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.

free association on survive or thrive

But godliness with contentment is great gain. - 1 Timothy 6:6

I have to be honest and say that the last weeks of July and beginning of August has been a great challenge with survive or thrive; feeling much like the former from day to day but longing for the latter.

Hopped back on the M'Cheyne Bible Reading Plan (BRP) a few weeks back and found myself in the book of Jeremiah, where God was declaring his promises to his people: "I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place..." I also found myself paging back to the beginning of the book one Saturday morning to try to contextualize everything, but ended up reading until I found this in chapter 17: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives." (vv 5-6) Felt really convicted because it was an accurate reflection of how I have felt lately, especially with trying to juggle everything. Immediately after that, I read: "But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." (vv 7-8)

It's been easy to feel overwhelmed and much busier for some reason this year, especially when I look at my own capacity to do things. I trust myself and my ability to do things so much, rather than trusting completely in the Sovereign Lord that Jeremiah talks about a few chapters later, who "made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you." (32:17)

Last week, I also read, "But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me." (Psalm 13:5-6) I still have to remind myself that I'm not here to work (even though I LOVE teaching kindergarteners and feel like I fall in love with them more each day) and that I can trust in God's unfailing love. Lately, I've been really, really thankful when I look back on the past year - especially in those moments when it was so necessary to trust Him.

In an attempt to get away from the parched places of the desert and securely thriving, I'll "sing" [write] about my contentment with God's goodness and my "great gain" (see 1 Timothy 6:6 above) in my usual random and spontaneous way (before running off to lunch and being on duty while the children go home for the day...):

:: doing Operation Campus Reach (OCR) with our fellow life group members, and also with two girls I met a year ago at our OCR booth. Amazing that they ever joined us for life group, and stuck with us to partner in reaching out to college students.

::96 in attendance at Sunday Celebration yesterday, with 32 newcomers - after starting out last year with a team of 8 and a family of 5

:: getting soaked by the rain of a non-rainy-season Sunday afternoon while walking with hospitality team members I didn't know a year ago under the shelter of an umbrella to gather up directional signs after Sunday Celebration.

:: learning what it means to be child-like from my kindies, who walk like they are bouncing or running even when we say "WALK" and make me feel like a million bucks when they notice that I'm not wearing my glasses and say things like "Miss, why are you beautiful today?" when I wear dangly earrings

:: anticipating Sports Day tomorrow at SPH with our life group members and new students

:: anticipating my roommate Sarah's birthday coming up this Friday

:: anticipating upcoming ministry team meetings with members who love the church and who love Jesus and long to see people's lives transformed into Christ's disciples who will then transform the world...

We have sang a song at kindy chapel every week since school started which goes:

He is so good to you, He is so good to me
Jesus, He's so good to you and me

I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me...

on the art of improvisation; or, the confessions of a kindergarten phonics teacher

I get paid to sing. 

When I told this to a friend who is a professional singer earlier this week, he responded wide-eyed with, “You…do…??”    

Yes, indeed!  I just started teaching kindergarten phonics at an international curriculum school to 95 kindy 1's and 99 kindy 2's.  It's definitely hard getting up super early in the morning, but I love being crazy with the kids and singing all of the songs I remember from when I was their age.  And I love it when I see the kids smiling and having fun.  Definitely a contrast from what would have been year 3 of law school for me this fall.  (And it makes me happy to know that two semesters of Voice 150 were good for something!)

I told my kindergarteners on Monday, the first day of school with the kids, that I myself was in kindergarten 19 years ago (!).  I also started taking piano lessons at that age and continued to play until I graduated from high school.   In spite of my years of experience, however, I admit that I’ve always been weak at music theory and that I’m a kid who likes to play inside the lines – musical staff lines, that is… I’ve grown up on jazz (and realized in college that it’s a great umbrella term of a word) but was never brave enough to improvise by myself at home and only sometimes in the context of a church youth group setting – with chord charts of course. 

After years of willingly spreading myself thin on three musical instruments, I recognized that I could not be a musical prodigy and also pursue the lofty career aspirations where I thought I could make my mark on the world.  So, upon entering university (as they say here, rather than “college,”) I opted out of the world of musical performance and but ironically into a world where I still got my worth out of performance – in what I studied, how well I performed grades-wise each semester, and how I looked on the outside.  I also associated music with painful things that I wanted to forget, which also made it easier to cut music out of my life. 

It’s ironic to see that the role that music has played in my life very much parallels who I have been and the kind of character I have developed over the years.  For example, I didn’t like playing notes that weren’t from a template or from my lesson books because I knew they’d sound ugly and because I didn’t like failure and didn’t want to create things that sounded horrible.  It was easy to associate failure with shame, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs. 

The other day, I was asked by two of the kindy teachers if I could play the piano.  My hesistant response was, “Ehhh…not well.  But I can…” which prompted an immediate list of songs that I wasn’t exactly familiar with and then when I asked for sheet music or at least a chord chart, I got the hesitant response, “Okay, I’ll try…” and in the end, found myself plunking away on a piano by ear – something I was always afraid to do by myself, but doing somehow in front of almost complete strangers. 

It’s interesting to see the redemption of an art I used to loathe, especially when I had to sit at the piano and practice for 30 straight minutes as a kid!  I realized when I came here that it was my way of timidly expressing myself – through well-memorized notes and well thought out dynamics and tempo changes. 

I actually started out playing the music in the kindy chapel, which we call “Character Building,” on Tuesday and then got replaced mid-song by one of the teachers who has been here for years and knows the songs.  I won’t pretend and say it wasn’t embarrassing – it was hard to enthusiastically sing and do actions after stepping away from the keyboard, which I was afraid of touching in the first place.  After a few minutes, I realized the irony of being at a space in time called “character building,” and a chance to be presented afresh with humility and also patience – especially in these first few days of school!  I read once at P Seth’s blog (sethskim.com), “it is hard to go back to the place where you failed.”  I was told yesterday that the K1’s and K2’s are splitting up for chapel starting next week, because it was a bit much for the K1’s to handle – and would I mind playing the piano for the K1’s?  At least the younger ones will be more accommodating…? 

I definitely feel stretched – especially after my first day with the K1’s on Tuesday.  My kindergarten principal told me this week that my k1’s have an attention span of 4 minutes but I could have concluded it on my own! They get really wiggly when they know it's almost time to go home, too! I realized quickly as I tried to talk over the crying ones who were still getting used to their new environment that I had underplanned and started pulling out games and songs from when I was wee kindergartener myself.  As you, the reader, can see - there are lots of chances to engage in the art of improvisation and I'm not professing to be good at it, but I know that this year, especially with all of the transitions and still getting used to our new work schedule and also other responsibilities, it's going to be a great chance to grow in it.  

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.