Indonesia: 258 million people spread over 13 000 islands and the reason I joined Global…
Generally speaking I have a rule to not build expectations but rather approach every situation with an open mind and teachable spirit. Unfortunately this was not the case in terms of my view on Indonesia. I have never had much interest in travelling to the east so when my attention fell on Indonesia one night while praying, I knew this country was special. Since that evening more than a year ago, I have not been able to shake the idea that God wanted me to do this journey for this reason alone: to go to Indonesia.
So after having a great yet challenging few weeks in Australia, I was ready to meet God face to face in 'my' country. After arriving at our hotel however, I was greeted by a slightly different sight: the parent visit. What a blessing! Being slightly older, I am use to seeing my family only once or twice a year but nothing could describe my relief when I walked into the room and felt my mother's embrace. It was like all the emotions, struggles, stretches and scars of the past few months were covered in a warm, soothing blanket of safety. Of course in that atmosphere I complete abandoned logic. So despite knowing that at 1am, after a few days of travel, I should get to bed because I need to rise again early, I decided to talk to my mom for a few more hours.
And that pretty much described the trend of the next 9days. After day 3 some of the other parents started commenting on how much we talk, which I took as a compliment and thank God for daily. So over the next few days we got to explore Kuta (just south of Denpassar) with a typical Global 'amazing race' which included finding out some local words, tasting 'kopi luwak' (the cat poop coffee - amazing!), releasing a baby sea turtle back into the wild, and having little fish eat the dead skins off our hands and much more. The best part of all? I got to introduce a new lifestyle of travelling to my mom and share some great new adventures with her. We also visited the small town of Ubud (where the Bali leg of 'eat, pray, love' was filmed) where we saw temples, got entertained by monkeys and wandered through rice fields.
Us experienced global travellers (cough, cough) have little concern for living arrangements and have become use to things just working out despite our limited budget. I was quite excited to share this 'camping in the park' part of the adventure with our parents but God had other plans. I am not sure if some of our previous letters have inspired these parents to pray that they would not have to camp somewhere dodge or if God just had immense favour with us all but after meeting an amazing lady at church, we were invited to stay in her home for a few days. What a blessing!!! Space to rest, a swimming pool, great company and some great feedback sessions for the parents.
From there we visited Uluwatu beach (the famous surfer's spot) and more secluded beaches before heading west to an orphanage in BlimbingSari.
History lesson: The town of BlimbingSari is the only all Christian town in Bali. It was founded by Christians fleeing into the wild due to persecution and with God’s protection and provision they all survived. Now there are more than 200 families living there together with a school and a self-sustaining orphanage. It was at this orphanage that we got to serve with our parents by helping out with gardening and playing with the kids. Too soon our stay at the orphanage was over together with the parent visit.
What I learned:
1. Be thankful in all things, whether you sleep on the street or stay in a mansion. Circumstances change but God never does.
2. To have a good relationship with your parents is a blessing.
3. It is a choice to build relationships despite differences and open communication is the key.
4. I still have a lot to learn about honour. I have had a chance to implement the things I have learned about honouring my mother in these few days but I still fall short in many aspects. I have found that honour should go hand in hand with joy. Find joy in honouring and serving your parents.
5. Bali is cool, but not my island...
With this new breath from the parent visit we set out to Yogyakarta, Java, to our next ministry point...
To be continued...
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