Reflections on a Lebaran Pause

[first draft 15 September; written largely on Sunday, 19 September]

It’s been a while since my last quasi-comprehensive post. With Pastor Andrew sharing part 8 of our series “The Journey” through the book of Exodus, titled “In Remembrance” today, he highlighted a series of words that start with the letters “re-”: (1) remember the Lord’s work in your life; (2) reconsecrate ourselves to God; and (3) restart your journey of following the Lord. I had already started “9/15 blog draft” last Wednesday with my own list of “re-”’s while sitting in the middle of the Jakarta traffic so characteristic of the city upon the return of its residents from the Idul Fitri holiday. Today has encouraged me to complete the reflection and at least update and share some thoughts and what has been happening on this side of the world...

repeat (sort of): Living in the most populous Muslim nation in the world, I have experienced for the second time the Idul Fitri, or known informally as Lebaran, holiday – the festival at the end of the Ramadan fasting time. It’s amazing to think back to where we were as a church a year ago. Shortly before this, we had just begun to meet in the junior school chapel of a school nearby with a handful our alumni from the University of Michigan, Indonesian nationals, and other expatriates. A year later, we have outgrown the original meeting space and are currently searching for a new space to house our Sunday Celebrations every week by mid-October.  (Please partner with us in prayer over this!)

respite: We say “holiday” more commonly than “vacation” here. As a teacher at a national-plus school, it has been a holiday from stretches of days getting up with the sun to be out of the house and in traffic by 6:00 am with John, Irene Chung, Jane, Tina, and Irene Tanu. School starts at 7:00 am and sometimes the mornings are spent furiously laminating or making last minute adjustments to lesson plans. Some mornings, every recess, and some afternoons as the kids are going home, I get to be teacher on duty - or on watch, present and mindful of teetering children at the stairs or the courtyard. It’s been hard to learn the names of 194 kindies but good practice while greeting them in the mornings and then saying goodbye at the end of the day. Mondays and Wednesdays, I teach K2 and Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach K1 – straight from 8:30 am to 12:00 pm with a “break” for recess at 10:00 am and circle time or character building at 10:30 am. My working life is defined in 30 minute blocks of time!

recognize: It’s amazing to think that a year ago, Pastor Seth shared a message that Christ transforms us to start a new life in him, but first we must recognize the condition of our hearts. I remember finding myself sitting at the dinner table shortly after that with two of my roommates, sobbing uncontrollably about things that had happened years ago – “milestones” and emotional trauma in my life that I felt had blunted my normal development as a person. I find it incredible that I might have missed out on not being able to run away from myself and my wounds and brokenness until I came to a place where I was outside of my comfort zone, forced to recognize the true condition of my heart. And recognizing gave me the chance to reach out to God and to experience again what it means to be restored.

renew: With the time away from a life structured by school in the daytime and evenings structured by life group or meeting up with people, I have to admit that somewhere in the past three months, I have experienced the slow hardening of my heart. I also have to admit that it has been easy to just go through the motions of work and ministry – operating out of my own capacity in survival mode. I try to spend the mornings reading my Bible and praying during the 45 minute commute to school, but sometimes I find myself staring out the window at the sky blankly trying to remember why I’m here. It has also been easy during the holiday to take a holiday from everything, and even in spite of having all the time in the world, to put spending time with God lower on my list of priorities. With heading back to school tomorrow, my prayer echoes the Psalmist King David: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

refuge: I know that the only way that I can truly get through the next long stretch of school to December, feeling like life is always at a running pace, is to get back to the heart of God and recognizing who He is, rather than telling him how my life is and how I think that things should be. One way that I have been trying to do that is looking deeper into the Psalms that I’ve been merely reading, and attempting to catalogue the things about God that repeat. One recurring theme is that “God is our refuge.” Living faraway from my family experiencing their own set of struggles on the other side of the world, living in a nation state that officially recognizes 6 religions, I realize that the world that I live in is incredibly spiritual and that when I feel overwhelmed in the days to come, I can and must take my refuge in the Lord.

repent: I realize that part of the hardening of my heart has resulted from forgetting to take the time to pause, grapple with the sin in my heart over which I despair, and confess it honestly before God. To remember the weight of my sin and the redeeming work of Jesus Christ when he died on the cross for my sins. To remember his goodness in my life, in giving me the job that provided me with a visa to stay, for example.

restart: I know that tomorrow will feel like hitting the ground running, especially with having to remind the small ones about how a_e makes the sound of “long a.” I know that the pace of life will pick up from being able to rest from the past two weeks. I feel like I’m bracing myself, but I am also thankful and looking forward to the chance to restart.

resolved: I read in a devotional during the holiday that the Jews take three days to prepare for Sabbath and three days after reflecting on what they have learned. I don’t know how I’m going to do something similar, but I’m sharing this for accountability’s sake. And thinking of more resolutions as I anticipate ageing to a quarter of a century…

relationship: with God. I want it to thrive – to know and love him more, and to make him known. Not based just on factual knowledge, but because I am compelled because of what I have experienced.