Friday, June 22, 2012

Ordinary, Extraordinary.

A magnificent land.  A beautiful people.  And someone who finds great joy in both of those.  From the usual to the peculiar, the mundane to the spectacular, its been mine to enjoy these past months.  And still for a few weeks.    

Besides some work and vacation related travels, I have kept up relationship building with a wide variety of people.  When not visiting people, I have been going to the regular church events.  When not doing that, I have been working on 3 final projects.  

1. Writing a 15-page report on the diaconal work of the church and my recommendations for it.  I will present this to the elders and the pastors soon.
2. Preparing for a 1 hour session on Creation Care at a youth retreat.
3. Preparing a inspirational and reflective message for the final youth/young adults night.

I got out to some tropical islands to take some deep breaths of clean air.....you forget what that is like over here.  
2 men going home after a day at sea...
There is a few perks to being on a pastoral team.  One of them was a rafting trip.  Pastors here are a lot less formal and mellow, and a lot more of teasing and just general craziness.

Ah, one of the most active volcanoes on earth and it was all mine for a day.  Well, along with about 120 other photo demanding Indonesians.  By the end of this adventure to the craters rim and down its sandy banks, nearly every Indonesian on this mountain got a souvenir with me in it.  My souvenir from this trip was a wicked sun burn that was a great conversation starter for about 2 weeks afterwards as it obnoxiously peeled away.

In grade 10, my dream job was marine biologist.  I dreamed that without peering into the ocean's wonder, now that I have been stunned by under water beauty.
I found Nemo.  (photo thanks to the snorkel camera man)
3 men practicing the fine Javanese art of sitting and people watching.  Possible talking to one another, but mostly likely just silence and a few smokes.  This fine art is not my finest art.  Smoking being one obstacle.  And secondly, the silence part....just not a strong suit. 
A traditional Javanese home.  Inside, the majority of the space is a big gathering and work area with small rooms for sleeping in the corners and then the kitchen and the bathroom at the very back out of sight to any visitor.  
Here is another crop that those who farm or process it never eat--Cashews.  They were grown in small eastern Indonesian islands, trucked for one week up into the mountains of Java, peeled and then trucked another day to Jakarta where they are then exported.  I joined in on the cashew peeling and I can tell you, the amount of time each cashew takes to peel is one reason you pay more when you buy them in the store.  
Every Politics-Economics major's dream was realized when I bumped into this.  What would that be?  A IMF(International Monetary Fund)-World Bank project.  Of course, I had a litany of questions to ask about this.    

Not all Indonesian pools look like this, but the one closest to my home does.
A few house rules: 1. Chickens have the right to roam anywhere--including poolside.
2. Have garbage?  No problem, that is what pool side gutters are for.  
3. Don't try to make out the unidentifiable objects in the pool.  It will wreck your experience.   
Just look at the sheer density of homes.  Then imagine biking between that all.  And then hearing that mosque belt out the call to prayer.  I'll miss that!