The Year in Review--part 2

Here's the second installment of our year in review. Probably the last, because the year is almost half over. Blogging is not my forte :) The good news is I am busy doing other stuff, that's why I never get around to updating this blog. The other stuff is more important, so that's why it's good news!







One of Kelly's senior pictures. She's pretty amazing.

This is a fun story. Jeremy had been telling his friends about his back pain, so one guy invited him to his father in law's house to try some traditional medicine. His father in law had built a steam box especially for Jeremy. The general idea is he lays on top of the box, with a little hole where the steam escapes. For an Indonesian, the steam escapes around each side of the person's waist, thereby increasing heat and blood flow without inflicting 2nd degree burns. However, Jeremy is a little bigger than the average Indonesian, so his torso blocked the steam completely, thereby, well, you can see. It blistered all over and it was ridiculous.

I'm not really sure what to say about this...

 Grandma came to visit in December (and again in March, but this is from December) and brought a rainbow cake mix. The boys were SO excited to make the cake, and they waited by the oven til it was done. They were so cute.

 Matt's team won the ultimate frisbee contest at our meeting in Bali last year. He's a champ! He made the winning catch!

 More pics from Grandma's visit in December. We spent a lot of time at the playground, playing cards, and reading books until she was blue in the face!

Three things about this photo. a) Matt was smiling. Like a really, handsome smile. b) He got his braces off, and his teeth look amazing. c) That's his friend Pringgo covering his face. He's a fun kid, and his name makes me laugh.

Year in Review...in no particular order

A while back I put a whole lot of photos from 2014 on my computer desktop. I thought it would be fun to select a few of them (in no particular order, because that's how we roll here...) and tell a little more of the story than what you'd get if you just saw a little Facebook post. 

May 2014: Kelly was awarded the Bandung Alliance International School (BAIS) Eagle Award. It's the highest award that a student can receive, and it is given to one boy and one girl from the high school each year. It's given to the student who displays Christ-likeness, academic commitment, and a bunch of other awesome things. The staff vote each year on who should receive the award. Prepare for a little (more) boasting: this is the SECOND year that she's won it. What's great about Kelly is that she was just being herself and her personality and love for Jesus is just pretty awesome. She puts a great amount of effort into everything, she takes the time to help people, she makes an effort to befriend the kids who are not fitting in well, and much more. When she was little she was such a handful, and I prayed A LOT that she would be a joy to others when she grew up. God has answered my prayer beyond what I could ever ask or imagine. She's a joy to us and others. Praise the Lord!

 January 2014: We were so blessed to be able to travel back to America for Christmas and stay a few weeks into January. It was the year of the "polar vortex" and the coldest that it had been in a super long time. I think those are the exact words that the weatherman used. Super long. Point is, we had a great time playing in the snow, but also realized that we have lost our American edge. I'm no longer able to run outside without a coat or basically function in any capacity when it's cold. We went to the plaza one day to do some last minute Christmas shopping and I was actually reviewing my Anatomy and Physiology class from college, trying to remember if it was possible for your eyeballs to freeze. Mine didn't, but it was close. Caleb and Nate liked the snow but hated the cold. Caleb's fair tropical skin didn't tolerate the cold well at all. His lips and cheeks chapped and bled, and he looked like a big mess. In Indonesia his hair was curly and adorable, in cold America it was straw like and he looked like a miniature witch.

July 2014: This entry is called "The Third Wheel." I had the wonderful, if a little awkward, opportunity to return to Lombok (my favorite place in Indonesia) with one of my favorite people and her new hubby. I joined them for the first four days of their vacation, and while it was totally weird for me to be there, I had a great time. We went to some beautiful beaches and visited some beautiful people that I hadn't seen in a super long time. More than anything on that island, I miss visiting with my dear friends. It's not every day that you come across people who are ... your people. I have lots of friends, but few (if any) are my people. Ya know??

Guilt

These pictures have been waiting for me to do something with them. The adorable baby is Leslie's son, Luke. It had been cold where they live, so he'd never seen or touched grass before. Plus, there's not a lot of grass where they live even when it's warm! We went to the coffee roasting factory, where Caleb and Nate were unruly and made me sweat quite a bit. Good thing they're cute, and we live in a culture where kids can get away with a lot.

Caleb playing with the coffee beans- the owner gave him a little lesson about how to know the beans were ready. It sounds cute but it was actually a little weird.

Such a happy little guy! :) Sorry, Leslie, for taking so long to post these. I blame it on my computer and its crappy graphics card, but in reality I'm just slow.

Li Hai

I was just backing into a parking space.  I do it all the time.  Leslie said, "Wow, you're...Li Hai!" We'd been doing it all weekend- after six and a half years living in our respective countries, we've forgotten how to speak real English.  I'd make sentences with Indonesian words in them, and she'd accidentally mix the languages from her country.  Li hai means, 'a force to be reckoned with.'  It kind of made my day.  From that moment this post has been rolling around in my mind, trying to find its way out.

We spent three days talking.  We met seven years ago and spent six weeks at training together.  Haven't seen each other since! So we had a lot to catch up on.  We did some fun stuff together, but my favorite was just talking about life and listening to her stories and thoughts on her life in Asia.  After I dropped her off at her conference I thought of a hundred other questions that I wish I'd have asked.  I loved that she asked about real things, hard things, stuff that no one else asks about. Here's what I loved most-  I felt completely accepted when we were talking.  This is rare for me, because I'm an insecure freak and I'm SURE everyone in the whole world is judging me and I'm always coming up short.  Just sure of it! But not this weekend. Even though my hair was frizzier than usual, and I had two zits, and I got lost everywhere we went, and my youngest kids were acting just barely better than wild monkeys. 

As we talked I realized we've both been through so much.  Things you don't share on Facebook or your blog because you just don't flippantly write those kinds of things. Things you don't even tell your family because they'll worry that you're miserable or unsafe or on the verge of a mental breakdown.  And good things that you can't share because of security concerns for new believers.   As I reflected on my personal experiences and Leslie's stories about hers, it occurred to me, "Dang, we're li hai! We do hard things and we've lived to tell about it!"

But not in our own strength.  In my own strength I'd be finished.  Flown the coop. I'd be out like a fat kid in dodgeball.  Once, in a four month period where I was pretty much crazy, I even prayed for a disease that would let us leave the field without being branded with the "quitter" label. A curable but completely-untreatable-in Asia-disease.  Sounded like a great plan. Praise the Lord he didn't take that advice!

If there's anything I've learned in the last six and a half years, it's dependence on God. I'm still learning it. I CAN do hard things, but never alone.  In Him, I'm li hai. I'm a dang force to be reckoned with! WE are a force to be reckoned with!

God has been so faithful to us, in big and small ways.  In times when we thought we were caught in a storm we were never meant to be in, He'd steered us into it, because we needed it.  We needed to learn that He would get us through it.  In moments of complete panic, He was there with an audible reminder to trust him.  When I ugly-face cried in the grocery store the first week here because I didn't know how to cook ANY of the food they were selling, He had planned ahead and given me a family that likes to eat cereal for dinner. In the midst of these and many other challenges, He's been there, even though a lot of times I doubted it. 

So thanks, Leslie, for coming and asking hard questions and encouraging me to think deeply about how far we've come.  Thanks for the vocabulary lesson and the reminder that I'm in a covenant relationship with God who meets my needs and has my back.  And thanks for the show in the outlet store! Ha!

A lesson in humility

We have this friend I've been visiting, she's our old driver's daughter.  She's 30 years old, and completely paralyzed.  Her life for the last year has taken place in a small living room of her parents' house.  One major obstacle (out of many) to her recovery is a large bedsore.  She's had it for a year and it won't go away.  This part isn't the reason why this post is entitled "A Lesson in Humility." 

Today I went to see her, and took a couple big bags of food that I'd carefully researched and knew they would help her nutrition.  I was feeling pretty proud of myself for putting so much time and effort into this nutrition plan.  I had driven an hour one way to see her.  After a lovely visit in which I completely butchered the language (that's normal, also not the reason for the title) I left, still feeling pretty happy with myself.

Ellie having her hands massaged by a volunteer with some PT experience.

On the way back to the car I passed a man, a woman and her two kids.  (THIS part is the reason for the title.) The man pointed at me and said to the kids, "Hey! Go poke her belly and ask her why it looks like that!"  Then the mother grabbed her kids and said, "No, don't go near her!"  And then I realized, I'm not that big of a deal. 

Then I spent the hour drive home wishing I was quicker/wittier/wiser so I could have said something funny or profound or at least a little embarrassing to that man.  Instead I just stared at him and thought, "How 'bout I poke your FACE and we'll see what's wrong with YOU!"  Obviously, that wasn't an option, so I just smiled and kept walking. 

Define normal.

I recently applied to go to a women's retreat, and one question I had to answer was "What's a normal day like for you?"  This is a hard question.  My normal *feels* like work work work work, check Facebook, work work work work work, check email, go to bed.  I'm sure that's not really the case, but a lot of days I'm pretty tired.  I found a picture on someone's Facebook page of me that kind of describes my life at the Center.  It's not a picture of me, it's a picture of boys with pantyhose on their heads trying to knock over Coke bottles.  But I'm there...look closely:

That's me in the background, with a kid on my back, taking pictures.  When we had a Halloween party one of our staff decided to dress as me.  This was challenging since she's a skinny Asian woman and I am...not.  But she put on the baby backpack, a camera around her neck and a Coke Zero can in her hand and no one had a problem identifying who she was dressed as.  I don't know what this says about me.  I feel like it's probably not that great but I suppose it could be worse. 

In case you're wondering, this is a normal day for Jeremy:

Life of the party, center of attention, even when he's not trying.  I took that picture, by the way, but not with a baby strapped to my back.  The baby backpack is for weekend events only, when we have no house helper to watch the kids until we get home.  Thank goodness, because Nate is getting HEAVY.  My shoulders get sore from carrying him too long.

So, there is no normal.  But that's what makes it fun!  And annoying.  I won't lie, I'm not as flexible as I wish I was.  But at least it's annoying AND fun. 

And just for the record, Jeremy works, too.  There is no role-reversal, severe dysfunction, or need for Member Care in any way.  Just for the record. 

Around town--Scenes from the Street

Gedung Sate--the Satay Building.  Because the thing on the top looks like a stick of satay meat!

Trash collector in the park, taking a break

This obviously gay man started making inappropriate gestures when he saw my camera.  At least, I think they were inappropriate...judging by the faces of the guys around him :)

Can I take your picture? Sure, here's my bird.