Selamat Paskah!

Selamat Paskah- Happy Easter!

I'm writing this in the mid-afternoon of the Saturday of the Easter Weekend- it sure is different from a typical Easter Weekend at home! Easter break, as I mentioned before, began as of Tuesday afternoon. School will start up again on Tuesday, April 10, giving the teachers and students nearly a week of holidays! I feel as though the time has been used wisely so far...

On Tuesday night, after a lazy afternoon, I headed to church to be one of three judges in a Nasi Goreng competition. In the weeks leading up to Easter, the Sola Gratia church does all sorts of little competitions with different groups and communities within the church body. Last week I judged an Easter Egg Scene competition (using chicken and quail eggs and other craft supplies to create some sort of scene), and this week, the competition was to see who could use fried rice and fresh vegetables to create the most beautiful and creative plate. It was fun to be involved, and I got some Nasi Goreng out of it, which is always a delicious treat.

Working hard on a Nasi Goreng creation!

 I woke up on Wednesday morning with a big- and I mean big- goal to accomplish that day: baking Paska. Those of you who come from the Russian Mennonite background should know full well what this is, but for those of you who are not familiar with this, I'll fill you in. Paska is a sweet bread that is baked (usually by Grandmas and Omas) just once a year, at Easter. It uses lemon and sometimes orange, and is topped with white icing and- the most important part- colourful sprinkles. In my family, around Easter, Paska appears on the breakfast table, as a dessert, and in our Easter baskets, as well as on the faspa dinner table during that "light" meal that follows the big Easter lunch. It has forever been one of the main symbols of the Easter season for me, and, while there are many compromises that one has to make when overseas as far as traditions are concerned, Paska was not something I was willing to sacrifice. It was especially difficult to overlook considering that in Bahasa Indonesia, the word for Easter is Paskah, so I found myself thinking about that bread every day for the last few weeks. After a dream about it on Tuesday night, I knew that it must be tackled. Grandma had emailed me her recipe a few weeks ago, and we had emailed back and forth about it several times since then, so I felt like I was as well-prepared for the laborious task as I could possibly be. On Wednesday morning, my host mom and I headed out to the "baking essentials store" and picked up everything needed. My host mom is a truly amazing woman, and she had decided to undergo this baking task with me, which turned out to be quite vital- I could not have done it alone. We stood at the counter in the store, and requested items from behind the counter; it's kind of old fashioned, but it's a very convenient system! The highlight was finding the rainbow sprinkles- I was worried that I wouldn't be able to track those down. We got down to baking around 1:30 in the afternoon, and tensions were high when at 3:30, it looked like the yeast wasn't going to react (this was my first time baking with yeast). Things were a little touch-and-go for awhile, but by 6:30 we had the first batch in the oven (and by this time, Laura had joined me), and we waited anxiously to see how they turned out. The result? Amazing. I would never dare utter the words "they were as good as my grandma's", but I also cannot say that we could have improved upon them. They were light, fluffy, just sweet enough, and perfectly Paska-esque. My host family disagreed. While they said the first batch was good, they preferred the next batch- crispy on the outside (crispy!!!) and soft on the inside. My host mom has since tried it with chocolate spread in the middle, and suggested that I take this idea back to my family in Canada. I withheld a gasp of shock and horror, and refrained from explaining that such an action would be a near sin, and allowed her to enjoy the Paska just as she pleased (though I had to look away). Beyond just tasting good, the Paska symbolized something much greater. It gave me a glimmer of hope that one day I too might be like my grandmas. It's only ever been a dream of mine to be able to wake up in the morning and say, "hey, I have an extra 7 minutes this morning, and some flour, I'll just whip up a quick batch of zwieback." (I know it's not that simple, but my grandmas make it look that way!) It is common to walk into my grandmas' homes and smell delicious things being baked and cooked, and while it is always most enjoyable to be the beneficiary of those situations, I also really want to someday be able to do the same thing myself. This paska baking endeavour (and, might I add, in a country where the ingredients and baking equipment are all a bit different) was a step- a big step- in that direction! So I felt very accomplished on Wednesday night.We even brought some Paska to my pastor and his family, all the way across town!

Enjoying Paska with my "Nanek" ("Grandma").

The baking streak continued on Thursday morning, with a much simpler and previously tested banana chocolate chip muffin recipe. These went over even better than the paska among the Indonesian population, likely because bananas are a very (VERY) common ingredient in many foods here, and also because it's hard to find fault with a good banana chocolate chip muffin recipe. Laura headed home after lunch, and I headed off to Ichthus FM, where I shared my baked goods with my very appreciative co-host, Chris. PPA was canceled on Thursday afternoon, but in the evening,we had a foot-washing church service. This definitely pushed the limits of my comfort zone, as foot washing is both not a ritual that we practice in my home church, and is also not something I have really felt comfortable participating in during other events that I've been at in the past. In the case of this service, every single person in the church gets their feet washed and washes someone else's feet. It went surprisingly quickly and smoothly, and it was a really interesting event to witness, as it is so unlike anything that I've seen before. There were just so many people!

Yesterday was Good Friday, and it was also the day that both PPA Sola Gratia and PPA Sendang Guwo had their yearly outing as a team. I was invited by both groups to their separate events, which was very flattering. I ended up joining Sendang Guwo, who had asked me to join them awhile back. We drove for over an hour to get to a place that has fishing ponds, a swimming pool, big pavilions, and food. It was a REALLY awesome day! Some of the leaders, including myself, arrived before the kids did, and we had some time to hang out and catch the early morning activities at this place. One of these early morning activities involves the guys who work in the "restaurant" scooping lots of fish out of the river, and killing them, to be fried later. The method is quite special to watch: one man wades in the water, and uses a net to scoop out fish. He dumps the fish onto the ground beside the river, where another man waits with a wooden mallet. This man then engages in a live version of "whack-a-mole", bopping the jumping fish on the head to kill them. While it totally freaked me out, I also had the urge to try this myself, and they handed me the net so that I could both catch and kill my own fish. I was successful in catching a fish (one fish only), but the killing was a bit more difficult, and I couldn't stomach hitting it over the head more than one time. It was a memorable little experience though!

Killing fish for lunch!

 The kids arrived by 9AM, and after a quick little sermon, we were hunting for quail eggs and decorating Easter eggs, which I also judged. We had a huge lunch of grilled fish (the ones we killed in the morning- nice and fresh!), rice, and veggies, and then spent the afternoon in the pool. I had forgotten my sunscreen, and the consequences of this error are fairly severe- my arms and face are a rather unappealing shade of red. Swimming was a LOT of fun though. I discovered that most of the kids don't know how to swim, a concept that really baffles me, but that makes complete sense- if you don't take the lessons, how could you know how to? It just comes so second nature to me that I couldn't fathom not knowing how to do it. I looked it up though, and according to yahoo!answers (the most reliable source of information...), over half of the world population cannot swim. Just another thing that I totally take for granted. Anyways, so most of the kids were sticking to the shallow (and I mean shallow- about a foot and a half deep) end, until some of them worked up the courage to join me in the "deep" (5 feet) end. I spent the afternoon giving "swimming lessons" to an ever-growing group of kids. It took a lot for these kids to work up the nerve to push off from the safety of the stairs, but slowly, one-by-one, they got more confident, and trusted me enough to know that I wasn't going to let them drown in the 5 feet of water. It was a good feeling to be so trusted!

Last night was a Good Friday service at church, and during this more solemn service, the youth did a re-enactment of Jesus getting nailed to the cross. The differences in church life just know no bounds! The front of the church is all decked out with a huge tomb, complete with a real doorway. It is an extremely well-done set. We participated in communion, which actually is quite similar to my church at home, except that both the wine and the bread are passed out at the same time.

The front of my church, all decked out for Easter

 In the evening, we celebrated my host brother's birthday, and I hit the hay quite early. I woke up this morning in good time, and have taken it easy today. I learned how to make a really delicious soup that my host mom makes (called Zuppa Soup- a chicken and corn cream soup, baked in the oven with puff pastry). We got to enjoy that for a late lunch. This day has somehow slipped right by me- it's almost 4:30 already! I have a growing to-do list of things to get done before Andrew arrives in a mere 11 days (I say "mere" more in the hopes that it will go fast rather than with the belief that 11 days is very short). Youth is canceled tonight, as we will be going on an outing tomorrow after church. Church begins at 5AM tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get to bed nice and early tonight!

Anyways, I'll let you get back to your Easter Weekend festivities and celebrations!
Thinking of you!

Lots of love,
Ellery
PS- below are some additional photos that don't really fit with anything I've said in my blog, but that may be of interest to you! Happy Easter :)

We made pancakes with maple syrup for "Canadian Snack Day" at PPA. They were well-enjoyed, but the Hershey's Chocolate Chips went over better than the syrup.

Green Canyon, Pangandaran. We swam up and around the corner, and then jumped off rocks into the rapids!

"Ikan Bakar" (Grilled Fish): one of my favourite foods here. (So much so that I may have already posted pictures of this before... I cannot remember!)