At this one-month mark, I find myself with a rare snatch of quiet time, and finally get to write an update for you whom we are missing so much back home!
God has been good to us here. We see the many ways in which we have been sustained even in the hard times of such a big move.
One of the best parts of this move has been the realization that we live among one of the friendliest peoples on earth. I'm constantly amazed at how many people smile here! Complete strangers are quick to beam beautiful smiles. We have not once been treated unkindly. It's normal in a store for 5-8 employees to follow us around or to cluster around our kids, eager to help, taking pictures, saying goodbye like we're new best friends!
We love the beauty of the country and of the school itself. Jakarta is certainly not a beautiful city, in any general sense, but we see wonderful new plants and animals all around, with majestic mountains in the distance.
Our school campus is gorgeous, a very well-tended, established school-in-a-garden. I'm especially enjoying the animals here, particularly the reptilian and amphibian kinds, that periodically slither, hop, and crawl by. The cobras end up in jars in the biology lab, and the last monitor lizard to show up, a five-footer, got eaten by the security guards! Bats abound, cockroaches scare the kids, and tokay lizards and chichak lizards in our living room croak out their very loud "good nights" each evening as we're heading off to bed.
I'm definitely enjoying the video-game experience on the roads. I've only once been behind the wheel so far (which was a five-minute laugh-fest for my driving companions as I reacted to scooters with entire families on them materializing out of thin air all around me), but I'm usually watching the drivers and making mental notes, preparing for the eventual trial by fire. The most interesting distinction between Indonesian drivers and Western drivers is the belief about space. In the West, we "own" the space around us and in front of us. We feel justified in reacting angrily when someone cuts in front of us. Honks are usually indignant and emotional. Here, though, you only "own" the space you're in. So people can basically go anywhere they want, in a very organic flow. Honks are mostly just to let someone know, "Hey, I'm here." Everyone seems mellow, patient, and generally very aware of everything within a few feet of their car. It's pretty fun to watch!
One of the semi-comical surprises for us has been the quick realization that Indonesians tolerate loud noise far better than we do. Compared to Canada, volume is jacked up everywhere! At church, school events, and the malls, we're often wishing we could discretely wear ear plugs!
Less surprising has been the internal struggle of living with many Western conveniences while surrounded by the realities of widespread poverty. The vast majority of Indonesians around us are very poor, lacking the basics that we forget are great privileges. In education, health care, nutrition, shelter, the majority here have so little, and we have so much.
I was so interested, for example, in the construction workers on campus, who lashed bamboo poles together to make scaffolding that they used to climb up to repair the roof. Barefoot, they walked around on top, four stories up, without safety harnesses. I drove by another jobsite where the construction workers had built ramshackle tin homes for themselves out of discarded construction materials.
On the family front, we've had our share of struggles, as you can imagine. The list of practical things to figure out has been very long, making it complicated even just to prepare meals for a big family each day. And we're certainly dealing with the difficulties of missing our beloved ones back home. Many tears have flowed. We wish we could take you with us!
It's only been a month, and we feel deluged by new ideas and experiences. We're deeply thankful to be here, and we pray that we will be of some help to our new friends here.
