40 Days

I have an unusually good memory when it comes to my childhood (although these days, my memory and my recall of things in the present as well as English words is in decline)

I had a flashback of my parents at a going away party when we were moving to Michigan.  I was six, and my sister was newly born.  The people in my parents’ church had given them many beautiful gifts but I specifically remember them giving a frame that had the words from Jeremiah 29:11: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.’” 

I remember my mom blotting away her tears as their friends prayed for them, and I remember how I couldn’t understand, felt like I should have been sad too - and I was a little, but I couldn’t understand how my parents must have been feeling.

Flash forward 20 some years, and I started tearing up at the flashback.  The frame still hangs in my parents’ home.  I cried because now I understand, as I prepare my heart to leave a place that has become my home.

I spoke with my father earlier this evening.  “We understand,” he said, reassuringly.  And they of all people are the most legit in saying so.  They left their home in the early 80s, only they knew that they were never going to return.  They moved to Texas first, where they met those friends in that community of Christ followers who loved them as their own, and as I look back, I see that was one of the first places where Jesus met me and taught me about who he was through them.  Then they moved to Michigan, and years later, I am in the Southeast Asia that they left so that I could have a “better life.”  

It’s hard.  My natural tendencies throughout my life have been to cut off any bad feelings, because it was just too hard to say goodbyes or to think about how much it hurt missing people.  So before, I’d rather not think about it at all.  

So, I have become very good at disposing of friends over the years (not something that I’m proud of) as a coping mechanism.  But I realize that the way that I have damaged relationships with people and burned bridges… actually, I do that to Christ.  It’s so easy to see things as flesh and blood, but Jesus… those wounds I inflicted on others, Jesus sustained.  And, for some reason, he loves me and has forgiven me.  Knowing this humbles me greatly, shows me how small my own heart is when it comes to loving people unconditionally, but gives me the freedom to keep an open heart in a time that I am tying up loose ends as I prepare to leave.  

I’m writing this as day 40 wanes to a close, and I know the days ahead won’t be easy, but I’m hoping that they’ll be full of joy, and “victorious,” as my LCG typed to me over bbm this morning.  I’m sad, I’m thankful, I’m procrastinating and dragging my feet with things that must be done… and anticipating what God is going to do.

If he gave Moses the 10 Commandments after 40 days on a mountain, if he released Jesus for his earthly ministry after 40 days of fasting, if he let it rain for 40 days and 40 nights only to show to the world how he does what he says he will do and seals it with a promise, a rainbow… I’m not Moses, and I’m not Jesus and I’m not Noah… but I know the number 40 can be really significant.  So I can imagine when I’m on that plane in 40 days, I will have so much to praise God for.  So, consider this the start of a good deal of reflecting on God’s faithfulness in my life these past few years.  

curhat

Yesterday afternoon, I walked up to my colleague’s classroom to pray with her and another colleague like we usually do weekly.  The three of us have felt really burdened this year to pray about things in our school that are struggles in other workplaces as well: gossip, compromise, broken families (among our students and colleagues), people who don’t know Christ, just to name a few. 

Mostly it’s just straight praying for 30 minutes and then it’s back to work.  But yesterday, one of the girls and I ended up sharing from our hearts.  She said, “Curhat! You know what it means?”  It’s one of those terms that I hear often but don’t use enough and forget it.  One thing that we do here is blend words together and shorten them to make new words that mean the same thing.  She explained that it’s the blend of curuhan hati, or sharing/pouring out your heart. 

She was sharing about how her three brothers, all younger than her, were in relationships but then her younger brother (the oldest of the three boys) just broke up with his girlfriend.  She told her parents not to jodohin (matchmake) him with anyone so that they wouldn’t say yes on the outside to his parents but no in his heart to them (so that’s a new word that I learned). 

She was also sharing about how her parents were asking if it was all right if her brother married before she did in the church where they serve.  The typical marriage age in Jakarta is around 24-26 (even younger in some circles!  My colleagues say that many of the cleaners in our school marry as young as 16 until 19!) and my colleague is around my age (which is older than the marriage expiration date here!) She said that she was jojoba (jomblo-jomblo dan bahagia, or “single and happy”) and it was strange that her parents kept asking her about this. 

Then she was saying, “I don’t know berapa lama…how long I’ll have to wait.  Maybe this is the time I should start fasting and praying about it.”

We ended up sharing about our experiences in relationships, and one thing that came up was the confession of sin.  I shared with her about a struggle that I have had since I was the age of my small kindies, and she was shocked because she shared the same one with me.  It was one I swore I’d go to my grave never telling anyone. 

I love Indonesia because it’s the first place where I have really allowed myself to be honest with that particular struggle: that I would lie to cover it up, because I was afraid if people knew, they would turn and run in the other direction - or worse, judge me first and say, “that’s disgusting,” and then run away.  It’s kind of ironic that I could do this in Asia, which is all about saving face.  And with that colleague, it was the first time that she’d ever been honest about that struggle with anyone. 

There is something really freeing about confession.  Being honest requires vulnerability, humility, courage… the thing is, if we are these things with others, it’s so easy to say, “I’m not here to judge,” but we do judge!  And we hurt one another by it.  The thing that is so amazing about Jesus is that he is the only perfect, righteous judge, and even though he knows our “dark side,” and all of those things that we try to hide, in him there is no condemnation and through him there is the forgiveness of sins!  "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) Covering up my sin only made it worse and I got more trapped.  “Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24)

Lastly, I can’t remember where I heard a cover of this Kelly Clarkson song recently but it’s been in my head.  So I’m posting the original music video from Miss Clarkson herself, because what she says is true:

Jesus loves us perfectly, even with our dark sides.  Amazing things to think about in light of being curhat

Smatterings of vocabulary of the week

‘g’ is for galak, gaptek, gubrak

“She’s so galak,” my colleague said, as we listened to one of the grade 1 teachers scolding her students.  Galak means ‘fierce.’   

Hearing her say that reminded me of how I mixed up galak with another word on the way to school yesterday morning. We were talking about technology and I mentioned how I was worried about being technologically inept once I return to the US.  The term for “technologically inept” here is gaptek but instead I said, “Yeah, I’m so…galak” to which you can imagine there were some snickers from my fellow carpoolers at my foible.  Definitely a gubrak moment, which I have used with a hashtag in my tweets before (when I used to tweet more frequently, haha).  

Gubrak basically means the sound that a wicker chair makes when someone falls out of it and tries to regain their balance.  It has the sentiment of awkward and oops and hitting a wall mixed together (I’m sure I’m missing some things but it’s kind of hard to convey it in English).

Some more alliteration.  ‘G’ is for goals and some of mine are to outgrow being gaptek and figure out how to update my blog skills, learn Photoshop, and eventually have a teaching blog someday.  But I will probably start another blog on going back to school and being a grad student + adjusting back to life in the States after living overseas.  Let’s see.

Paskah | on Easter

Being a Christian school (at least nominally), we have been talking to the kids about Easter this week, in light of its passing last Sunday.  We sang a song in Character Building (CB) which brought about some more inspiration for this post. 

I was sitting between two students today who come from families who identify themselves as “Buddhist” on their KTP (identification card).  The one on my left has kept asking, “What is Easter?  I don’t know about Easter,” even though we have been talking about it for a while.  We sang a song called “Yesus, Sahabat Ku.”  I actually didn’t know the meaning of sahabat and didn’t ask about it until after CB was over.  I tried asking the two boys sitting on my left and right, but they said that they didn’t know.  It’s funny to think that my kids don’t actually speak Bahasa Indonesia in their homes.  

Nikki, who was sitting on my left, said, “What is Tuhan?” which is the word for ‘God.’  I explained that to him, and he said, “Oh, I know Tuhan.”  After that, I asked one of the K2 teachers what sahabat meant and she told me, “best friend.  Nikki asked what “reff” meant below, and it means “chorus” so I decided to post the lyrics here: 

Yesus sahabat ku 

Jesus, my best friend

Kau mati bagi ku

You died for me
How great is your love
My best friend and my Lord

Reff.

Sampai ku besar nanti 

Until I grow older

Ku kan ingat dikau

Yesus sahabat dan Tuhan ku 

Jesus, my best friend and my Lord

About a month ago, I actually had a pretty deep conversation with the student on my right, Nathan, while I was talking about the word “die” for long /ie/ in Phonics class.  I was asking my students what happens to us after we die.  And Nathan said that we go to heaven, if we do enough good things.  I told him that actually, there’s never enough that we could do to win our way into heaven, and that we must place our faith in Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life and paid the price for our sins - death - so that we could have eternal life.  Nathan sat and thought about it for a while, and said, “I’m Buddha [I’m Buddhist], we just need to do a lot of good things to go to heaven.”  But the same Nathan when I asked him today said that he thought that Jesus was his best friend, and he said “yes.”  

Lastly, the last of the review questions at CB today was, “Why did Jesus die?” and Nikki and Nathan raised their hands and waved them wildly.  When they weren’t picked to answer the question, Nathan said sadly (because he wanted to answer the question so badly), “Because he wanted to obey his Father” and Nikki said, “Yeah, that was my answer too.”  While it is true that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of mankind, it’s so easy to make the cross about us only.  I was amazed to hear their understanding of Jesus’ obedience to His Father’s will, to stick to God’s plan of redeeming creation to Himself for His glory.  I hope that Nikki and Nathan can understand someday just how much God loves them.  

kelereng | on losing my marbles

marble: noun

1 a hard crystalline metamorphic form of limestone, typically white with mottlings or streaks of color, that is capable of taking a polish and is used in sculpture and architecture.

2 a small ball of colored glass or similar material used as a toy.

3 ( one's marbles) informal one's mental faculties : I thought she'd lost her marbles, asking a question like that.

kelereng (marble) Gosh, I wish I remembered this term earlier today at the mall but I couldn’t for the life of me, and I couldn’t even think of how to ask my question to the store people at Gramedia (local bookstore) (so I had to ask a friend, Sassha, and also consulted Google translate for the spelling just now)

But, I did find these beauties at the store next door, Informa.  The jar I used makes the quantity seem really small.  In fact, 70 (should be 69 now that it’s after midnight) is a small and quickly diminishing number. 

It’s the number of days until I leave this place that has become like a home to me. 

A childhood friend of mine was visiting me this past week, and over dinner tonight, she remembered that I had wanted to start a marbles jar countdown - just like what P Seth and Christina had done with their family the year we all moved to Jakarta: they took one marble out of the jar for each day, to symbolize just how close we were getting to departure.  A reminder to pray for our new home and the building of God’s kingdom there.

The jar: for the purposes of a visual reminder of the urgency to finish well and to finish strong here…

Today was significant because:

(1) April 1 was the first day back at school after a weeklong holiday, and the first day of our ten-week Term 4, and the last term in a school year always flies. 

(2) I paid for my one-way ticket today, and now departure seems more real and real - and it doesn’t look anything like I imagined it would.

(3) My friend Brittany (who reminded me about the marbles) left after a great week of rediscovering who she is and friendship with her.  Gave me a greater picture of even greater rediscovery to come in the days ahead in my life back in the States.

One thing I remembered over dinner with Brittany tonight was a blog post that I wrote about losing my marbles:

“It's November 11, I have been single for exactly one year, and I have no frame of reference anymore in terms of life experiences. Everything is new - and everyday, I am more confident that God engineers our circumstances perfectly. In fact, I found myself being reminded of this fact through an illustration I heard at a tiny church service I found at the airport during my three hour layover in Atlanta on Sunday.

It was about a little boy running around with marbles clenched in his tiny fist. His father knew that the marbles were dangerous because (1) the child might swallow them or (2) the child might drop the marbles while running and slip and fall on them. In order to lure the boy away from the marbles, the parent produced a new and better toy - an airplane - for which the boy would have to let go of the marbles in order to grasp at the better thing.

Without remorse, I think it would be appropriate to say that I have lost my marbles...”

I can’t believe it has been more than five years since I wrote that.

How could I have known that God would bring me here to Indonesia to teach me more about who He is?  To allow me to lose my marbles (everything I had ever logically planned for myself) and grasp at “the better thing,” the One thing that matters.

I hope I can be more disciplined about posting about my life here in the days and weeks to come.  “Wherever you are, be all there!” said Jim Elliot, and so in the meantime, I plan to be fully here until I am gone.

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

sakit

means “sick” in Bahasa Indonesia. In Tagalog (my parent’s language) it can also mean “pain.”  I feel both today, so I stayed home from work to rest.  There is never a good time to get sick, and it’s really humbling because you can’t do what you want to when you want to.  I feel achy all over but despite the pressure I feel in my head due to congestion (mampet), my brain is still racing, thinking about everything that still needs to be done, work-wise (school my workplace, and school my two online classes that I’m taking).  

Everything started setting in on Saturday, with a runny nose and that feeling that you’re pre-sick.  So I started drinking Energen-C like it was my job, to avoid getting sick.  Sunday, I woke up with a sore throat, cough, and congestion.  Today, my cough has escalated to the point where it hurts in my abdomen to cough.  I have been drinking Obat Batuk cap Ibu dan Anak (Cough medicine for women and children), at the suggestion of two of my ministry team members.  It seems to be helping, but the congestion is still pretty bad. 

So is it okay for guys to take the Cough Medicine for Women and Children? haha

On Sunday, it seemed like there was no end of things to do: I was teaching for the second week in a row at Building Blocks, preparing for my Hospitality Team meeting after Sunday Celebration, and had to take care of the powerpoint since the guy who usually takes care of it was starting up another ministry team for that Sunday and wouldn’t have the time work on it that he normally does.  

I really think that lately, with everything to do on my plate, I have had a real sense of joy with doing things.  I gave up coffee and tea for Lent, and I think it is exposing just how dependent I am on caffeine to fuel me, rather than depending on God.  I think that’s why I am so tired and run down these days.  Anyway, being sick is showing me that it’s easy to do things when you have energy, strength, and resources.  It’s not easy to do things when you feel spent, weak, and have nothing to offer. 

Sunday, with everything to take care of (not to mention the homework due today that I hadn’t touched to that point, or my lesson plans for this week), I think I could have had a real sense of joy doing what I was doing, had I not been…sick.

I was both snappy and crabby throughout the morning, stressed out about the amount of things to be done.  At the end of the day, once everything I had to do had been taken care of, and even throughout the day, I realized just how ugly my sin is, the sin that is subtly lying beneath the surface of my enjoying things.  And it got exposed with being sick.  

I think it makes the words “surely He bore our infirmities, and by His stripes we are healed” all the more precious.  So, I’m sakit… and I need Jesus. 

Springfield Kindy Chinese New Year 2013

This is my third Chinese New Year at Springfield International School.  We have 6 classes of K1 students (ages 3-4) and 6 classes of K2 students (ages 5-6).  Instead of having twelve performances, we decided to combine classes so we had a total of 8 performances.  I collaborated with Miss Kesthi from K2B to teach some K2 students a dance to Jay Chou's song "The Cowboy is Very Busy" (posted below).  Since I am not a form (home room) teacher, I helped Miss Poppy with her K2A students with costume changes and carrying water bottles.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, I have attached 7 - along with 3 videos from this year's performance.  Silahkan menikmati (please enjoy)!

K2A students wearing cheongsam

with Belle

K2A boys ready for their Wu Shu dance

Getting ready to go upstairs for the performance!

K2B students wearing cheongsam

Ribbon Dance girls ready to head upstairs

Miss Poppy and her K2A students

K2 students dancing to "The Cowboy is Very Busy" (this is the one that Kesthi and I taught the kids!)

K1 boys Wu Shu dance and Kung Fu Fighting

K2 girls in the finale, Jay Chou's "Qing Hua Ci"

Ojek Payung

Feeling my writer’s twitch these days.  I just got home from the mall.  Outside you can hear the constant steady flow of the rain hitting the pavement.  

I was just out studying and meeting up with people, and afterward planning to watch “Little Women” with some friends this afternoon since I had to read the book for the Children’s Literature course I’m taking this term.  

Sidenote: I had watched “Little Women,” based on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women years ago when it first came out.  I loved the music as well as the story.  I also found out through my literature course that she wrote it based on the members of her own immediate family.  I laughed and cried like a baby over her writing, so you can imagine how I have been itching to see this movie.  I wanted to wait the rain out but it has been raining for a good hour, and I was determined at all costs to get home.  

Besides my incredibly handy Eddie Bauer rain jacket (from the last post) that I remembered to stuff in my bag, I needed another option for a way home.  The rain has been pouring down in sheets and of course today would be the day that I chose to wear a white skirt.  As I was walking to the exit, I found a group of rag-tag kids hanging out with their golf-sized umbrellas, pleading with customers leaving the mall to rent their umbrellas.  Ojek payung, we call them.  I am not sure what the word ojek means, but I have the feeling that it has to do with rental, because we use the term ojek for motorcyclists who rent the backseat of their motorbike to willing riders.  Payung means umbrella (it also means umbrella in Tagalog, which is what my parents speak at home).  

I was trying to figure out which willing soul I would choose to take me home in the rain.  Normally when the umbrella is rented, the renter holds the umbrella for themselves and the child walks behind.  I used to really pity these children, and in some ways I still do because I can’t believe that they would subject themselves barefoot to the elements (the rain and the cold).  

At the same time, time has allowed me to see that these children do have a choice.  They choose to be out in the rain and they are little business people in the works, choosing to be industrious and make some money when the opportunity presents itself.  

I ended up singling out the smallest boy, holding an umbrella that used to be white, with black lettering on it.  His friends rushed at the sight of my advance and I shooed them off with my arm.  When they saw the boy that I chose, some taunted him.  One had the audacity to kick him so that he fell and hit the pillar close to where he had been standing.  You can imagine my indignation, and I pulled out my “teacher”and stared daggers at the culprit.  “Jangan,” (Don’t) I said, staring him straight in the eyes.  He smiled at me like I was joking.  Except he couldn’t know how wrong he was.  “Bilang ma’af” (Say sorry), I said, still staring at him.  “Ma’af,” he said, still smiling like it was a joke.  I wanted to “box his ears,” like Louisa May Alcott might put it.  But I also wanted to get home.  So off we went.  

I made my new little friend walk with me under the umbrella, probably to his surprise.  “Umurnya berapa?” I started out (How old are you?) “Sembilan,” he said (Nine).  I wanted to ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up, but I couldn’t remember how.  I was also concentrating on how to wade home carefully through the ankle high puddles that we encountered.  “Namanya siapa, kamu?” (What’s your name?) He said that his name was Rendi.  I had a student named Rendi for two years in K1 and K2 so I told him that.  I also asked him “Suka hujan?” (Do you like the rain?) and he said that he did.  “Punya saudara?” (Do you have brothers and sisters?) and he told me that he did and there were too many to count.  

I wish that there was more that I knew to say to him.  But I was thankful that this little boy was willing to take me back to my home, where I am writing from now.  He was shivering and I didn’t want him to go back out in the rain, but I knew he was happy to go back to it.  The going rate from Supermal to my apartment is probably anywhere from Rp 2000-3000 but all I had on me was a Rp 20,000 and I never meant to ask him for change.  

It’s 4:09 PM now, and Sassha is here now (for those of you who know her; and for those of you who don’t, she is a friend we know from here).  We are waiting for Jennifer, my colleague, to come with the movie we have eagerly awaited for.  It’s not raining anymore.  I hope that Rendi can dry off soon now that the skies have cleared and that he’ll put that money to some industrious use.  Thanks for reading.