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. :)

Font

I've had some requests for me to change my blog font... and I'm working on it.  It just so happens that I don't remember how exactly I changed it in the first place. So please be patient as I try to change it back! Thanks!

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!