seasons of love; or, on transition

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?
How about love?  How about love?  How about love? Measure in love
Seasons of love, seasons of love

Feeling the creative writing twitch as I’m in between the last few waking hours of life as I know it before starting school on Monday. It’s been an interesting past few weeks as we welcomed the new team from Ann Arbor (Pastor Andrew, Nickey, Emanuel, Tina, Jane, Angela, and Eric) in mid-June and have slowly been transitioning responsibilities from the team members who have newly arrived in the States (P Seth & family, Rachel, Joe, Ruth, Sam) to those of us who are still here.

It will have been one year in Indonesia on July 11. As I’m writing, I’m trying to process the excitement of things starting to pick up again (with our first church-wide prayer gathering on Saturday and school starting on Monday – professional development for the teachers, anyway…) and also processing the “bereavement” I feel in the absence of the team members who left for the States on Tuesday and have arrived by now.

Tuesday at the airport was actually really hard. When we first arrived in Jakarta, as we were loading up the cars with our luggage to drive to what would be our new home, I was already thinking about how I might feel to find myself at the same place a year later. I imagined I’d be all packed up and ready to say some “see-you-when-I-see-you’s” – and here I find myself writing in the middle of the night in my living room just west of Jakarta, staying for at least another year.

I have heard over the past few days that it’s only natural to feel some of the emotions that I have been feeling – and I do require prayer because I don’t want to process in a way that becomes self-focused or that makes me forget why I stayed here. I do feel thankful, however, when I think about “the fullness of Him who fills everything in everyway…” (Ephesians 1:23) and when I think of that verse, I think of all of the cracks and crevices in my heart that God wants to fill with Himself.

That said, Tuesday was hard because I felt really loved – through the affirmation of a spiritual father, through the encouraging words of a younger brother, through the care of life group members, and even through letters from home sent by my parents that I finally had time to read later that evening.

“But seriously – when God works in your life, He works in all of the areas of your life,” I heard her say as she finished sharing about the things that God was doing in her life. This was back in August, in the living room of a city that I claimed as my new home. As I was listening to her, I couldn’t have imagined the ways that God wanted to prove His love and redemptive nature to me in my own life throughout this year.

“The entire law is summed up in one command: love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14) It’s been easy to see this as a one way street – but so encouraging to grasp anew besides the fact that we love God by loving people, that God loves us through people who choose to love their neighbors (us) too.

People ask me when they realize that I have been here for a while if I like Indonesia. While there are myriad things that happen that I still don’t understand and are definitely helping to cultivate patience in me (or at least reveal the lack thereof!), I have to smile as I answer and tell them that I love this place because I know that it is exactly where God wants me to be for this time in my life. It is a place where I have learned how to articulate things that I never quite knew how to express until I came here. A few examples that come to mind: I’ve always wanted my father to be active and present in my life; to have meaningful conversations and share transparently with my mother; to have an older sister; to have a little brother; to know what it feels like to belong…

It’s crazy to think that had my seemingly wonderful plans worked out – would have been third year of law school this year, the possibility of an impending engagement and subsequent marriage built on a faulty foundation (emphasis on possibility) – I could have missed out on experiencing the brokenness and restoration of the relationship with my biological father and gain a spiritual father; to work through the intricacies of the disconnect between parents and children and love lost in translation between the parties – and working through confession of trespasses between my mother and me, and the meaning of forgiveness towards each other; to be mentored by an older sister (Rachel) and encouraged by a younger brother (Sam); and shepherded by everyone else in between…

I haven’t had the chance to jalan-jalan (travel) all around Indonesia and see places like Lake Toba in Sumatra or Komodo Island or Lombok – and I’m not criticizing those who have, but what I do mean to say is that this place has become like a precious home to me even though I’m faraway from those that I love, because here I have been exposed for what I really am, and shown that I am still loved in spite of it – through people who have seen me day in and day out and have loved me as Jesus Christ loved us, by laying down His life for us when He died on the cross for our sins and then rose again.

It’s supposed to be dry season here – and from what I’ve heard, dry season was supposed to have started back in January. Insofar, it rained torrentially at least 3-4 times today. It's a stretch but I mentioned the rain because it just doesn’t make sense that it keeps on raining when really it should be...not raining. Kind of like how in the face of loss, it would be only natural to feel only bereaved;  but I'm still so joyful and thankful when I think about the past year – and feel the same as I think about the year to come.

If any of my teammates who are away from this place end up reading this, I miss you incredibly. For those who are here in GMT + 7:00 and reading this, thanks for your love and I’m looking forward to going deeper in our relationships and knowing each other and God more together. And to others who don’t fall into either of those groups, to quote something I read recently, “I hope that you can know how loved you are…by God.”

And as always, thanks for reading.

June 11 = 11 months!

::bahasa [language] barriers and on overcoming, or trying: “I wait you here,” a colleague said to me before she left earlier today to go on a Local Marketing mapping excursion.  “I wish we can talk more but I cannot speak English.”  Hearing that broke my heart to think of the barriers I have constructed in my brain and my heart throughout this year foolishly as a way to protect myself from pain experienced from cultural-understanding-fiascos, thinking that they could not understand me and that even though I was learning vocabulary words, somehow my heart hardened to the point where I did not care to put in the effort to actually understand them beyond what words can express.  “Negiri ini Indonesia, jadi harus belajar Bahasa Indonesia,” I processed in my brain as I spoke. “This country is Indonesia, so I need to learn the language.”  Terus [so], I'll have to work even harder on my language learning as I'll be teaching English in an international curriculum school in a month so that in this relational culture, I can build up relationships with people and love them how One loved me, and made Himself vulnerable with no protection and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Here are some thoughts on new vocabulary words learned throughout the course of this week:

::tanaman [plant] Yesterday morning, I found on my desk a plant in a plastic bag.  I found out that it was from another colleague who transferred our department from General Admin earlier year.  Before going to teach my last class, I flew to the lobby where she was sitting and threw my arms around her neck.  I think she must have thought that I was crazy, but I’ve been so used to taking care of plants from my mother throughout my college years and I’ve been wanting one so badly this year - and finally a plant! I’m sure I sounded hilarious as I fumbled for words in Bahasa Indonesia to explain that I haven’t had time to search for a plant in the past eleven months here and how grateful I was that she gave one to me.  I didn’t even know the word for plant, so I had to turn to her computer and pull up Google translate because I was trying to say everything I was feeling.  By the way, the word is tanaman.  Definitely an example of God's care through His provision!

::pelajar-pelajar kita – our students; or, on graciousness and generosity 

It took a while to get to the smiling faces that you see all together in the picture.

“First time I did not like about your lesson, I feel boring and uncomfortable, you make my class really serious, so I feel hard.  I know it is become to hard because I not understand about English.  I start from zero and I don’t know anything about it and more hard because you teach me using English and can’t speak with Indonesian language.  It is a big problem for me.  I don’t know what you are talking and what I must to say with English.  But it is a process.”

My student Asep (pictured far right) shared the words above honestly with me in a letter he gave me recently for his self-initiated +/- 200 word essays for me everyday.  Though the grammar isn't perfect, it perfectly describes the story of my life for the past two months spent navigating the differences between Southeast Asian and Western classroom culture and also finding my way as a teacher with no formal educational experience.  I'm embarrassed to admit that a lot of ugliness surfaced in my heart during that time. 

One thing I’ve been learning this year about Indonesian culture (and with over 300 local languages and dialects and just as many people groups, what does that even mean?!) is saving face.  It is considered mature to mask one's anger or other negative emotions with a smile.  It is also considered mature to save someone else from embarrassment by not directly pointing out another's mistake(s).  I struggled with the former, because I am really transparent with my emotions – or sometimes they just leak out of my face when I don’t want them to! So I felt stabbed in the back when people would smile at me even though they were angry or frustrated with me because of something they did not like.  Rather than trying to sort out the cultural differences, it was easy to construct barriers in my heart and keep people out rather than taking the risk of getting hurt after letting them in.  I am sure I offended my students with the other part of saving face because it was also easy for me to point my accusing finger at my students for not understanding me even though I was the one talking too fast, and also for not telling me directly about their concerns or questions or frustrations.  Oh the difficulties that arose from due to us looking at the classroom through different cultural lenses.  And I also had a hard time owning up to my pride.

I mention all of that because I was amazed to see my students' faces drop as I shared with them the news that my contract would be finishing and that I would move on to teach at another school.  They have seen me at my worst, and yet they expressed outwardly through their body language that they would miss me and my roommates.  The girls, our (Sarah, Irene, me) students, invited us out to lunch last week and then showered us in gifts afterward.  I’m humbled to think that these people, who are moving overseas because they cannot find work in Indonesia that pays a high enough salary to support themselves and their loved ones, could give us so much through their generosity and their graciousness to cover over mistakes.  Even though my students and I share different beliefs, they have challenged me to think about Paul's words from Ephesians: "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." (Ephesians 4:2) Today my students gave me a frame of the picture above, and other pictures we took together. Asep was right - it was definitely a process, and one that I'm thankful for. 

::Mami Yuli: I wanted to write about her earlier in the year, and easily hammered out two 8 ½ x 11 pages on her (still the default US page size instead of A4…) one day after she had made me a cup of coffee and fed me in her usual motherly way with some wonderful-tasting cake.  I knew that people called her by the name “Mami” and at first, my roommates and I thought it was because she was the mother of Yuli, one of Ruth’s colleagues in Accounting.  I later found out that it wasn’t true, and that she had acquired the name based on her character and by being a mother to everyone in the company, older and young alike.  

Mami Yuli has been yet another reminder that God shows his care for us by providing for our needs.  Some of my most precious moments at work were spent trying to understand each other linguistically when really we understood each other from our hearts perfectly.   I’ve learned a lot of Bahasa Indonesia from our conversations, which has helped me in building up relationships with colleagues from our Local Marketing department – from simple things like kadang-kadang [sometimes] to muntah [vomit].  The latter was learned when I was helping myself to some water from the dispenser, and she said that if I drank it, I would muntah and then she proceeded to boil some water for me.   There were many mornings when she’d plug in the water boiler for me to make the 1000 rp pakets of ABC coffee I’d buy from the kantin, or even make me coffee herself.   

Her presence has meant a lot to me in this year away from my family, especially with being away from my mother during a time when she has been unwell and physically weak.  This morning when I gave her some tokens of appreciation which paled in comparison to everything she has given to me throughout this year, she got tears in her eyes and said in Bahasa Indonesia, “It’s like you’re my own child and I’m sad to think that you’re leaving…"I’d have to say that Mami Yuli is one of the most generous people I have met since coming here to Indonesia, and I have been really humbled by her example.  I am challenged by her to open my heart and to give freely and sincerely.

::suka duka [bittersweet]: Immediately after the plant episode yesterday, all I could think of was “bittersweet.”  It’s sad to leave people in a workplace that I never knew existed a year ago.  I asked my colleague Christine if she knew the Bahasa Indonesia equivalent for “bittersweet.”  She said that there was no direct translation as I explained the meaning of the word.  Discouragement!  I turned to my dictionary app and found that there were actually two phrases for my thoughts – one for food, and the other for experience.  The latter is suka duka.  Suka carries the feeling of “to like” and duka has the feeling of a sense of having lost something, Christine explained.  I like it because it rhymes – but it is a hard feeling to process, or try.

At eleven months, I never thought that I’d feel the way I’d feel about some of my team members who have become like family leaving Indonesia.  I feel like I’ve been preparing to get my heart ripped out over the past few weeks.  At the same time, I’m so thankful for the friends who have become like brothers and sisters to me here.  When we meet, I’ve often felt so challenged and sharpened, deposited into, and accepted for who I am just as they know that Jesus has completely loved accepted them.  I’m also looking forward to building up relationships with people who will become like my new family throughout the next year when they arrive in less than a week.  

and now that it's May, some overdue updates...

::Taman Mini, and other reflections on fellowship::

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.  – Acts 2:42

And he determined the times set for them and the exact places they should live.  – Acts 18:26b

Two Saturdays ago, a bunch of us ventured out to the east side of Jakarta to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah – a veritable Epcot-esque park of a miniature Indonesia.  Some of us played a game of walking ultimate Frisbee together, including yours truly.  The last time I played a game of walking ultimate was over a year ago at Palmer Field on Easter Sunday.  At that time I had no idea that a year later, I’d be walking furiously after a Frisbee in the thickness of a Jakarta afternoon with friends I couldn’t have anticipated meeting.  Afterward, everyone grabbed dinner at some roadside food stalls in Pondok Indah since we knew that the shopping malls in the city would be crowded.  Our whole table ended up sharing sate ayam [Indonesian-style chicken on skewers] and mini ice cream cones. 

And on Sundays, we usually eat a late lunch (after packing up everything from Sunday Celebration and then putting it safely away at home).  A couple of Sundays ago, we had at least 20 people sitting together at one long table – if not more.  I was sitting on one end with a group of people who had met maybe once or twice but were all connected by one person whom we met through one of our Michigan alumni. 

I was thinking as I looked at the long stretch of table that I couldn’t believe that I was freaking out a year ago about things like where we would live and who would befriend us and what would I do about a job…it was this unbelief that God was bigger than all of those things, and that he cared enough to provide and to plan for those things in advance, even before I was formed in my mother’s womb.  And now that I am here, I see that I should have been able to trust him without my eyes seeing what I see now. 

::reflecting on God’s promises::

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. – Psalm 119:11

“So what does that really mean?  How do we hide God’s Word in our hearts?”  It was a few Tuesdays ago, at Life Group in Jakarta.  After responding with some Sunday School/textbook answer, I realized that my response exposed me for many times blindly accepting the Bible as words strung together into nice-sounding sentences rather than really believing it to be God’s heart.  The question also exposed me for having the tendency to stay at the shallow end of things if I can help it rather than being exposed for what I don’t know.  This is also called pride.  The person who asked me the question then shared a different translation of the verse, from The Message: I've banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I won't sin myself bankrupt. 

At the conclusion of the study, my heart was hungry for more of God’s Word and as a huddle group, the three of us committed to sms-ing each other once we had completed our Bible reading for the day and prayer each day that week – which would also serve as an encouragement or reminder to the sms recipients.  (side note: we “sms” [short message service] in Indonesia, we don’t “text message.”  Or at least those of us who aren’t quite yet on the Blackberry boat…I think I’ve sent more sms’s in these past almost ten months than I have in the entire time that I’ve owned a cell phone.  Oh, we also call those “handphones.”)  One person in my huddle group committed to memorizing 10 promises for that week and writing them in her journal.  I also said that I would memorize 10, but didn’t quite make good on my promise for that week since I didn’t memorize the number that I said I would.  This also has to do with the idea of integrity, which is something I am more aware of lately. 

The message two Sunday Celebrations ago also reinforced the idea of God’s care and concern for us shown through his faithfulness to his promises, which are found in his Word.  Part of the practical application for last week was to find God’s promises in his Word and to write them down.  It was like another chance to make good on my word.  I actually haven’t kept count of how many verses I have been writing down whenever there is a chance to see the words with my eyes and get them into my brain, and then my heart. 

 Regardless of how many I have actually memorized (and I’m too lazy to count at the moment), last week was full of opportunities to depend on God’s grace…

::learning how to exchange weakness for strength; or, on teaching::

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. – 2 Corinthians 12:9

My role at work changed yet again when I started teaching English over a month ago.  I always prided myself at being a good student and absorbing academic material pretty well from teachers whom I adored throughout elementary school all the way up through high school and college.  I also remember every single one of my instructors’ names because I’m weird like that. 

Not only do I not have a teaching certificate, I also have no curriculum with which to plan my lessons everyday.  I find myself doubly unprepared and have viewed myself as under equipped in this way.  I find myself in the same situation with the children’s ministry here, and sometimes find myself freaking out when I see the ages ranging in one classroom from two-years-old to grade 6 and trying to figure out how to engage the various attention spans on my own.  Finally, I find myself serving in areas in which I have no experience and where I feel deeply conscious of messing up because I equate mistakes with shame and humiliation.  I find myself thinking often that things would be better if I had more experience or training, since that’s pretty much the only template I’ve ever known.  The thoughts I have been struggling through lately are also called “pride.” I have realized that making mistakes is inevitably this inherent part of being human (duh), and if anything, they are a great opportunity to learn and improve and grow. But I’m still a work in progress and learning how to embrace my lack, rather than freaking out about it. 

One of my roommates reminded me when I was feeling discouraged at work that “He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it,” (1 Thessalonians 5:24) meaning that whatever God has entrusted into my hands here that was not of my choosing – which were all of the things I mentioned above that I have felt so self-conscious about – He will “supply all of my needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19), and would I trust Him to do that?  At the core of my freaking-out-ness is my unbelief that my Creator, and the Creator of the universe, could give me the creativity to teach in a way that honors Him – and that He Himself can teach me, as long as I look to Him.  I’m also reminded of Paul’s words in his second letter to the Corinthians, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

I should praise him for these opportunities to be weak, which are really opportunities for God to demonstrate His strength through me – not based on my skill, which I have prided myself on for my whole life, but based on His grace. 

::masuk angin; or battling the Indonesian common cold

Supposedly there are two seasons in Indonesia: dry and rainy.  Rainy starts sometime in September and is supposed to end sometime in March-April.  I think.  And then dry season is supposed to start sometime in April and then goes until the rains come again.  The only real difference in the seasons is the amount of rain.  Other than that, there is no real fluctuation in temperature or any sort of marked change in the weather as this four-seasons-girl is accustomed to. 

One thing that is pretty subtle since you can’t see it, yet noticeable, is the change in atmospheric pressure. I’m not a science teacher so I can’t say more on that, but I feel the change keenly in my sinuses.  And, when the weather changes people catch a common cold that is referred to very seriously as masuk angin. The literal translation is “enter wind” and it occurs when the weather suddenly changes from hot to cold, it is possible for “bad wind” to enter a body.  Or at least that’s what I get from some conversations with people here.  As soon as masuk angin, symptoms include fever, sore throat, stuffed/runny nose and other things related to congestion, fatigue, and nausea just to mention a few.  So I’m also not a doctor, but I mention those things because I caught a cold over the weekend and experienced all of those symptoms.  I think it was a byproduct of trying to do everything on my own strength, and a good opportunity to remember to let God be strong in my physical weakness.

Funny to think through the cocktail of medicines I went through this weekend.  One I found particularly interesting and worth mentioning was a menthol-ly thick herbal syrup called tolak angin.  Tolak has this feeling of “to turn away/reject” and was formulated to reject masuk angin.  Our thoughtful friend Lukas dropped off a box of the syrup packets.  To that point, I had only ever seen advertisements for this “medicine” plastered on the sides of busses.  My roommate Sarah and I stared at it suspiciously as he explained to us that the syrup was to be taken straight and without water, and even downed a packet with us as proof that it was harmless.  The minty taste was overpowering, and my sore throat was happy to find respite through the syrupy coating.  Not a few hours later, I found myself feeling feverish again.  I don’t know how much of a hand the tolak angin played in my in-progress recovery, but trying it was definitely an experience in itself. 

::twitter::

I am probably the slowest kid on the block and finally joined the twitter world. Unfortunately my last name is so long that my initial username ended up being “irismacadangdan” and I didn’t like that so I settled for “irismacadang2.”  I actually haven’t christened my account with an inaugural tweet as of yet, but feel free to follow me if you want! 

::sepi [quiet] | or, regarding the prolonged silence::

It’s May, and I know I haven’t posted in what feels like ages.  Sometimes I really don’t know how to find my words, even though I profess them to be a love in my life, which is an explanation for the silence on my blog for the past almost three months (!).  I love to journal, yet there is the problem of not writing as fast as I think.  And lately when I sit to type out my thoughts at home instead, I end up falling asleep with my computer on my lap!  I also noticed that I was getting into the habit of blogifying everything I was thinking – a way to express my thoughts about life to the world, but I was barely writing for myself, which is another reason for the silence.  

You can access March, April, and future updates here at our website.  I also will try to post more often so that there's less to digest in one sitting.  Thanks for reading!

Holiday

Going on my third consecutive Valentine’s Day as a single person – and honestly, praise God! Tomorrow is a double whammy holiday: Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year. Chinese Indonesians are one significant minority group in Indonesia among hundreds of people groups. I don’t know much more than that, other than that the ancestors of some of these families came to Indonesia hundreds of years ago and have been here since. (And as a Filipino American living in Indonesia, I’m afraid I am not familiar with the story of Chinese New Year…eh, it happens). I guess living in Indonesia, this should be a post about Chinese New Year, as I’m sure the celebrations here would be somewhat different than those in the States (I have never experienced either, actually)

I can write on something more universal, which requires no knowledge of Mandarin or Bahasa Indonesia… Someone said to me the other day, “It must be hard for your boyfriend with you here in Indonesia…” I had to smile at her and say, “belum ada,” [literal translation: not yet exist] or ‘there isn’t one yet.’ And you know, it’s a blessing to say that because I was reading over my journal from a year ago and was amazed to see how much I was still in mourning over my most recent relationship. I remember when I was thinking about how I would spend holidays, particularly Valentine’s Day.

On Sundays when we set up the Junior Chapel for church, Sam stands back at the mixer and plays this song by Shane & Shane called “Holiday.” It’s upbeat, with the guitars strumming a moderate tempo as a background to two voices harmonizing – fun to listen to early in the morning while placing chairs into rows for Sunday Celebration. I have to admit, I’m not very good with song lyrics if I’m just listening to them so I had to look up the words to “Holiday” yesterday because I had the song in my head and wanted to hear how it actually goes (need I say it was yet another impulse buy on iTunes?)

You are my Holiday / You are right in the middle of me / You are my Hideaway

I’m calling out your name / oh my Holiday/ You make my heart new / and I love You

What it is I’m trying to say / You are my favorite part of me

Funny because I didn’t even know the song was called “Holiday,” but it seems appropriate to write about especially since there are two holidays tomorrow, and one of them has to do with love and hearts and flowers. Or something like that.

We just finished up a sermon/lecture/talk series on relationships called The Boy Girl Thing last night here in Karawaci. We started with part 1 last Friday aimed at college students, and last Saturday was focused on single working adults. Yesterday was part 2 for the college students, with practical steps and principles to keep in mind when pursuing a relationship. Pastor Seth has been doing the talk back in Ann Arbor for the past 12 years, and I have to admit that for the four years of my undergraduate life at Harvest Mission Community Church, his words have gone in one ear and out of the other. Having heard each of the three messages before, I think it’s funny that I needed to come to Indonesia to really appreciate the truth of his words.

Some of you reading this might strongly disagree with the church talking about sex and relationships – but it's our way to discuss how to conduct our lives in a manner that is pleasing to God, and I want to encourage you to check out the sermons once they’re posted at our website as some food for thought. I know that if I had actually grasped some of these principles prior to getting into my various unhealthy relationships in college, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache.

Pastor Seth focused primarily on the concept of counterfeit love in part 1 last Friday, suggesting that, “when the real thing is the real thing, everyone else wants to copy it,” that our impressions of love have been distorted – or fake: “to conceal to make appear more attractive, interesting, valuable. Usually in order to deceive; counterfeit.” As I reflected on my relationships with the opposite sex over the years, I felt very sad in my heart when I grasped the epiphany that counterfeit love is much of what I have ever known to give to or receive from guys. I couldn’t accept parts of my heart and my life as they were and expected someone else to accept a me that I wanted to be but wasn’t actually. It has resulted in multiple unhealthy relationships with a foundation based on deception. I’m going to be a nerd and list out some of the principles that Pastor Seth shared upstairs portion of Planet Noodle, our restaurant venue that graciously opened its doors for us and worked with us to give a 20% discount to anyone who joined us for the talk.

1.) Fake love promises closeness but not necessarily commitment

2.) Fake love promises connectedness but not clarity

3.) Fake love promises certainty but lacks the comprehensiveness

4.) Fake love promises completeness but lacks the contentment

As I listened to him dictate those principles, it seemed as if he had outlined the whole course of my most previous relationship from beginning to end. I don’t really feel like elaborating right now, but thinking about these principles brought J.R.R. Tolkien’s words (spoken in deep, languid tones by Cate Blanchett at the beginning of the LOTR movie trilogy – haha) to mind: but they were all of them deceived.

It’s so easy to talk about true love and grasp at it and believe that we’ve found it – particularly in a romantic relationship. But for so many of us, our views of love relationships are so skewed. Because I didn't want people, particularly guys, to know me for who I really was, I defrauded guys into loving something that I was not, and was defrauded by loving the ideas I had of people and not actually the person. In doing so, I realize that I, like many other women, have fed the egos of men - and that in turn, I have defrauded men into feeding my insecurity and need for security, investing into relationships with love that was self-centered and self-serving. I do feel sorry that the other parties have had to endure that, but I am thankful for the experience to learn the hard way that I and so many others have been so deceived.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. I notice that people use 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 or the love passage as a cliché, and I mention it because if we really think about the words, love in its original design is actually manifested as a distortion just because we are sinful and broken people.

Fortunately, there is truth and an alternative to counterfeit love: This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 1 John 3:16

A sinless man, the Son of God, who created and is love, seeing the sordidness of our souls – when most people would walk away at such vileness and brokenness, he took it upon himself.

While visiting a national school recently, I got to observe a chapel where the children sang the chorus to this song by Avalon:

We are the reason that he gave his life

We are the reason that he suffered and died

To a world that was lost, he gave all he could give

To show us the reason to live

It brought tears to my eyes, especially thinking of how I have defrauded people and been defrauded by counterfeit love - but that Jesus could still love somebody like that, that Jesus could still love me. He makes my heart new, and as I learn to accept this more and more everyday, I feel more free of the baggage from the past.

To wrap it all up, I wrote this because my heart breaks for people who experience the distortion of love in all of its forms. And also, no, I won’t be pining away as a single woman who isn’t getting any younger tomorrow. I will be spending the holidays with teammates who have become my family, and with the Lover of my Soul – Jesus, my Holiday. I hope that others of you, singles especially, can experience the same.

interviunya | the interview

In my second year as a working single adult, I’m still relatively new to the workplace but I am already experiencing how difficult it is to maintain integrity and work with all of my heart “as if serving the Lord, not men” rather than just the man (although I have to say, I do appreciate my bosses Yonas and Jeffrey immensely and am grateful for the crash course in family business 101 – also known as working here). Often, I find myself having to create work for myself to keep my hands busy, which is great because it allows me to engage in my creative side while trying to learn more about how exactly this business operates. I mention that because over the past couple of months, it’s been really easy for me to get into this rut where I dread coming in to work because I feel like I just sit here for 8 hours and then go home, and come back and do it all over again. But I’m reminded of where I was two years ago, an almost graduate who along with my classmates faced the challenges of job searching with an economic downturn on the near horizon. I have a job, and I should be grateful for the opportunity to worship through my work.

“Iris, can you interview her? My English is not good…”
I had just created for myself some more work - evaluating our customer service by our response to customer complaints (because according to the reports I've been translating this morning, the response has been zero, or my colleagues forget to record the responses. But anyway...) I turned around to face the speaker, a woman in my department. Standing next to her desk was a woman wearing skinny jeans and a white t-shirt with a brown mouse’s face on it, with black hair cropped close to her head. I’ve overheard two of my roommates who teach English here at our company interviewing women who want to work in Canada as caregivers, but have never given the interviews myself. “Do you have specific questions that you want me to ask her?” I asked my colleague, whose only response to continue to sit smiling at me. That was my cue to plunge right in with whatever questions I could think of off the top of my head: “What is your name? Where did you work? What did you do? Where did you learn English? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do there?”

Her name is Nina. I was trying to talk slowly but some of my questions elicited blank stares before an actual response. She worked in Malaysia for two years as a domestic worker, “cleaning the house, washing the car, feeding the dog…” and in Saudi Arabia for two years, as a caregiver for the elderly. “I learn English in Malaysia,” and she wants to go to Hong Kong through our company to work as an elderly caregiver again, like she has worked overseas before, to support her family. She has a husband, and a twelve-year-old daughter. “I want to work in Hong Kong for my family’s future.” I wasn’t able to ask her what she had in mind for her family’s future because at that point, another one of my colleagues was waiting to take her upstairs to Overseas Marketing for another interview.

I thought of her daughter. If Nina worked overseas in years consecutive to one another, her daughter might have been somewhere around 8 years old, or younger, when she first left to work overseas. I was thinking of how much Nina loves her family, and would do anything to spend more time with her husband and daughter – but she loves them so much to leave, to find work overseas and to work to support them. How does her daughter feel? I can imagine that she wants so much to spend time with her mother. Spend time cooking with her, watching tv together, maybe fighting together now that she’s older, and maybe just sitting and being with one another.

I write about this because I have been thinking a lot lately about family and how it functions, and about work. My parents moved to the United States before I was born, and I think I only know half of the struggles they faced while getting established in a new place, if that. My mother, a nurse, worked long hours at the hospital to support our family, and some of our extended family members. My father would work during the daytime and stay with me at home while my mother was working the evening shift. I remember sitting on my mother’s lap one day when I was 5, after lunch as she was preparing to leave for work. I had just eaten a chocolate fudgesicle, and sitting with her was the best thing in the world. And then she had to leave. I remember feeling so sad, and I heard her say the words, “but I have to go to work…” even though now I am more than certain that she would have given anything to take a day off and stay with me.

My father still works the second shift, at the power plant at Western Michigan University. Someone interviewed him for a newsletter at Western a while back, and he is the same person to everyone else as he says he is. He works, goes to church, loves working in the yard, and loves his wife and daughters. It’s been very difficult to live for part of my life with my father away in the evenings when my sister and I were at home doing our homework and practicing our instruments. Over the years, I have questioned why such a schedule and why such hours. I remember when he first got the job at Western after a period of unemployment in the mid-90’s. It was quite an adjustment at the time, and I remember how hard it was to think that it felt like I wouldn’t be able to see my father as often as before, or at least during my waking hours.

Coming here to Indonesia, I have a greater assurance that everything in our lives happens for a purpose. I hear many stories like Nina’s, working here at a human resources management company. And I told Nina’s story because it reminds me of the people on the other side of my own story – my parents. I’ve become somewhat embittered because of the lack of closure and understanding about why certain things in my life happened the way that they did. But I realize that everything in my life has happened for my good, that “all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose…” (Romans 8:28) Because things happened the way that they did, with parents working hours that I have disliked more or less and my limited perspective on those situations at the time, I understand much better the people filtering in and out of the Lokal Marketing department in search of jobs overseas.

I mention this because it has also been greatly challenging to have a heart of compassion for these people from all over Indonesia, with their educations and options so limited that they must find work overseas, and towards my colleagues. Things don’t work the way I think they should, as I am accustomed to in the American workplace; interpersonal interactions also do not function in the Western ways that I am used to. I realize that thinking this way has hardened my heart, as pride tends to do. This morning on the way to work, I was reading Matthew 27, which chronicles the crucifixion of Christ and I felt challenged at the thought, “For whom was it that Christ died?” in our morning meeting as I was staring at the faces of my colleagues, including the one who asked me to interview Nina shortly after that meeting. Makes me think of these words, “Oh kneel me down again here at Your feet, show me how much You love humility…” and how much I want that heart, especially as someone who is living here as opposed to just visiting.

And finally to wrap it up, I wrote this to reiterate the fact that I understand – or I understand better. Work was my parents’ way of expressing their love and challenges me to do the same. Also, today is my father’s birthday, and I wish so very much that I could celebrate it with him. Thanks Dad (and Marme) for your love. And if you’re not either of them and want to read a little bit more about my father from that newsletter I mentioned above, click here and see page 4. Happy Birthday, Dadipogi.

::the fail blogger::

During our first few days and weeks in Indonesia, whenever someone would commit some cultural or social faux pas, some of us engaged in identifying the event by saying, “fail blog!” [I think Irene may have mentioned this in her own blog, but the first time she heard that phrase, she said, “You have a fail blog??”] It’s not an actual blog, by the way. But since I am writing in mine, and I just made the confession (or I guess it was almost a month ago) that I am awkward, here’s a follow up post for some levity – and an update of sorts (only because people like Richard Yamada say that I should post more. Yup, that’s the parenthetical shout-out to Richard. Thanks for mentioning that you check my blog as much as you do! And of course, thanks to all of the other readers too!)

“I’ve never seen Mr. Bean but you remind me so much of him,” he said. The speaker met all of us only four months ago, and yet he was speaking to what everyone else who has known me for longer has endured quietly. I think that morning, he was talking about the fact that I had flipped the spoon in my coffee out onto the saucer somehow, almost knocked over my water glass, and almost fallen over while getting out of my chair at our retreat last week. Besides my last post and grasping my emotional awkwardness, I have been very familiar with my physical awkwardness over the years – and to people who know me well, it makes perfect sense that I love the movie “The Princess Diaries” because the protagonist is just as awkward and ungainly as I am, and vice versa.

To illustrate, I’ll share what I wish was a well-scripted scene from a sitcom... I caught a stomach virus shortly before Christmas a couple of weeks ago, and was being extremely conscientious of taking my antibiotics before and after each meal. While endeavoring to unscrew the cap of my Powerade bottle of electrolytes in order to take my medicine, I managed to fling the cap into a small receptacle with pink votive oil which functioned as our table’s fly repellent. Initially I was going to leave the cap as it was, but decided that I should at least fish it out so the plastic didn’t melt into the oil. I did successfully take hold of said cap with my fingers – but watched it sail through the air into the remainder of my food. Shortly afterward, I also managed to fall out of my chair. Other than utter embarrassment at the time of occurrence, I guess one thing about coming to grips with my chronic klutziness is that I can laugh about the fact that these things are real life and I don’t make them up.

I can't blame the antibiotics for my cantankerous behavior because I had another episode of epic fail blogness this morning (although now that I think about it, I did just finish taking another round of antibiotics for yet another stomach bug. 'Tis the rainy season here, and infections are rampant!) I was preparing to sheath the tables in the junior chapel this morning with our own tablecloths, when I noticed that the table where we place refreshments had a hot water dispenser on it. Thinking it was empty and that it would be an easy move, I grabbed the two handles to move the dispenser to the ground. It actually was completely full of water, and even though it was very heavy and I knew that moving it by myself was probably biting off more than I could chew, I decided to plow ahead and move it to the ground out of sight. The cord to the dispenser was caught on the coffee maker next to me, and I found that I could not set the dispenser flat on the ground unless there was slack from the cord. I was inches/centimeters from the ground, trying desperately to balance the dispenser and also grab the cord so I could release my burden. When the cord was almost in my fingers, I felt the dispenser slip out of my hands and flip 90 degrees, spilling its contents. Fortunately, it was only water – but it was a lot of water, and it spread quickly under the tables and towards the door of the chapel. Very slippery and dangerous for people walking in and out during the morning!

We did manage to find two mops to at least soak up the damage, but no bucket with a contraption to squeeze out the water. Our kindhearted Pak, one of the head groundsmen at SPH, wiped up the water and wrung the mop with his hands with expert skill. One of my teammates took the other mop and also wrung the water out by hand. Since I love cleaning, I think ordinarily I would have felt the shame of being useless as a watcher. I felt humbled actually as I watched these two men wiping up the mess that I had made. It really reminded me of what Christ did when he died on the cross – that it was to make right my wrongs, to shed his perfect blood to justify me for all of the ways that I fall short. Those men didn’t need yet another thing to think about this morning, let alone clean up someone else’s mess, even if it was just water. I, being the judgmental person that I am, would probably let someone in my shoes know just how wrong they were to screw up that badly, and to keep reminding him or her of it. Instead, I heard the older Indonesian man who is probably my dad’s age saying, “nggak apa-apa,” [never mind] in response to my “ma’afkan kami,” [forgive us]. Humbling to think that all it takes to make right wrongs is to admit error, to confess sin, and to say, “Forgive me.” That Jesus was willing to clean up my mess, at no cost to me, but cost everything to Him when he died on the cross. Just some food for thought.

So it turns out that I actually love writing so much that I would rather wait a while and turn out a piece that is profound and well thought out – which is why I have neglected to post anything about Christmas or New Year’s or our recent January retreat and anything in between. Those were special times in my life thus far and definitely worthy of mention. I know it’s getting close to February and things like Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year (which happen to be on the same day this year!) and December happenings might not seems so relevant. We’ll see how I end up updating regarding those things. But for now, this is my attempt at fail blogging less…(e.g. posting more)

As always, thanks for reading!

The Tale of the Ugly Duck

How are things since my last post? To be honest, the thought of recounting Thanksgiving kind of overwhelms me – even though I was fully prepared to post it at the beginning of December. I used to be the kind of kid predisposed to homesickness. Not kidding. When I was four, I tried to sleep over at my friend Marilee’s house and her parents ended up taking me back home because I just couldn’t do it. And the night my sister was born, I slept over at the home of some family friends – and I just remember crying buckets over Miss Piggy, who was my guardian for the night. And during my first semester at the University of Michigan, my friends and I all gathered in my room tearing up listening to Christmas music during finals – most of us from the Midwest, mind you – because we missed home. And now I live in Indonesia, a week away from Christmas, missing everyone and everything but the homesick pangs aren't as bad as I thought they would be. Also, I find myself really moody in my new context at times, and I realize that I’m not the kind of girl that eats my feelings (no offense to those who do; and when I eat my feelings, I eat chocolate) – I listen to them. Actually, I have to admit sheepishly that I went on an iTunes binge-rampage-extravaganza yesterday because I had all of this music in my head from high school band and orchestra and it was like I craved it. Strange and true, I needed the music to think about life as I know it currently [okay, and that list included Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8, the Hebrides Suite, the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde, On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss, and some music from the movie Amélie... just in case you were curious. Lots of contemplative stuff, I know. It's because I wanted it to process everything that led to the explosion written below...]

To leave everything safe and familiar, I realize that I needed to build up something in order to feel secure. I did this through learning Bahasa Indonesia and cleaning at home. I figured that if I could do things that I was good at, then people should not feel the right to come into my life and speak to the flaws in my character, to say the things that I didn’t want to hear but were so good and necessary for me. So, itt’s been a little over five months since we left the States, and Indonesia has become this incredible crock-pot for me to sit and stew in – a sort of crucible, surfacing all these things that have been in my heart for years. I took some time to read over my journals from the past five months and saw the aspiring creative writer in me. Mostly my heart swelled, because of seeing everything I have been learning. There was some sadness too, at the realization of my tendency to organize things into a narrative rather than just seeing them as raw. So here I give you some of the raw (which is about me and not necessarily Indonesia...hold onto your hats, kids!)

::Bahasa Indonesia:: I was reflecting this morning on how much change has actually taken place, language-wise. I used to sit in morning meetings, listening to what sounded to me like jibberish – and now, I understand (75-80% of the time) what problems the people in my department encounter. I had to reevaluate my motives for learning the language. What was I really learning it for? I have to admit that I didn’t want to leave this place without gaining a command of it. And then I have to insert some cheese here with a line from Spiderman, where Uncle Ben says, “With great power comes great responsibility” (or something like that). What was I learning this language for, if not to eventually gain a working command of it, in order to share with people from this country about the love of Jesus Christ – what he has done and is currently doing in my life? It’s a great challenge, because I am still learning the language, and then do I even share about my faith in my first language?

::Cleaning:: one of my chores growing up was to keep the shoe closet organized, although I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job of it because every few months or so, we’d have to clean up the shoe closet, and Marms’ “keep your shoes!” fell on deaf ears more often than not… Grew up sweeping floors and washing dishes and doing laundry and other domestic sports, and so moving into an apartment with four other girls and continuing to do these things was easy. Actually, the cleaning was quite therapeutic – an outlet for me to work out any feelings I had upon moving to Indonesia, just because it’s so mindless. Looking back, I realize that the girl who came to Indonesia five months ago was very insistent at having her way, still having claim over some area of expertise in order to feel valued. It was easy to push the couches around, dust things, and sweep and mop the floor and wash the dishes after LIFE Group even though it was so late – and can you imagine, I took such pride in my ability to do such things well, and even more than that, to think so highly of myself for my ability to do these things! I shake my head now when I think that I needed to think that I was better than my teammates, and that cleaning was another way to build myself up.

I realize that I do things to build myself up to compensate for things lost or things never there. In my mind, I was thinking, ‘If I can do these things well, then so-and-so should feel terrible for wanting to speak to another area of my life that needs improvement!’ it follows then that Learning Bahasa Indonesia and cleaning have been my covering for my lack. And how much I realize in this new environment how much I lack!

Actually, someone shared with me recently that I am awkward. It wasn’t a topic that took up a significant portion of the conversation, but the mere mention of it had me searching high and low to grasp what that person might have meant since we didn’t discuss the topic further. My searching brought me to this definition from Mr. Webster (as my 4th Grade teacher so fondly referred to the dictionary):

Main Entry: awk·ward
Pronunciation: \ˈȯ-kwərd\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English awkeward in the wrong direction, from awke turned the wrong way, from Old Norse ǫfugr; akin to Old High German abuh turned the wrong way
Date: 1530
1 obsolete : perverse
2 archaic : unfavorable, adverse
3 a : lacking dexterity or skill (as in the use of hands) b : showing the result of a lack of expertness
4 a : lacking ease or grace (as of movement or expression) b : lacking the right proportions, size, or harmony of parts : ungainly
5 a : lacking social grace and assurance b : causing embarrassment
6 : not easy to handle or deal with : requiring great skill, ingenuity, or care

Reading that definition shook me to my core (and is the primary reason that I went on my iTunes binge mentioned earlier, hahaha). How dare he refer to me as not dexterous, when I grew up playing piano – and any pianist, expert or amateur (I am the latter), knows that playing piano is the end of cultivating dexterity (okay, fingers-wise…) How dare he address my lack of expertness, when I graduated in the top 10% of my high school class and got my bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. How dare he suggest that I lacked social graces – me, the resident advisor to more than 100 girls over 2 years and in positions of leadership as old as I was able to run for any sort of office (and for the most part, won). The last part of that definition floored me though, as I had to be honest with myself that I have not been easy to handle or deal with throughout my life and that I have seen how people have tread so carefully around me, or dropped me entirely. This was no fault of theirs - it was mine.

I started Wikipedia-ing like crazy (yeah, I guess that’s a pastime of mine when I have access to the internet. I’m actually not kidding…), trying to make sense of who I am through my name – which refers to the part of the eye, which translates in Spanish and Portuguese to “rainbow,” which is the title of a song by the Goo Goo Dolls (yes, I am aware…) and even asking God, ‘Why did you make me this way?’ referring to my handed-ness (which is left-handed, and yes, the reason why this blog is under construction…)

I love the story of “The Ugly Duckling” because this awkward, ungainly bird matures into a beautiful swan. I have been teased that I grew up to be a duck, and I think it’s really true. In this new context, I am fixed in my Western mind, slow to pick up on cultural cues, and slow to pick up on social cues. When I find myself in situations that are completely new and different to me, I clam up because I would rather do that than step out gingerly and fail. I hate looking weak, appearing ignorant. I realize that I have done this over the past few months to hold onto my pride – and it’s easy to reach back to things one thinks they can control when one is away from everything safe and familiar.

As I was thinking through the definition of “awkward,” it was extremely sobering to admit that the assessment of that aspect of my character was correct. I do have a hard time fitting into large groups, and people within my age bracket – likely because of events in my life that caused me to mature emotionally in a short amount of time, and also because of events that prevented me from maturing emotionally. I am used to being useful and praised for my supposed leadership skills and social cool, and I have to admit that actually yes, it is very uncomfortable for me to be in large groups of people – likely because I have only now began to reconcile who it is that I am and who I am becoming, because I haven’t accepted myself for who I am, and fear what others may think as well. I get frustrated with people who appear ignorant or not knowledgeable, thinking all the while that I am – and at the end of the day, I have to be honest and say, actually I am quite clueless and appearing knowledgeable is a cover for what I really am – which is slow to picking up concepts, but when I do I really get it… no real expertise in a specific area of whatever I studied (because I wanted to study everything possible), (and when I read the news, I have to admit that I actually read the soft/feature news and have a hard time wading through the more in-depth hard news). It’s no fun to be stripped down to the bare bones of what you really are, and hanging onto whatever I thought I was good at was a way for me to keep covering myself and my lack – and demonstrated, and still demonstrates, my brokenness and how I cannot fix myself. How I cannot rid myself of the filth and the grime that everyone else around me senses as pride.

It is a great comfort to think back to the Apostle Paul’s words, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25) So I guess this all really does tie back into Christmas because this is the reason that Jesus came to earth – to rescue insecure, broken, proud people like me – and that by believing that He became my sin (e.g. my pride), who knew no sin that I might become His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21) (imagine that!), that I could experience the wholeness that comes from Christ, that I don’t have to build myself up with meager things like language acquisition or cleaning. The part of the definition that floored me about myself had me floored again thinking about Christ, and how willing he was to handle me with great skill, ingenuity, and care. And while I was feeling so ruined at thinking about how malformed I really am on the inside, I realize that accepting things like being awkward are an opportunity for God to be to me who he was to people like Paul when he said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Thank you, Jesus, for coming to earth to become my sin – my pride, and countless other things I am ashamed of – and to die on the cross so that sin could be done away with, that I might know what it means to let go of the things that I found my security in and take hold of you this Christmas and (strive to do) every day of the year…thank you that you are not above carrying your work onto completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6) in the heart of this ugly duckling who grew up into a duck!