Bus Adventure

Last week I was riding on a bus and there were a lot of high school kids riding on the roof of the bus. And one of them just happened to be dangling a foot over the edge, I assume thinking “I’m so cool and daring.” Unfortunately for the student, I was in a window seat. Not just any window seat, but the window seat belonging to the window they were dangling their foot slightly in front of. And my window was open. So needless to say, I grabbed the foot. And heard the loudest scream ever from above me, and then a bunch of laughter and giggles. I laughed so hard I cried and Steve was sitting a couple seats away so he missed the whole thing but I filled him in as best I could through my laughter.

What made it funnier was the fact that there was this professional business-y woman sitting right beside me and she looked soooo unimpressed about everything.

Indonesian Volcanoes Climbed? One!

On November 13, Steve and I decided we would climb Mt. Sibayak, in Berastagi. It is an active volcano (not to be confused with a currently erupting volcano) so we both felt very brave.

It took about 2 hours and 40 minutes on the way up, and because I am a baby (my feet hurt, my legs were sore, I was hungry), pretty much just as long on the way back down. Here are some pictures of our journey:


This is Mt. Sibayak!



This is it again...



What a beauty!



And here are the snacks we brought to nourish us. The initial plan was eat Ritz crackers halfway up, and then eat the Oreos at the very top. As you can see, the Ritzs were gone long before halfway. And only two Oreos made it to the top. Oh well.



Ok. So to be honest I don't know exactly what this sign says. But since there are little pellet marks all over, I think it's safe for me to attempt to translate"

"WARNING! White people will be shot on sight! Especially ones who are tall! Turn back now, or face immediate, sudden, and painful death!!"




I know I look ravishing, but I was actually (already) tired and sore and, I'll admit it, a little whiny. These next couple pictures are all 'Steve wouldn't let me just stop unless I had a reason so fine let's take dumb pictures then' pictures.



Procastination at it's finest.



Too bad Steve caught wise of my clever ploy after this picture and made me start walking again.

Oh the danger!

At this part on the journey, we found the path had collapsed, so we had to cling to the side.

This was one of my favourite parts of the climb because I pretended I was a female Indiana Jones! Which is ok, because....

Steve clearly thinks he is -actual- Indiana Jones.

Reminds me of Jurassic Park... before all the mayhem.

What a view! And the scenery behind him isn't bad either. *wink*

*whistle whistle*!

More fun stairs... I love it here!

These are the shoes Steve deemed appropriate for climbing a volcano...

These are the shoes deemed appropriate by me.

Doesn't look very volcano-y up here...

That's more like it.

I don't know about you, but I always had the impression volcanic craters were... less wet... and less full of advertisements spelt out in large rocks.

That is sulfur behind us!

For Steve: Free advertising of our family name. (Sorry dad)

For Peter Youngren: Free advertising of Grace TV. (PS I want a raise for this when I get back. ...haha?)

This is the picture you get taken of you at the top of a volcano when you wear flip flops to climb a volcano. Silly.

This is the picture you get taken of you at the top of a volcano when you wear sensible shoes. Owning the camera doesn't hurt either.

Festivals with Susan

Two weeks ago, we participated in a festival that Susan planned. It was two nights in one village. It was a great experience! There was a great turnout and the people were genuinely happy to hear what we had to say. The first night, Steve gave a testimony and Susan preached. Night # 2 I testified and Vio preached. Over 100 people came out to hear to Gospel on the second night (probably the entire village population- it was quite small)!

Festival Highlights:
After we prayed for people who wanted some form of healing, we invited all those healed up to share what Jesus had done for them. One woman came up and just kept asking us not to leave, but to stay there in their village. It was really cute.

Another woman came up and told how she had had pain all throughout her body, but that Jesus had healed her, her body was feeling so good now, she good move her limbs with ease. The Christians were somewhat surprised to hear that Jesus would heal a Muslim woman; I think it’s really good for them to see in action that God really does love everyone; that Jesus isn’t just for Christians.

There were many people that night who claimed at least a partial healing. A lot of people were able to move joints and limbs that had been sore or stiff or just plain immovable for such a long time. It was so amazing to see and get to be a part of.

Here are some pictures of the two nights:


Above: I bet many of you didn't know this, but Steve actually prefers to rap the Gospel, as opposed to regular speaking. Please ask him to do this when you see him in person again. You won't be disappointed.


Above: Here I am. Though I don't "get down" via rapping, I like to think my messages are just as effective as "Big Boss Man" Steve's.

Above: All the kids usually sit up front all together. I suspect so the parents feel less responsible when they misbehave. I am getting sooo much practise on my "Mom" look! It doubles as my "Angry wife" look! Watch out Steve. ha.

Above: Attentive Crowd

Surprise!

At one of the festivals we were helping out with last week with Gola (read earlier post), this woman asked us to go with her to her home afterwards and pray with her husband. He was too weak to go to the festivals (he has had 4 heart operations). Obviously we said yes. While we were there I asked to use their washroom. Not only did they have a toilet instead of a squatty (hooray!), but when I went to wash my hands I got an extra surprise!

A huge fish! It is as long as the distance of my elbow to the tip of my middle finger! I did a little scream because I was surprised.

When I got back to the living room, I said "You're fish startled me!" and she said "Oh! That is from a friend! I haven't had time to cook it yet."

So in the mean time, they were keeping it in the big water basin in their bathroom. Where they brush their teeth and wash their hands and get their bathing water.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

There is a town here near Berastagi called Kabanjahe, and that is where we go when we do prison ministry. While we were there before, we heard the story of how one of the women ended up there. It really makes you think.

A man (Man #1) asked her if she wanted some work for the day working in his field picking potatoes, and she has a family to help support so she said yes. Man #1 hired some other workers as well, who he would pay at the end of the day. So there this woman is, picking potatoes, when all of the sudden this other man (Man #2) comes, as well as – wait for it- the police!!

Man #1 immediately ran away, which was somewhat odd. Until they found out why he ran away.

Turns out Man #2 owned the field, and had no idea about Man #1. He had given no permission for anyone (unknowing or not) to pick his potatoes. And he decided to press charges. So unassuming woman excited about making a bit of money for her family ended up in jail for an undetermined amount of time (we are talking weeks, not days).

Then I was talking more about it with Steve, and what if Man #2 DID know Man #1?! What if Man #2 gave #1 some money to get his potatoes picked and then run away when #2 showed up. What if the whole thing was orchestrated by #2, so that he wouldn’t have to pay people to harvest his potatoes!?!? It’s diabolical.

Remember this woman next time you are eating a potato.

I Do Not Qualify to Work at Pizza Hut

So we were at the mall the other day and I saw a poster advertising ‘Employees Wanted’ at Pizza Hut! “I love Pizza Hut!” I thought. Hmmm….

It turns out I couldn’t work there, even if I wanted to. Why? Let’s take a closer look.

I do alright with the first few things. I’m a woman. I have energy, and I’m assuming I also possess whatever qualities those other words mean. I even meet the minimum height requirements of 157cm (really Pizza Hut, height minimum?). The problem (aside of course, from not speaking the language) is that I am too old.

Pizza Hut wants sexy young women (between the ages of 18-22 to be exact) and at the haggard age of 24, I just don’t fit in that bracket.

Oh what I would give to be young again, and have doors of opportunity still open before me.

First Experience with Village Festivals

Last week Steve and I went with another missionary here, Gola, and helped out with some village festivals he had planned. A village festival is (I discovered) amazingly easy to put on. You rent a jambur (pavilion), rent or borrow a basic sound system, find some singers, a couple musicians, and that’s basically it. From there you can get creative, with skits, or showing movie clips to bring into your message, or …. Heck—interpretive dance if you wanted to. It’s really up to you. The festivals from last week, we did 4 villages in 4 nights.

A couple days before we went to the villages and handed out flyers so they knew we were coming.

This is how the nights generally went:

Sing a couple songs to draw in villagers. Have people give testimonies of what God has done in their lives. More songs. Main speaker. Main speaker’s job is to share God’s undiscriminating love for all people, regardless of gender, position in life, their past, current situations, or religion. That God is not mad at us, because Jesus has put away our sins. And that through Jesus we can have relationship with God. That God is not waiting for us to make ourselves better or nicer before He can accept us, but that He already accepts us because Jesus took sin and death and punishment on his body in our place. Then we pray for the people there, for whatever prayer requests they have.

Gola was the main speaker for two nights, our friend Olivia spoke one of the nights, and then Gola let Steve be the main speaker for one of the nights- which was very nice of him! Steve and I also took turns giving testimonies on the nights. Here are some pictures from the different nights, and then after the pictures there is a funny story, so keep scrolling.




Haha. I am pretending to be an angry person here. Unfortunately, this is the best picture of me quality-wise.

Ok. So on the very first festival night, we borrowed a church bus and drove down to the little village. As we were turning to go to the jambur (pavilion), the bus driver drove the bus off of the road (in most instances, I could totally understand this; Indonesian village roads being horrendous. However in this case there was absolutely no excuse). It took hours and hours and HOURS to get the bus unstuck. Here is a picture:

Also, because I don’t feel like devoting an entire blog post to the weather, I’ll just throw it in here.

It is COLD! At least it was last week in Berastagi and surrounding areas. I was wearing my sweatshirt AND a rain coat and my jeans and shoes and I was still freezing! I laughed before when I would see little gloves and toques for sale, but I understood last week. Brrr….

Medan, however, remains to be unforgivingly hot.

Wonderful Preaching Opportunity…. That I Most Likely Will NOT be Getting Again

Last week while we were in Berastagi I got the opportunity to preach at a high school. This is a different high school than the one we do the morning ministry at sometimes; none of us had spoken at this high school before. It is a high school for people of all religions, but I was just speaking to the Christian students, who meet every Friday afternoon at a church near their school. There were about 160 of them. Here is a picture of the students:

As you can see, it is a very nice church. At the front of the church, they have a really nice table set up with their fancy velvet-like sacks for collecting offerings. Also on the table there were two big trophies, really nice looking, with Psalms engraved on plaques, and little cherub things on them. In the centre of this table there stood a really nice floral display.

So I am up there doing my preaching thing, and I am telling them a fictional story about sacrifice, and right at the climax of the story I am miming this young boy who gets tied up to a post with his hands in front of him (he’s going to get whipped). And I look around, and my eyes set on one of those beautiful trophies, and I think “That’s a good height!” and since I am barely touching the stupid thing, I decide I will use it as my prop.

So we’re in the climax, and all of the sudden….. *SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP* fills the room. And here is this dumb white preacher lady (me) standing in front of 160 high school students with a large piece of trophy broken off in her hands!!!! Needless to say, the sound echoed tremendously and every single person noticed what happened.

I’ve heard of things like “Everyone gasped”, said in stories before, but this is the first time I ever actually heard a large roomful of people do it in unison. And then, 160 high school students burst into wild laughter.

I stood there, face reddening, mouth gaping like a zombie fish, and looked at the director of the high school (a very well-to-do looking woman). Her facial expression was saying “Are. You. Serious.?” And then I looked at my translator. Her facial expression was a mixture of shock and disgust, and it looked like it was accusingly asking “Why on earth would you DO that?!” *note to translator: it wasn’t on purpose*. Then I looked at the only other people I knew in the room (two, twenty-something year old guys) and found that they too, were laughing hysterically. Men can be so immature.

So… after this hour long ten seconds, I gingerly set down the piece of this statue (which I then realized was probably both sacred and priceless) on their special table and make my translator say “I will fix that later”. Then I say this:

“Oh! I was telling the story wrong! They didn’t actually tie the boy up here. The wood was too weak, they couldn’t trust it. What they DID do was tie him up over HERE” <*at the microphone stand I didn’t see earlier*>.

I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think the magnitude of the story reached them.

Since I could tell they were still thinking about it later, I brought it back up for a laugh later on. “If you steal something, it must be paid for! It you break something <*point to self and then sacred artifact*> you had better fix it later! Which I will…”

While I was finishing my preach (which wasn’t even half over when I broke that stupid thing), one of the guys I knew managed to stop laughing long enough to go buy super glue. So while I was stammering my apology to the director at the end of my ordeal (she was very nice and told me not to worry about it), he fixed it so that you couldn’t even tell I was there. Then it was just a matter of listening to “Wow Emily! You are a very exciting preacher! Look out everyone! She gets excited! *chuckles*.”

On the bright side, I had their undivided attention for the remainder of the preach.
Also, I was happy to have a funny story to tell people. So after I said sorry, I took pictures of it being fixed so I could post them here. Enjoy.


That whole top piece (from the 'V' up) is what I snapped off.

Haven’t You Always Wanted a Monkey?

I know I have! A couple weeks ago I went with my friend Wiwin to her village, Namorambe, to speak at a homegroup there. Guess what I saw while walking down the street? A tiny monkey! In a costume! Riding a bicycle!

Obviously I was excited and tried to take a picture. Out of nowhere this horrid child jumped in front of my camera and went “Ooh! Photo! Photo!” I wanted to hit him. Luckily (for him) Steve intervened and grabbed his shoulder and say “Hey!” And I, being a nice missionary, said “Go away!” and then the bet picture I could get is the one you see above.

There is something wrong in a village where a white girl with a camera is more exciting to a child than a costumed monkey riding a bicycle.

So after that, as you can imagine, my interest in moneys picked up considerably. And so when I saw a cute little monkey tied up outside a restaurant and a bunch of little kids playing with it (it was owned by a little boy) he let me hold it!!!

This next picture is my favourite:

You can’t tell really well from that picture, but look a bit closer:



It is biting me! I am getting bitten by a monkey! And my wonderful husband gets it on camera perfectly!!! *note to my mother, and all relatives in healthcare: it didn’t break the skin. You can all start breathing again.*

Asian Takes Revenge on Godzilla

This is my friend Daniel, angrily towering over a lizard. Oh the irony.