Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Life as it happens


Greetings from Indonesia! Kepada teman-teman disini, trima kasih atas membaca blog ini :) Aku sangat senang bahwa ada pengikut dari Indonesia!
The past three weeks have been busy and quite enjoyable. As a SALTer who's been having a great experience, I'm finding myself caught in an unavoidable phase of the program. Having reached a level of familiarity and ease with the surrounding community, I am able to have meaningful communication and join many great activities. I've reached the point where I can tell jokes - sadly, my sarcastic humour is still difficult to get across - and share deeper stories about life. I can present at church or school, with or without using an Indonesian script in front of me. I can comfortably get around Jogja using the 2A or 3A Trans. bus line, impressing curious bus-goers with my Indonesian in the simplest form of conversation: self-introduction.
At this point, I find it difficult to imagine being in Canada! Of course, I cannot wait to see my family and home. In the past few weeks, many friends have graduated from college/university and I missed my first wedding of 2013. Two good friends are getting married this weekend as well. I realize that missing special events is salah satu drawbacks of living overseas.
As usual, some highlights from the past three weeks:

  • English Club on 12 April was an evening at Alun-Alun Kidul, the south city square behind the sultan's palace. Our small group rode around on brightly lit 6-person bikes, ate street food (crepes, siomay, noodles) and attempted the Masangin trick that I tried back in the fall. While improving English wasn't the end result of the night, we had a great time getting to know each other! 

  • Helping out a friend host an informal English lesson for neighbourhood kids. Ten elementary school girls came to her house and we sang songs, played games, and giggled together. They were really smart!

  • Met Stuart Murray. As a CBC student and one interested in Anabaptist theology, this was a big deal! He's a British missiologist, church planter and author of The Naked Anabaptist. On his Southeast Asia tour, he stopped at Duta Wacana and joined a discussion on Jesus, kingdom work and justice. Got to chat with him and theology profs at Duta Wacana and later joined Mr. Murray and his hosts, my pastor's family, for dinner at a Javanese restaurant. What to talk about with this man?? I could've asked a million questions! A funny thing to note is how my communication has a bit of Indonesian influence now. As I was wracking my brain for questions, all I could think of was "Tell me about your family" and "how old are you?" Couldn't remember what Westerners consider sopan or polite.

  • Sharing at Tuesday family fellowship! I was asked to share on what the GKMI Jogja family can do to make foreigners feel welcome among them. A bit of cross-cultural understanding, personal testimony and Q and Eh?. Felt good about it, just fumbled through reading my Indonesian script. But people laughed and hummed in response, so I can say sukses! My hope is that we, as diverse communities, can work together and proclaim God's gospel. 
  • Joining gamelan practice at church. These lovely Javanese percussion instruments sound so cool! 
  • Trying sanggul, the traditional Javanese hairpieces used for special occasions. It's like a bun pinned to the back of the head. The black bun on my brown hair didn't really match but it looked cool anyway! 

Once again, I thank you for your support and love. It is with great joy that I am able to share such a wonderful experience with you all! I continue to ask for prayer for strength, health (oh my finicky digestive system... I call them my "usus khusus": special intestines), and opportunities to share the gospel in my current context. For the challenges, may we all find God's peace and trust that he works for the good of those who love him.
In making plans and picking courses, I'm looking ahead to the summer and fall when my Canadian life picks up again full swing! I am looking forward to returning to Kamloops and lanjut to Abbotsford for the final year of my BA! 

Damai dan anugrah Tuhan buat sekalian, 
Lisi :)


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