weekends

this weekend has been full of jagas (guards). we had a party last night at the home of a fellow teacher, and as i was leaving school, i decided to invite the guard. he's a young, single guy, and we chat often, so why not, right? he said he was too shy to come, but i convinced him, and sure enough, he was there with two other guards! it was pretty cool to get to talk to them and hang out with them. they didn't venture very far from sitting on the floor in one corner of the room the whole time. but they stayed for several hours and talked quite a bit! we talked about everything from karate and mexican gang tattoos to birthdays. i got one of the guards, mas bowo, to explain the meaning behind his two tattoos which are always covered when he's at work. he explained that his tattoos show his love for Jesus. he's had them since high school. and then i got to explain my tattoo and the meaning it has for me! cool stuff.

tonight, i ran into another guard at a coffeeshop here in town. he was there with a group of friends. i've been knitting a lot lately for some reason, and he happened to see my knitting in my bag and started asking questions until i finally just asked if he wanted to learn how to do it. and he said yes! so i taught one of the guards how to knit! he was oh-so-serious about it and did a great job on a few rows of a scarf i'm making for another friend. the rest of the group was teasing him about being so domestic and how now he carries knives at work and knitting needles when he's off duty. then he proceeded to demonstrate how he could severely injure someone with a knitting needle. at least now he'll have something to do when he's working the night shift here at school. (haha, just kidding casey!)

it's been a really great weekend. and a relaxing one too. tomorrow i'm leading worship for white church. i don't normally go there, but someone asked me to help out. so i'm playing guitar and a friend is singing. and like 150 people go there. and i'm realizing that i'm more scared of white people than i am of indonesian people.

oh, and if you think about it, would you please pray for my good friend yohanes? he just found out today (after being sick for most of the week) that he has typhus. it's not life threatening usually, but it makes you really sick for awhile. he needs LOTS of rest... and sadly, his next door neighbor is having some kind of dangdut (music) party. he lives about a kilometer away, and i can hear the music here. inside my house. poor guy...

one more point of interest - i think we're up to over 30 people this week alone that have died from drinking homemade alcohol made from a mixture of methanol and ethanol. just in this town. and at least 200 others have been hospitalized. why not just buy a bottle of rubbing alcohol and guzzle it? i think it would be just as effective. does it make me a bad person if i'm not super sympathetic toward this situation?? i mean, there's a simple solution: don't drink something that you KNOW could kill you! or... just don't drink. (that was for you, mom)