were put in contact with a family who can. the husband and wife came to salatiga on thursday of this week to get him and they flew back with him this morning. it was emotional all around this weekend as we said goodbye (or avoided having to say goodbye), but he is in an awesome home with two Godly parents who already love him. i'll miss my laughing baby tons, but charles and marie feel very strongly that this is God's will for little kaleb's life, and that makes it a whole lot easier.

4. i spent about 4 hours yesterday at a local coffeeshop hanging out with some seniors from our school. and we had some really good talks. all of them come from missionary homes, and all of them are at an age where they are seriously questioning the beliefs of their parents and wrestling with how to make their parents' faith their own. it made me realize that just 5 years ago, i had a lot of these same questions. and it also made me realize that now, 5 years later, i have a lot of the answers. not that i know all there is go know about God, obviously, but He has revealed a lot about Himself to me over the last 5 years. and every hard question those seniors asked me, i could answer with "THIS is who God is and THIS is what He has shown me in my life." and i honestly think that a lot of that has come about in just the last year and a half of living here... because before i came here, i really don't think i could have answered a lot of those questions. also, i don't get to have conversations like that very often around here. i did at college, but it's been a couple years. it was just a real blessing to be able to have a deep conversation with fellow believers, even if they are all 18 :) those talks also got me excited about the NEXT 5 years of my life. if i've learned this much about God in the last few years, how much MORE will i get to know him in the next few?!

5. i found a home for my two kittens. but then my neighbors protested and said i couldn't give them away because they had bonded with them. so i guess their home is here. and now cat has had more babies. about 19 from the looks of her a week ago. i still haven't seen the babies. she is hiding them. but i already have homes for some of them. trying to find homes for cats here is like trying to find homes for cats in indiana. you can't PAY people enough to take them. they usually end up getting dumped in the rice fields to eat snakes and rats. so knowing that at least some of them have a home is a blessing. also, i got the number of a vet here in town who fixes cats (not too common), AND she does house calls to get the animal! so now i don't have to worry about how to carry three frightened cats on a motorbike through town. now i just need to figure out how to schedule an appointment over the phone to get 3 cats fixed - in indonesian.

6. i got a box from home in the mail. that is ALWAYS a blessing. :)

7. last night i was invited to a 10th grade surprise party for one of the girls in the class. i protested at first, saying it would be weird to have a teacher there, but the kids insisted that i'm not just a teacher, i'm a part of their class and hyeji (the bithday girl) would want me there. so me and a dozen 10th graders snuck into her house at 11 o'clock last night, huddled outside her closed bedroom door, then BURST into a lovely rendition of "happy birthday". then we went outside and wandered the streets of salatiga until about 1 in the morning. my students always make me feel so loved and appreciated... they are the best thing about my job, hands down. and knowing that i am able to have that relationship with them makes me feel like i am making a difference here. and i thank God for them all the time!

yesterday at lunch, two sophomore boys, jimin and jihyun, ran over to me, giggling and whispering like they had some huge secret.

jihyun: HIIIIIIII!
me: uh... hi?
jimin: JIHYUN WANTS TO ASK YOU TO BANQUET!
me: what?!
jihyun: but i'm not buying your ticket. also, could you buy mine too? so you have to buy 2 tickets. both of them. mine and yours.
me: aw, that's so sweet!... but no.
jihyun: why not?!?
me: i'm a chaperone. my ticket is already paid for. and i'm not paying for yours. sorry.
jihyun: you're mean.

little secrets.

i think my cat is secretly trying to eat me.
except for he doesn't keep it a secret very well.
like when he bites into my flesh and tries to pull it off my bones with his pointy little cat teeth.
every day.

sunburns and theology

apparently, slathering on spf 60 sunscreen every day is ineffective in the sumatran midday sun. every exposed part of me got fried last week. my face peeled pretty quickly. my ears and neck too. i thought the worst was when my scalp peeled. i looked like i had horrible dandruff for a few days. but i was wrong. it's moved onto my arms. usually i peel about the same color that i started with. but now i'm about 5 shades lighter. well, the patches that have peeled are. i look like i have a skin disease. and after a little adventure in town yesterday, it seems that everyone else looks at me like i have a skin disease as well. faaaaaantastic. can't wait for this phase to be over.

i've been thinking about turutung a lot lately. more specifically, about the church there. i remember listening to a missionary serving in france give a talk during a class i took in college. he talked about how it was so hard to evangelize there because everybody already thought they were going to get into heaven. i wonder if turutung isn't a lot like that. i mentioned in a previous post that turutung considers itself the place where christianity on sumatra started because of the missionary that they didn't eat. ninety percent of the residents profess christianity. to put this into perspective, keep in mind that indonesia is the largest muslim country in the world, and take my town for example. among other things, salatiga is well known as the city on java with by and far the highest percentage of christians. we have fifty percent, give or take. ninety percent is HUGE. that is a big deal.

in indonesia, every citizen has what is known as a ktp, which is their national id card. besides normal things like name, address, and birthday, these cards also show the holder's religion. choices are: muslim, buddhist, hindu, protestant, catholic, and confucian (confucianist?). when a child is born, what is put on their ktp is the choice of the parents. later in life, people are allowed to convert, but they have to get their religion legally changed. because of this, many people who tend to be apathetic about their religion are what we call "ktp ___________ (fill in name of religion)". and sadly, the vast majority of christians in turutung are ktp christians only.

this became very evident to me through many stories i heard while there. unfortunately, i never got a chance to attend a church service for myself, but i met several people who shared with me their experiences. for example, i learned that in turutung, being a pastor is a family business. many of the pastors there were never called to ministry. they lead a congregation because their father and his father before him led that same congregation and so they were expected to carry on the legacy. there are third, fourth, and fifth generation pastors in this town, many of whom have never been to a bible school or seminary of any kind.

so what do they preach? they preach culture. and that has become their bible. and the culture of that town widely accepts gambling, drinking, and smoking - often INSIDE the church itself. i heard of one church that rents out rooms for prostitution and adultery to take place. i also heard of a tradition that allows a visiting speaker to have the "honor" of spending the night with the pastor's wife.

another more that surprised me was the way they treat their deceased. i don't really know if they worship their ancestors there, but there is a very high value placed on taking good care of them. the dead there are not just buried with a cross marking the spot. the family must scrimp and save so that they can build a memorial to the deceased. if the family is wealthy enough, the will build a vault to put the body in. either way, the memorial over the grave is usually very large and ornate and often includes a statue of the deceased. only once did i actually see a graveyard. usually, they are buried near the family home. the sad thing is that they are so caught up in honoring the dead that the needs of the living are overlooked. i don't know how many houses i drove by that were made mostly of old pieces of plastic nailed to sticks and children with only underwear on playing in the front yard... but in the back yard there was a cement and tile vault with statues and inlays - often bigger than the house itself. people will literally save for their entire lives and then spend all that money one one day in their pursuit of honoring the dead. and this is something that is preached in the church. you must revere the dead. if you do not, you are not a christian. culture as theology.

the three pictures below were taken along the road of memorials to the dead. the first is a graveyard, the second was in the middle of a rice paddy, and the third is outside a house.







there were dozens of churches in turutung. i loved sitting at the house, looking down on the town, and seeing how many steeples i could count. i was amazed - i haven't seen that many churches in one place since... well... maybe ever? but if a student is only as good as his teacher, isn't it also in some ways safe to say that a congregation is only as godly as its pastor? and if the pastor is a smoking, gambling, alcoholic who gives his wife to other men to use (and no, i'm not exaggerating), then what can you expect of the church? turutung may be the town where the people of sumatra first came to know Jesus, but turutung is a town that desperately needs to know Jesus.

so this hyperactive indian kid came to ask me for hw help yesterday during lunch. i eat with the students. i'm sitting, and he's standing. so the fact that his fly was wide open was right at eye level. i helped him with the problem, then was like...
me: aditya, your zipper's down.
aditya: oh, ok.

FOUR times he comes back to me with more questions. and EVERY TIME, zipper wide open. like i can see his underwear. so the fourth time, i finally say...
me: ADITYA! ZIP UP YOUR PANTS ALREADY!
aditya: i CAN'T! i don't have time! i have to finish this homework before class!
(math class is right after lunch)
me: it will take you less than 3 seconds! just DO IT!
aditya: but what if i have a GIANT.....
..... BOOK IN MY HANDS!?
(referring to his math textbook which IS kind of burdensome.)

but you can imagine what i THOUGHT he was going to say.
girl across the table from me: WHAT did he just say!?
poor 8th grade girl sitting next to me: oh, he just said he has a giant hook in his pants.

and then i lost it. what she just said made absolutely no sense to me, but for some reason it was funny. i just laughed and laughed and laughed. and the 8th grader had no clue why (a girl from africa, recently transferred).
aditya: STOP LAUGHING AND HELP ME WITH MY HOMEWORK!

so then everyone was just staring at me laughing my head off at the lunch table. it was great. we got to class and his zipper was still down. i finally MADE him zip it up, or else. he wasn't trying to be bad or anything, he just didn't care.

ramblings no 2

so now that i’m back home safely, i’ll pick up where i left off. somewhere after day 4 or so… i really think that the second half of the week was less eventful than the first.

a definite highlight of the week would be ron using the bobcat to break ground for their new house! unfortunately, some workers had fenced this entire area in… so i spent a few afternoons with the guys moving fencing. i was glad for some manual labor to do. it was blazing hot though! i wore spf 60 sunscreen every day and i still got sunburnt pretty much everyplace exposed to air!

(ron and his toy)

around 1, after i was finished with the fencing, i didn’t have much else to do. gentur had taken the truck down the mountain to take wiwik, who had thrown up blood that morning, to the doctor. the workers had drank all my water, and we had no food either. there’s not much shade up there because the entire place is grass and scrub brush, so i headed to the barn to find a place out of the sun to relax for a bit. i sat there in the shadow of the barn watching the 2 mommas and their babies, but also keeping my eye on a pregnant calf that i had predicted would calf two days earlier! she seemed very uncomfortable, but that was no different from her behavior all week. i watched her try to lay down 5 times, but each time, she only made it down to her knees before jumping back up. on her 6th try, she managed to flop over onto her side, and that seemed to be more comfortable for her. i was just staring off into the mountains, daydreaming. then i looked back over and noticed that the cow had an extra set of legs sticking out. BABY! i sat there and watched him be born. he seemed to be having some trouble breathing, so i went over and helped momma clean out his mouth and nose, and he was up and running in no time.

(momma was super hungry! i hadn’t seen her eat for 3 days!)

since i was there when baby was first born and throughout the first few hours of his life, i decided to make taming him my project. almost all of the other cows are untouchable – they came from a HUGE herd in australia where they had little to no human contact. i think my work was successful.

(me and my new best friend)

the earthquakes continued on through the rest of that day and night. by the end of the week, i think we had a total of 15 that i felt, but i was told that there were more during the night. thankfully, my body adjusted, and the last few days, i was actually sleeping right through multiple earthquakes!

on my next to last day there, ron took me on an adventure to danau toba, the largest volcanic lake in the world. he wanted to take me to one specific village that he described as very photogenic. but we ended up getting lost and then just driving all around the lake.

we saw lots of interesting things and i learned a LOT about sumatran culture, which i’ll share in a future post. the bottom line is that even though this area is distinctly Christian, the batak are a people group who desperately need to know who Jesus really is.

after we got home, i convinced ron to drive me up to the farm so that i could say goodbye to the cows, especially my little boy. i’m hoping to go back this summer, but i know he’ll be unrecognizably big by then! my hope is that the workers continue to work with him so that he stays tame and easy to manage.

the next morning, i woke up early to head to the airport in silangit, about an hour’s drive away. we got there about 40 minutes before my flight, and NOBODY WAS THERE! the whole place was shut down. so we called the airline (the only one that flies from this airport) and they said that the time written (yes, my ticket was handwritten) was an hour off. so we went and got breakfast and came back an hour later. by then, there were a few people around, including a police officer who asked ron for his permission for me to marry his son. apparently he’s 30, christian, in his first year of college, and good looking. ron told him to ask me. i said no thanks.

(the airport – nobody there but us!)

there was not  a single airplane at this airport, and i was very curious about how i’d be getting to medan. 15 minutes after our scheduled departure, a tiny airplane landed, parked, 3 people got out, and they told us to get in. in all, there were 8 of us (plus 2 pilots) heading back to medan. they turned the plane around, and took off within 10 minutes of landing! i met an awesome lady, anita, while in the airport, and she sat with me during the whole flight, then helped me find where to go at the medan airport (i had to actually leave the airport and walk about half a km to another place to checkin for my next flight to jakarta). i’ll probably talk about her in a future post too. for the most part, the rest of the trip was uneventful.

(anita and i)

in jakarta, i had 40 minutes between flights, so i decided to go outside to put this krispy kreme mystery to a rest…. and i found it! unfortunately, in order to get back IN to the airport, i had to wait behind about 300 people going through security then hightail it to my gate. also unfortunately, my flight was delayed by more than an hour. but i was waiting next to an awesome chinese indonesian lady who had actually lived in atlanta, georgia for 6 years and was therefore fluent in english! she was a lot of fun to talk to and hang out with. i also an into not one, but FIVE students from our school heading back to salatiga! so when we landed in semarang, we were able to share a taxi back home.

i got in at about 9 last night. that made for a really long day today (i worked 10 hours!), but i cancelled this evening’s tennis lessons, and am at home currently resting, writing this, eating dinner, catching up on emails, uploading pictures, and watching a movie.

looking back, i have to say that this was an awesome week. it might not beat last summer’s backpacking trip in terms of really random adventures. but God showed me a lot on this trip: things about myself, things about Him, things about other people, and things about indonesia. i got to share my testimony in a room full of strangers in a language i don’t speak. i got to watch a new life enter this world. i got to live as an indonesian for a week. i met some awesome people. i heard some incredible stories. i explored some new places. i learned some new words.

and now? back to real life, yeah?

ramblings no. 1

so i found some internets. very slow ones. i'll try to include some pictures with my words. we'll see how that goes. i'm not really sure what day it is, but i think i've been here 4 days now.

so. the beginning. the trip here. thankfully, uneventful. the most exciting part of it was the flight from jakarta to medan. i was seated next to an indonesian guy from sumatra who spoke surprisingly good indonesian. he works on sulawesi now for a company and i found out that he was going home because his brother was killed the day before (his motorbike was hit by a truck. in his words, "very bad".) he has a dream to start a farm, very similar to the one i'm on this week. he asked me tons of questions about american farms, and he was super excited about everything. he told me a LOT about the area i was coming to, and he was overall a very neat guy. i also got to share with him a little bit about why i'm here and what i want to do with my life. and i got to pray for him and his family. so that was super neat. we exchanged email addresses so we can keep in touch.

(from the airplane. you can see java on the left (that’s actually the beach where i went backpacking last summer!), krakatau in the middle, and sumatra on the right.)

oh, and while talking about traveling, i have to share my many breakfast mistakes during my layover in jakarta. first of all, the krispy kreme exists only in the haji terminal (for people making the pilgrimage to mecca) i was told. so i made do with some cheap indo cafe thing, where you just slide your tray along and point to the foods you want. i pointed to potatoes, a boiled egg, and veggies. with rice, of course. i sat down to eat and.... the potatoes were cubes of horse stomach, the boiled egg had been cooked in hot sauce, and the veggies were actually tofu. rough morning. yet another thing to eternally hold against jakarta.

gt and wiwik met me at the airport in medan (quote of the day - me: have you noticed how many pregnant women are in this city? gt: oh, i didn't do all that. just the one (in reference to his pregnant wife). bahaha!)and after running a few errands there, we made the trek to the farm. we left medan at 8 pm, and due to gt pulling over a few times to sleep, the 6 hour drive ended up being a little longer - we didn't get here until 5 am!

needless to say, we slept in a little bit the next day before heading up to the farm. for some weird reason, i was the first one to wake up (at 8). and since nobody else was up, i cleaned out my room, which is more of an unused loft type place in the back of gt and wiwik's house. it didn’t have electricity before i came, but gt fixed it up for me.

(the complete contents of my loft room)

while i was sweeping up all the nails and sawdust off the floor, the room suddenly started to vibrate. EARTHQUAKE! since it’s all clapboard wood, it made quite a racket. i ran down the stairs (which are almost vertical and i am so scared i am going to break my neck) only to find that nobody else had even felt it (the bottom floor is all cement). lame.

we headed to the farm later that afternoon. it’s about a 20 minute drive up the mountain from  here.  and the roads aren’t always that great.

on the way, we picked up a kid who jumped in the back. a bit later, i noticed he wasn’t there, so we figured he must have hopped out at his house. a new calf was born the day before i got there (like he couldn’t wait just one more day!) so i got to see him as well as the rest of the herd that was recently imported from australia.

i also got to meet a lot of the workers that ron relies on when he is on java or in america. they’re a good bunch, though it seems there is always some kind of drama going on. i love being in the mountains though and around mountain people. they make me happy.

 

(turbo’s house. he’s the closest neighbor to the farm and has done a lot of work to help out. he calls ron his brother and he would do anything for him.)

later in the day, we went into town for lunch, and i discovered that unlike java, which is almost all muslim, the batak (the people group of this region) are mostly Christian and LOVE to eat pork! i was thrilled… i had the first pork that i can remember eating for months!

(honey roasted pork with sesame seeds)

i also learned a lot about the town. i’m still not sure how many people live in the town because it’s so spread out, but about 90% are christian. the town, turutung, actually prides itself on being the place where christianity started. naturally, they ate the first 2 missionaries that came in the mid-1800s, but then a third missionary came. german, i think. he came over the mountain, walking from another village some 70 km away, and when he saw the town below him, he spent time on the mountain praying for the townspeople. and then he came down and successfully evangelized the city. (which is code for: they didn’t eat him!) unfortunately, today, turutung is also known for its alcoholism, as most people who claim christianity only do so on their KTP (ID cards). however, there is a monument of a white cross that stands up on the mountain in the place where that missionary stopped to pray. it is right above our house, and this area of the mountain is known as salib kasih (love’s cross). it lights up at night and can be seen from anywhere in the city.

just below the strange glowing cross, but just above the house is a large building shaped like a boat. in the front of it is a giant Jesus holding out a nailscarred hand (the timeline is a bit off here) to calm the storm. beneath it there is an inscription that reads, “mengapa kamu takut?” (why are you afraid?)

(it’s a restaurant!! it kind of reminds me of the big butter Jesus on I75)

so there is definitely a rich history of Christianity in this region, but unfortunately, many people have fallen very far away from their faith. i have heard story after story of alcoholism, fornication, gambling addictions, men beating their wives, etc all done by christians, and some of this happening IN the church – like in the actual church building.

so anyways, that was a long introduction to this area. we all went to bed pretty early that night, completely exhausted. sadly, our evening of rest was quickly shattered. at 2:30 there was another earthquake. i woke up to find my steel framed bed bouncing across the wooden floor. that makes a lot of noise! i pretty much only remember laying flat on my  back, holding on to my mattress for dear life, and wondering if i was about to die and if it would hurt. it was only a small quake though, and it quickly quieted down. just as i was starting to drift back off to sleep, another one hit. this one a little bigger. i could hear gt and wiwik calling my name from downstairs, so i came down. they decided that we should all sleep on the floor just inside the front door, just in case we needed to make a hasty exit. so we did. we threw down two mattresses and crashed there, wiwik in the middle, of course. there were three more earthquakes between then and 6:50 am, each one a little bigger than the last one. wiwik is an early riser, so she got up right after the last one. gt and i are not. so we fell back asleep. and i tell you what, it is awkward to wake up at 8 o’clock in the morning beside another woman’s husband. every time the building started rocking, i would wake up, heart racing, and wonder if this was the one that would bring the house down. after the last one though, the sign from that restaurant came to my mind. Jesus said to me, “mengapa kamu takut?” when i woke up, i went up to my loft to read my bible, and i opened to that chapter where Jesus calmed the storm. and i felt foolish for being so scared the night before. God is bigger. and He has protected me and held my hand through so much already. what reason do i have to think He’ll stop now??

once we (finally) got moving, gt and i headed back up to the farm to check the cows, then down into town to pick up ron from the airport. we took him back up the mountain to see his new baby, and he was thrilled. he brought a ton of meds with him that he was able to find in medan, so we spent the afternoon giving cows shots. that was a real treat… all the cows are wild! we had broken needles, broken fences, but luckily, no broken people.

(luckily, one of the vitamin shots can be given subcutaneously or intramuscularly, so i was able to teach the workers there how to do both! on this VERY unhappy cow. she actually forced her way out through that hole that her head is in…)

i met some really neat people yesterday. i met a guy who used to be in the mafia in medan. he was an alcoholic and a wife beater and his wife left him 30 years ago with their 3 year old son. and just recently, he turned his life over to Jesus. and 2 months ago, his wife came back to him. he’s in the process of building a relationship with his grown son, and he hasn’t touched alcohol since then. his face shone as he was telling me all about this. it was awesome to see. we were looking for one of the workers who lives nearby, and we had to walk back through several different fields to find him. along the mud trails were shacks that people live in, and as we would pass, they would come out to say hi. (ron and i are currently the only white people in this part of the world.)  like i said before, i love the mountain people. i don’t care what part of the world i’m in. oh, and most of the fields were coffee fields. those are fun to walk through. and remember the kid who jumped in the back of our truck and then disappeared the day before? we definitely found him… with his upper lip stitched up and swollen out past his nose and his forehead cracked open. apparently he decided to jump out of the truck while it was still moving, caught his foot, and hit the ground face first. his dad told us that he laid there for almost an hour unconscious in the road before someone found him. his dad was real nice about it and thankfully blamed his son for doing something so stupid instead of blaming us. ron is going to pay his medical bill anyways though. and gt and i feel really bad about it… and while we were up there, there was yet ANOTHER quake. they are far less scary when you are standing outside in the daylight away from buildings, i have to say.

sooo. i had been volunteered to speak at a english language fellowship in town the following night. but (i thought) we were also invited to another one that same night. so ron and i went into town. we were told that it starts at 9, and since indonesians are ALWAYS late, we showed up a couple minutes after. we found a room full of college age students who didn’t speak a lick of english waiting for us. and no leader… we asked if they were waiting for us, and they said yes. so ron introduced us a little bit, and then he said that i was going to share with them. and i was like, “say WHAT?!” and he was like, “i told you….” and i was like, “yeah, for TOMORROW!” soooo…. that was awkward. but ron told me to just share my testimony. and the coolest thing happened. i opened my mouth, and this entire testimony came out. in indonesian.  that was definitely Jesus. after that, we asked if they had any questions for us. and besides the usual “what do you teach” and “how old are you?”, one girl asked if i was scared of the earthquakes the night before. and so i got to share with them about the restaurant on the hill (which they all knew) and i read them that part of matthew 8 and just shared with them about how our God is bigger and we don’t need to be afraid. then ron jumped in and talked a little bit about fear and how it has no place in a christian’s life if they are truly a follower of Christ. and then he asked if he could pray for them. and as SOON as he said amen, there was another earthquake. good timing, God. i gave my number out to a couple girls who stayed to talk to me afterwards, so i’m hoping that i get a chance to spend some more time with them while i’m here this week.

well, after all that, today was pretty boring. we spent all day getting sunburnt up at the farm. we mostly pulled up fenceposts and played around with rusty barbed wire. barefoot. because i forgot socks. and my boots gave me blisters. siigggghhhh. the only adventure of the day was trying to find lunch for wiwik. she’s in the crazy hormonal stages of her pregnancy and she really wanted spinach for lunch. so gt and i went to the market and looked in EVERY SINGLE STALL for spinach. none to be found. so we started to leave, and we got an sms from her saying she wants fish. so we went back. and gt found some fish for her. but THEN she smsed to say that the fish has to be fresh and from the sea. gt got the wrong one. his was salted. we started to leave to take it to her anyways. then she smsed and said she wanted papaya. so we went back and looked around for papaya. we found one. we started to drive away again, and got another sms asking for coconuts, and 2 other fruits i had never heard of. as gt read the sms, he uttered what has become the quote of the day, “this is unreasonable.” he told me that he already doesn’t like being a dad. i told him he just needs to stick out the next 8 months and hopefully it’ll get better. he mostly just slammed his head against the steering wheel in reply. due to pregnancy hormones, the rest of us didn’t get OUR lunch until 4:00. after working in the sun all day. we were a bit of a snappy crew by then. but we made it.

anyways, so many more adventures i could share, but i’m going to stop there. i’ll write the rest when i get home. please continue to pray….

1. wiwik is really struggling with the whole pregnancy thing. she hasn’t left her room for 2 days now and is crying about how homesick she is. it’s really starting to weigh on gt as well, naturally. on the bright side, this has opened up so many doors for me to minister right here in this house! dishes need done, dinner needs cooked, floors need mopped, etc.

2. i’m still nervous about earthquakes. i know God is in control, but 8 earthquakes in 2 days is scary stuff. i’ve been having trouble going to sleep at night, because i hate that feeling of being jolted awake by something unknown in the dark.

3. ron started breaking ground for their house today! pray that this process goes well and that the family can be moved out here by the end of this year!

thank you. : )