There is this one worship leader at my church who really likes to sing songs 8 times in a row. And I'm not even exaggerating. Verses, chorus, bridge... all of it. Over and over and over. Sometimes it drives me nuts. This morning we were on the 6th round of "Dimuliakan, ditinggikan", when I started to feel really queasy and short of breath and my vision started going black around the edges. So I sat down and lip-synced the next three rounds. At least that song isn't a long one. Then pastor got up front and burst into a rendition (in English - I have no clue why he does this, because most people in my church don't understand or speak very much English) of "Jesus, I believe in You" as he does EVERY TIME HE PREACHES. So I sat through that too, and by the end of the song, I was thinking I was going to throw up (not because of the song, though I am pretty sick of it) and had a pounding headache. So pastor finished his super emotional rendition of the song (three times through), and then started preaching.
The sermon was on the power of thanksgiving. Right as soon as he said that, I remembered that I was supposed to call my family while they were at Thanksgiving dinner at gramma's house before I went to church. I must have been starting to be sick last night because I left a candle burning all night long on accident. I get really forgetful when I don't feel good. Anyways, right then, I grabbed my phone to text dad to ask if they had already left gramma's house. As I was texting, I felt Aswan jab me with his elbow. I looked up and realized that everyone in the congregation was looking at me expectantly, including the pastor.
Know how even when you're not paying attention to something, your mind kind of backlogs everything that's going on around you, and if you think for a second, you realize that you actually did just hear what was going on? Well, I am happy to report that just in the past couple months, I've been able to do that in Indonesian. It used to be that I had to really, really focus on everything that was being said because the second I spaced out, I would miss everything. But now I can kind of be half focused and still keep up. So anyways, I realized that pastor had just asked me what the population of the US is. Uhhhh.... I have no clue, and I told him so. So he asked me again. Yeah, I still didn't know. Not even ballpark. So he went on with what he was talking about (which was how all Americans have a whole holiday for giving thanks). Aswan whispered, "How can you not know the population of America?" So I replied with, "Do you know the population of Indonesia?!" He said, "Of course." And then he told it to me, but I forget.
Dad replied to my SMS saying that they'd already left, so then I had a stomach ache, a headache AND was feeling bummed that I forgot to call my family for Thanksgiving dinner. Laaaaame.
Pastor was still talking about how about 250 million Americans (he made up a number and went with it) celebrate Thanksgiving every year and how great that is that they all love God enough to have a whole holiday just to thank Him. I'm thinking, "Mmmhmm... That's what the holiday is about these days... The whole population of the US thanking God. Riiiiight..." And of course, right at that moment, he said to ME, "Can you please come up to the front and tell us about Thanksgiving? In Indonesian, please". And he stands there, smiling, holding his microphone out to me expectantly. I asked if I could do it from my seat, but he told everyone to cheer for me to get me up to the front, so you know I had to go to the front then. Peer pressure and all that. So I'm thinking he's asking what Americans do for Thanksgiving. But no, I get up to the front, and he says, "Tell the people the history of Thanksgiving!"
So I did. And I made it through explaining how people came from England and lots of them died because of how cold winter was and because they didn't know about the crops and animals there. And I talked about the Indians and how they helped them and there was a great feast and all that. There was one other white person there too, and I got her to come up front with me and feed me information. Because like I said, when I'm sick, I forget stuff. And I'm not fluent in Indonesian. So it was a lot easier to have this girl (who is new here and doesn't speak much Indonesian) feed me stuff in English that I could just translate instead of having to remember the story and form translatable thoughts on my own. She's studied a lot more history than I have too, so through her, we got to share about how George Washington made it a national holiday, then Abraham Lincoln reinstated it as a holiday after the Civil War.
When we finished, I asked Aswan if he understood it, and he said it was really clear and that we'd done a great job.
So today I had my first experience speaking to a congregation in Indonesian. The funny thing is that I don't get nervous about speaking in front of large groups in Indonesia the way I do in America. You'd think I would, Indonesian being my second language and all. But it really doesn't bother me so much. So there's an up-side.
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