2017 was an okay year. If I could summarize it in one sentence, it would be “The year in which I did not keep up with my blog”. It had its ups and downs like any other year, but this year in particular, the lows seemed lower than normal and the highs seemed higher. There were a lot of emotions, and that might be part of the reason why I didn’t blog so much. But I don’t want to forget about many of those times. And I’ve had some requests to update people on my life. So I present to you the highs and lows of the past year of my life.
January
Basically the only unusual thing I did in January was to help orient and work with a team of 20-somethings that came from America to experience life in Indonesia. They came through an org that a friend of mine works with, and I had the privilege of helping them get to know more about this place I call home. They stayed for a month, but because of my work schedule, I wasn’t able to interact with them as often as I’d have liked. One awesome thing I did get to do with them was to travel to Jogjakarta and spend time in a slum there that I wasn’t even aware existed. The team put on a children’s program, and while they did that, I spent time just talking to people in the neighborhood and hearing their stories. One thing I learned about myself in 2017 is how much I love hearing people’s stories.
February
In February, I was asked to chaperon our students as they participated in a basketball tournament in East Java. It was my first visit to the city of Malang. I had a TON of fun cheering my students on, hanging out with them at the malls there, and eating LOTS of good food. I also got to watch our boys AND our girls bring home championship trophies!
March
March started out with spring break! This time for spring break, I chaperoned our senior class on their traditional senior trip. It’s always fun to spend time with students outside the classroom, especially as they are about to graduate and move abroad. They had lots of fun activities planned for their trip, but two of my favorites were going to the beach and doing “white water” rafting (the water was more brown than white. I was convinced we were all going to get typhoid and die…).
Also in March, school held its annual Junior/Senior banquet. I got all dressed up and apparently turned into a dancing maniac!
(Me with almost all of my Advanced Calculus class. They clean up nice.)
April
In April, our school hosted a badminton tournament for multiple schools, and since I’m the math teacher, I was given the task of keeping score. Because… numbers. So in preparation for that tournament and then during the tournament itself, I spent a huge amount of April learning about and watching badminton.
My 31st birthday fell on Easter Sunday in 2017, and I really enjoyed getting to spend my birthday at church celebrating the resurrection of Jesus! One of my little 3 year old friends brought me some lilies for my birthday, and it was a fitting reminder of my church in America decorated with lilies for Easter Sunday!
May
First and foremost, graduation happened.
That’s always a good but difficult time of saying goodbye to the humans I’ve spent the last four years with on a daily basis.
Shortly after graduation, I also said goodbye to a co-worker and neighbor. In honor of one of her last days in Indonesia, three of us single ladies got up SUPER early to go watch the sun rise over the rice fields.
While I am definitely not a morning person, this view is ALWAYS worth it. Especially with sweet friends like these!
June
The first week of June, I traveled to Kalimantan to visit a friend there. I also got to set foot in the northern hemisphere for the first time in 8 months! The equator runs through the city of Pontianak on the west coast of Kalimantan, and we visited the monument. Here I am with one foot in each hemisphere.
While in Pontianak, I also saw this gorgeous double rainbow right at sunset, which I thought was worth mentioning. :)
The month of June also brought about more goodbyes. My boss for the past five years moved back to America in June to be closer to family there.
July
July was a BIG month! First and foremost, my parents came to visit me in July! This was the second time they had visited Indonesia, and it was so special for them to be here and to see my life and meet my people. I will be forever grateful for the time we had together last summer!
On July 19th, I celebrated my 9th Indoversary – the anniversary of the day I first landed in Indonesia! To commemorate the event, I dug out my old passport and found the immigration stamp dated July 19, 2008.
Two VERY important graduations happened in the month of July as well. First, my friend Cinta, whom I have known since she was just a kid in middle school, graduated from COLLEGE! She has big plans for her future, and I’m excited to see where she goes! Also, my dear friend Aldi finished his PhD at a university in Australia. He spent the past 3 years living away from his family, so this was a HUGE deal for him – it means he is finally back home where he belongs! I also proofread his dissertation, so I have awarded myself an honorary PhD as well. Doesn’t he look doctorly?
During summer break, I made a goal to start working out regularly in the weight room at the school. I have this facility available to me for free, but I’ve never taken advantage of it! Not knowing how to use most of the equipment held me back during the school year, when the weight room was busy and I didn’t want to look dumb in front of all the pro worker-outers. But during July, while everyone was gone and I had the weight room to myself, I figured out how to work all the doo-dads and I got pretty consistent about working out! So consistent, in fact, that I demolished the only pair of exercise shoes I owned. So as a treat to myself for all my hard work and dedication, I bought myself a much nicer pair of athletic shoes!
Unfortunately, my streak of consistency was ruined by a trip to the beach. The trip itself was great, and I had a lot of fun with my friends!
However, at one point as I was running through the sand Baywatch style, the pinky toe of my right foot came in contact with something incredibly hard that did not give. Instantly, I thought to myself, “I just broke my toe”. It immediately began to swell, and within a few hours, it looked like this.
Grotesque, I know. Once the swelling went down, I was able to move my toe, so I convinced myself that it was a bad sprain and not actually a break. Three months later when it was still bigger than my other pinkie toe and hurt to put my full weight on, I rethought that conclusion. I never did get x-rays, so I guess I’ll never know whether or not I actually broke it. But I will tell you that to this day, I cannot sit cross-legged with my right foot on bottom – it squishes that pinkie toe and it hurts!
August
August brought about the start of the school year. This is the lovely teaching staff that I get to work with this year!
I was also featured in a local photography exhibition at an art gallery as well as on my gym’s Instagram page. Guess which one I’m more thrilled about…
While exploring my local grocery store, I also found the following two items that caught my eye. Your guess is as good as mine…
September
September was a month of change. Rainy season started, which meant saying goodbye to gorgeous sunsets like this…
…and saying hello to walking home in torrential downpours like this.
Yes, there is a soccer game going on in that picture. Yes, they are playing in what appears to be a lake. But if we cancelled games on account of rain, nobody would play sports from September – April.
All this rain did mean that my yard went from the photo on the left to the photo on the right in the matter of just a few days.
Melanie, my very best friend on this side of the world, told me in April that she would be returning to America for good at the end of the year. I grieved that loss when she told me in April. But then I also felt moments of deep sadness throughout the rest of the year as I contemplated life here without her. It was – and is – a very hard loss to deal with. It was around September that news of her leaving became more public, and it was also when we decided working on a bucket list of things we wanted to do together before she left. One of those things was driving two hours by motorbike to the closest Starbucks! This Starbucks is located at a rest stop on the nearby toll road. Unfortunately, two wheeled vehicles are not allowed on the toll road. So we got creative and found an access road that wound through villages and rice fields and rubber tree forests and eventually took us to our location! I was quite the adventure, and I love this memory of our day together!
My brother was also deployed to the Middle East in September. The day he was deployed, a friend here sent me this verse, and it is still hanging by my desk at work, right next to my brother’s patch from flight school.
October
I quit yoga, and my cat thought this would be a great time to start napping on my desk. He does it regularly now.
November
There is only one thing to mention about November, and that is saying goodbye to this guy.
This is my pastor in America. He went to the hospital one day with a bad virus, a few days later was diagnosed with end stage leukemia, and within a matter of days, he had passed into his eternal home. I got to know him well when I was last home, and I was so thankful that my home church had him. He was such a blessing to me, to my family, and to my church family as well. Grieving this loss from a million miles away was difficult to say the least. Going back to America this summer will be hard too. The America I left still had Pastor Paul in it, and it won’t feel right without him there.
December
I had one of the most interesting experiences of my life in early December. Our school was asked if we would be willing to have a guest speaker give a speech to our students and faculty. The administration agreed, and one day we were all called to an assembly in the school auditorium. The man who wanted to talk to us was North Korean. He had escaped from North Korea and wanted to tell us what life was like there. He spoke no English, so some of our high school students translated for him. I’ve seen pictures of North Korea, but none of them do justice to this man’s story. His entire family died there, and he himself only barely escaped with his life. He now lives and works in South Korea doing all he can to bring awareness to what is happening. The things he said were fascinating and tragic and heartbreaking all at once. When I think about atrocities happening in North Korea, I think of them happening years ago. But this man is my age. His story could be mine.
December, of course, also brought about Christmas and all the festivities that go along with it! I’m not sure how many Christmas parties I attended this year, but I sure baked a lot of cookies!
One other thing worth mentioning about December is that I got to spend my first Christmas with THIS guy. We began dating in mid-2017, and in the midst of all the ups and downs that 2017 had to throw at me, I am so thankful to have had him by my side as a friend, as an encourager, and as someone who always speaks the truth that I need to hear.
