Beautiful Days

Why Helloooo!

This week has been a series of really beautiful days, even though nothing terribly out-of-the-ordinary occurred. It's still nice to have a record of such days- the ones that would be completely forgotten, but that deserve to be remembered...

Tuesday was back to my usual activities, with TK in the morning, and a free afternoon and evening. A little curve ball was thrown my way when my youth pastor asked me if I would be willing to lead the sermon for the youth on Sunday morning- in Bahasa Indonesia. ("45 minutes, but no problem if it's only 30 minutes", he said. "Only" is an interesting word choice...) I anticipated spending the afternoon and evening preparing for this, and then ended up watching Harry Potter instead. (I felt a bit paralyzed at the idea of giving a sermon. That is something I've never done before!)

I got down to writing that sermon on Wednesday. I was given the topic, "Show Your Love For Jesus: Putting Jesus Number One" (ironically one of my biggest struggles), and I felt like I was back at university, writing a three point paper to illustrate the ways that we can show our love for Jesus. It was a good chance for me to reflect on my faith journey a bit, though I definitely threw in many examples of how much I struggle with this. It's all written now, and just needs to be practiced a few more times before tomorrow. I have never spoken for any length of time in Bahasa Indonesia (and admittedly, I sent it to a friend to get it translated- people wouldn't have had any clue what I was talking about if I tried to translate it alone/using google translate) so I'm pretty nervous for it, but Laura is coming to show her support (and she's assured me that there will be at least one person there who isn't devastated if it's a bit on the shorter side), and I'm really glad for this opportunity to stretch my comfort zones. I have already benefited from it; When I went in to talk to the youth pastor about it today, it just so happened that there was pizza in the office! Usually the giveaway foods are something floating in broth or wrapped in rice (those ones are generally appreciated more for the kind gesture of the offer than for the taste itself), so I figured that this must truly be a reward for my agreeing to speak on Sunday ;)

I taught at Gloria Patri on Wednesday night. It was my "All About Canada" night, and I was assured that there would be an LCD to show pictures. When we got there, however, there was no LCD to be had- they had forgotten to set it up. Luckily, Indonesians tend to be extremely patient, and between that and the fluid concept of time here, an hour and three different LCD projectors later (the first two wouldn't work), we were ready to go! After class, we headed out for dinner, to the DP Mall this time, where I got sushi and iced tea (both being new favourites of mine). We also stopped at an Indonesian souvenir kiosk where I got some really awesome souvenirs that I have been wanting for awhile, but haven't been able to find. It was a really great evening.

I woke up on Thursday morning and prepared for teaching Play Group. We learned the word "cow", and we've now created a big enough animal vocabulary- 4 words- to have some fun! We walked/crawled around like cats, dogs, horses, and cows (and dinosaurs, just for the heck of it), and then played some "race to the animal", my own little invention where the pictures of the animals are taped to the pillars in the church basement, and I shout the animal and they all scream with excitement and race around like the little minions in the movie Despicable Me (they even make the minion noises), trying to find it. I'll admit that this game is more for my amusement than theirs.

TK ends at 10:30 on Thursdays, and that gives me two hours between class and Ichthus FM. This is also often a really great time to talk to people back in Canada, since it's around 10:30PM on a weeknight there, and people are often on skype. I got to talk to my sister, who was sitting in the rec room of our house, which I hadn't seen since August! Skype is truly a remarkable invention. I felt like I spent some time in my cozy basement!

I began 'Relaxing Afternoon" (the radio show) on my own, my co-host arriving an hour in. It's a bit pathetic how hard-core I feel when I get to take control of the radio system (what's it actually called? I don't even know the name!), but choosing a topic is always difficult, so I floundered around for an hour, discussing this, that, and the other thing (and playing a lot more songs than normal), until Chris finally arrived. The show was salvaged, and we wrapped up, and then I headed to PPA. I had planned an activity with them, using the English phrases that I've taught them ("My name is...", "I am __ years old", etc.), and I was so impressed with the results! They all did such a great job, and I felt like I had accomplished at least a tiny little something teaching-wise. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. There is a group of ladies there who always prepare dinner to eat, and who always want me to eat a big portion of whatever it is. The trouble is that my host mom then wants me to eat dinner after that (people just love it when I eat eat eat eat), and so I usually compromise by asking them if I can "bungkus" the food (take it to go- many kids do that there), and I have found that to be a method that pleases everyone. However, the meal on Thursday was quite difficult to bungkus, and they were particularly insistent upon my eating it. I pondered for a minute about whether to put up a fight over it, and then just gave in and accepted the food, and man, was I ever glad I did! The meal was called gado-gado, which is lontong (rice that has been packed and cooked in a banana leaf), a ton of fresh veggies, and peanut sauce. It was delicious! I think it was the first time that I completely finished a meal there, and the ladies were absolutely thrilled. I also tried Dragon Fruit and some tiny little green fruit that looked completely innocent, but that made lemons taste downright sweet compared to their sourness.

Tangguh, one of my students, lives at the PPA location, and their family raises chickens. I watched him balance a chicken on his shoulder, parrot-style (parrots are much better at this than chickens are, and the poor thing fell off and attempted to run away multiple times, but Tangguh was quicker), and then he came running over to me with one of the seven new chicks, and stuck it in my hand. We ended up hanging out in the chicken coop for awhile after dinner, and I learned about the different types of chickens, and watched as Tangguh and his two year old sister Felda ran after the chickens and swung them around by the leg, and tossed them in the air. It was a rough day for the chickens. Tangguh brought me a KitKat bar afterward, and I was quite touched by the gesture. KitKat bars are a bit more of an expensive chocolate here, and I know that he didn't have too many of them left. Kids are just beautiful. My host parents wanted to go to the mall to pick up some stuff for a package that they wanted to send to our church branch in Kalimantan on Thursday night, and I joined them. I can now tell you exactly where every mall is in Semarang, and can likely list off the stores in each one, and most of the products available in those stores. Ah, the unexpected things you learn when you go overseas for a year...

Friday was a big day for my TK-B class, as well as for three other TK classes in the area. We were all heading off on a big field trip to three different places of worship- a mosque, a Hindu Temple, and a Buddhist Temple. I was very curious as to how this was going to pan out- three places in one day with 200 five year olds is quite ambitious. I had forgotten that the typical focus of any outing here is more on the photo-taking, and much less on the experience of being in that place.It seems much more important to get that photo (or 10), and much less important to take in the sites and learn about the place being visited. I have experienced this several times now, and it still confuses me (I don't understand the value of the photo if you don't know very much about the context in which it is taken), but nonetheless, it provided an explanation as to how we would be able to squeeze in three different places in less than six hours (including a break for lunch, and time to get on and off the bus, and organize the kiddies into lines, and to actually get from point A to point B to point C to point A again). I counted eight separate group photo ops for our class alone, and then we also waited for the rest of the kids to get their pictures taken in the various locations. I have to say, it was impressive just how patient and cooperative those kids were. Organizing 28 kindergarten kids into one photo is nearly impossible at home, and this happened eight times! EIGHT!!! Even I wasn't smiling in the last ones. The trip was a really great chance to see some places that I hadn't yet seen though, and they were really beautiful, even if our time there was brief. Another perk was that my principal canceled class for TK-B on Saturday (the joys of running a private school!), and since my main focus on Saturdays is teaching TK-B, I was given a holiday. This meant a chance to sleep in this morning, and I took full advantage of the opportunity.

I got up and got ready for my meeting at church this morning at 11, where I sorted out some of the final details surrounding tomorrow's sermon. I've spent the afternoon practicing that (ohhhh man, the youth are going to have to grant me a LOT of grace and patience), catching up with a friend from home, and writing this blog post! I have no idea what the plans are for the evening, but it has been nice to have some time today to just catch up on my blog, and I'm sure that the evening will be enjoyable no matter what it brings.

Before I close this, I just wanted to thank you all yet again for your messages from home, despite my slow responses, and sometimes no response. Being overseas, one is constantly trying to find the line between using their time to connect with individuals at home and to immerse ourselves in life here. (In fact, during orientation, there was a whole workshop dedicated to this topic, which concluded with a warning to not allow yourself to spend too much time "in your home country", and the suggestion of connecting to home just once a week.) To alleviate unnecessary guilt and stress on my end (related to both not keeping in touch enough, and to being in touch too much), the compromise that I have come to is to read and enjoy those messages from home entirely guilt-free, and then use my blog as a means of updating everyone about life here. This allows me to put some quality time and effort into my blog updates, which gives everyone a much more detailed account of what I'm doing and how things are going for me. If the lack of individual responses has been interpreted as my not receiving or not caring about your messages, I am very sorry! I do not want anyone to think that they've been snubbed, because I deeply value each and every bit of news that I receive from home. I am all the more grateful for it when it is accompanied with an understanding that balancing time invested in home and here can be a challenge, and is one that I really do try my best to manage while I am here.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
Love,
Ellery