There are few things more enjoyable than getting to a bus stop in a new city, after many hours of travelling, and being greeted by a familiar friendly face... And so our stay in Yogyakarta started with our global friend, Annami, and her posy of scooters fetching us one by one from the bus station.
Mental picture time: Imagine five scooters rocking up and lifting us five girls with 2-3 day bags each and weaving through the traffic filled city streets, to drop us at an unknown location, then departing without a word to fetch our friends and our big bags. A few moments later some of our men arrive, being lifted each with a big bag on their backs. That is 2 grown men and a 20kg bag on a scooter... Then again back to fetch the last bags. (End of mental picture)
Our unknown location ended up being the Destiny Generation (DG) centre that was the common gathering place for all the church activities during the week and became our home for our 3week stay. The DG community consists of mostly students and a few young working folks who take their name very seriously: they are the destiny generation and have the mission to claim Indonesia for the kingdom.
Yogya is the main student city in the country and many young academics from all over Indonesia come here to further their studies. This makes it the ideal location to reach people who can be trained and taught in discipleship, and who will then go back to their island and start new churches and discipleship groups. This is not just a dream, it is a reality. The weekly activities in the centre include morning prayer and worship at 5am every other day, cell group twice a week, worship evenings, meetings, English and computer programming classes, dance practice and fellowship. We slotted in with their schedule of early mornings and late evenings and tried to connect and learn from these amazing people.
I am struggling to find the words to describe this community and their ways of living. The only comparison that seems fitting would be an army base camp. The members are being taught spiritual disciplines and trained for the frontlines. The members are active, committed and very much aware that they are being prepared for something much bigger than themselves. I briefly remember my own student days and cannot believe how these full time students find time for everything. It is truly inspiring. With being in an army also comes the knowledge of sacrifice and every member of this community has a story of what they had to give up to be here, whether it be family, friends, money, or personal comfort.
The rest of our time we spent at two primary schools: one Christian and one non-Christian. What an amazing experience at both schools, but with very different audiences and very different setups but both with amazing cultivatable ground to plant seeds. The idea was that we sharpen out teaching skills while giving the learners some practice in conversational English. I observed, practiced, re-evaluated, prepared and still came to the conclusion that teaching might not be my forte... By 12h every day I was dead tired and needed a quick 20min nap to just make it through the day. So to my mother, my aunts and uncles, cousins, friends and anyone else who chose teaching as their profession, YOU ARE AMAZING! This is hard work.
So naturally I completely freaked out when I heard God whisper in my ear "what if I asked you to teach English here for a while?' Considering my current relationship status with God, I can only laugh because every now and then He drops this major bomb (might be a slight exaggeration) of an idea on me to just test my obedience and mind set. He won't say "Go and teach English'. No. Instead he would say 'what if I asked you?' It is like He is making me use to ideas that initially sounds ludicrous to me, so that when He asks me to really do something, I will be compliant and obedient in anything. So I don’t know if teaching is in my future but if God should ask me, my response will be an enthusiastic 'Yes Lord, use me!’ (Even writing this I realize that I will now be held accountable for this statement).
So God and I are having some 'fun' with shaking my comfortable, structured and predictable mind set, not only in future plans but also in the small things. But He is also kind and knows me so every big 'earthquake' comes with a small warning. Long story short, I was asked to sing as part of the Sunday service worship team and because God spoke to me about it before, I said yes quite quickly. For those who don't know, singing in front of people is something I avoid at all cost, especially on a stage. It was amazing!!! Another wall broken down...self-five!
At some point our living arrangements became a little crowded and I really needed some alone time. It was at this point that you are glad you didn't send your tent home. So up to the roof I went and pitched my tent under the stars. This became my home for 2weeks, come rain or shine (more rain than shine).
On an off day we did a classic Global 'amazing race' where we got to explore the city for ourselves. The list included visiting the Sultan palace (Who is married to a dragon - major spiritual implications), a Batik factory (amazing process of making clothing), puppet store, bird market (where we ate worms for bonus points) and took the local form of transport called becak (bicycle taxi thing with a seat in front). Great city!!
Of course this story would not be complete without a good old fundraiser (selling roses at traffic lights at night) and some late night street foods (Roti bakar! like a sweet snackwich). And on the back of a scooter whizzing through the night on the way home, I thought 'I could live here'...
What I learned:
1. Students are crazy and fun
2. A smile makes a difference
3. I am an adventurous eater. In the past 3 weeks I ate a fat white worm, bat, cobra, frog, and dog.
4. Rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, rice for dinner....
5. There are many things about walking in the spirit that I still have to learn
6. I really like scooters
7. Sometimes I just want to be alone
8. Camping is fun
9. Being woken by a very loud mosque at 4am every morning is not fun
10. I should worship more
So with all that said (not enough time to share all the stories) I will just have to go back at some point in time. But for now the adventure awaits and we are off to Thailand for a month and maybe a Luke 10...???
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