High School Ministry Opportunities

In Berastagi, one of the churches here has the amazing opportunity of going to a local high school every morning Tuesday – Saturday (yes, they have school 6 days a week here—haha) and getting to share with the entire student body for half an hour or so. It’s not a Christian high school, so it’s really neat that they are allowed to go. There are about 400-500 students.

Two weeks ago, they invited Violetta, Steve and myself to give the messages for the entire week! So after a couple of songs every morning, we each took turns on different days with a quick 15 minute word for the students. It was great to get to share with young adults from all different sorts of backgrounds about God’s love and acceptance.

Steve started the week with a recap of the story of Zacchaeus, emphasizing that it doesn’t matter how your peers may label you; God doesn’t measure success or give approval based by the world’s standards. But He meets us where we are at, and loves us unconditionally.

Vio shared Wednesday with a touching story about imagining a disease that spread throughout the whole world and only the purest blood could supply the vaccination and a father had to give up his son (who was the only one they found with good enough blood) in order to save the whole world. Then it was just a short conversational leap to God and Jesus!

This was the size of the student body we each preached to.

Here I am, Thursday! I told the story of the prodigal son. We don’t have our Father’s love because we’ve done anything to deserve it, but no matter what it’s always there with open arms, waiting for us.

At the end of my little talk, I had a funny face contest with my translator! (no I didn't)

Friday and Saturday was more of the same.

Then, yesterday, I was given the opportunity of preaching at a different high school just outside of Medan. This also is not a Christian school, however it is owned by a Christian couple. I spoke to the Jr. & Sr. high school students (about 400), and it went really well! I like this age so much better than children… is that a bad thing to admit?

I told a story about sacrifice (it was very moving) and then (as should be expected by now) brought in God and humanity’s sin problem and Jesus, and then asked if anyone would like to accept this free gift of Jesus! Over 70 hands shot up all over the room- it was very neat to see. Due to stage setup and where Steve was sitting, there wasn’t really any non-disruptive way for him to get a picture of me preaching (I don’t mind too much, there was definitely more than the recommended number of people in that room, and I was really sweaty), but here is a picture of the students:

Toque!

Guess what?! Steve and I decided to get a puppy!!! There are several reasons for this. The first is that my family Jack Russell dog at home just had puppies and I will never get to see them, and the second, more serious reason, is that it was so adorable we just couldn’t say no!! AND she only cost Rp. 50.000! That is $5 Canadian!! We have named her Toque, for a little reminder of home (speaking of home, we don’t know what to do with her when we leave yet, but we will think of something).

Aside from her being adorable, her owner owns a ‘B1’ restaurant. In case you don’t know, a sign that says “B1”, means, “The meat we serve here is dog! Bwa ha ha!” DOG! Or maybe puppy! *gasp*. And I couldn’t let poor little Toque be eaten. So we bought her. And now she will never have to worry about being a meal because I will look after her (for 7 months). She stays in our yard, and we made a little pen area in the house for at night (just until she is bigger). AND she’s practically free to look after; she will just eat my leftovers (sorry Steve). And best of all, if sponsor money is slow one month, we now have an alternative to starvation! Haha.

Here she is!

Weird Indonesian Cereal & Near Breakfast Catastrophe

This is just something I saw on a cereal box I bought here… It is from the company ‘Post’, which is in the U.S., and so I believe that this is also on boxes in North America… which I find silly. Here it is:

We should all aspire to live like bananas. They are on a permanent vacation, living in lush, tropical rainforests. From high above, a canopy of trees provides the perfect balance of sun and shade.

On a slightly different breakfast food note, I really wanted some oatmeal the other day, so when we were in a grocery store I went to buy some. I found Quaker Oats! Delicious! So, without much more than a passing glance, I picked up the bright green quaker oats package. "Mmmm" I naively thought, "This must be green apple cinnamon!" Well Praise God for a second passing glance, because it was then that a little image of a--wait for it-- SARDINE!! caught my eye. Yes, they have sardine-and-I-don't-even-know-what-the-other-word-was Oatmeal. Those traitors. I almost threw up at the mention. I know that's not very tolerant of me to say- but ewww. Needless to say, my breakfast still consists of apples.

Oh yeah...

Steve says hi.

Encouraging Children to take Candy from Strangers...

In Berastagi, much like anywhere else in the world, there are certain areas where a lot of poor people live. We have gone a couple times to one of those areas and have been spending some time with the children there. Generally we’ll do a couple games, and then a story we tie in to God and how much He loves them, and then a short prayer. And then candy :) .

Here are some pictures from the first day:

(...can you find me in this one below....?)

And here is from the last time we went to see them:

Terrorist Training Camp

This is Berastagi.


Peaceful isn’t it?

Makes you want to stop and pose for pictures with a friend...

Guess what?!?! They found a Terrorist Training Camp right near here!! Just up the mountain. I assume the situation is under control now (I would hope) since Susan sent us up here for a week… but a couple weeks ago we were here and it was recommended we go back to Medan temporarily because of it.

I don’t really have anything else to say on the matter.

Going Places...But How?

My favourite method of transportation so far is the Becak; A little sidecar thing attached to a motorcycle. You can see a back view of one here, carrying Susan and Violetta…


And here is a lovely picture of Steve and I, on my first ever Becak ride!

The reason I love these things so much is because I actually get fresh air in them! They haven’t really gotten the “smoking is bad” memo here yet, and everyone on the buses and everywhere smokes, and it’s nauseating. …unless you are on the TOP of the bus!! (See Exhibits A through C—Shown Below):

Exhibit A: Fresh Air!! We Love it!

Exhibit B: Pretty Scary... You can't tell but we are going over a high bridge!:

Exhibit C: View from the roof:

We couldn’t stay up there the whole time because apparently rooftop riding is illegal, and when we got near a place with police we had to come down. But it was pretty awesome. Maybe we will get leather jackets that say “Rooftop Riders” on the back and participate in various hijinks.

Moving Day!!

Hello! Well I’m happy to have you filled in on the festival at least, but that does only take us up to October 3rd, so as you know, I still have a lot of time to account for. One of the most industrious projects we’ve been a part of so far was…. Moving! The Indonesia team has had a house in Berastagi (about two hours up from Medan) for the past 7 years, however now the team headquarters will be in Medan, with Susan. So we had to move everything from the Berastagi house to Susan’s Medan house. BUT… Susan’s current (at the time) Medan house was too small for us, not only did we have to move Medan House 1 to Medan House 2, we also had to move Berastagi House to Medan House 2. Lots of moving!

Finally we had everything in Medan House 2 (which will from now on be known as Medan House). Did I mention Medan House was a mess? But with a lot of scrubbing, we now have a home away from home!

Here are some before and after pictures:

Emily & Steve's Room Before:


Emily & Steve's Room After (A different type of messy):

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen Part One After:

Kitchen Part Two After:

Living Room Part One Before:

Living Room Part One After:

Living Room Part Two Before:

Living Room Part Two After:

The very very very best thing (I think) about this house is that it has a TOILET!!! You would be surprised how quickly the novelty of a squatty wears off. I would include a picture, but come on—it’s a toilet.

Festival Pics- Start from the bottom and read up!!

Hello! Sorry for making you start from the bottom, but please do. I hadn't posted pictures before and I didn't realize they post this way. Next time I'll do it right.



More entertainment.... but this group has a hilarious story! So! This is just a local dance group. The act started out with this really innocent flower dance... and then these guys came on and did this really cool dance with long sticks. And then...out of NOwhere... things took a slightly different turn. This loud DJ voice booms out "This is one DJ you *don't* want to mess with!" (but it didn't say "mess"! It said an actual REALLY REALLY bad word!!) And then they go into this provocative dance to a Britney Spears song!!
Don't get me wrong, it was really good dancing.... but I don't think it is what the festival comittee had in mind when they asked this group to come dance. haha.




The rain didn't stop the crowds!!!!










See?!








"When Pontianack gives you rain, make an awesome hat out of a Peter Youngren poster."
-Emily Boss
Funny story about this hat. I made the very first one of the night, but I swear, less than 15 minutes later the field was full of them. It was amazing. (see next photo-- reading up remember)





Steve calls this man, Jewish Batman








Best crowd shot I could get with my camera... lots of people!








Dragon Dance!! Awesome.







Marching band!! Each night we had different local entertainment before the message.






A very unflattering angle of Emily at her camera






Steve Setting up his camera

Friendship Festival... What Happened?!?

Well!! Finally I have an afternoon to devote to the internet! So I am going to do another string of posts about various things... and these ones will include pictures!!

First post for today, will be to fill you in on the festival. Last you've read, we were very very excited to be postering the town! So here's what happened after that post....

Steve and I went that night to go do posters again. Suddenly, as we were getting ready to go out with the team... conflict arose!

It turns out, that the postering team didn't feel like we (white people) were safe going out with them that late at night. If anything happened to us they would feel responsible (and I would hope, somewhat sad)...and SOOOO Steve and I were taken off of night postering and given the more important (as I like to call it) job of handing out handbills during the day. (Jokes on them anyways, the city got angry about all the posters and a lot of them had to be scraped off eventually).

So ok. We are handbill handerouters. And we totally rock at it! But then.... conflict arose!

It turns out, that the handbilling team (they are led by the same people as the postering team) didn't feel like we (white people) were safe going out with handbills in broad daylight. (You may think they were being.... purposefully difficult....that is a possibility, but just maybe, there is some sort of reverse vampire species here). Anyways, if anything happened to us they would feel, of course, responsible (and I would hope, but strongly doubt-- somewhat sad)...and SOOOO Steve and I were taken off of broaddaylight handbilling and given the infinitely more important (as I like to call it) job of folding posters to put in newspapers. In our hotel room. (Jokes on them anyways, the city got angry about all the handbills and they weren't allowed to finish distributing them).

During the nights of the actual festival though (Sept 29-Oct 2) we ran cameras and taped the event.

The festival itself (put on, if you'll recall, by Peter Youngren/World Impact Ministries), was a great success! Thousands (literally) came every night. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and others, all came to hear about God's undiscriminating love for all people everywhere.

And there were healings! Blind people that could suddenly see, deaf people that could suddenly hear.... and lame people who could suddenly walk! That's the power of the Gospel! God's unearned, undeserved and completely unmerited favour. My favourite healing story was this woman, Aminah. A team went and interviewed her the next day for her story, and here it is (paraphrased): For quite a long time, she has suffered with pain all over her body, and it has really been affecting her mobility, and of course, day to day living. Well, she is Muslim, and didn't really get all the Jesus talk that was going on, but she raised her hands when PY instructed people to, and she was just going along with the crowd, and then all of the sudden, she felt someone lifting her up! But there was no one that was actually helping her. She was really confused, because she thought you had to go up on stage to be healed, so she wasn't even expecting anything from where she was sitting, but, as she summed it up the next day, "I think it must have been that Jesus". Her pain is gone and she can move around again unhindered!!It was great to see people come to the realization that God's love isn't only for Christians, God's love is for everyone who will receive it!!