MEN. (I'm pretty sure I could live without them.)

I've been having man problems. But it's probably not what you think. What I mean is that I have had like actual altercations with multiple men. Just in the last two weeks. Here are the ones I remember.

1. I was riding a ferry to another island with some other friends (all female, all white) over Fall Break. It was a packed boat, and many people were standing. My friends and I happened to be sitting on a bench along the boat's railing. About an hour into the ride, an older gentleman decided it would be cool to come sit ON one of my friends and have his friend take pictures with his phone. I don't know on WHAT PLANET that would be an OK thing to do. Needless to say, my friend quickly shoved him off her lap. It solved the immediate problem. But he didn't go far. In fact, he just wedged himself in between her and my other friend who had been sitting next to her. Then he proceeded to use his arm to brush up against my other friend's chest while he pretended to be reaching for a railing. VERY SMOOTH, OLD MAN. I tried to be polite. Kind of. I mean, I led with, "What do you think you are doing, sir? There was no room for you to sit there, but you still sat there." So... I guess... not really polite, given that he was my elder. By, like, a LOT. But then when he just shrugged at me and said, "So? I paid for my ticket too," my voice may have gotten a little louder. Just a notch or two. Other people were maybe craning their necks to see what the crazy white girl was yelling about. Just maybe. I would just like to say in my defense that I kept my voice FAR more controlled than I felt like keeping it. We had a brief but heated debate in which he refused to move and then eventually started laughing at me for being so "mad and cute". My friends came and wedged themselves in next to me (farther down the bench) so that nobody had to sit next to his gross-ness. You can be the judge of who won that fight.

2. I was in the mall shopping for a notebook last week. Pretty standard. It seemed like a safe place to be. Until a college guy walked up to me full of confidence and said, "Let's play a game. If I lose, you can slap me in the face. If I win, you have to give me your phone number." Needless to say, I declined. And his creepy friend thinks I didn't see him taking pictures of the whole thing.

3. A different guy walked up to me randomly and out of the blue asked if I would take a picture with him (this happens regularly). I very politely declined (this also happens regularly), so he started taking pictures OF me instead (this does NOT happen regularly), hollering for me to come back as I walked away from him. HARD PASS, DUDE.

4. I went out for coffee with two female students one night this week, and I followed them home afterwards, just to make sure they got back safely. Well, they got a flat tire on the way home, so we pulled off the road to a tire patching place (they are all along the streets here). There were three men there. At first. Then they called their friends up and told them all to come see the white girls they had. So then there were six or seven men. All making crass jokes in Javanese and staring so much it took five men over an hour to do a 15 minute one man job. For real, I had to remind one guy to stop staring and keep working. TWICE. And then we had to pay them. That was the kicker...

5. I was out to dinner at a streetside cafe with some friends. A drunk guy walked in and honed in on one of my friends, and he came to stand behind her chair. Then he started chatting with all of us. He never said anything directly to my friend that he so clearly liked, but as he spoke, he started leaning over the back of her chair. Leaning... and leaning... and leaning... until my poor friend was basically laying on the table trying to keep away from him and his nasty beer breath. We asked him repeatedly to go, but he REALLY didn't want to leave the pretty girl.

6. I walked by a guy the other day in town who started making kissing faces/noises at me as I walked past. This actually happens more often than you'd think. Unless you're a white girl living... actually, if you're any girl living anywhere, I guess. This phenomenon is not region specific. So this happens more than you'd think. Unless you're a girl. Then you know exactly how much it happens.

7. As I was out with friends recently, I overheard two older men (I would guess they had grandchildren) nearby comparing all of us in Javanese, joking about which one of us they wanted. Some of us were too fat, others too skinny. EXCUSE ME, SIR. I CAN HEAR YOU. And more importantly, AKU MUDENG.

8. Along those same lines, a much younger guy walked up to me when I was with a group of four other girls, and made a comment about how many girls there were then totally felt free to ask, "Which one of you is for me?" Then he declared, "I choose that one," and pointed to one of my friends. Not awkward at all...

ANYWAYS. I say all this for two reasons.

The first is because I have really been struggling with what an appropriate response is to all these super creepy men I keep running into lately (it is NOT normally this bad). Because if I reply politely, if I reply in anger, or if I don't respond at all, the result is always the same - they just keep doing whatever they were doing. And that is, frankly, frightening. I have thought about it so much the past two weeks because it seems like these encounters have been happening over and over and over. I finally realized just a few days ago that all of this thinking about it had at some point turned into anger in my heart. I was ANGRY at these men for making me feel uncomfortable and unsafe. ANGRY at them for not respecting me. ANGRY at them for their selfishness. I've had two nightmares in the past two weeks about men attacking me or chasing me. I let anger and fear into my heart, and they have no place there. I don't want to shut down this discussion in my mind completely, because I DO want to know what an appropriate response - Biblically and culturally - is. But I'm working on the state of my heart as I wrestle with this.

And the second reason is because I just ran into a large group of men. In the dark. Outside my house. And they were construction workers. A rough bunch of men. AND I WAS WEARING MY PAJAMAS. I didn't realize they were there as I walked out the campus gate, but as soon as I did, I thought, "Perfect. Here we go again." But NO. They were SO NICE. And we had a great conversation! And they spoke Indonesian the whole time so that I could understand, and they didn't say sneaky things about me in Javanese! And they joked with me! And nobody stared at me! And they were just SO POLITE! And I walked happily back into my house thinking, "THERE ARE NICE MEN IN THIS WORLD. THERE IS HOPE!"


PS - My favorite people recently are people that I see notice me and who go on about their business without ever looking back. Because most people:

a) Try to take a sneaky picture
b) Stare
c) Say something wildly inappropriate
d) Look at me. Look away. Look at me. Look away. Look at me. Look away. Look at me...
e) Announce my presence to whomever they are with/near
f) Make weird animal noises

Today, for example, I was in the checkout line at the nearby minimart. In front of me was a lady with her 12 year old daughter. The daughter didn't know I was standing right behind her. Until she glanced back to look at something. I never looked directly at her, but I saw her look at me, size me up for a second, then turn back around and not say a single word. I APPRECIATE THAT, LITTLE GIRL. THANK YOU.

A Vomiting Heart

Well, well, well. The last time you heard from me was over 2 months ago. I haven't forgotten about this blog. There are moments in nearly every day where I think to myself, "I should write about this later". But when it comes down to actually sitting at my computer and DOING it, I am just.... TIRED.

I wrote last time about maybe biting off more than I could chew and my need for a lifeboat. More often than not these days, I come home from school, and I just sit. Sometimes I turn on music. Sometimes I put on a movie so my apartment doesn't feel so empty. Sometimes I come home and just sit down on my couch and stay there in perfect silence until it gets dark. Because sometimes that is what I need to do to recover from my day.

This semester hasn't been some deep dank pit of busy-ness and stress though. In the moment, it often feels like it is, but there have been so many moments of joy - great joy.

We've had two student retreats, one of which was with 2 other Christian international schools and both of which I helped organize, and they have both been fantastic. This year, I have witnessed my students cry out for God, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and pray healing over perfect strangers. Organizing high school retreats kind of feels like herding cats, but they resulted in so many precious moments that I wouldn't trade for anything. It's good for me to be reminded that my students are human. They are striving to live Christ-like lives. Like, that is the deep desire of their hearts. But they fall short. Just like I do. What I see on a day to day basis is often the falling short part. I see their frustration and their bad attitudes rather than seeing their hearts.

I've made some great friends - American friends - this semester. And we've had some wonderful adventures all over this great archipelago. They all have such a heart for Indonesia, and they see this place for what it is - a beautiful nation full of beautiful people. I get so EXCITED when I meet people who see Indonesia through God's eyes! Because so many people just write off Indonesia as dirty, backwards, and something to be tolerated.

Last month, an entire team of teachers met with the parents of a struggling student. This family is new to Indonesia this year, and their son was previously in the public school system in America. These parents told us that they have never had an experience like that before - where ALL of their son's teachers so desired for him to succeed that they set aside time to meet together with them and to pray together for their son. I am so thankful to get to be a part of that!

Thanks to El Niño, we have had an extended dry season. This has been a very selfish joy. I hate the rains. They should have started last month, but now, well into October, we are still having blissfully sunny days, and I am soaking them up. Unfortunately, other islands are experiencing serious problems because of the lack of rain. Sumatra and Kalimantan are both experiencing widespread forest fires which are having a SEVERELY negative impact on those areas. People are dying because of smoke inhalation. People are losing their homes, losing their jobs, falling behind in school. It's been months of inescapable smoke. Hospitals are running out of oxygen tanks. Outside of Java, the situation is dire. Many areas are now in a state of emergency. Please pray that rains would come and clean the air!

A lot of things that were keeping me so busy were specific to first quarter. Now that we're in second quarter, I feel like the workload has lessened a bit. I commented to someone the other day that I had some extra time AND energy, but that I'd forgotten what to do with that combination!