Christmas in Indonesia

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, yuletide songs being sung by a choir, folks dressed up like eskimos..."

Even after all the years of living in the tropics, when i think of Christmas, i still think of the words above as the ideal Christmas setting...snow, fire in the fireplace, a "real" Christmas tree, family around the table for a meal and all that goes with those ideals. But, the reality is that we do live in the tropics and the normal cues for Christmas are not there...no snow it is just hot and sweaty, definitely no fires in the fireplace and no dressing up like an eskimo unless you are in a really well air-conditioned room. :) This year as we celebrated Christmas i was well aware once again that we are not in the U.S. and that we definitely live in a foreign land and this would be another Christmas of celebrating and having a mix of both our own culture as well as the culture we live in here.

We celebrated Christmas Eve with 2 other families and 2 friends. For the last 10 years or so we have had a Mexican dish called "Chalupa" for Christmas eve dinner. It is a great meal since it mainly sits on the stove top for most of the day while the meat gets tender and juicy. We had a

houseful of good friends and sharing of memories and just talking about life here in Salatiga and family and friends at home. The kids played well in our little side yard and our golden retriever, Winnie, reveled in the attention that he got from them.

We had decided to sleep in on Christmas

morning but unfortunately for me, our cat, Idaho, had other plans for me. She started meowing at 6 am and so i got up and started on our breakfast and just waiting for the rest of the family to wake up. In the mean time the power went out several times and then finally went out for a half hour about mid-morning. (This is nothing compared to my parents who had no electricity from 10:30 Christmas Eve 'til the morning of Christmas - and it is definitely too cold there to not have any electricity). The kids finally got up and we did our normal Christmas morning traditions and then at breakfast it hit me again of where we live. Usually we try to hole up in our house, keep the doors shut and the windows closed so that we can kind of be in our own little world. But during breakfast the mosque went off with the call to prayer. After all it was Friday, the Muslim holy day. So despite trying to block out the outside and just enjoy the inside warmth of our family, we still had reminders through out the day of where we live.

This is not such a bad thing and we are thankful to be living here, but there are times, like Christmas morning, where you want to escape and think about being somewhere else and having the familiar things of the holidays you grew up with. It is

kind of funny though because i think about our two kids and the way they have grown up and i realize that their idea of Christmas is very different than mine because this is where they have grown up, in the tropics, with the mosque going off every single day and the noise of the neighbors around us, the rainy season being Christmas weather and all those kinds of things. I guess it makes me come full circ

le in my thinking...i can try and make Christmas what i think it should be, what my memories drum up in my heart or i can accept where i am and focus on what Christmas is all about. It is a celebration of Jesus, of his reaching beyond His comfort and entering into our world in order to bring salvation to all people. While cultural traditions are important, the message goes beyond all those traditions and "ways" of doing Christmas, and the message is simple. Jesus

came as a baby so long ago to bring home and light to the world. We have much to be thankful for, each and

every Christmas, no matter where we are celebrating :)

Thanksgiving Indonesian Style :)

Wow...i am writing on my blog again...what a shocker! Today was our Thanksgiving Celebration-we did it on Friday instead of Thursday because we still had a half day of school on Thursday with a short teacher in-service. I definitely did not have the energy to do a full dinner after a day of work. But i did manage to get the pies made and for the first time ever, i put the turkey in a brine. I did the turkey a new way this year and i think it did really turn out well... :)

When it was time to gather around the table and give thanks, Jeff asked us to share one thing that we are thankful for this year and it struck me of how many things i had to be thankful for. My heart just was kind of overwhelmed...i am not sure why it hit right then...it wasn't anything new to think about what i was thankful for as this is a tradition we all do, but as i looked around the room today, i thought of each of the people that were there and the many years we have been overseas. This is our 13th year here in Salatiga and we have spent Thanksgiving with a variety of people. While i will always miss our family, i am always so thankful for the "family" that we are blessed with here. Every year there are old faces around the table that we have celebrated this day of thanks with before, but then each year there are also new faces at our table. Even though family is far away, we are blessed with "family" here that make these holidays feel special. We have been here so long and you would think

that i would be totally used to baking and making turkey in the hot humidness of Java but i still think back to the many Thanksgivings of being in cold weather and watching my mom do the cooking. :) I guess no matter how long you have been somewhere, we always look back with fondness at what once was! So as i reflected today on all the years spent here as well as in the U.S., i am full of thanks and just in awe at how blessed i truly am!!

Somedays....

November 19, 2009 will be a day i will remember for awhile. It has been one of those surreal days where you just wonder what is going to happen next. A friend described this as one of those days where you are floating a river in a canoe and all of a sudden you hit the rapids and you get going faster and faster and you better just hang on for dear life or else you won't make it. (Tks Mary for the description). At 6:30 Mary called me and let me know that Kim Linegar, a good friend and someone whom we have served with at Mountainview for many years was going to have to be medivac-ed to Singapore because of some complications from an illness. The last time that happened to someone here was 4 or 5 years ago and it was because an older lady had broken her hip. So, we were all shocked by that. It was also then that i found out Pak Tukiman, a dear Christian man who had served faithfully at the school had passed away last night. His daughter, Ester, had passed away a couple of years ago from most likely leukemia (she was the elementary school secretary). On top of all this news the school was having a Service Day where we all would be heading out to different areas to hopefully bless and encourage others in our community. Mmm...how does one take in all these things in one day?

I guess you just get up and you get going. I had a school full of children waiting to go to the SLB school to put on a carnival for the students there. SLB stands for Sekolah Luar Biasa which translated means The School for the Out of the Normal or Ordinary which means students with handicaps. So we loaded all of our elementary students into cars and headed up to the school and spent the next 2 1/2 hours hanging out with kids from elementary to high school

age who had a variety of disabilities. The time began with the usual speeches at the beginning of any program... since i am the principal i had the privilege of saying one of those speeches - ugh, this is not one of my favorite things to do. After the speeches were made we set up games and the craziness but fun began. Our students mingled some with the students from SLB but mainly just had fun running the games and giving away the prizes. I had one girl that continued to come up and talk to me and she especially liked giving high fives :). It was fun watching a group of hearing impaired girls as they signed away at break-neck speed. All these students were very sweet and i think it was a great opportunity for our students to reach out and see things from another perspective.

So then the contrast to that was an hour later after returning from the SLB school we were heading to the funeral of Pak Tukiman. Hesti, Pita, Mary, Nick and i went together and I am always thankful to go with an Indonesian friend just to be able to watch their cues on what to do. We arrived and the funeral ceremony had started but we went in to where they had the body laid out and the family was standing to say our condolences. Before moving to this country i had never seen a dead body before and now several funerals later, i have become more accustomed to this cultural practice. My heart still sank today when i looked down at Pak Tukiman, memories of being in the same home, looking down at Ester, flooded my mind, along with the feeling of sadness of not being able to see Pak Tukiman again. I know that he is at home with his Creator and for that i am thankful, but my heart aches for those he and Ester have left behind...Mrs. Tukiman, Wiwik and Yanti. Please pray for this family and many other loved ones who will definitely be missing him.

So, that is my surreal day, hanging on and just hoping all comes out okay in the end. We still are waiting news about Kim and what the tests/labs have shown to be the problem. Her husband and daughter are with her now and her son should be flying into Singapore tomorrow. Please continue to pray for them as well.