Neighbors, etc.

I met some of my neighbors last week. Ibu Ana and her husband own a little food stand on the main road in our neighborhood, which I can see from my doorway. They have a 6 month old. They have three other children as well, but I haven‘t met them so they don‘t figure into this story. I sat talking with Ibu Ana as neighbors came and went, some sat at the table for a while, some just stood and talked, some got their food and left. They all seemed to know the Ibu and the Pak, and were comfortable enough to pick up the baby or touch her cheek. Perfectly beautiful people, several of which I have since seen again as I walk home or go to the market in the morning. Unfortunately, the only name I could remember was Ana. Presumably even that was only because it is also an English name. I’ve back since then though, and I really like sitting with them, talking, learning, sharing. It’s part of what makes my life so amazing. I eat the food and they are patient with me as I learn, repeating and explaining what they say. It excites me to have another year to get to know them better.

.....


Five times a day, the call to prayer sounds. Five am, noon, three pm, sunset, seven-fifteen pm. It’s sounding right now and one time I went to bed at four (I was up late making pies and talking to people back home). I could faintly hear a man singing something in Arabic over the speakers, although I wasn’t sure if it was a legitimate call to prayer or just practice. They do that a lot, in the mornings. Practice… except I’m not quite sure what they practice.

I’ll be honest… Don’t get angry with me. Most of the time, I barely even register it anymore. Sometimes, though, I would give a lot to have it stop, if I’m trying to listen to music or watch a movie especially. It just sweeps through walls, through your blood. It doesn’t know boundaries. As an American, I like boundaries. Boundaries are nice, and neat, and clean. Boundaries give us personal space and keep us from having to let people get to really know us. If someone steps over the boundaries, you can feel justified in getting angry. “I told you that it annoys me that when you do!!” you shout at the offender, thinking you have the right. I’m learning that I don’t have the right to have walls. That life is not going to care if I have them anyway. Like the call to prayer, life sweeps right past the boundaries and personal space.

Syukur Allah. For He is good.

It’s Thanksgiving, albeit only two hours into this new day. I have not spent one Thanksgiving with my family since starting college, so it is nothing new to me to be without them. But now I find myself in a different country. It is not chilly and crisp in the air. There are no trees with a few colorful lingering leaves (if I’m in the South) or just enough snow on the ground to let you know that winter is almost here (if I’m Minnesota). Tonight, I was supposed to be doing my very favorite of all Thanksgiving activities. Baking pies. But when I turned on the gas to heat up the oven, the flame lasted for approximately 10 seconds before dying for good. Out of gas. So there is also no smell of pumpkin and apple and spices. No cooling pies on the counter. Instead of these few of my favorite things, I have many other rich and varied blessings in my life.

Syukur Allah untuk kasih karunia-Nya yang abadi.

God, Yahweh, Allah, Father. He has blessed me with countless things like the air I breath or the ability and the grace to learn and begin understanding the language of this new home of mine. This is so important to one who loves language and writing and sharing and reading like I do. I had never before realized just how much I took it for granted that I could glance at a sign and know exactly what it said. Or that I could walk into a conversation and know what was being said without any kind of context to help me understand. I pray that I never take it for granted again, or forget how it feels.


Syukur Allah untuk cintaNya sebagai besar sebagai laut.

Sometimes I wonder how He puts up with me, how He has so much patience to grow and mature me into a mighty tree planted by streams of Living Water (Psalm 1). I know that this is part of His character, and I am thankful that I do not worship some god in the style of the Roman or Greek gods. With the sins and passions and mistakes and rage and jealous fits of a human being. I am thankful that I did not have to create a god with my imagination, a god limited to my narrow mind and understanding. I am thankful that I do not understand all that is to understand about my God. That He continues to blow aside my walls and neat boxes built to hold my ideas of Him.

Syukur Allah karena aku ini saja manusia tapi Engkau kekasih aku. 

Praise God, for He is good. His mercy endures forever.

Shine, child

I once had a dream. This dream included owning a microwave in my home and a kitchen stocked with foods that I know well. In this dream, I had a ‘real’ bathroom and hot water in my shower. It involved traveling to the places that I wanted, when I wanted, without rules or restraints or having to be ‘culturally-aware.’ It included following my own passions and maybe making a name for myself on this earth.

And God said to me, “Of what use will it be that you had a microwave when you get to eternity? What will it matter then that you ate the food which you were accustomed to, rather than food which others among my children eat?”

‘she did not know that she was wishing for nothing more, and something a little less, than the kingdom of heaven…’ gmd

And He said to me, “Child, I love you and for this reason I cannot stand by and watch you waste the moments given to you in this world. What are you doing, following your own passions? If you were to become known, do you think those people who have heard your name will stand before me on your behalf? Will they be alive in even 100 years to keep your name alive?”

And then He said to me, “Beloved, I will be there to stand before God on your behalf. I have already given my life blood as the blood-price for your life and your freedom. Why do you turn from me and remain enslaved?”  

‘God is an ever flowing fountain of pure love and blessedness...’ andrew murray

So I should say that God did not take my dream away from me. He received it from my hands and replaced it with a grander view of eternity. He gave me a wider scope to see the purpose in having such a short time in this life.

He replaced it with life. With a love that no human could have the capacity to give in a thousand-and-one lifetimes. No human except the Man-God, Jesus.

'it was rather like looking down from a high hill onto a rich, lovely plain...' csl

This is just a blog of me reminding myself. When the days get long. When I lay awake at night.  When I miss having the known around me. Or the comfort of knowing what to expect. Or what to say. When I start thinking of what could have been.
 
It’s a reminder to me that what will be is far greater.

Humans Are Made to Adapt

Seven weeks and counting. My perspective of my life changes so much as each week passes. Recently, I have been looking back at the fog of the first few weeks and it makes me smile. I was unfamiliar with J. Co donuts and clueless of what gorengan was. Trying to get a bus felt like a challenge and the language sounded like a long string of random noises, rather then words with meaning and life in them. Just counting to ten was an adventure.

But life becomes normal, humans are made to adjust, and slowly I am becoming a different person. Five dollars now feels like a fortune to spend on dinner and I know which buses will take me where I want to go. The ojek(taxi motorcycle) drivers at the gate of my neighbor know my name and have become my friends.

Yesterday, my team and I finished Book One in language school. It’s quite an achievement and I am a little taken off guard by how far we’ve come, a little surprised, but I am no where near satisfied. I want to push further, faster, harder now. Because, for what purpose am I here? Is it simply for the adventure, to have stories to tell my children about my younger days? No, that is not the sum and total of my purpose, those things have no place in my reasons for being. I know that this step of my life was set up and put into motion by God. It is my part to listen to His voice, it is my part to be all here with my heart, body, and spirit until He calls me elsewhere.

I am here for sixteen months, God willing. I can never decide if I think that sixteen months is a long time or very short. It alternately feels like either, or both at the same time, depending on the day and where my thoughts are. But whether whatever the length, I am going to give it all of me. I do not want to get to the end of my days and know that I only half lived life. That I wasted and lost and misplaced and missed it.

That being said, I am learning how to take the best and leave behind the better. I have always had the problem of doing whatever came along first. So I have made it my goal to take God first and give Him all my time. That way, He can use it as He knows is best. And I can know with certainty that I have not wasted one moment of the life that I was given. May He receive the glory from my life that is rightly His.

“My Father, may Your name be highly exalted throughout all creation. Let Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”