Love

I think that the word love is very powerful, but when you put that small four letter word into action you can move mountains. This is something that God has been really showing me (Julie) as I walk and drive through the streets here in Indonesia. One of the first things that they will teach you here about the cultural is that the people are very social and love talking with you. Actually, if you just nod your head in acknowledgement their whole face will light up just by that small act. And if they feel that you really are interested in them we have noticed that sometimes it feels like they want to cling to you.

Then God reminded me of a very important verse the other day from the book of Ephesians 5:1-2. "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."  Really it is a very simple verse with simple commands but I think it is something that gets lost along the way with my busy life here. My hearts prayer is that as I walk through these streets here in Indonesia or where God leads me that I will be imitating His love towards the people.

Back to the Grind

Last week, well most of last week and, well most of us enjoyed a break from school.  Julie continued studying while the kids had spring break and I had 4 days off from class.  Julie was able to move her schedule around so that we could do some family outings in the mornings before the afternoon rains came.  A couple mornings our family headed to our favorite swimming spot.  Then on Wednesday morning we piled on Buzz and JR for a ride to the waterfalls Franklin and I had visited about a month ago.  The falls were flowing heavier this time and we brought extra clothes so we (the kids and I) played under the falls for a bit.

This week we are back to normal with the kids back in school and I'm half way through week 1 of unit 7.  Which means I have approximately only 55 days of classroom time left here in Salatiga.  However we are still waiting to hear from MAF when we will be cleared to move to Sentani. We pray that we find out sooner than later as waiting can sometimes be very difficult and stressful. Maybe there is some character building that we need to experience while waiting in which case hopefully we learn it fast :).

This past week I was also able to take each of our kids out for a special meal just the two of us.  The only problem is we haven't found or made arrangements for a really long time for someone to watch the kids for us so that Julie and I could enjoy a date night.  Maybe at our next base there will be some easier options for making arrangements for date nights.  I am missing living close to grandparents for the availability and willingness to watch the kids for the evening or a night away.

Hopefully the pictures of the green grass and palm trees can bring you to a happy place for those still knee deep in snow and living in the deep freezer of Canada and northern USA.  It may not be quite the same, as our friends and family who are looking forward to not having to shovel snow and sport the winter parka, I'm looking forward to not having to carry my rain gear with me every-time we leave the house.  I've been told that in May/June we can start leaving the rain gear at home.  We've learned the hard way a couple times that it's not smart to look at the clear and sunny skies and leave your rain gear at home because 10-20 minutes later you can find yourself in a tropical down pour.  So clouds or no clouds, the rain gear is an essential item to have along even for short trips between Oct/Nov through May/June.

Isaac standing in the background Franklin under the water after jumping in.

Isaac making his splash.

Isaac heading to the bottom.

Mister Isaac fishman himself.

Julie checking out the falls at a relatively dry distance.

Jaclynn and Dad on an afternoon Lunch date.

Pak Denni and his assistant. 

This last picture has nothing to do with the above post but just a random picture of Indonesians using there above average biking skills to haul the everyday things on the back of a scooter.  For sake of clarity in front of Pak Denni (Good friend of ours) is a small banana tree that he is taking home to transplant in his yard and his assistant on the back of the bike is carrying one of our dinning room chairs to Pak Denni's which is in need of some repair.  You may noticed the comment "above average biking skills" that maybe an understatement as the traffic here is indescribably different yet there seems to be far fewer accidents here then back in North America where there is far more control and regulations to follow while driving.  Traffic laws here seem to be more of recommendations rather than hard and fast laws, but it some how works.  I will have to be careful when we return as I have adapted to Indonesian driving maybe to well.  Passing on the shoulder or in the opposite lane with on coming traffic feels normal now.  Having said this I don't think I'm quite ready to be hauling banana trees around yet :).

Burning Up Rubber & Brakes

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Above is the approximate route of my (Greg) most recent adventure.  There were some slight variations because of turning the wrong way and I'm going by memory of what I imagine some of the side roads looked like, not knowing exactly where we were but just a general idea of the area.

The main purpose of this trip was to take my friends cousin back home to her in-laws.  She had been out visiting her family over Christmas as her husband is out of the country working at the moment.  We had planned on taking the trip two weeks ago but Mt. Kelud decided it needed to belch out a bunch of ash which covered all of East Java and a lot in Central Java which included Salatiga.  We experinced a few millimeters here in Salatiga but was much worse were we went as we were about 1/2 way between Salatiga and Mt. Kelud at our final destination.  My odometer read 393 kms when I got home on Sunday afternoon.  May not seem like a lot but it took about 7 hours to get there with one stop for a flat tire, one stop for a quick bite to eat then a longer stop to visit one of her friends point B on the map then continuing on to her in-laws.  The trip home was a little quicker, we left a little before 8:00 AM and we were back in Salatiga a little after 1:00 PM.  Didn't take a lot of pictures during the trip just a few of the area and of a cute baby monkey that one of the neighbors had caught.

Not sure how to describe what it's like driving here particularly the style of driving required to keep up.  Maybe I'll just say I have a headache today as I go through withdrawals of living on adrenalin Saturday and Sunday.  My friends daughter road with me on my bike and we came home with all our toes and fingers still intact and even all the mirrors and signal lights are still attached and in one piece on the bike as there were several opportunities to trade paint and parts with others on the trip.  A couple times I asked my passenger if she was scared yet.  She is either calm as a cucumber or she is a good liar.  I will admit a few times my heart was racing a little faster than I prefer.

Got to another taste of what life is like in the villages of Java.  They don't have a lot but they are very generous with what they do have.  They had me sleep on a mattress of sorts while they slept on the tile floor with a sheet and a pillow.  And breakfast was what was left over from the night before, keep in mind that I don't remember seeing a fridge, so Lord willing I won't experience any fun stomach bugs over the next couple days.  So far so good.

This wasn't from the trip but it was taken the day we had originally planned the trip.  And being that I had a bunch of free time I felt a trip to the bank would be to make a withdrawal would liven up my day.   But I found myself short a black hat, spurs and a couple six shooters to make my withdrawal so I just ended up running my errands I need to do instead :).

Their rice field nestled below a beautiful rock formation.

This was the monkey mentioned above.  He didn't want to let go once he attached himself to my friends arm.

Snow Day!!!

Snow day in Indonesia!!!  Well not really but the kids did get an ash day as school today was canceled due to ash.  Not to worry back home the volcano is about 160miles/260kms away so we just get to experience the ash.  The yard is usually a dark brown almost black but as you can see from the picture we have a good coating of ash on the ground with more still falling.  I saw a car drive by and it looked like driving in light snow with a large swirl of ash behind.  I'm hoping my Julie is in a forgiving mod today I had great intentions of picking up some flowers this morning for valentines but I really don't want to subject my lungs or our bikes to ingesting ash so maybe later if it rains or tomorrow I'll grab some late valentines flowers instead.  So today might be a card and board game day inside.  Tomorrow I was planning on going with or friend Pak Sutrisno to Ponorogo which is in east Java about half way between here and the volcano, but I think I might take a rain check or maybe an ash check in this case.

Kali Pancur

Last Friday I stole Franklin away from his studies for the morning and we headed out on an adventure just the two of us to Kali Pancur.  Tempat ini, oops this place is a beautiful water fall nestled between two villages.  It was only about 8 kms away as the crow flies but by jalan, I mean road,14 kms away and at an average speed of about 30 km/hr and with a couple breaks 45mins later we arrived at our destination.  Oh, ya the GPS took us to the wrong village at first but after asking for some directions from the locals we found the other village with the access to the falls.  I had a few motives for making this particular outing.  One motive is this has become my hobby as it were here, finding exotic roads and places on the back of my fairly faithful iron horse.  The second motive was I wanted to spend sometime with Franklin. And 3rdly there was a geocache there.  The outing was successful on the first two levels enjoying time on the back of JR (my iron horse) and best of all time well spent with Franklin.  But no luck finding the geocache, so far all my attempts at geocaching here I've come up empty handed.  My last attempt at geocaching I got with in 80 meters before the trail disappeared and I didn't have a machete along to make my own trail the rest of the way to the top of Mt. Gajah.

We have been hearing that most of our family and friends are mengalami kedinginan experiencing and suffering from the cold.  So if you need a break from winter you can always come for a visit just make sure you pack a good rain coat and rain pants.

PS: For language school I've been writing 5 one page essays every week, so sometimes the Indonesian words pop-out before the English word when I sit down to write something.  So for those interested in a little in bahasa Indonesia I leave them in and carry on.

Misc. Pictures

Mud fights at the soccer field.  A lot of hand scrubbing before the kids or the clothes were clean again.

Mount Merbabu, some day I might make it to the top.

Biking with Franklin and Julie

Isaac's first fruits from his tomato planet.

Bat sleeping in our classroom window.

No this is not photo shopped.  I've seen this now maybe 3 or 4 times before but wasn't able to get my camera out fast enough.  Four bed frames one scooter and one driver.  Not sure how he unloads and loads?

What's left of the receptacle and wire for our water pump.  Thankfully the fire was outside the house.  Although we might have found it faster if it was inside.

Molten plastic from our electrical fire.

What was left of the cord end for the pump.

Making repairs via lampu sepeda motor.

One massive wedding cake.  I think it had to been over 10' tall.

No fire but lots of smoke from our washing machine.

More Firsts for Our Family for the New Year

We continue to experience new things here in the New Year.  A couple weeks ago after church I (Greg) attended my first wedding reception. Julie and the kids had attended the international church that morning so they didn't get the invite.  Being the only white guy there I found myself the center of attention which felt a bit awkward being that the bride and groom should be the center of attention.  It probably doesn't help that I'm a 1-2 feet taller than most. So anyway I had my picture taken several times with the bride and groom and probably the worse part was I was way over due for a haircut and I wore a helmet on the way to the celebrations so I have no idea what condition my hair was in.  Note to self get a hair cut more often! This coming Sunday our whole family received an official invitation to another wedding reception, this will be a good experience for Julie and the kids.  And being that the kids and Julie lebih cantik daripada saya (more beautiful than me) I think I'll be off the hook a bit maybe for picture taking.

The next new experience we had was one of our neighbors passed away last week.  Which means yes Julie and I attended our first pemakaman (funeral).  In fact that day 3 people passed away in our neighborhood but  we only attended the one as it was a neighbor kitty-corner from us.  The lady passed away around 9:00 am shortly after the neighbors gathered to help set up the tent and chairs which in most cases blocks off the road which requires people to find alternative routes and they do this for weddings too.  Since Julie was home when she passed away, she was able to go to the house and join the other neighborhood ladies as they supported the grieving family members. This is a very important part of cultural here as your neighbors become your family.  The services started about 1:00 pm and then the graveside service followed and by 2:30ish everyone was heading home.  Then for the next 3-4 evenings neighbors come and go from the family's house to visit for a bit.  It was a nice and simple service for the lady was apparently Christian. Knowing the demographics of our neighborhood the next pemakaman we attend will likely be Muslim which will be certainly different in regards to the feel of things.  A lot of  the processes are the same but I sure there will be some differences.

And my favorite experience I think to date was yesterday.  Unfortunately I experienced it alone from the rest of my family.  Our dear friends (neighbors from our last house) have been experiencing a lot of sickness and so yesterday I had the privilege of visiting them and one of the family members who just miscarried her first child.  She was at the local hospital and we went to visit her and bring her home. Long story short they needed some help with somethings including logistics of getting some important documents from South Korea were her husband is currently working to the hospital.  Praise the Lord for the wonderful tools of computers and email.  The other need that I think was maybe why this has been one of my highlights was they needed help with transportation for everyone back to Kopeng.  I wasn't able to fly them but we were able to loan them Buzz (Julie's scooter) and I was able to drive JR (our other bike), which allowed for a single trip from the hospital to Kopeng.  It felt really good to have the resources and ability to help by a simple way of just providing transportation.  I'm really starting to look forward to being able to do this with airplanes later this year Lord willing.  If you think of them, you can pray for this family.  I don't quite understand how this works but this young gal has only been married for 6 months or so and then a couple months ago her husband took a job in South Korea which is a four year contract that doesn't include anytime for a trip home to be with his new bride.  Then to have a miscarriage I can't even imagine what that would be like.

Again we want to Thank each and everyone of you who continue to hold us up in prayer and walk with us through supporting the work of MAF.  

Sorry no pictures this time.  I'll be sure to put some up next time.
Blessings
Greg (Julie and the Kids)