Long Time, no posting

We have lived here for three months now. Sometimes I look back and it seems like forever, but other days it seems like everything has flown by. Three months ago, we could only say “Good morning”, “Good afternoon”, or “Good evening”. Now we are carrying on conversations with people in our neighborhood. It’s still a little rough, with lots of broken sentences and filling in the blanks. We praise God that He’s helping us learn the language.

The month of September flew by. Here are some high points:

• Amber’s first birthday overseas. It was a great time! A group of girls took me to a salon for a “cream bath”. It was very interesting. While putting this gook in your hair, they massage your scalp, and tug your hair. Then they wash it out, blow dry and “style” it. I just asked for the straight look. A group of friends met us there and we had dinner at “Amigos” a Mexican food restaurant in Indonesia! Sure it wasn’t Taco Bueno, Uncle Julios, or Taco Time, but it was a little taste of Heaven. We headed back to our house and shared great conversation over ice cream cake. Some family members sent money to say “Selamat Ulang Tahun” or happy birthday. I bought a guitar. It's really pretty.








• Passing Unit One! Pujih Tuhan (Praise God!) Little did we know that the beginning of Unit Two would redefine the word “stress” for us!

• Amber’s Dad came to Malaysia for one month for work. For a birthday present, we were able to go to Kuala Lumpur for the week we had off from school. We had a great time. Visiting family, seeing photos, phone calls… they are so re-energizing and encouraging for us. We took some field trips to the Petrones Towers (the tallest Twin Towers in the world), The Batu Caves, an Aquarium with a walk trough tunnel surrounded by sharks and stingrays, and Chili’s.

A note about the Batu Caves: Do not let your guide lead you into a dark cave with only a small light on your hard hat and say,” Oh, I’ll be right back.” Our guide left us in this dark cave on our tour for about 10 minutes!











• This month of September has been a very special month for our Muslim friends. This month is known as Ramadan. During this time, all Muslims will fast during the hours of 4AM-6PM. No food, water, smoking, or anything else that brings you pleasure. This month is when they are cleansed from their sins and wrong-doings and given a clean record. We have had to be very careful about what we do in public, so as not to be a stumbling block. It’s been interesting to observe the culture during this time. Tonight (or Tuesday morning if you’re in the States) is a VERY special time for our friends. The men will spend all night in the Mosque praying for Allah to reveal Himself to them just like He did to Muhammad. The women will pray at home while cooking. Wednesday morning (Tuesday night in the States) there will be a special prayer service outside. Wednesday and Thursday will be the official breaking of the fasting month. This holiday is called Idul Fitri. This is a time when families get together and EAT as much as they want. We’ll go visit our friends and feast with their families.

• Halfway down our stairs, there is a door. This led to a house that a guy about 23 years old lived. We always saw him and he always was willing to help with our homework. He was killed in a motorcycle accident last week. The whole kompung was in mourning. The body was buried within 12 hours of the accident. It was our first experience going to an Islamic funeral. They will pray for the soul of our friend for 7 days all the way up to a year. They are praying that his soul will find his way to Heaven. The family believes that this was fate. Please pray for this family. He was very young, funny, friendly, and this neighborhood will not be the same without him. Pray for us, too. We want God to use this bad situation for good- His Glory.

• We have been going to an Indonesian Church that gathers together in a hotel’s meeting room on Sundays. There are so many new believers there. The worship time is really a time of praising the Lord for who He is. It’s exciting. People raise their hands, clap, jump, and express their love for God in whatever way they feel they need too. There really is freedom, because the Spirit of the Lord is there.

• Badminton is huge here. So, on Monday nights we play. Are we good? Umm… not yet :) On our way to the court, we spotted this little kitten on the side of the road. His eye was matted shut and was covered with fleas. A stray cat isn’t unusual in Indonesia, so we kept going. On our way home, the same kitten was on the side of the road hunched up. Full of compassion, we picked that thing up and brought him home. A mistake? Maybe… but now we have something to entertain us. Josh named him “Laki” which is short for laki-laki. In Indonesian that means “boy”. He’s crazy. The photos will probably fool you into thinking he’s cute. Be careful, because as soon as you think that he’ll scratch or bite you. Hope you "dog people" still talk to us after reading that we have a cat now.








Hope you’re doing well. We think of you often… yes, you. We miss you. Let us know how you are. We are all apart of the body of Christ and have different functions in different parts of the world. No matter where we are or where we come from, we are apart of the Global Body of Christ. It’s amazing to share these experiences with Koreans, Singaporeans, Indonesians, Dutch, Americans, Canadians, and Columbians… our God is a global God who has a plan for the Nations! What’s your role?

Photo Catch-Up

So, I'm really sorry about not updating sooner! We ran into some small problems with our internet, so it wouldn't run fast enough to allow us to update. There's so much that has gone on the past few weeks. So instead of explaining it all in words, I thought I'd take you on a photo tour.

"Rumah di Pak Josh dan Ibu Amber"

The "street" we live on.

Take a trip downstairs... watch out! They're steep!


Welcome to our living room.


Here's the central room. We repainted. Here you can access the office, our bedroom, and a guest bedroom. Yes, we have a spare bedroom... so come visit!


This is our bathroom. Here's our shower...


and here's our bathtub.


Our bedroom.


This is our "bathroom" sink. It's not located anywhere near the bathroom. It's outside. On the left side is a set of stairs that leads down to our kitchen that we don't have photos of yet.


This is our backporch that overlooks the valley.


How's the view? You might be able to spot a fisherman or two down there.


Here's a stray cat that lives on the neighbors roof. He's parallel with our faces as we come downstairs to get to our front door. I don't think he appreciated the "photo op".


Photo Tour number 2

"Indonesian Independence Day"

August 17 begins a party that lasts for one full week. Each neighborhood puts on a festival for the people that live there. They play "traditional" Indonesian games. You'll see on our tour that the "traditional" games have the same or similar games in the States.

This game we don't have, but we should! They tie water balloons to a clothesline, blindfold the participants, spin them around, and the first to bust the waterballoon wins.


This is a greased pole. The pole is stuck deep into the ground and is greased up. It's SO slick. The object is to climb to the top of the pole (as a team) to reach the prizes up at the top.


What's a festival without a good ol' sack race?


Tug-of-War


So close to the top of the greased tree!


The object of this game is to be the first to eat the rice cake off of the string.


Our new friends (aka language tutors) have made us feel so welcomed!





Story Time:

I (Amber) really wanted to play one of these games. So, I signed up for the break the waterballoon game. I was playing with a few other women. We all line up while the volunteers blindfold us....



They spin us around.



The sad thing is they only spun us around twice! I was completely lost. I had a game plan... "OK, take a few steps in front of you and bust that waterballoon." Notice where I am and what direction I'm going.



Oops! My helper guides me back.



So after everyone picks themselves up from laughing so hard, we all try again! Unfortunately, I was the only lady that didn't bust the balloon.



Final Photo Tour
"Kitchen Adventures"

We don't have an oven in our kitchen. The people living in our neighborhood have these ovens called "Kampoung Ovens". This is a very unique invention. It's a metal box that sits on top of your stove burners. The burners heat up the inside and creates the same effect as an oven. Our house helper and friend taught Amber how to make brownies using the oven. After the first try, the results are in. Everyone agrees the brownies will need some work, but they still get a thumbs up and an "A" for effort!



When making a smoothie or milkshake while living in Indonesia, always first check the blender before doing anything! We got a small surprise in ours. This is a cicak (pronounced chee-chuck). This little guy lives in our kitchen and eats unwanted mosquitoes and other critters. We have no idea how he got in here! The lid was closed. There was no access point for him!





We really hope that you enjoyed the photo tours! Again we're so sorry it's taken us so long to update. We love you all. Thanks for being interested in our life here and sharing the journey with us!

-J & A

A Working Title

Hey Everyone!

We are alive and healthy. We've been learning so much about the culture of Indonesia during these last few weeks. We've had the opportunity to visit the largest Mosque in SE Asia. It was beautiful! It was designed by a Christian. On Friday afternoons, 10,000 people will pray. The days following Rhamadan 200,000 people will go to pray at that Mosque.





We had the opportunity to visit the Indonesian Bible Society. This is an incredible place that prints almost all the Bibles that are in Indonesia! They use two machines that are 30 years old to print the black and white pages. When we arrived we saw copies of the Gideon Bible being completed.



This past weekend we stayed with an Indonesian family. The youth of Indonesia spend their time at the malls, so we enjoyed a day at two malls searching for tickets to see the new Batman movie. We saw our first movie here on Saturday night. Sunday, after going to church at 6 AM (yes, I really was up at 6 AM), we went to a party to celebrate the anniversary of the church's men's vocal group. There was a time of singing, eating, singing, visiting, and dancing. They had karaoke... with a live band. The owner of the home requested that we sing two songs. Us, sing? I know. We jammed to the Beatles- Yesterday and Hey Jude. Everyone sang along to Hey Jude. Who would have thought that the Beatles could unite people that don't speak the same language?



Today is our last day in Jakarta. Tomorrow we'll be moving to Bandung, a city about 2 hours from Jakarta. We're going house hunting. The weather is cooler there because it's at a higher elevation. The change in scenery will be nice, and hopefully the macet (Indonesian for "traffic" pronounced ma-chet) will be lighter. After settling down into our own place, we'll begin to learn Bahasa Indonesia (the language of Indonesia). During this time, we hope that we make close friends.

We're excited about the adventures that lie ahead. I'm so thankful that we have ways of keeping in touch with you. It doesn't seem that we're really on the other side of the world! Keep in touch with us, because we miss you all and need your encouragement.

Getting Around Jakarta

Today we learned how to get around Jakarta. We were given two hours to take as many forms of public transportation that the city of Jakarta had to offer. This proved to be a fun and challenging experience.

We started off on the back of scooters which is how many people who live here in the city choose to get around. The traffic here is unlike anything I have ever seen. Crazy doesn't begin to describe it. If you ride a motorcycle in the United States and you feel restricted by all the traffic laws, you need to take your next vacation in Jakarta.

After the motorcycles we took a variety of buses, taxis, covered flat bed pickups, trains, and a little three wheeled covered motorcycle called a bajai. For those who are used to using public transportation in a foreign country, you already know that personal space is defined a little different than what it might be in the U.S. The smells, the pickpocketing, the backfiring bajais can not be fully expressed in words. In actuality, we had a lot of fun. This might be attributed to the fact that it was only a game today and it hasn't become daily life yet. We have a little adjusting to do and today we got to have a little fun in the process.

We Made It

After some long flights and no sleep, we made it to SE Asia on Tuesday afternoon. We forced ourselves to stay awake to help lessen the jet-lag. We had some "get-a-ways" to the local immigration office a couple times to check in. It was quite the adventure, but it exposed us to some of the culture in our new home. It's a very diverse place with some of the most wonderful people.

We've started our orientation class this week. So far, we've gotten our handphones (cell phones for those of you in the States), went to a pharmacy where we decide how much and which medications to take, and we've been to many malls. We took a ride in a taxi, a van, a bus, and a small truck that has the bed of it covered with benches in it to get places (we always had someone with us that could speak the language). There are lots of restaurants that are seen in the States: KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, A&W, Wendys, Dunkin' Donuts, and even a Chili's. So, even though we're miles away from "home" there are aspects of our new home that make us very comfy.

Here's a couple of experiences we've had:
- While registering with immigration, I had a killer headache. I needed some caffine or some kind of kick to pick me up. We went a street vendor and ordered a nice, cold, coke in a bottle. The vendor takes our coke and pours it in a plastic bag and sticks a straw in it! They reuse all their glass bottles, so we got our cokes "to-go".

- We went to a huge expo celebrating the diversity of our new home. Several vendors were selling hand-made crafts from their home region. We were waiting at an ATM for our friends to withdraw money, and I sat next to a small boy that had two red balloons. I pushed on his balloons. His dad, who was also standing in line, grabbed his son's hand and placed it on my arm. He kept saying "He just wants to touch you, He just wants to touch you." and then began apologizing. Our new friends believe that if their children touch a Westerner that they will be blessed with happiness, wealth, and prosperiety.

We look forward to sharing more with you, and thanks for showing an interest in what our Father is doing around this area.

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog. We'll try to keep this updated as we begin a new chapter in our lives! We're looking forward to sharing this journey with you!

-J and A