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The Last Update

Posted on by Dave

Ok. So its not really the last update. I still owe all of you a few more stories from our time in Tomohon this summer, and I will get them out to you as soon as I can (I know I keep saying that).

It’s The Last Update of Discovery 2007. We finished this past Tuesday in Bali. We all piled into vans to head to the airport (though some of us had to pile back out again because of a bad tire) for the flights home and elsewhere. Home for the participants and for the couple who leads the trip and not yet home for me. I headed back to Jakarta for a while to volunteer at the office there until my flight home.

It was tough to se the team head off. It amazes me how close you grow in just a few short weeks. You spend so much time in classes, meetings, in planes , on buses, in cars, walking around, in services, sleeping, eating, and praying together that, in many ways, by the time the trip ends you feel like family.

And, when the family goes different directions you feel a since of loss, that the trip can’t last longer, that things can’t go on like they have.

And there is also relief. There is another world to go home to. There are family and friends that have been missed and supporters to report to. And, if they never went home, how could they share with others the things God has taught them. Email and phone calls only go so far.

So the team goes home, hopefully changed from when they arrived. Hopefully they have a better understanding of God and how they relate to Him, how they can serve Him and how they can bring others to serve Him as well.

And hopefully they don’t forget. To forget what they have been through, whether times of struggle or times of rejoicing, would be tragic.

It is my prayer, and I hope it is yours, that they don’t forget this last summer. The friendships made, the experiences together, the people they have met and what their coming meant to them.

Most of all I pray they don’t forget the people of Indonesia. And that they don’t forget the tremendous needs here. And that Indonesia doesn’t become to them just another blurb on CNN or another headline in the Times.

The people are real. The needs are real. And the ones going home can only share what they don’t forget.

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Bali

Posted on by Dave

We have finished up the village phase of Discovery 2007 and arrived last night in Bali.

Please pray for wisdom as we help the participants process their experiences of the last several weeks and prepare them to come home next Tuesday.

I’ll be posting a few more updates about our time in Tomohon as I have the opportunity.

Thank you all again for your prayers this summer, it really does make a difference.

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The Queen's English

Posted on by Dave

There is a hilarious radio show on Saturday mornings (where I live) on NPR. It is called “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me”. It’s a news and current events quiz show featuring, among other things, a segment called “Not My Job”. In this segment, someone, usually famous, is called upon to answer questions totally outside their area of expertise or experience. They have had astronauts, politicians, reporters, authors and nearly everything else on the show doing their best to answer questions they have no reasonableness of knowing.

I am beginning to understand the challenge a little.

Several times over the last couple of weeks, we have been going to the local Theological University (the school that sponsors the Translation Center) and helping teach English to the students there.

Thankfully they have a curriculum and the usually instructors usually stay with us, and they mostly just want the students to be able to practice English with native speakers.

However, we want to be as much help to them as we can and they often have difficult questions about how English works. (and we often have no idea how to answer them)

We take it for granted because we grew up speaking it. And thank goodness because English is a ridiculously difficult language to try to learn. (and to try and teach as well)

Sometimes the instructors have questions for us, and even if we know how it works…it is a far different thing to explain why it works, so they can learn how to figure it our for themselves. Especially when their national language is fairly orderly and tends to follow most of its own rules, rather than trying to break all of them like English.

Even though the alphabets are mostly the same, the sounds they represent are often different. And while the basic grammatical components are there, they come in different orders and with different complexities. How many tenses does a language really need anyways? English has how many? And what if your language doesn’t have articles like English? How can “you” be both singular and plural? Can you explain how Americans use slang?

The English instructors at UKIT have a very challenging task before them., and English is not even their first language.

Again and again Indonesians come up to me and apologize for not speaking much English and then compliment me on my Indonesian. They are far too humble. We all ought to send thank you cards to our grammar teachers and be a lot more patient with people on the phone or at the store who stumble through trying to communicate with us. Remember that English is easy for us because we have been working at it for years.

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So the aroma hangs in the air…

Posted on by Dave

Have you ever heard of cloves? Chances are you have, and chances are you have some in your pantry with your other spices. (If you do you might want to go find the jar and bring it back to your computer, open the jar and take a deep whiff.) That fragrant aroma has traveled a long way to find you. And chances are very, very good that it began its journey in Sulawesi, and its is equally likely that it began in the small village of Suluun.

Walking through Suluun two Saturdays ago the sweet aroma filled the air. It was the peak of the clove harvest, the pinnacle of this village’s life. The harvest occurs only once every two years and is crucial to the people’s survival.

They go to their yards and groves and pluck the clove, the unopened but of the flowering tree, by hand and drop them into sacks. They do this by standing on rickety bamboo ladders for hours on end. It’s often backbreaking labor, full of long hours and very tedious. Families with larger groves often hire help for the harvest so that all the cloves can be gathered at the exact right time. Being off even by a few days can cause the quality, and thus the price, of the cloves to plummet.

After the trees are cleaned off, they haul the bags back to town, usually in trucks or oxcarts, but often on bicycle or motorcycle.

Then from the morning until just before the sun goes down, the cloves are spread out on canvas tarps to dry in the sun. The patchwork of canvas covers any open, sunny area: yards, driveways, even half the street or more.

They are laid out for three or for days depending on the temperature and humidity. This is crucial, for if the cloves are not dried properly they will lose their value tremendously.

The villagers must be on the guard for rain, and be ready to gather their drying cloves as soon as rain begins to fall. The moisture could ruin their entire harvest.

After the drying is complete the cloves usually head are usually sold directly to cigarette or spice companies.

The value of these cloves can be such that a family is secure financially until the next harvest in two years.

And it is common for Christians here to bring cloves to the church as part of their offerings instead of money.

The livelihood of the people here hangs on the quality of the harvest and the price of cloves.

There is a delicate balance though. This year they are having a record harvest. More cloves than they have seen in years.

But the abundance has sent the price falling. Often so low it isn’t worth paying extra people to harvest.

Cursed by abundance in a sense, the people must choose to sell the harvest for a low price or store the cloves in hopes of a price increase, taking the chance they might be ruined.

Dependence on “chance”; dependence on things one cannot control is a recurring theme in these hills.

So the aroma hangs in the air, and so does their future.

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James 1:27

Posted on by Dave

The other Tuesday afternoon, we had the privilege of visiting a very special place. Nestled in a small neighborhood in Tomohon is a refuge for the unfortunate and the unwanted.

The Orphanage of Nazareth is home to over one hundred children, from little babies and toddlers to school kids and teenagers, who literally have no other place to go than the street.

I cannot even describe the bright smiles and the delight in the dark brown eyes of dozen of faces when we arrived. We were welcomed like long lost brothers and sisters, with such joy that it breaks my heart to tell you of it.

A few of us gathered with the older kids to make some crafts and spend some time with them. I and another guy took the younger school kids and tried to spend their energy doing what they love…playing bola kaki…soccer. And a couple of us went and played with the little kids and visited the nursery.

Playing soccer with those kids was an incredible experience. They take it so seriously, so we began to clown around, falling, kicking the wrong way, whatever…to make the kids laugh…and such laughter, like ice cream on a mid-August day…just delightful.

After the game, we wandered over to where the preschool kids were. Wide-eyed and adorable, these little guys didn’t at first know what to do with me. But when I took off my ball cap and said “Saya tidak ada rombut.” (figure it out) a few of them cracked up and we became friends. I sat down against the wall and let them crawl over me. It just might be the most fun I have had in this country, and certainly some of the greatest joy. And it was very hard to walk away, when it was time to go.

The children of this orphanage, unlike many others you might read about, are loved and cared for. They have a home, not just a shelter. They have school and are taught the Scriptures. Those that had no chance are given an opportunity…not just to “become somebody” but to choose to follow the truth, to follow God.

We met the gracious couple that parents the older children; they have a devotion to God and to the children that is wonderful. They were so welcoming and grateful for our visit.

The visit is a highlight of my time here in Tomohon, but also a sobering reminder of all the other children, especially the street children of Jakarta, that are not so blessed as these. Children that beg to keep from being beaten, or that are rented out to professional beggars or that merely beg to stay alive. Children that don’t have a home, that are not loved and aren’t ever given a chance to hear the Truth.