Seeking Grace.....Finding Joy

It has been over 3 weeks since I left Smithers and it has been 2 incredible weeks here in Indonesia.  I have returned to Salatiga, the city where language training happens.  I will be here for 6 weeks with another family I will meet tomorrow!  But I have just come away from a week with my host family in Kudus which was one of the best things I have done in my life.  It is unlike anything I have done before.  It was filled with joy—but the joy did not only come from “fun stuff”, the deepest joy came from struggle as well.  I have two stories at the end of this post related to that.

But first some anecdotes on life now and to come….

1.             Idul Fitri, the national holiday marking the end of Ramadan, meant helping my family at the bakery.  I was the cashier and it was a great way to practise Indonesian and meet people in the community.  However, I hope the family can still afford keeping me after I repeatedly mixed up “ribu”, meaning 1000 and “ratus”, meaning 100.  Idul Fitri also meant that ear plugs were a necessity if one wanted to sleep.  I understand that the Muslims were rejoicing in the completion of Ramadan, but I wasn’t rejoicing when the mosque next door had people wailing into the loudspeaker…….all night.  In honesty, the calls to prayer are a beautiful part of daily life here.

I will never forget the first morning waking up and thinking….”Is the Iman in my room….hello, are you there?”  Unbelievably loud. 

Idul Fitri and the Muslim Prayers on the streets

Pappa and me at the Sunan Kudus cemetary

2. This is a terrific segway into my next point.  I find great mystery in Islam and the Muslim population of Indonesia.  I really don’t know much about Islamic faith and who Muslims are.  I eagerly look forward to learning more and developing relationships with Muslims.   

3. I went to “Ada”.  I hope to never go there again.  It was basically an Indonesian Wal-mart.  Ada, and other stores like it, have only existed in Kudus for 2-3 years.  This is the “new” and “economically rising” Indonesia.  I just want to tell Indonesia, don’t let consumerism overcome you like it has in North America….but it appears to be ever popular.

 4. I hope to hike two volcanoes in the next month.  One of the volcanoes is the most active one in the world.  Awesome.

The volcano from my front yard.

5.  FINALLY, I have some idea of what my day-to-day life will be like for the year in regards to my serving in Kudus.  It appears to have lots of flexibility and freedom to it.

--join in the 5 Sunday worship services, pastor’s meeting and Bible study, young adults worship/bible study, visitation, catechism

--I was able to express some of my passions and hopes to my “boss”, the youth pastor at the church.  Because of my open-ended schedule, there is room for many more exciting possibilities. 

-- I have a request to be an “assistant English teacher for grade 12” at the Christian high school.  What a lofty title.  In other words, I get to talk lots and they get to practice listening to English for their final exams.   I can just imagine the jokes being set-off by my family and friends right now about this job.  You know, the fact I will be forced to talk lots will be really hard for me….haha.

-- If that wasn’t enough for you to laugh about, then get this.  My church and my brother want me to host an English talk show in Kudus.  They are serious.  If you are missing my voice, then maybe you can tune into the radio online….I’ll give you details later.  Apparently I have two assets for being a radio show host.  I talk lots.  I talk fast. True?

This is how I get to work.  How about you?

6. Pray for our team of SALT and YAMEN participants here.  Although my week went extraordinarily well with my host family, others had a much harder time.  So it has been a blessing to be together the past 2 days.

There were many things I was told, and to be honest, I didn’t think some of the things I was warned about would happen too quickly or be too intense.  I was wrong.  Here are 3 things I was told plenty about before hand and have already experienced quickly and intensely.

--It will sometimes be difficult and life will hurt 

-- God will transform you

-- You will experience the collision of cultures in significant ways

I have 2 stories about how all three of these things came together—and I stand amazed at what I learned.  I learned how cultural learning, reconciliation and forgiveness can come from cultural collision, misunderstandings, and disagreements.

1.

The first episode of significant cultural differences was quite illuminating to me because it was the first time that I went against the cultural grain, and later had to learn about my cultural inappropriateness.

So my restless body wanted to be active for a bit in the afternoon.  At home throwing a Frisbee, biking or playing basketball are things that I can go and do either in my backyard or at a park.  Well, a back-yard doesn’t exist here—at least not in any North American sense of the word.  And, a park….well those don’t exist here either.  So what to do…..oh, I know…go for a walk!  Great idea eh?  I told my brother that I was going to go on a walk alone to explore the neighborhood, get exercise and spend some time by myself.

I returned from my 20-minute walk to find out that my sisters and brother were worried were I went and if I could find my way home.  More interestingly, a young adult from my church, who saw me walking, texted my sister and another church young adult about my walk alone.  The Indonesian culture leads to a very tight knit community that holds each other accountable, but it also means that my family is looked at closely by the outside community for how they treat me.  My walk sent some wrong messages about my family, however good my intentions were.  This incident led to a lengthy talk with my sister, Irene, about some significant cultural differences around this.  I am very glad that Irene was not shy from telling me what is culturally inappropriate—that forwardness is not necessarily a common trait among Indonesians.   

2.

This next story is far more intense.  Not due to cultural differences, as much as it was one of the few times in my life where I have ever had to deal so seriously with a disagreement and a misunderstanding.  Ultimately, I learned more about forgiveness and reconciliation than I have in a long time. 

I said something that had no intentions of hurting my sister Irene, but a serious misunderstanding led to confusion and both of us feeling awful about our words and actions.  We both felt that we were wrong and that forgiveness was to be given, not received.  We both struggled throughout an afternoon to understand each other and how to come to reconciliation.  In the midst of that, I spent some time alone, and I knew God was doing something, but I didn’t know what.  It also felt like it would take way more than a day to resolve the issue. 

But then we talked later in the day and came to the point where both of us received and asked for forgiveness.  Then we washed dishes together.  Which sounds like the funniest thing to write, but it was one of the most healing things I have done.  God was at work while I scrubbed dishes! We talked about the conflict, laughed at each other and had a water fight.  God’s grace renewed both of us—which impacted those around us.  The restoration of relationship meant that we got to know each other more deeply—another gift from this significant disagreement.

I will never forget this, I can point to that I already see God’s hand in my life here.  It is difficult to write about something like this, especially to such a big audience, when this is quite personal, but I thought I would share a bit in hopes that you can enter into my life here, even in the smallest of ways, through both my joys and pains.

In my classic style, I’ll end with something funny.

No one had to tell me that I would be the victim of stares, laughs and eager attempts to make verbal contact with me here in Indonesia.  I was told that.  It is all true.  But the way the staring and laughing occur make me laugh each time.  Some of the best encounters are with teenage girls in Indonesia. 

I went to cemetery of a founder of Islam in Indonesia, where I awkwardly tip-toed around in a sarung, a covering for a Muslim man’s legs when a he prays. Don't worry, I didn't pray there, I just looked around.  Like many other places in Indonesia, there will be a whole pod of teenage girls sitting in a line.  It takes only one of them to notice me.  Stare at me.  Giggle at me.  Smile at me.  Then turn to the girl next to her and “secretly” whisper something like “Look!  There is this lanky guy….with a perm, who awkwardly crouches through door-ways.” 

Before that sentence is even finished being whispered, a stare, a laugh and a delight to tell the girl next to them fills their face. What follows next is face after face turning towards me in laughter.  It is facial dominoes.  It is a frequent game I play where I guess the type of reaction and the reaction time, and see if I am right.  It’s great.  I always win.  No one loses.  And I feel awkward.  Wait……so I guess I really lose each time.  

Me in my sarung....and facial dominoes starts.....Now!

Hope you enjoyed! Bye for now!