Baptism

My friend, Pak Kur, invited me to his house this morning for his son's baptism. This meant I had to wake up at 5:30 in order to be at his house in the village in time to walk to church at 7. Pak Kur kindly SMSed me at 5 to make sure I was already up. So much for that alarm I set... He knows me so well.

In his tiny little village church, Javanese is the only language spoken. If it had been the lowest level of Javanese, I might have stood a chance of understanding what was happening. As it was, the entire service was conducted in the third level. So basically I spent 2 hours sitting on a hard wood bench in the tropical heat, and all I understood was Gusti (Lord) and Amin. Also, I could find the verses in the Bible when the pastor said them because the names of the books are the same in Indonesian, and I know my Javanese numbers pretty well. So that was loads of fun.

My favorite part of the day (even beating out trying to gingerly chase a gecko off the shoulder of the blissfully unaware elderly lady sitting in front of me) was this conversation with Pak Kur:

Pak Kur: Why haven't you been to my house for 65 days?
Me: (joking) Sixty-five days? I'm pretty sure it's been 64.
Pak Kur: (completely seriously counting mentally) Oh yeah, you're right! Why haven't you been to my house for 64 days?

And the most awkward moment award goes to Pak Kur's older brother who, upon getting ready to leave after lunch, came to shake my hand and loudly asked, "Do you want to marry Pak Kur's son??" Unfortunately, he asked me in Javanese, and I think the verb he used actually meant something like marry into the family of. So what I understood was, "Do you want to (that verb) Pak Kur?" And when I told him I didn't know that word, he explained it as "married". So I thought he was asking me if I want to marry Pak Kur, and I had NO. IDEA. WHAT. TO. SAY. Pak Kur, his wife, their three children, and their extended family were all sitting there! Um.... Awkward silence... Someone in the room saw my hesitation and quickly explained that they want me to marry his 21 year old son who just got baptized. And still, I really didn't know what to say. So that happened...

I love that family. And I love that I feel like a part of their family. But I probably won't be marrying into it anytime soon.