The REAL Indonesia!

I hope that you are excited to read this, because I am very excited to write this blog post.

First, thank-you for all your birthday wishes.  I had a wonderful and unforgettable birthday, I'll tell you more in a bit. 

Secondly, in the previous blog post is instructions on how to post a comment without creating an account.

Thirdly, if you have a question or something about my time here let me know by posting a comment or by email @ Jason_k_horlings@hotmail.com

Well, the real Indonesia has finally come into my life and it has been a hilarious, joyous and challenging 4 days here in Kudus.  Kudus is where I will live from mid-October until July…what a great place to call home.  I have been living with an Indonesian family living and attempting to live an Indonesian life the past 4 days unlike my first 5 days in Indonesia. 

The Challenging

1.

 Well, I introduced myself in front of hundreds of people at 3 different church services in Indonesian. Enough said.

2.

I met with 14 pastors of the Kudus church that I am apart of and they spoke Indonesian the entire time.  Yup, you read that right.  There are14 pastors for 2500 members spread between 2 congregations under the same church name here in Kudus.  Unbelievable.

3.

There is one thing that has me in disbelief here.  It is poverty.  What I can’t get over is not how much poverty there is or something, but how ambiguous and confusing it is. 

If there was one thing that I thought I actually knew something about before coming here was poverty issues.  As some of you know, I have studied poverty in some of my university classes and I am involved in university campus action and awareness around poverty.  I have known about its complexity and multi-dimensional character, but poverty here has me perplexed.  Why?

First, I have not talked to anyone about this yet because of the language barrier and because I rather observe and take in Indonesia before unleashing questions immediately. 

Secondly, the outer appearance of Indonesia is “run-down” by North American standards.  There are few things that are “nice and shiny”.  There is not a drastic contrast between wealth/affluence and poverty as I expected.  There are nice cars and mansions that some live in, but on the whole, from my observations, there is not a huge contrast here. 

Thirdly, therefore, poverty is not easy to spot.  What I mean by that is in, say, Vancouver, there is significant poverty beside incredible wealth.  At least it seems that we can pin poverty down to a location and people—a community.  You find this across North America.  Here, I cannot say I have seen someone whom I would refer to as “poor…”..That is because my eyes do not know what to interpret from the way of life that surrounds me.

Which is good for a number of reasons:

-- Poverty is so deep and complicated that appearances give little clue as to what is actually going on in people’s lives. 

-- I have an even greater desire to learn more about the poor after realizing how little I know about poverty.

-- It dispels stereotypes of poverty and the “developing countries” in a hurry

4. 

Speaking very little Indonesian and talking a lot less in the course of a day have taught me 2 things so far.

                        --Going from one place to another, meeting new people in each of the new places and not speaking has caused my identity to be stripped down quite a bit from what I became accustomed to in Canada.  It has become quickly evident that I will be constantly reminded that my identity is found in Christ.  It’s simple, but it is very real when you enter a cross-cultural context. 

                        -- Nothing makes St. Francis of Assisi’s famous words “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words” more real in my life than….NOW!  I am challenged to think far more about my actions than ever before and I also notice others actions far more because of my limited verbal communication.

The joyous

--My family in Kudus.  I am delighted to live with them for a year.  They love having me here, and I love being with them.  So it works out great.  I consider it one family, but in North American words, I live with 2 familes that share a house.  I will tell you more about them in another post as well as give you a video tour of my home.

-- Let’s just say that my family owns a bakery, restaurant and catering service.  I eat very very well.  I want food, I get food and when I don’t want food……I get food.

Mami and me at her bakery.  She is a chef!

-- My sister Irene.  She is my life-line here.  She is one of the most caring and patient individual that I have ever meet.  I wish you could meet her.  She makes sure I take my naps ever day since I am so exhausted.  She cooks breakfast for me.  She drives me everywhere on the motorcycle.  She teaches me new words all day.  She calls out “Jason, are you okay?” when I go to the washroom.  (By the way, I am very thankful for that.)  She laughs at me.  She prayed with me last night when I felt quite homesick.  She has set a new standard of love and care in my life and I cannot imagine a better person to have welcomed me here to Indonesia. 

Irene and me

--I have hung out with the young adults here.  There are crazy, hilarious and speak some English.  And guess what? I get to spend the whole year with them. YES!

Some young adults eating fried noodles.

Hilarious

My family and the young adults group at my church had a surprise party for me! It was great and the young adults here are easy to hang-out with and made for a great party.

As I awkwardly made my way through the birthday traditions here, one moment was particularly hilarious.  I was asked to say 3 wishes.  At home, we don’t really do this and if we do it is not taken too seriously.  I didn’t know what they expect with this part of the birthday so I said my three wishes. I said I wanted to learn Indonesian, learn footsal and then I was stumped for a last wish. 

Then someone yelled out “get a girl-friend”.  I laughed and jokingly said “okay, sure.”  Well, there is more weight placed on these wishes than I imagined.  It took 2 minutes before the pastor asked God in prayer for not only “Jason to serve God this year” but for “Jason to find an Indonesian girl friend.”  Oh my…  I have laughed ever time I think about this.

I keep thinking of things to write, but that is it for now. 

Much Love, Jason

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Why is everything so funny....

Salamat Malum!
Good Evening!


The title of this post will become apparent very soon....... but first some more serious things.


This is my last night before tomorrow which is the highly anticipated day when I meet my host family and community.  I have never been more excited for my year with my host family and my time of service with the church there, than these past 4 days.  The past 4 days here have only fueled the flame of longing for this.  Tonight, my host sister's facebook status read: Irene "is excited to meet my new little brother, Jason Horlings and other YALTERS tomorrow!"  Yah, the has to be the sweetest thing I have read in a while. 


You might expect, like I did, that I would be writing to you about a culture shock of some sorts or myself feeling more overwhelmed and uncomfortable with things around me here.  That is a understandable thing to assume.  I did as well.  BUT, that has not been the case YET.


Why? I have not plunged into Indonesia like some others do in SALT or I thought I might.  There are some positives and negatives about this that I can see now from my perspective 4 days in.....I am sure that will change in the long run.  I have lived quite a comfortable, limited ( in the sense of engaging Indonesian life) and not immediately challenging first 4 days.....and I stress this first 4 days thing again.  I have lived in an MCC staffers home and gone between other MCC staffers home and the MCC office with some group outings to street vendors and such for meals.  For me, it has been a relaxing, stress-free and fun way to enter Indonesia, but I know that this is not going to be the case for the upcoming year........AND good thing it will not be.  It is in the great wisdom of MCC Indonesia that they do it this way, but I have been a little rest-less the past few days ready for my host family life to start AND really wanting to jump into Indonesian life more fully.  


It would be appreciated if you could pray for patience for my language learning and my limit ability to talk in depth to many Indonesians despite badly wanting to do this.  Also, pray for my host family as the prepare for my life with them.


SOME TIDBITS of life....

--I will be at my host family for Idu Fitri......a MASSIVE celebration to end Ramadan.  Should be great to experience.  

--The food and drinks are phenomenal here--Nasi Goreng (fried rice), Mai Ayam (noodles with chicken), Soto (soup).  We eat out a lot because warungs (sidewalk food shops) are everywhere and the food is very cheap for North American standards.  A meal with a fruit drink is $1.50.  However, for an average Indonesian laborer this is half a days wage.  This is a strange thing to grasp and it is very easy to stick with my North American mind and run around eating lots and thinking about how cheap everything is, but I must strive to overturn that mindset as much as I can this year. 

              -- I eat a new fruit I have never seen before in my life every day.  Love it!

--Besides some orientation sessions of little interest to you, we have done 2 days of language training.  I have never had so much fun in class before.  I had bubbles of joy in my stomach the entire first day of language training.  I had some apprehension about language training....not any more.  I even created a tongue twister last night which I proudly told my teacher who just laughed at me.  

Here it is: cicak capek cepat cacak            Say every c with a "ch" sound as in church.

try it......it means a a tired fast disabled gecko. 

--Studying these words has been a great joy.  In Indonesia you roll every "r" in the middle of a word.  So "ngreti" ( it means understood, so I say it lots) is said with a rolling "r". You say it like "nerdy" but roll the "r".   try it out.       I along with everyone else laughs every time I do it.

The YAMEN and SALT participants with Putut (right bottom row) and Via (left bottom row) the language instructors.  
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I will now enter the part of the blog where Jason explains a bathroom experience.  I never intended this to be a theme.....and I desperately hope that it stops being a pattern in my Indonesian life. Here it goes and it may become graphic.


After regaining my self-confidence in my ability to go to the bathroom by completing a successful 2nd attempt at the squatty potty..... disaster struck my 3rd attempt and has reduced my bathroom confidence to record lows.  I have taken this failure difficultly because, as my friend Ellery wrote on her blog, "Jason has religiously used the squatty potty every chance he's gotten."


After rushing into the bathroom in dire need of relief, I sheepishly reappeared from the bathroom awkwardly asking "Ummm...do you guys have any cleaning supplies?  Because the worst thing that could happen in a squatty potty just happened."


Here is how I got to that point.  I went to the toilet in haste and an alignment failure occurred with consequences that were terrible to endure.  As explained in my first post related to the bathroom scene over here, the foot markers are not friendly to size 13 feet.  You might think this is dummy proof, but I have realized that much thought and precision must go into your alignment set-up or else a tragic misfiring will occur.  Such as mine.  For the rest of my life I will remember looking back after a quick "movement" and seeing poop slip off the edge of the bowl towards the tile flooring.  My only thoughts were "the stupid foot spots aren't accurate at all!"  Still squatting, I rapidly waddled forward in search of some sort of accuracy.  I hope to never have to waddle fast again.  


In my laughter and desire to find a way out of this without needing outside help, I finished my business....but not without more struggle.  You see, washing yourself involves water splashing in and around the toilet bowl.  Well, what was next to the toilet directly below my butt, yup, you know it.  It became as I called it afterwards " a diluted mess." 


I proceeded to find help.  I had no idea how to clean this up.  But a good 15 minutes of cleaning ended my hilarious episode.  While cleaning, Ellery blogged about this story has become the talk of MCC Indonesia.....what a great reputation to build on.


Next time I write I will have lived with a Indonesian family for a few days, I'll keep you posted.

Indonesia: Day 1!

And so begins life in Indonesia for a year….I am finally here!   But before I dive into this incredible world, I will wrap up the orientation week in Akron for you.

It seems like orientation was a long time ago already although it finished on Thursday only.  As I have said in the previous post, I loved orientation, but it was definitely time to go to Indonesia after the week in Akron.  I met the kinds of people that could be life-long friends, and maybe they will be.  It was too bad that some of us were able to get to know each other quite well and then suddenly not see each other for a year.  But the Indonesia team that I am with is great and I am really looking forward to spending language training together. 

                                      Dutch Blitz with Asian and North American friends!

One hilarious anecdote is that there was a talent show the last night in Akron, which starred me on a dance team of 5.  We did a choreographed dance to “Bye, Bye, Bye” by Nsync ( a 90's boy band)……we were the biggest hit of the night and my stunning ability to dance ( or my lack of ability to dance) got me many complements.  But onto more substantial things…

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After 37 hours of travel (driving 4 hrs, flying and waiting in airports for 33), I arrived in Salatiga.  It is the headquarters of the MCC Indonesia program and I am staying at the home of some MCC workers.  I will be here until Thursday, where I will then go to the home of family that will have me become apart of their family for the year.  I am really excited about meeting them!!  I know more about my host family than any other participants here.  That is because I became facebook friends with a young women from Java over three weeks ago, but never looked into who she was, figuring that she must work for MCC staff.  Well, I was talking to her over facebook a number of times and then a few days ago she mentioned that she will be my host sister for my upcoming year.  Her name is Irene, and she just finished a year in the USA with the IVEP (MCC exchange program) so I am eagerly anticipating meeting Irene and her family in Kudus.  

Flying into Jakarta......where the city meets the crops.

Let me just write a bunch of stuff that comes to mind quickly for you.  As you can imagine I have been just trying to take in the different sights, smells and sounds so nothing is very coherent in my mind about everything around me. Here is some thoughts from my first full day here.

--   CRAZY driving.  I realize there are worse places to drive, but I was in disbelief for the entire drive from Semarang (where I flew in) to Salatiga (where I now sit.)  Motorcyles everywhere swerving everywhere.

--Today was, as a local put it, “cold.”  I disagreed.  But I will say that the heat is manageable.

--   The 1.5 hr drive from Semarang to Salatiga felt like one big city.  There were tiny shops lining the entire stretch of the road and life was sure bustling along the entire road side.  Prior to coming here, I had some fantasy of a winding road through rice paddies….hardly.

--   I got to my home for this coming week and all I wanted to do was walk around the neighborhood.  So I did.  I went on my own and wandering up and down the streets.  The Muslim call to prayer echoed across the neighborhood.  People stared at me.  I awkwardly made my way around a group of teenagers who called me a "foreigner" in slang Indonesian. Some people tried to make conversation, but that ended abruptly when we could only say “hi” to each other and basically play side walk gestures for a while.  Then I was invited into a tiny bicycle repair shack.  I sat down on a bench with the guy who operated on this shop on the sidewalk and we once again I became stuck on the “hello” segment of the conversation.  So we parted separate ways quite quickly.

--    I meet Paul, the son of the MCC country representatives here.  He is really into downhill biking.  So am I.  He is really into crazy hiking and camping.  So am I.  Hopefully we will be doing both types of adventures many times this year!

--   I have had no jet lag.  Maybe I’m just full of adrenaline, but I slept great.  That is once I made a mental agreement with a gecko that crawled under my mattress before I went to bed.  it went as follows: I wouldn’t touch him if he didn’t touch me. It worked. 

--   I was up at 5:15 AM to go to church for 6 AM.  Geckoes chirping, calls to prayers going out and roosters crowing are the new highly functional alarm clock of my life.

--   Nothing is like a bowl of rice soup with hot sauce for breakfast.  My stomach let me know its great displeasure with that.


--At church, I was initially panicked because I quickly realized that I was going to have a very hard time talking to anyone here in Indonesia for a while.  My limited ability to talk to whomever I want here will be very hard for me, but it hit me like a train this morning.  There were some quirky things about this church….like the hot pink lighting that outlined the cross in front of the church.   Everything was done in Indonesian….but I was told later what the sermon was about.  It was an incredible sermon on seeking justice every day of our lives and he challenged everyone to ask themselves at the end of the day to think about how we worked towards justice and peace every night.   I loved that, and guess what……I get to work with the Indonesian church for a year.  YES!

A FUNNY STORY:  Going to take care of your business in a washroom is different here.  Right now, I have the choice to use a Western or an Indonesian style.  But I, without hesitation on the first day here, was pretty excited to go to the washroom Indonesian style.  Everyone else hasn’t attempted this feat yet, but I have completed going to the washroom once using the completely Indonesian technique.  Well, I’ll need to tweak some things, but overall the mission was accomplished.

A helpful illustration of the following instructions.

 Here is how:

1. Pull your pants all the way off.  I say that now after not doing it for the first time.  You’ll see what happened.

2. Squat over the toilet bowl that is built into the floor.  This is wear I need to tweak some things.  The places that are meant for my feet I somehow figured, in my foolishness, where not in the right place so I moved my feet off the feet placement pads…this nearly had devastating consequences but I managed to aim correctly.     

3. Grab a bucket of water out a large tub filled with water.  Using your right hand pour water down your bum.  Using your left hand wash yourself.  This is supposed to work great, but I had some glitches.  I failed to take my pants off completely, so I had my pants around my ankle.  They got soaked.  Plus, I failed to hold the squat position while washing myself, so I ended up with a waterfall coming off my butt.  FUN STUFF.

4.  Wash your hands.  I also proceeded to find help!

OKAY, enough of that.

A

We went walking through 1 km of rice paddies going up a hillside into a jungle.  Unreal. 

      This is 4 of the 8 of us serving with MCC this year. From left to right. Ellery, Riki, Nancy and Lweendo.

       

Rice Paddies!

Rice harvesting!

Seyeva and Kevas (children of a MCC staffer) ran around with me through the fields and the jungle.

I have heard this before, but in many ways it feels like I am here physically, but my soul is not yet here.  It’s rather odd to walk around on the streets here.  I love it.  I am full of questions. But to belong, in some sense of the word here, will take time.  For me to become fully who I am and be ready to be transformed will take a process of becoming incarnate in the streets of Indonesia.  This will be a process, that among other things will include language training.  Which I have two days of this week.

This was ridiculously long.  But you know me, I love to share my life.  Hope to hear about your life as well!

Orientation Week

What an unforgettable time here in Akron, Pennsylvania with 5 days of orientation completed.....two more to go and then Indonesia bound.  

I have never been in a place where young adults with a passion for serving God come together from over 25 countries of the world.  I love this so much!  I have not stopped talking to people from countries such as Jordan, China, Laos, Kosovo, France, Columbia, Lesotho.  We have also not stopped dancing, singing, playing frisbee, playing dutch blitz and eating together.  

I arrived here and I met my roommate Ashish from India, whom has made me laugh so hard over the last few days.  Not only does Ashish make me laugh lots, his living habits are what you may say are opposite of me.  He wakes up at 5am and works out.  I wake up at 8:30am and working out is furthest from my mind ( as many of my King's friends know).  He has the extraordinarily neat half of the room and I have well......dumped my backpack out and live out of relative disorder compared to him.  

I live in "Asia House" which means that I live with the other SALTers going to Asia and also those whom have come from Asia and are spending the next year in North America. (they are know as IVEPers)  We eat lots of noodles, play dutch blitz and share stories from our lives with each other.  The idea is that SALTers are able to meet IVEPers from the country they are going to, but the Indonesian IVEPers could not come to North America yet due to their visas.  That would have been really nice....you know, to help out my Indonesian which has a total vocab of 5 words right now.  

One of the best ways I have ever spend my mornings in life has been this week's morning routine.  We worship in Albanian, Chinese, Swahili, Spanish, Arabic and we worship in the style that coincides with different areas of the world.  Love it!  

This has really been about meeting people from around the world and hearing slivers of their life stories, but there has also been a few excellent sessions.  One was the three keys to a successful cross-cultural experience.   

1. Humor

2. Lower expectations 

3. Ability to fail repeatedly 

I found these 3 points fascinating and I hope to reflect on how true I find these things while I am in Indonesia.  

ANOTHER, great thing was the time the SALTers going to Asia and the IVEPers coming from Asia discussed cultural differences and similarities.  One hilarious difference was that in South Korea the men shower together and they wash each others backs.  This came to the shock of myself and everyone else....however, I commented how I can never wash my entire back and that the way Koreans do it would be very useful.  A North American rebuttled asking me why I would ever need to wash my back....and I gave up my argument, but I am now curious about Indonesian showering customs...haha.  

Today we watched a video clip called "The Danger of a Single Story."  It is an excellent talk that can be found here.  It is a incredible reminder to myself about the stories that I carry into my year where assumptions, stereotypes are held.  We cannot help but hold onto stories, because it is how we make sense of the ourselves and the world.  However, it is when we start with a single story and we hold onto that story no matter what alternative stories exist, that undignifying actions arise.  These dangerous single stories occur when the mega-narrative of God's world being made new becomes out of focus.  It has been a beautiful thing this week to listen to and embrace the stories of the global church.  For example:

--Talking to Shenouda from Egypt who belongs to the Coptic Church and whom protested in the Egyptian Revolution and speaks passionately about it.

--Albert from Kosovo whom has witnessed his country being liberated and explains how the economic struggles of the liberated Kosovo are worth it because of the freedom gained.

--YuShan from China whom I stayed up to 3am talking to about how she came to Christ 3 years ago and what living as Christ in China looks like.

--And talking to Diego from Brazil whom is going to Edmonton for his year.  Among other things, I instilled a fear of the upcoming awful Edmonton winter.  

I will embrace the next few days here, however odd it is to be with people whom I will not see for a year.  I had my prayer card photo taken today, so if you would like a prayer card and you are not in my support group or church, then let me know by emailing me at jason_k_horlings@hotmail.com.  

Thursday morning I go to Indonesia......finally!

Almost there....

I'm sitting in the Toronto airport, and it is a relief to have the good-byes and the preparation behind me.  I am only hours away from meeting LOTS of new faces, I can't wait for that.  For those that know me well, you will know that I will want to talk to everyone of the 119 other participants at orientation.  I'm not sure how I will do that, but I know that orientation will be one exciting week of expectation of the year ahead for everyone there.

WOW......I have been amazed by the encouragement and prayers that I have received from my family, friends and people that I have only come to know because of this trip.  It is powerful to have so many people in prayer behind me on this trip.  It is a true blessing from God that He has placed so many beautiful people in my life that have propelled me to this place in my life where I can go to Indonesia for a year serving in a church.  It is only by the grace of God that I have been surrounded by you and that I can do this and respond to this call to serve His people in Indonesia.  

I have wanted to spend a significant amount of time in a cross-cultural and inter-faith setting for a looooong time.  But I have waited and allowed the Lord to prepare a place for me.  It has been agonizing to wait, but I trust that the Lord has amazing plans for me.  Plans for me to wrestle with the injustice, pain and brokenness of the world.  And plans to stand amazed at the joy and beauty of His people.  And plans to always bring me to the foot of the Cross.  

I could write forever about why I want to do this, what I am thinking, what the Lord has taught me over the last 5 months of waiting and preparation.  But I hope that comes out in future posts because I need to hop on a plane right now.  Oh yah, I have a really funny story about my commissioning service at my sending church.  stay tuned....  

A Quick Introduction

Well, here I go!  

Welcome to my blog for the upcoming year that I will spend in Indonesia with the Mennonite Central Committee through their SALT (Serving and Learning Together) program for young adults.  I have no idea how often this blog will be updated or what it will look like, because I largely have no idea what my upcoming year will be like.  

The pressure is on for me to blog this year.  From people telling me to they will check everyday to those whom hope for something deeply theological and philosophical, I'll try my best to keep this interesting and updated. My e-mail is jason_k_horlings@hotmail.com if you would like to contact me or you can figure out how to comment on a blog post.

Here is a refresher of the basics of the year ahead.   

On August 10^th I will be leaving to Indonesia for a year to serve through the SALT program with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the relief and development arm of the North American Mennonite Church. This SALT program places over 50 other young adults across the Global South.  I will be going to the island of Java to serve as a Pastoral Intern and Community Worker.  After spending 6 weeks in language training, I will live with an Indonesian family, while serving in the community of Kudus through pastoral visiting, involvement in the youth group, church groups and peace-building activities.  Basically, I think that I will be a part of whatever ministries the church is doing.  


Where Am I Going?


To the province of Central Java on the island of Java in Indonesia and.....

In the city of Kudus, which is in the top right of the province.