The title of this post describes my yesterday. Nothing necessarily happened to me, but the day was a good reminder that Satan is alive and well in this country. I had three main reminders of this.
1. I went to Aswan's house after school to pick some stuff up from him. I could tell he'd had a bad day, and he started to tell me about it. The night before, he'd had a bad dream, so he woke up feeling out of sorts. Shortly after waking up, he got a call from his older sister saying that their mom had a sum of money stolen from her. I won't tell you how much, because it will probably seem insignificant to you. But calculate how much money you make in a month. And that's proportionally how much she had stolen. His mom is not well off. She runs a little warung (kind of like a mini restaurant) with only one table on the sidewalk selling nasi pecel, a rice, tofu, and vegetable dish. So losing a month's wages - which she had been saving for a LONG time - is a huge blow.
But here's the part that gets me. Three men came in a car and ordered pecel. After they ate, one of the men asked if she had a cigarette. She told them that she doesn't sell cigarettes. So one of the men replied, "No problem. I can take you to the market to buy some." One of the men must have had some kind of dark power, because at this point, Aswan's mom says she was hypnotized. She vaguely remembers getting in the car with one of the men. Apparently, he drove her to the market where she bought 4 cartons of cigarettes (something she would NEVER do). Once she bought the cigarettes, the man left her there and drove away. At that point, she snapped out of whatever spell she was under and realized she was standing in the middle of the market holding boxes of cigarettes. So she had to walk back to her warung which, luckily, wasn't far. Once she got there, she realized that all her money (which had been in a hidden place) had been stolen by the other two men. The men were nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, this kind of stuff happens all the time. People invite Satan into their lives so that they can have power like this over other people. Theft is never ok, but what especially irks me is that these guys came in a car - which usually means they are pretty well off - and stole a month's wages from an amazing woman, struggling to put food on the table.
2. Last night, I went to Solafide (English language fellowship). At the end, we were sharing praises and prayer requests and GT (did I mention that my good friend GT moved back to Salatiga from Sumatra?!) asked for prayer for his mother in law. She had a stroke several years back and has been bedridden ever since, but she's been getting a lot worse lately - part of the reason he and his wife (and their new baby - CUTEST THING EVER!) moved back. A lot of older Javanese people will invite "spirits" to live in them to give them a long life, beauty, strength, etc. But this becomes a huge problem when the person is ready to die - the spirit often won't let them. They die long, slow, painful deaths as the spirit slowly releases its grip on them. I've seen it happen twice already. We believe this is what is happening to GT's mother in law. Every time people come to pray for her, she goes into fits, to the point of where they have to stop praying because they are afraid for her. The spirits need to be cast out of her so she can die, but how can they cast the spirits out if they can't pray for her or declare the name of Jesus in her presence?
3. After all that, I got home last night, and one of my favorite guards was at the gate. He opened up the gate with his usual goofy grin and asked, "Are you scared of ghosts?" I said no, but he didn't believe me. So I explained that I don't really believe in ghosts, which - in the American definition - are people who died then came back to life as evil spirits (that was the best way I could explain it in Indonesian), but that I DO believe in Satan. But I don't have to be afraid of Satan because I have Jesus and He's bigger. So the guard finally believed me and was telling me that the night before, there had been a demon at the gate. Right outside my house. I was like, "Oh, great...." We actually did have a really good conversation about it though. And then we started talking about helmets. I don't really know why.
So yeah. Today, boyfriend was on his way to Solo to pay his visa application fee - because you have to do it at one specific bank - when I got an email notifying me that the US Embassy is closed until further notice. Thank you, U.S. government for finding it more beneficial to beat dead horses than to actually make some real decisions. Visa process at a standstill until further notice (which hopefully comes soon enough that we can still apply). And I can only get American assistance if I die, get arrested, or my child is kidnapped. Perfect. *rolls eyes*
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