Healing

(BE WARNED:  This post might mess up your theology and/or the way you live)

I haven't really been updating you on what we have been learning in our lectures so far this month. But this week, I can't NOT tell you because it is so amazing!

We had a week to learn how to heal and heal on the streets.  Really the expectation is that Jesus told us to go out and heal the sick (Mark 16:18, Matthew 10:7-8, and many more times) so we should do it.  The men who were teaching really take Jesus simply at his word and it was so beautiful to watch and learn from their lifestyle.  It was all about Jesus and how much he loves people and how he has given us authority to heal.

I know of a couple amazing healing stories from Canada. One is of a woman who had brain cancer. But I had never been present when someone was miraculously healed or even prayed for someone who was healed of something major over a longer period of time.  This week we learned the basics of how to pray for nonbelievers for healing and how these men have experienced healing to work. After learning that we saw legs grow longer, spines straighten, and pain leave knees and shoulders.  I'm sure there are more things, but even that was amazing!   It takes an open mind to believe that it really happened and that there isn't some other way to explain a healing. And it also takes being there. I can imagine that two years ago I would not have believed that someone was really healed or would be really healed.  And if I saw a video like this one, I would have thought that it was a hoax.  (This man really challenges me, because you know that he just knows how much God loves people and wants to draw them to Himself. And this guy is willing to look a little crazy if someone is gonna get healed.  Because when they are healed, you don't look so crazy anymore.)

I now am left wondering how I'm going to make this information part of my normal life at home. Can I actually be brave enough to walk up to someone in Canada and ask if they would like prayer for healing? Could I even pray this way for my friends and family or will they think I'm crazy too? Obviously I would hope that people would be open, but I thought that this all was pretty crazy two years ago.  I wouldn't blame people for not being open or interested or whatever.

Back in Slovakia

We went skiing our first week back in Slovakia, but unfortunately, the only snow we had was the stuff they made on the hill. You can see the beautiful fall scenery in the valley. 

But our last day skiing we had maybe half an inch of new snow which made it more interesting. And my skiing definitely got better over the three days.  I hadn't skied in two years. 

Many more exciting things to happen in the next few weeks! 

 And I'll be home for easter. That is my number one question I get asked lately. 

Bali is Beautiful

Do I really need to use words?  Can't I just use pictures?

Funny Morning

What is that last thing I would do in Indonesia?  Teach kids to dance!

But God just so happens to remember that I have that skill, that I learned that skill once upon a time, that I had my own great dance instructors that I can very easily use the tricks of... and he put it all to use today!

We are spending time teaching English at a school here, which is super fun. They have between 20 and 40 kids in a class (three teachers to a class when there are so many kids) and their english is actually really good. All the teachers can have a full conversation with us, and with some prompting all the older kids can hold a conversation. Usually we just go teach vocabulary in whatever class they have that day. Last time I did the human body with one of those take-apart people (Gloria- this one was very definitely a girl).  The other group did the solar system. But today was culture. They asked us to teach them our "traditional dance". First of all I don't think Canadians have a traditional dance. And I definitely don't know where to start with Ukrainian. So what was our best option?

Yes you guessed it. Line Dancing. That is very North American right?
So there are 30 some kids who went home today being able to do the Cadillac Ranch!
I used all my dance experience, and dance teaching experience today to help it along, but these kids picked it up faster than I expected. I actually don't have the song Cadillac Ranch on my ipod so some Garth Brooks and Cotton Eye Jo had to make do. But they definitely had fun, and I learned that every skill can be used on a trip like this!

They start off good!

To the right, to the left, And backwards!

Picture Update

Long Awaited Update

February 6, 2011

I have been horrible at blogging. And I know I have been, so I apologize if there is anyone back in Canada longing to hear about Indonesia and being disappointed.  So I will try to summarize a month in one post.

First an outline:

Two weeks spent at one orphanage that actually takes in senior citizens as well that don’t have support

Two weeks in a much larger orphanage in a bigger city

Three days in Singapore

Back to our original home base in Indonesia for the first three weeks of February

The first orphanage was really cool. They had half boys, half girls and they were aged 10 to 20’s.  They actually had four kids attending university, including one adorable girl who was going to be a midwife. We were amazed to see that they had a beautiful garden with a fish pond, so we enjoyed having our quiet times there. We got to visit the kids’ school and help teach English. Never in my life had I tried to teach English before, and I’m actually not very good at it. But I’m a native speaker and sometimes that is all they want. Alex and I had the same conversation 10 times over while the kids answered questions.  But we also played language/vocabulary games with them, and shared about our cultures.  We had a few more opportunities to help there, including cleaning out our host’s kitchen.  It was pretty gross, including a mouse/rat living under a cupboard. Not so nice. But we got it all done!

I think my favourite visit to the community was visiting the families of soldiers who had been deployed.  The men can be gone for up to two years, and the women are all but held captive by the army who doesn’t want them to be unfaithful or get into trouble.  The catch is that often the men are unfaithful.  Thankfully these women have each other for support, but it is not easy.  It was really nice to be able to encourage them.  My heart really is for women’s ministry so I really enjoyed that.

It was sad to leave that orphanage, but we didn’t know what was waiting for us.

I was overwhelmed by the number of kids at the next orphanage. I never thought I would learn all their names. But amazingly I think I had most everyone, excluding some of the boys because they weren’t really my responsibility while we were there.

This orphanage was really cool because they had wifi. And internet connection on the base is something amazing for Indonesia.  We were very blessed in our time at this orphanage, even though they had the earliest wake up time: 4:30 quiet time with kids, 6:30 everyone else gets up.  Michal had his birthday there, and he had something like 4 birthday cakes over the course of the day, and he had to be dunked himself in the fish pool there. It was tradition, so he submitted to it. We also went for an Indonesian massage for his birthday, which wasn’t so relaxing because it was pretty strong, but our bodies felt pretty good afterwards.  We only visited the school there once, because we had so many opportunities at the orphanage. We sanded and painted rusty bunk bed frames that had been donated.  And Michal actually raised money to buy them mattresses and a fridge, so it was pretty cool to see them receiving material things they really needed as well.

We spent three days in Singapore after that. But what seemed like three days actually ended up being only one day.  We arrived at 6pm on Friday and left at one or two on Sunday.  So really, all we had was Saturday.

We fit in almost a full day of sight seeing. We took the metro to a district filled with malls and hotels to see the largest fountain in the world. Dissapointing! It was barely turned on! But while we were there we realized that the pan pacific hotel has great elevators. And we wanted to see if we could get in to ride one. We definitely succeeded. All the way to the top! That was a really cool view.

Then we went to the Singapore flyer, worlds largest observation wheel. Didn't go on it but ate lunch there. And Art loves formula 1 racing and he had to see the race track/ pit building for the Singapore race. And amazingly you could just walk up to it. I walked across the finish line Janka did a cartwheel across.

Then we went to see the thing I most wanted to see: a fancy bridge built as a double helix to support it. The internet says it is the only curved bridge in the world. (maybe it was the first when it was built?) Then across the bridge we went to a new mall, hotel, theatre, casino complex. It was super cool. We kinda snuck in there too. But we didn't get very high. I think it was worth walking to though.

Then we checked out the church we wanted to go to the next day. And I got to be in an English Christian bookstore... Such a treat! Then home for a couple hours to rest. Then back out to see the fountain show... That was definitely more disappointing than seeing it the first time. Did not live up to the pictures at all!

But we had supper and walked to the bay to see the lights... But it started pouring rain. Everyone was drenched except Alex and I had jackets so our tops were dry. My backpack was soaked! But I think everyone enjoyed being soaked, at least until we entered the air conditioned metro. Art wasn’t happy with being soaked in a cold train.

Sunday morning we went to church. A very famous church led by Joseph Prince. New creation church. Something like 20000 people attend a service every Sunday. It is huge. And broadcast all across the world. So I went in expecting one thing and found completely another. This guy is pretty great. He knows his stuff. Some might argue about his emphasis, but I think if his church is so big he definitely is making a difference in lives. So that was an amazing experience.  He actually broadcasts all over the world as well.

By the end of the service we needed to go straight to the airport to catch our flight. When I look at the list it looks like so little that we did but it seemed like a lot.

The boys watching the construction of a new art gallery against the Singapore skyline (photo taken on the super cool bridge)

Now we are back at our home base and having a great time. Its awesome because we already know the kids. And they have found new opportunities for us here which are really exciting. So we have 20 days left in Indonesia. A week of them will be in Bali. It is so close, yet I want to enjoy every day we have left.  

So that is my update… sorry it has been so long in coming. And there is still time to give money for the building that is being restored. My mom tells me people are giving, but I don’t know how much is still needed.  I would give more information on the building and its use but I’m unsure how much is safe to talk about via internet. Not that we are doing anything wrong, but better safe than sorry.  I am very excited about it though, and can’t wait to talk about it when I get home and to share pictures after they have done all the repairs!

Building in Need of Repair

This building could be completely repaired for 400 Canadian Dollars. 

And would be put to very good use. 

Talk to me or my parents if you want to help.

You would be blessing these Indonesians.

Fast Update

It is impossible to update this blog, that is why I'm barely trying!  We do so much every day, I barely remember at the end of the day what I did at the beginning.  It has been really cool to be here. We have visited many churches and groups and spent time with kids which has been really fun.  I feel bad, but I always have a favorite, and my favorite here is adorable!  First Grecian nose I've seen on an Indonesian.  Honestly.
But we are all really enjoying it here. There is almost exactly a month left of our time here, but less of ministry.  Our last week is meant to be a bit of a vacation, and hopefully I can get a tan then because it isn't going very good.

But all you really need to know is that I love it here right? No change when it comes to that.

Wordless... Tuesday?

Volcano

I really should post on significant things that we do, but it is so hard to think about how to be cryptic!  So instead you get to hear about my perfectly normal experience with a volcano.

So this morning, we left at 00:00 to drive to a volcano near by. Well, if two and a half hours is near... So we got to the city at 2:30am, waited for an hour and a half for a jeep to take us most of the way up the mountain, then it was to walk. In flip flops. In the dark. In ash? maybe sand?  It actually wasn't that far to the the top, but halfway up the cloud rolled in. Everyone else continued at the top, but i figured that I'd stay were I was and hope that I would see a sunrise and not just cloud... Unfortunately I don't think anyone saw a sunrise. However, once the cloud lifted a bit, around 6am, we got to see the actual volcano which is active, and emitting ash. It was quite the sight. And what did I do? Forget my camera. Yep. So everyone else's pictures will have to do for me, but I'm still upset about that.

But I've seen a volcano. I looked up some info on it on wiki so I understand what I saw much better than I did this morning, and I think I can cross it off my bucket list if I wanted too... but I think being on the actual volcano is still required. :)

New Years!

January 6, 2011

Happy Ukrainian Christmas! 

It has already been 6 days in 2011.  That is so hard to grasp! Only six days ago I was in Malaysia under the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.  But we have already had five days at our newest home, with 20 kids and the amazing lady who is in charge of them all.  It seems strange both ways!

If you haven’t heard, we celebrated New Years in Malaysia.  We flew out the 31 and came back the first and celebrated with probably 100, 000 Malaysians.  The Petronas towers are a huge landmark so we headed straight for them when we arrived in Kuala Lumpur.  However, we didn’t realize a couple things:

The airport is an hour drive from the actual city

There wasn’t any direct way to get to the towers from where we were

And there isn’t 24 hour service on the public transit, even with New Years.

So we improvised and checked our options and got help from a great man in McDonalds… and ended up on a bus to the center of the city for only two euro.  That was MUCH cheaper than we expected so we were very happy with that.  Once at the central station it wasn’t difficult to get someone to explain how to get to the towers by LRT (funny story, their public transit is called both an LRT and Skytrain- mixing my Edmonton and Vancouver vocabulary).  Thankfully Malaysians speak English much more fluently than Indonesians, or at least the ones we meet!  And there were more white people in the capital so we didn’t get stared at as often which we were very thankful for.  We caught one LRT to the towers, stepped out of the subway station and Art and Janka needed to kiss the ground. That made the taxi drivers look! 

The towers… super cool!  They actually were featured in a movie with Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Connery in the 90’s.  You can bet that I’m going to watch that movie when I get home.  Janka felt like a secret agent the whole night.  However, you can’t really go up the towers, so we just looked up at them.  At the bottom is a huge shopping center, probably four or five levels, and it is very high class.  They had great designer labels, and we quickly realized that this is not somewhere we are going to get deals on anything.  However, I found my first English bookstore in months. I felt so at home. I could have stayed for hours, even just reading kids books!  And Janka had her first Starbucks ever, which was a pretty great place to do it.  We had a huge fountain in front of us and the towers beside us and more sky scrapers surrounding.  We really just spent the day in that immediate area.  It got more and more full during the evening with people who were waiting for the new years countdown.  Unfortunately, they hadn’t really put any effort into a program or anything… there were some drummers, but I didn’t even hear a countdown over the loudspeakers, but that might have just been because everyone was being super loud even three minutes before the clock changed.  And there were fireworks, which was nice. We even could see more fireworks in the distance. It was just nice to have the four of us celebrating together, and to be on this adventure together.

After the fireworks we waited around, as we knew that we couldn’t get on a bus back to the airport until 3:15 so we had plenty of time to kill.  Miraculously, Alex got a skype call through some very temperamental wifi we were trying to connect to.  We took a train back to the central station around two and ate some McD’s and found some better wifi.  Then got on our bus back finally at 3:30.  Now I was completely out on the bus ride, but everyone else said it was a rollercoaster ride.  Apparently they were worried for their lives.  But I got a nice hour of shut eye.  At the airport we got through security thinking we could sleep at the gate.  That didn’t work very well for a couple reasons, but the biggest was the extreme air conditioning.  You don’t expect to be shivering here, but that definitely was close! So we slept a little, got on the plane very groggily at seven and headed back to Indonesia.   Now, if you have been paying attention you can see that I’ve gotten maybe two hours of sleep when I get on the plane, then I got two more on the plane… so I was tired when we arrived.  We all were.  But I think that the trip was worth it.  I even got to skype with friends from home on the first, when it was new years in Canada, which was really a treat. I hadn’t talked to most of them since I left, so it was really good to catch up a tiny bit, even if it was hard to see the celebration I was missing. 

So now it is 2011.  I definitely will remember this year.  And I realize that I haven’t said anything about my week in this post. I guess next time!  

What life is like...

December 28, 2010

So many things to say, but so little time to type!  We have been having a great time with the kids here.  Because it is Christmas, they all are on break, which means they are around all the time, and don’t have homework!  Woot!  So we are really enjoying having time to hang out with them, play games, and get to know them as individuals more.  When there are 26 kids it can be hard to get time to figure out their personalities, but we definitely are getting there. But instead of trying to explain everything we have been doing, maybe I’ll give some highlights. 

Yesterday we played telephone with the kids (where you sit in a circle and whisper a message around the circle until it gets back to the start).  These kids have learned some English, and I’m beginning to see their confidence in it grow as we use it with them all the time.  So we played telephone with English words and it was hilarious. Not only do you have the issue of their limited knowledge of English, we also have to contend with Indonesian accents, Slovak accent, Dutch accent, actually only two of us were native English speakers.  And because we had 30% of our circle consisting of teenage boys, they delighted in changing the message on purpose.  Someone was a monkey by the end of one message.  Alex (affectionately called Mr. Bean by the kids) liked coffee instead of it saying that someone else is cute. And they all would yell over top of each other at the end of each round trying to figure out who had changed the message, where it had gotten messed up.   It really was great.

Not only do we have the bigger kids, but there are four little ones as well.  One baby, and three other girls six and under.  And they are precious.  The little English they know is adorable.  They are terrific mimics. I delight in being with any or all of them.  A few days ago, everyone went out for sports in a nearby field and all three of the little girls were with us.  But they needed to go home because their staff member had called for them.  So I had three little Indonesian girls with me as I walked down the street. One was on my hip, and one was holding my hand, and the other was holding her hand. Like that we walked maybe half a block down the street.  But halfway home an Indonesian woman stopped me and was touching their hair and smiling and speaking in Indonesian. I just smiled at her, said good day, and kept walking, but I realized that this lady probably thought they were all mine. Me. With three girls aged 3, 5, 6… yeah right!  And they don’t look like sisters either, so I donno how she accounted for that.  It was a weird experience, especially to have in a different culture and with a language barrier.  Not that you don’t want to take them home, they are that cute.  They just aren’t mine.

Lastly, today we visited a man who owns a church building. His father had built it with his own money, and pastored a church in it, but after his fathers death the church now no longer had a congregation and had fallen into disrepair.  But there is a permit for this building to actually be a church so he wants to make sure that the church is used in that way, because it is so hard to get a permit like that. However, there are major repairs that need to be done.  We asked God what he wants to do with the building, and I really believe that God does have a plan and a use for the building. The problem is that it is unusable in its state.  We asked the man how much it would cost to repair it, thinking how much God would need to provide in order to see the church restored.  We know that God can provide resources to repair it, because we have seen supporters give us huge amounts of money for DTS and we know that it was God’s provision then. I was thinking a couple thousand euro, Alex was thinking maybe 10 or 20 thousand US dollars.  But the true amount is 320 Euro.  That is it. To us that is a tiny amount of money. It is a lot of money in this country.  An iPhone costs more than that in Europe.  And here an entire building can be repaired for God’s use. It blew us away. 

I hate asking for money, but I really think that in this case, there is some legitimacy in asking.   I realize that it is just after Christmas and everyone probably has a big master card bill to pay. But talk to God about it.  See how he wants to use your finances.  See if he will show you something that you don’t need.  See if he wants to use you to repair a church at a fraction of the cost of a church in Canada.  Talk to people in your lives about it.  They know about things like Samaritans purse, but they don’t get to see the before and after pictures of what their money has done in those cases.  I’m so excited because here the money actually has a before and after picture to go with it.  We can hear the testimonies from people who will attend a bible study in this building. We can hear how this builds the ministry that is already happening in this city.  And the money required is so small.  Less than 450 CAD.  It is absolutely crazy to think that God doesn’t want to provide that money, that God wouldn’t want to see his church restored and used again. So I challenge you to pray, and to challenge those around you as well with the story. God can use you to make a huge difference here. (Wow I sound like a World Vision commercial…)

So as you can tell, things are going great here. There are probably 100 more stories I could have written on, but those will have to wait.  Have a great holiday season and Happy New Year!

Christmas!

December 26, 2010

Merry Christmas! As far as Christmas goes, this definitely was one for the books.  The night before we had a devotional time and stayed up late watching a movie with the kids. I went to bed at one. Then we got up super early to fill stockings, which was such a hoot.   We had brought chocolate for all the kids at the kids home we are helping with.  And they had stockings from last Christmas, so it even seemed legitimately Christmas-y.  We went back to bed after that, because 5am is a little early for us.  But we went to Catholic mass with Janka at a more reasonable hour.  Then off for breakfast, and back to our “hotel” for some team Christmas time.  It was beautiful, hot and sunny. So we thought we might work on our tans.  Instead we ended up having a water fight in our front yard.  The neighbours probably thought we were nuts, but we really enjoyed ourselves.  We could just let loose and really enjoy the fact that we were in Indonesia and it was hot!  It isn’t your normal Christmas activity, but it put us into more of the Christmas spirit for sure.  Then in the evening we participated in my favourite Christmas activity: dressing up and making the nativity. We had all our actors choose their parts from a hat, and it turned out perfectly.  The shepherds were very convincing, although their sheep were a bit rebellious. The wise men brought cereal, a trophy and a big water jug. And Mary was a guy dressed up in blue tie die. I actually had never seen so much tie die in a nativity before! But it was great. After they had finished, the props became musical instruments as they started singing. It was beautiful. The little girls were dancing, the percussion was intricate, and the singing heartfelt.  It was a beautiful moment, better than we could have planned. And everyone was still in costumes, so the shepherds were banging in one corner and a wise man was blowing through a hollow broom stick. Very cool. And that is what made it Christmas for me. 

Indonesian Food

December 20, 2010

So food here has been amazing. Since I got over the stomach bug or whatever I ate, and got over the resulting fear of all the food here, I’ve enjoyed it so much.  As some people will know, I was essentially eating rice every day last year in university anyway, so I’m loving the rice. And the food to go with it is always great.  Often we have a vegetable, and then some kind of great meet.  Everything from chicken, to fried fish, to battered prawns (those were amazing), pork on a stick, and pirate chicken (meat on a stick that looks like a chicken leg).  And since we are near a mall, we go to the supermarket and get all kinds of great stuff there too. There are these cheap lemon cookies that look a lot like ritz crackers with sugar on them. They are super cheap and great in tea.  Here in the big city they also have lots of American options.  McD’s is obvious, but A&W was more surprising to me (and they sell twist ice cream cones!) and Wendy’s was also surprising.  Pizza hut has a motorcycle delivery guy.  Baskin Robbins and Yogun Fruz both are in the mall, but they are at American prices.

When we went to the first cell group, they served us all kinds of great food. Fried mushrooms, and tofu, and kasava (a potato like starchy root).  And they gave us chilli peppers too. And they took us out for a traditional Indonesian drink.  Essentially, it was milk, egg, ginger and honey.  Ginger Egg Nog. It was warm and it came in chocolate flavour! So good.  Made me feel super healthy but not everyone liked ginger. 

At the village the food was unbelievable.  The chilli sauce… so good. The peanut and chilli sauce… better!  I can’t even explain how good all the food was. And how fresh!  We met one boy who we fell in love with, whose parents have many different things that they grow: cocoa, coffee, papaya, banana, durian, kasava, avacado. (durian is this crazy fruit which I swear isn’t meant to be eaten.  It is spiny with seeds inside that are covered with this funny white creamy stuff. You are supposed to suck the creamy stuff off the seeds, and Indonesians love it… me not so much). . But I went on a walk with six kids from the village and they showed me all the plants. So I’ve seen all these things growing, which kinda looks like they all grow in the jungle naturally because they are all mixed together but someone is harvesting it and probably is in charge of that land.

Oh, and the other thing was that they served us Asian peanuts.  I don’t know what they are actually called, but I swear they are different than peanuts we get in Canada. They make me think of peanuts from the Philippines, which I have had before, so it was kinda like comfort food to have them again.

There are tons more foods, but if I typed about all the funny sweets and chips and puffy cheetos without cheese on them. Everything seems to be a puffed chip or something. Anyways, that is all the food I’ll talk about for now. Tomorrow we change homes again, but it should be good.

A week of Contrasts

It has been a week since I blogged last, and I have experienced so much that I don’t know what to actually write about!  This week we spent in one of the larger cities in Indonesia, which had its perks.  Internet availability has been one. Another was the huge shopping mall, with a “hypermarket” that carries all kinds of good things like Tim Tams (we are close enough to Australia I should have guessed) and frosted flakes.  They also have an A&W and McDonalds.  For 25 euro cents I can get a McD’s cone.  That is pretty amazing!   But I digress.  I’ll talk about food in the next post!  So during this week we have experienced some amazing things.  God has done some things that definitely show his love and power.  Our first day of ministry here, Alex actually got really sick.  I have my suspicions to why, but the testimony is that we prayed for him in the morning when he looked like a zombie and by supper he was himself again. Everything we did that first day, we thought was going to be super hard.  Talking to street youth. Teaching English to kids.  Sharing at a cell group.  But God showed up every time.  Every one ended up blessing us more than we felt we blessed them.  I think that God wanted to build our confidence. We absolutely loved the cell group, and they loved us.  We had an amazing time of worship together, and they knew enough English to allow us to carry on a conversation without an interpreter, which is such a blessing since six of us only having one interpreter can make things unnatural.  The rest of the week wasn’t such a walk in the park, but it was really good. We had some late night ministry time, and another cell group meeting. We fed some of the homeless/poor/street community with a pastor, which was a really good experience to see the not so nice part of the society.  And we prayed for healing for a couple people one night too. We had an amazing experience praying for healing for a somewhat young mother with cancer and an older lady with kidney failure.  To see what God is wanting to do and is doing and speaking it out in faith… I for one was changed by the experience. 

But that was only half of our week.  For the weekend, we went from our fairly industrialized and modern city to a mountain village. And although they have power, and running water… I was not prepared.  This is the only home I’ve been in with a dirt floor in the kitchen.  And the bed was made of wooden slats, with spaces between them.  And the mattress was very thin.  I needed to get over the moths and geckos in the bathroom, and the very big (hand size) spiders outside.  But those are the negatives.  Once you get over that, you realize that this is the most amazing experience. I was in the jungle.  There was no doubting that! Banana trees and palm trees and bamboo… I actually couldn’t take it all in.  I didn’t realize it was bamboo outside the window until the last day.  We met the most amazing kids.  We prayed for healing for multiple people in the village, and we asked the kids to pray with us.  And as we prayed for the first man, we asked a 12 year old boy that we had grown to love if he would pray.  And as he was praying, God really touched him.  It was so clear to me as I watched that God has a call on his life, and wants to call out this boy for great things.  And every person that we prayed for had some experience of God, and most if not all had improvement in their conditions. It was really encouraging to see God healing people right there in front of us. We spoke at four services over the weekend, all taking turns.  And it was really cool to see how God even uses us to speak to each other. Often I was taking notes from the “sermons” that they had prepared.  As we were at one church it began to rain (rain in the mountain means ‘flash flood’), and after the service ended we had to run to save our sandals from washing away (you leave your footwear outside a building when you enter, except on Sunday at church, which I haven’t figured out yet).   And the second service we attended on Sunday was at a church that had outgrown its building.  We sat on the patio, under a blue plastic roof, sweltering during the two plus hour service. Thankfully they gave us refreshments (more about that when I talk about food in my next post!)

So now we are back in the big city for a couple more days, before our leader Steve and Ben, his son leave to go home for Christmas. Then it will be “just the four of us” for a week and a half until our other leaders come.  Christmas in 20 degrees. I can’t comprehend that yet…

Church

Church on the 12^th was great.  I really enjoyed it. First great thing: air conditioning.  That made it much better.  But the music was great too.  I think it is easier to pronounce and sing along in Indonesian. Less weird syllables with just consonants and no vowels in between.  The music was really good.  One of the guys we are getting to know led worship, and another girl we know too. And our Alex actually got recruited to play keyboard, which really speaks of his talent, because he didn’t know the songs before their practice session the day before.  And he sounded great with them.  The band was such professionals that even when the power went out (which it did twice) they just kept singing.  No amplification, the piano gone, the guitar turned acoustic, but the congregations voices kept going. Pretty sweet. That would have stopped the service at home!  Ben and Art gave testimonies (which of course were awesome).  But my favorite part was the sermon.  This Indonesian lady was amazing.  She had all the spunk of an African Christian woman who tells it like it is, and the emphasis and interaction with the crowd you expect in a good preacher in a small church (to be fair it was a small church).  Anyways, we didn’t have any translation but about 25% of the time I knew what she was talking about.  The other 75% I was just enjoying her spirit, her attitude, and her speaking style.  Oh, and she spoke beautiful English to us after the service and actually welcomed our team in English before she began her sermon.  Very cool. 

I’m glad we will get to go to this church a lot while we are here.  I really enjoy it and the people. 

Indonesia

Sunday, December 12, 2010  11pm  (posted the next day when I got internet)

Wow.  That is all I can say about our first week in Indonesia.  Now that we are here, I’m so glad that we had no idea what we were getting into!  The difference between Canada and Slovakia is nothing compared to the differences in Indonesia.  And I’m really not very well prepared to come on a trip like this, as I’ve never been any farther south than Iowa.  At least if I had gone to Mexico, I’d have more of an idea.  But this is completely different than everything I’ve ever known.  The food, the traffic, the humidity, the smells, the scheduling, the bathrooms… all significantly different. And it made the first couple days super hard.  But it is only day four (Sunday).  The first day it was easy to attribute grumpiness and not being excited about the differences to jetlag.  But we had these funny little fruits the first night, and they pretty much put me out of commission for the entire second day.  So while I was laying in bed feeling sorry for myself, the team was off getting excited about the culture and the people we were with.  Thankfully I’m feeling like myself again (and starting to trust food again) which means I can start enjoying the country again.  But for the second and third day, every strong smell in the street would make me nauseas.   It was really a struggle, because everything smells strongly here!  So I really appreciated your prayers on those two days.  It was nice knowing people at home were praying for me, even though they didn’t know what was going on.

But I guess I should tell you more about what we have seen and done.  I’ve seen the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in the wild.  I’ve already gotten used to the gecko/lizard things on the walls.  The boys had two in their room, and both were named Jamal.  I’ve experienced the “rainy season” otherwise known as “occasional sprinklings of rain during the day, with possible torrential downpours during the afternoon”.  The first day, there was a thunderstorm as we ate lunch, and our front yard was completely flooded!  We also realized then that where we are staying in that town is right next to a river, which I think is a blessing because the noise of the river helps drown out the city noise.  And that city noise includes the Muslim call to prayer during all hours.  Last night it woke me up at 3 in the morning.  Not so cool.  Although, we have learned that Indonesians are super hard workers.  They often get up at 3 or 4 in the morning… and we definitely have seen them up past ten or eleven.  Thankfully, they supplement their sleep with an afternoon nap.  We have been very thankful for that, and I attribute it to why I am mostly over my jet lag already.  Sleeping for two or three hours in the afternoon is really nice when you are in a hot muggy climate!

So we have primarily been helping out in a children’s home for the first four days.  It was long enough to fall in love with their little kids, and really want to get to know the older ones better.  And these kids are learning English as well, which is AWESOME!  I actually was in charge of an English lesson yesterday with Alex, and we played a really fun game of Pictionary with the three kids that were with us that day.  But I think they loved getting more attention with the smaller group.  So really what happened was that I drew things on a white board and the kids would tell us its name.  And Alex helped me when I ran out of ideas, which was often. We actually ran into a few things they didn’t know the name for, which I am taking to mean that I actually got to teach them something! 

We actually are going to get to spend Christmas with those kids, which I’m so excited for.  But for the next week or so, we are going to be in a bigger town helping out some other people.  Sound vague?  Mostly because I have no idea what we are going to be doing.  It should be good though.  Bigger town means we should find internet somewhere (which will allow me to post this blog), and we drove down a street today that looks like California with palm trees on the sides and flowers in the meridian.   A bit more high class than we were used to seeing in the other town.

As for time zone differences, we have figured that I’m 14 hours ahead of Alberta.  When it is midnight here, it is only 10 am the same day in Alberta.  When I wake up at seven am, it is 5pm the day before in Alberta.  CRAZY!  We decided that we could celebrate the New Year three times.  Once on Indonesian time, six hours later on Slovakia time, and then again 8 and/or 9 hours later for Alberta and Oregon. 

There are so many other things I could say, but maybe I’ll leave some things to be explained when I get back. Although, I do have one thing that can’t really wait.  The second day we were here (while I was still out of commission) Steve and Ben went with one of our contacts here to visit some families, and in one house there was a woman who had been stung by a scorpion a couple hours earlier and was in such pain she couldn’t walk.  They prayed for her, and she was completely healed.  She even got up and started serving them food!  God is good! 

Prayer requests:

Please pray for the church here and those people who are seeking God.

Pray for the children’s home. They have 26 kids, many are from broken homes and two thirds are teenagers going through teenage stuff. 

Pray for the staff of the home, who aren’t getting paid (only room and board) to be provided for in all their needs: materially, emotionally, and spiritually. 

Pray for our team to be able to get into a rhythm of life here, with time for us to be together as a team and time for worship, prayer, and our own quiet times. 

Pray for our team to continue to have unity and openness with each other.

Pray for us to be sensitive to what God is trying to do in every situation, and for us to be willing to cooperate with him.