Hello Indonesia!

Hello,

Yes, I decided to start a blog.  If you read it, let me know so I know that I maybe decide to continue writing.  It will be good for memory sake anyhow, I suppose.

The Arrival
So...Indonesia.  I really don't know where to begin.  I arrived in Jakarta after 30 hours of traveling very late on Tuesday night (about a week ago).  There I was met at the airport by 6 other Darmasiswa students (1 Romanian, 3 Russians, and a couple from Hong Kong).  We were all taken to a hotel in Jakarta for the night.  I talked mostly with the Romanian.  We had a nice breakfast.. it was hard to not respond to him in his accent, since I am so used to speaking in Romanian accents (ha, but seriously).. it took a lot of self-control.  Around 10am we were picked up by a huge bus full of Darmasiswa students to go back to the airport to fly to our respective universities/islands.  I waited in the airport with one of the Russians and a Slovakian (whose accent was even harder to not copy!) and we had a good conversation over lunch.  Their flight was before mine, so I waited in the airport/was stared at for about 4 more hours.  I finally arrived in Bandar Lampung on the island of Sumatra around 6pm.  I was picked up by Mas (Mr.) Dedi and taken to a temporary housing place.  No one I met on the trip or once I arrived at my housing spoke English.  The housing was about what I expected - out of my comfort zone, but bearable.  A large snail was in the middle of the walkway when I went out to find someone to help me with a large (or what they call "medium-sized") spider. 

Me and Indonesia
I probably have never been more out of my comfort zone before.  I couldn't NOT fit in more.  I'm stared at/beeped at/shouted at - "bule" (meaning white foreigner) - from about 3 blocks away at all times.  I have not seen one other white person nor met any Westerners here yet - in the city of  Bandar Lampung, that is.  I never thought I'd say this in my life, but I sort of wish I were in a more touristy city.  It is cool that I can see how people live here, but there's no way I can blend in and be part of it, at least not that I can see thus far.  It is too dangerous for me to go places alone after dark, and it gets dark here surprisingly early (6pm).  I also can't go places on this island alone or to villages or any places that aren't very touristy alone.

So much has happened already, I don't know what would be best to say here.  I'll start with some things that surprised me/are different:

• There are lizards everywhere.. approximately 4 in my bedroom at all times.  But they are scared of me, so that's a relief.

• The bathrooms here are... well let's just say everytime I use the bathroom I consider it a victorious success and thank God for helping me through it.  Half because of the bugs and half because of the actual bathroom itself.
• I saw the biggest spider I've EVER seen before in my life 2 nights ago on the wall of my rumah kos (boarding house= where I live w/others.. similar to a shared living-apartment).  The body of the spider was about the size of a baseball.  I was locked out of the rumah kos at the time and it was dark out and my ride had just left.  I was like 6 feet from this spider, I almost cried. 
• There is Muslim prayer 5 times/day.. each time for about an hour.  The first time is at 4am, and it always wakes me up because they do their praying-wailing over loudspeakers so the entire city (and probably the entire region) can hear it.  Since the city is 98% Muslim, you can imagine how many wailing voices are on loudspeakers at pretty much all times throughout the day.

The Church
By Saturday I was starting to get a little worried because I still hadn't met any Christians and I hadn't seen any churches on any of our trips into the center of town.  I continued praying that God would provide a church and a family of believers for the following day.  Later that day, my friend Tayuko from Japan said she was a Frontiers volunteer with a guy who now lives in Bandar Lampung and is a Christian.  I was very excited and asked if I could go to church with him.  She talked with him and said he would pick me up the next morning.
    So Mas Wawan picked me up the next morning and I rode on the back of his moped (thats how you get everywhere.. there are entire families of 4 who ride on one moped together.. impressive).  The church was very small and the people were very inviting. I can't explain how awesome the service was.  I didn't understand the majority of it, but the worship songs were amazing (similar to ours but in Indonesian), and the church was definitely filled with the Spirit.  It felt like I was finally home in this strange country.  During the last worship set, Mas Wawan all of a sudden handed me a microphone and told me I was to give a speech about myself to the congregation.  It was horrible, I couldn't remember any of my bahasa Indonesian...I made it short and sweet, but it was very embarrassing.  After church, Mas Wawan invited me to have lunch at his home.  I ate with him, his wife, his daughter and their niece.  There were about 30 chickens/ducks running around and little lakes everywhere for them.  The house was very humble but nice.  I was the only one who sat on a chair while we ate, and we werent able to eat in the same room.  It was a little difficult talking with them becuase they spoke a mixture of Javanese and Indonesian, but I tried to maintain conversation.

The Bookstore story
    The next day Mas Wawan picked me up on his moped and we went to a Christian bookstore.  When he picked me up he gave me a small devotional in Bahasa so that I could learn to have conversations about God and understand the sermons.  He wrote a nice prayer on the inside cover as well.  The bookstore was very interesting.  I ended up only buying a map of Bandar Lampung.  As I was searching for maps, a young man was sitting in front of one of the shelves, so he moved so I could continue looking.  Then he asked me a question.. I forget what, but his second question was "Are you a Christian?"  and then to Mas Wawan, "And you are, too?"  We said, "Yes."  He said he was too and that he preached the gospel over the Christian radio station of Bandar Lampung.  Mas Wawan seemed to know his voice and they talked for a bit.  I asked how he had known I was a Christian.  He said, "I could tell by your smile.  The face of a child of God shines with His inner beauty."  Hmm... well, that's never happened to me before.  God is awesome, and I'm glad that in this place of few believers, God can be seen through His people.  :)  It's also crazy he even said that... because Christianity is seldom spoken of here, so for him to ask if you are Christian right away like that is a very strange thing to ask.

I'll put a few photos up next time hopefully, the connection is too slow here!
Selamat sore!