A March Montage

A few days ago the 2/3 mark of my time away from home occurred amid a week of mixed emotions.  On Sunday, a bored and frustrated Jason missed home--the family and the friends.  However, the rest of the week was awesome!  I love this place, and I am continuing to learn to love it more, however, once in a while there are hiccups.  I've been gone a lot from my host church and home for the past 1.5 months, so I look forward to being more settled in the coming month.

The average day means I spend some time at my office with my pastor Pak Nindyo, who is also my best friend.  We talk a bit and laugh a lot.  I write a fair bit, especially with 3 university papers to write this month and then we often eat together.  Nearly ever day I visit someone's home--either the neighbor kids, or someone in the Compassion child sponsorship at my church.  There are church events sprinkled through out the week nights and if there is not an event I often hang-out with the young adults.  Rarely a day goes by without some sort of unique event, like today I went with a pastor from Burma and visited a branch church.  

Speaking of things routine and unique, here is a look at both.      

Buddhist people are some of the most fluid and open people I have met in terms of sharing and acceptance of other faiths.  This picture says it all.  In Buddhist temples in Indonesia, often Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism are worshipped in the same place along side each other.

Besides watching me surfing, er trying to surf, looking at a cow's 3rd stomach lining is possibly the coolest thing to look at it. 

I had the privilege to join a neighborhood in Solo (the city I visited for a week) launching their declaration of peace, in a community with a conflicted past.  You will also notice the word "declarasi" in the background. Often in Indonesian, you can just drop the "tion" of an english word and replace it with "i".  Bam.....your Indonesian vocab just skyrocketed. 

I visited a community of Muslims, no they were Christians.  Or wait, followers of Jesus or maybe it was followers of Isa.  Wait, which one was it?  I visited a community that follows Isa (Arabic for Jesus) who believed Jesus as their Savior.  Nothing was fitting into those nice neat boxes I have created in life.  Like, what is salvation and who is Jesus?  In this photo, I am reading a verse from the Koran trying to figure to understand where these people fit on the map I have created about religion/grace/salvation.  I know that my map was not big enough, or gracious enough.  I will return soon to join for Saturday morning worship in hopes that know God and His people better.

I went to visit a base camp for a radical Islamic group with a pastor.  Posters saying they were ready for war and the guns lying around on the self made me realize that I was doing no ordinary "bridge building".  A part of it was a TV station.  They wanted me to say a greeting for their channel.  In a moment of slight excitement and sheer anxiety, I agreed to a 10 second clip.  Just imagine you’re an Indonesian and a guy with blonde curly hair suddenly introduces your daily news.  All that went through my head while reciting the lines was “is this the kind of thing that gets you home earlier than you want to?”  Never imagined building that kind of bridge! 

In Canada, I usually have the problem where halfway through a buffet food starts falling off my plate.  In Indonesia, I walk through the buffet, realize that I still have rice on my plate and then have to walk through again.

  On MCC retreat, being the naive beach goer that I am, I was thrilled that monkeys wanted to come over and hang out with me.  Growing up watching animal shows where the host would sit around on the Savannah with baboons and cheetahs, I thought that I met my childhood dream on this beach.  That got turned up side down when a wieldy monkey climbed the tree next to me and lunged.  At me.  Unprovoked.  However, my reflexes, a strong suit of mine, kicked in and I flung the monkey off of my water bottle.  Feeling self-esteem for the the way I showed the monkey who is boss and feeling that my childhood dream failed in my first close encounter with a monkey made me dash into the ocean, which was full of coral.  Which hurt.   

The most stunning terrace farming I have seen so far.  There are no homes on this slope except for the very bottom.  So imagine that stroll to work? 

Dazzling.

IKEA's home delivery takes terribly long, has higher incidences of shipping damage but is awfully eco-friendly.  

I asked for a coconut, so someone went to fetch one.  No ropes.  Just a man and a machete. And then I drank it like this....

Haha....

I joined some kids to go plant trees for earth day.  But in great irony we were so tired planting trees in the heat that we all drank water.  From small one-use plastic cups.  Which we disposed anywhere we felt like.  Which will be gathered to be burned.  Which means we may have been carbon-neutral that day. 

A Muslim cemetery with a big awesome tree.

There is something I love about this photo. (credited to an MCC service worker)  

A volcano.

We drank Sprite and Coke.  We sat on a mat.  We talked about politics.  We talked about Christians, Buddhists, Muslims.  We talked about corruption, gambling and alcohol.  We talked about peace.  The man on the right is from India and is a service worker for MCC and stayed with him for a week.  The man in the middle is a carpenter.  He is also the leader of a radical islamic group.