The Last Month in Indonesia

Hello friends,

It's definitely been a while since I blogged last. It's hard to believe because so much has happened since then and, furthermore, it feels like just yesterday! I'm no longer writing from my upstairs bedroom at my Minomartani home, or from my little office at the language training centre at UKDW. I'm sitting in "liminal space", in a little downtown Kamloops apartment. This transition period (liminal space) is where I'm at - both physically and mentally - and it takes a while to get through! But firs, the last month in Indonesia...　

Ramayana Ballet - FINALLY! I almost missed this fantastic cultural experience. The outdoor stage is set in front of the lit-up Prambanan Temple near Jogja and the ballet depicts one of the many Javanese myths. This one is about Rama and Shinta, a "Romeo and Juliet" story that has romance, comic relief, action, beautiful dancing, costumes, music and lots of fire! It was AMAZING!  

 

Bali - I had the great opportunity to go here with my host family. For 5 days, we went around the southern tip of the island and saw lots! Denpasar, Tanah Lot, Ubud, Sanur, Sangeh, Kuta, Legian - to name a few places. Balinese culture is fascinating. From my experience, it's laid-back, very social, dedicated and incredibly colourful. Learned a lot and loved it! Beautiful scenery too, which started the pangs of sadness for leaving this country. On the last day, I met up with a friend from East Java and we went scuba diving at Tulamben!! It was an amazing little adventure, being in the "deep blue" for the first time, swimming around tons of fish and touching a sunken WWII ship. 

 

UKDW Graduation – A few of my friends at the university graduated and I was so lucky to be there for the ceremony and celebration afterwards. Wishing all of them well as they have already found and started new jobs – puji Tuhan!

 



Choir competition – The ladies’ committees of the GKMI churches held a choir competition on June 30, so our group had been preparing for weeks. This was a great little road trip with around fifteen women, from young adults to seniors. I felt so blessed to be a part of the group. I had lots of fun and better yet, we won second place!!

 

Interreligious Dialogue and Peacebuilding Workshop – The peacebuilding department on campus held this 5-day event for professionals from all over Indonesia. There were also 3 guest speakers: a Muslim woman from Bunda Aceh (Sumatera), a woman from India and a Buddhist man from Thailand. As the native English speaker, I was helping out, but I was allowed to join sessions as well. It was awesome! There were so many brilliant ideas going around and some of the speakers blew me away.

 

Youth Summit – The GKMI church put on a conference, the "Pace of Peace". This was one of the last activities I had with my church community and I enjoyed spending the weekend with the youth/young adults. There were motivational sessions on EQ (emotional quotient) and more on being peacebuilding believers. It was typical: little sleep, lots of activities, food and spending time laughing together. It was great! I met so many new people through mutual friends and the world just became so much smaller :)

 

Wayang Kulit and Ganjuran – A few nights before leaving Jogja, my Javanese culture study ended with a grand finale. With a friend, I saw the traditional shadow puppet show near the sultan’s palace (a 2-hour tourist version; the real one starts around 10 pm and goes all night!). It was awesome and very neat to watch. Next, went to Ganjuran, a Catholic pilgrimage site. It’s very unique, though, because it’s in traditional Javanese style and even has a Hindu influence. This is what missiologists call "contextualization" and as an ICS student, I was fascinated!

Good-byes – Now these were really difficult for me because of how much I love my communities. The staff at my office, PPBA, held a lovely party and lunch. I spent a lot of time with some English Club members too, which meant so much to me. At church, I had a few farewells (the official one being back on June 16).
On the night before I left, we had a birthday party/ladies’ bible study/choir practice/my farewell at our house. It was amazing and the tears of joy, blessing, and sorrow just kept coming… My two good friends stayed the night and two more helped me prepare to leave in the morning. What a day... It was one of the hardest days of the 11 months in Indonesia, as I had to leave my family and Jogja. My parents both cried as they embraced me and sent me off with blessings.

 

Salatiga – The YALTers spent four days here, wrapping up stuff at the MCC office. We enjoyed final creambaths, ate delicious nasi goreng and ronde, went to karaoke with our Indonesian teachers and good friends from the language school, went rollerblading and had great fellowship with the MCC Indonesia team. I also spent a lot of time with my first host family, playing with my little brothers, chatting and laughing in the first house that made Indonesia feel like home. On our last night, we stood in the Pancasila (park) and shot off fireworks to celebrate. The last time the 2012-2013 YALTers would make a ruckus in the small town of Salatiga :) Wednesday the 17 of July was also one of the hardest days, saying goodbye to my MCC family and finally, to Indonesia.



 

Akron PN - Not Indonesia anymore, but this is where we wrapped up our SALT term. We joined the other SALTers at the MCC headquarters and spent 3-4 days sharing stories and reflecting together. These first days in North America were very interesting. Talk about culture shock!

 Lisi :)