Contemplation 2012

Wow, it's amazing how life changes and how priorities are adjusted.  When I first began this blog, it was a wonderful way to process moving to Indonesia and all the adjustments that we encountered.  I remember very specifically writing so that I wouldn't offend my new country members who might be reading, and I wouldn't cause my friends and family back home in Canada to insist that I come home immediately.  In setting these boundaries for myself, I was force to look at the good in where I was living, and to make the best of some really difficult situations.  Now, 4 years later, I feel that I am in a new stage of life and blogging is no longer as necessary as it was for me.  Couple that with having much less free time and the result is fewer posts...that and forgetting my password for a few weeks!

Our latest updates in a nutshell (o so many):
Tris and Sunny came to Indonesia for almost 5 weeks, and we had a great visit.  Revisited Bali for almost a week, and while in Lippo they were able to take advantage of the local country club while the rest of us worked or studied each weekday.  Time went by quickly and before we knew it, they had flown home and we were preparing to return for our summer visit to Canada.

We adopted a black dog named Jasper, and he is keeping us on our toes.  It's different adopting a dog that is almost an adult but we're willing to tackle the challenge.  He's not really very much like our Canadian Corgie dog, Willie, but he has some promise.  We think he's a cross between a border Collie and an Australian shepherd.  He's got this weird ridge back that friends of ours call a 'faux hawk.'  Very cute.

I've completed 3 of 12 Masters (teaching) courses and so am 25% finished.  Boy that feels good, although knowing I have 9 more to go can be a little daunting at times.  I'm studying online through a Christian university, and I love the challenges that the content provides.  It's causing me to really examine what I believe, why, and how I will take what I believe and appy it to all areas of my life.  This is a lot different from my first university degree!

Matt has finished grade 10 and will be starting his International Baccalaureate (IB) program for grade 11 and 12.  This is an intense program but it will be beneficial when it's time to head to university, as it focuses on preparing students for further study.

Abby finished grade 8 with a bang, earning a bunch of awards.  The highlight (for her parents) was Top Student for grade 8, and Scholar Athlete as well.  There were others but I may get in trouble if I put them all up for all to see:)

Tris has a new job description that gives him more admin and less teaching next year, which will be a nice challenge and change for him.  He's already starting working during the summer, with emails flying back and forth from Canada to Indonesia.  He's really looking forward to what this year will bring.

We're here in Canada now, and sadly, are halfway through our visit (today is the marker).  Heading back to Indonesia is always bittersweet, as we love our lives there, but it's hard to leave family and friends behind.  This year will be particularly difficult to return, though, as many of our good friends have moved to their home countries for various reasons, and there will be a big hole left.  We do look forward to meeting new friends though, and so will head home with a good attitude.

It's been a good day, spent with family and friends.  Trout fishing is the plan for tomorrow and so it's time to head to bed.

Thanks for reading

Company's Coming!

They're almost on their way!  Tris' parents are heading here for their 2nd visit (first was Dec 2009) for almost 5 weeks and we're really excited.  This time will be a little different as last time it was over Christmas break and this time it's over April break (no Spring Break here...Spring doesn't exist!), so we don't have as much visit time.  However, we plan on making the best use of our time and hopefully they'll have a lot of opportunity to just relax.  One of my mom in law's favourite Indonesian things:  having her dirty clothes picked up in the morning and delivered the next day, washed, dried, ironed and folded!

March is flying by so fast it's making my head spin.  My days are full of books, reading, writing and lots of editing of papers and assignments.  I'm learning a lot in my first class, and am looking forward to learning in the second one that I just started last Monday.  It's a research/statistics class, and that kind of scares me.  It's kind of fun working alongside my kids, as they work on essays and projects, and meet school deadlines.



We still have fun around here, it's just more intentional.  Our school held it's annual Soccer Carnival a few weeks ago, and Tris and the kids were really into preparing for it.  Our house team (Merapi...named after the volcano) was going with a military theme, and so our family went along with another Merapi family, the Comries, to some shops far, far away in Jakarta to buy military garb.  Once all was said and done, they looked great.  Abby, our friend Sophie, and a few other girls did a cheerleading dance to get our team going (all-school assembly just before the carnival started).

I thought matt was going for 'sasquatch' but apparently this is military camouflage.

Report cards came out and the kids did really well.  It's neat to see what areas they're really developing into, and what gifts God has given them.  Abby loves to write, and it shows.  Matt loves art, especially photography, and it shows.  Below is a photo that he took for a lighting lesson in digital art.  He was supposed to use lighting to show emotion.  Here, it's hopelessness.  

Thankfully, this is just a staged photo.

We're off to Bali in April, something that we haven't done since Tris and Sunny were last here, and so we're really, really excited.  

thanks for reading.

February Update

Wow, things have changed!  It used to be that I'd write a post every 2nd day or so, which graduated to once a week, and now, sadly, once a month.  However, maybe that's not sad.  It's just an indication that I actually have a life now, or at least one that keeps my mind busy.  There have been a lot of things going on here, some worthy of sharing, others that if I wrote down would just seem kind of random, but things we enjoy regardless.  

Matthew has finished his grade 10 personal project (otherwise known as his "pp"...I hate it when people call it that) and has gone back into his old routine of hanging out more, homework less.  His project was to make a photo book about Jakarta and the surrounding areas, and he did an excellent job.  He's got a great eye for shots, and it shows.  Two days ago he and some friend from school were filming their modern take on Romeo and Juliet in our living room.  That was interesting, especially when his sports jock friend donned a pink dress and played the role of ... I'm not really sure.  

Abby is plugging along with her schoolwork and sports.  She's worked hard too, and I think both kids are ready for the upcoming Easter break.  Tris and I have gone to watch some of her soccer games and it's nice to see how much the girls have improved over the year.  Improvement is good;)

O dear, as I write this, our helper has arrived for work.  It's raining outside, she's got her big padded winter-looking jacket on and she's shivering.  I can admit to actually shivering here in Indonesia outside once...I was thrilled, thinking I'm becoming Indonesian!  She walked in saying "Dingin sekali!!  (Very cold!)"  Yes, it's a cold 27 degrees out there, with a wind chill factor.

Tris is starting into his new job, training for next year's Curriculum Co-ordinator.  He loves the position and is looking forward to the challenges that it will bring.  He'll keep teaching a little bit, but will mostly work at this position.  He's been playing guitar and writing songs lately, inspired a lot by the things we're learning about God and the roles He plays in our lives.  And he continues to golf...

He's golfing and playing guitar even more now that I've started my Masters in Arts of Teaching (MAT) and am not around to hang with as much.  I'm 3 weeks in and have got many, many more to go!  The first week was hell, I admit.  Twenty years of no reading, writing or research, and then I have assignments due that have to sound at least semi-intellectual.  However, I survived and will continue to do so until I can call myself a teacher.  I actually think I'm a bit addicted to studying, which may be a good thing, so I'll just run with it.

One thing before I head off.  There's a BC family that lives here in Lippo with us (they're from Smithers).  Their 2 year old daughter, Kiera, was recently diagnosed with Viral Encephalitis, and has had some serious symptoms from it.  After 3-4 weeks of dealing with it here in Indo and then in Singapore, Kiera and  her mom will fly to Vancouver, BC to head to Children's Hospital.  They are hoping to leave Singapore on Friday.  Kiera's dad and 6 month old son will stay here until the school year is out.  Please join our family and our community in praying for Kiera and her family, for healing, intervention, patience and stamina as they go without being together for a long time.  Thank you!

Thanks for reading.

Chinatown, Yard Sale, and Relaxation

It's a beautiful day today, one that is most likely going to be a "good day sandwich" with the way the weather works here.  In fact, I can hear rumbling in the distance.  At our old house in BC that usually meant that dump trucks loaded with earth or rocks were passing by, but here it means that thunder and lightening and lots of rain could be just minutes away.  As long as we're out of the rain when it hits, it's kind of an exciting place to live in that regard.  Yesterday was rainy, and so were parts of last week. However, on the days that counted most, the rain stayed away just long enough for me to enjoy the events I'd planned.

possibly a soup-turtle

 Last Tuesday 11 of us from our Bread & Butter Cooking Club (BBCC) headed into Jakarta, to Chinatown.  We went armed with shoes that we didn't mind getting muddy if it rained, plastic spoons, cups and plates for sampling local food stall wares, cameras, and of course a spirit of adventure.  Our goal as a cooking club:  to see what kinds of unique foods we were missing at home.  Our first stop:  what I call 'reptile alley'. This is a long, narrow corridor where men sit atop wooden crates, readying frogs for the soup pot by peeling off their skin, chopping turtles into smaller bits, and selling live eels for later consumption.

these frogs are all tied together, waiting for their turn to "undress"

turtle soup

Sorry for the descriptives, but there's no nicer way to put it.  Further into our journey, we sampled iced grass jelly drinks (very nice, very refreshing), something that looked like burnt Barbie doll hair and tasted like cotton candy, sweet potato chunks mixed with glutinous rice and floating in coconut milk (yum!), an indonesian salad with spicy peanut sauce, and some were daring enough to try turtle soup (not me this time).  We ended our day at a 2nds ceramics shop where we found lots of great plates, bowls and serving dishes to buy.  Nice way to end the day.  

We're really proud of the fact that we're an international mix of girls, and it was pretty neat to realize that of the ladies who joined, only 2 were of the same nationality.  There were 2 Chinese Indonesians, 1 Canadian (me), 1 American, 1 South African, 1 Pole, 1 German, 1 Singaporean, 1 Icelander, 1 Brit, and 1 Japanese.

On Friday the Karawaci Ladies held a Yard Sale, very much like the one we held last year.  This time, although we had the same goal of blessing the local maids, drivers, security and neighbourhood maintenance people, we were a lot more relaxed about the whole affair.  We reduced our hours to one day from last year's 2, and after spending HOURS sorting, pricing and displaying clothing last year, this year we decided to price it all at the same basic price and just dump it all onto tarps on the ground.That's what ended up happening to the clothes in the first 30 seconds last year anyways, so it was just a matter of saving time and energy beforehand.  Like last year, people were excited to shop and to go home with some really nice items.  This year, with much less work and less hours of sale, we made almost $100 more than last.  So, some local employees were happy with the deals they found, and the Karawaci Ladies were able to donate another rupiah 8 juta (8 million, or almost Cdn $900) to our Children's Medical Fund for poor kids needing medical attention.  

Today, Sunday, seems like a dream day.  I love "culturally significant" days, and today was one.  Actually, the significance started yesterday when a fairly new Indonesian friend picked me up at 5:45 am to go to a local "pasar pagi", or morning market.  We went to a place that sells pork (very hard to find fresh here for a non-local who knows nothing of these things), which was hanging by strips and bones from large hooks.  I got so excited because Tris and I have been discussing eating ribs, and lately I've found out that even with Celiac, I'm able to eat a few brands of BBQ sauce.  This first outing led to today's, where at 6 am Tris and I headed back to the same place and bought a kilo of back ribs for about $8.  We got to choose our cut of meat, and had them cut it how we like it.  Right now they're in the oven, and delicious tangy sweet smells are wafting throughout the house.  Can't wait!  

After a quick meander through the grocery market (set up with set prices inside a cement building) where we bought some strawberries that taste very much like ours did in our back garden, we checked out the outdoor market.  There were found lots of wonderful fresh veggies and some things we didn't have a clue what to do with.  At one point I stopped at a chicken area, where there was a centrifuge-looking thing (or what looked very much like the inside of a clothes washing machine).  A man was killing chickens, throwing them inside, where they spun until the majority of their feathers came off.  He'd then throw them into scalding hot water, return their rubbery bodies to the spinner, and after a few seconds pull them out completely featherless.  It was quite intriguing, except for the part where the dead chicken pulled his head up and looked at me before he was thrown into the water for the first time.

We returned home with our purchases, headed to the pool and enjoyed a time of golfing (Tris) and swimming and reading (me).  All during this time our kids were at home:  Abby was doing homework and preparing for a talk she gave later to a group of teens at our church, and Matt was sleeping.  

This was a wonderful week and it has ended with some wonderful surprises:  pork ribs, blue skies and a nice, refreshing breeze.  Gotta go, the pork is on!!

Thanks for reading.

Abby's 14

Yes, I know.  It's January already.  Our family was too busy relaxing and holidaying for me to blog, and so this is Abby's Official Birthday Blog Post.  My birthday baby was due December 25, but thankfully was born Dec 18.  The 15th would have been nice since that's the date of all the other big events in our home, but Abby likes to do things a little independently and that was her way of introducing that part of her personality to us.  We've come to the conclusion that 18 is a nice number too.

For her birthday, our lovely girl had a few friends over, they ate pizza, and they 'slept'. The next morning they were served a white-linened breakfast of french toast on fine china.  It was the first official day of Christmas break, and so the girls were able to bring in the holiday with fun and style.  

Included in this post are a few photos of Abby, since pictures say so much more than words.  On Christmas Eve we had an open house, just like the ones we used to have in cold Canada.  There are a few families here with kids our kids' ages, and they happen to be great friends as well.  I love that they're all so goofy.  It's fun having them around.

On Christmas Day we took a bike ride into the rice fields, and Matthew shot this one of his sister.  

After Christmas ran its course, we had 2 weeks left of finding wonderful things to do.  Most of our friends went on some kind of holiday and so the kids were left with the next best option:  their parents.  My favourite day was when we visited the largest mosque in Indonesia, and then headed across the street to the Catholic Cathedral (where, on a Tuesday, a wedding happened to be taking place).

This final photo wasn't taken during the holidays, but I love the way it has captured Abby's thoughts.  If I tell you that she's watching a cow being slaughtered during Idul Adha (Muslim holiday), does that make knowing her thoughts any easier?

December already?

Time is flying by and my baby is 14 this Friday and Christmas is almost here and that same baby I mentioned earlier is now wearing high heels and is almost my height AND gulp...(breath), we're heading into holidays next week.
Nice.

This year, for Christmas, we're not heading anywhere.  We've got 2 days planned "for sure" for the 3 weeks we have off, and the first is heading into the mountains (Bandung) for one day, and spending another reading ALL DAY in our living room (just like camping).  Besides that, we're really not sure.  This is our first Christmas we'll spend in our Indonesian hometown: we've been in Lombok, Bali, and last year, Bavaria (Germany), and so it will be nice to stick close to home.  The house has been decorated for about 2 weeks now and we're full swing into the holiday theme.  I still say that one of the best gifts anyone has ever given me is the 'Yule Tide Log' dvd that just plays a burning log on the tv screen.  My parents brought it the first year we were here and it's become a "Canadian tradition" ever since.

One more week of school for Tris and the kids, then we'll decide what to do.
I've been waiting to say this, and it doesn't get said often in this nation...
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Idul Adha 2011

This year we celebrated our 4th Idul Adha weekend by staying at home and truly experiencing Indonesian life.  Of course, we threw in a bit of our regular routines and passions, all of which made for an excellent 5 day holiday of some work, some play, some challenges and lots of fun.  On my part, I spent the 1st day of my holiday painting our living room, in response to a challenge by a friend who wants to see blue walls by the time she returns to Indo from the US.  Blue walls are done!  Tris spent the day golfing, and the kids with friends.

 On Saturday we headed to the beach (all except Matthew:  he stayed behind and slept, recuperating from last week's 3 day Spiritual Retreat) where it was windy and wavy.  The force of the wind blew all our cares away and we just laid there, ignoring the fact that back at home were a few chores to finish up and some school work to tackle.  It was early to bed Saturday night as we had to get up early the next morning.  We were to meet with an Indonesian family in their village, and they were going to take us a few doors down to their local mosque to witness the Idul Adha sacrificing of a few cattle and goats.

It has taken some time for us to gather up "family courage," but we did so, and watched the animals being led to their death, killed (I didn't look), and finally, prepped for further distribution to the poorer members of surrounding villages.  This happens every year to thousands of cattle/goats/sheep in Indonesia in commemoration of the Muslim story of Ibrahim preparing to sacrifice Ishmael (in biblical view it's Abraham and Isaac).  I don't think I ever need to see this again, but it gave me a greater understanding of what goes on around me in the country that I live in.  It was also a great experience to walk around the village with someone who lives there, and to share a light meal with them.  Later on we headed in 2 cars to the primate zoo (in Ragunan) where the friendliest primates I've ever seen live.  If I could have, I'd have stuffed the little orange orangutan ("forest person") into my bag and brought it home, it was so incredibly adorable.  Unrealistic, yes, but it's every little child's dream to own a cute primate of some kind, and the little girl in me just sneaked out for a bit.

On Monday Tris headed to the golf course early to practice a bit for today's golf tournament, Matt slept until mid-morning, and Abby and I headed to one of our favourite shopping areas everyone calls Mangga Dua (Two Mangoes).  It's really a shopping district full of 6-story malls, but the area in that district is also referred to as the same.  Usually traffic there and back is quite packed, but we whisked there in less than an hour and thankfully, after an unusual 5 hours of shopping (usually we give ourselves 3) we flew home even faster in under 30 minutes.  That's quite unheard of in normal traffic, so we were feeling pretty blessed.  While there I bought cheap watches (yes, mine broke already and Tris' is too big for his wrist) and Abby found soul-satisfaction in her patchwork pants (think "I Dream of Jeannie" crossed with a Thai & batik'd quilt), Korean purse and other treasures her heart didn't know she desired until she saw them.  I didn't buy much but it was fun to show the 2 friends we brought along all of the neat shops and stops, and to discover new ones as well.

Today was a golf tournament (which donated almost $500 to the Karawaci Ladies medical fund!) that Tris participated in and I sold raffles at.  The kids were busy practicing their dances for Bulan Bahasa (Matthew) and Spiritual Retreat competition (Abby).

The highlight of our weekend?  Hanging with Indonesian friends and colleagues.  We saw a lot and got a lot done, but it was time spent learning more about this country and the people who live in it with us that made it a really enjoyable holiday.

Thanks for reading.