KCAB NI GNOK GNOH

I am back in Hong Kong, another lengthy layover. But I seem to be doing everything in reverse. I sat at this exact same computer almost 6 months ago after a long flight from San Francisco and typed a blog entry before meeting my friend Gregory and seeing a bit of the city. Today, I have seen a bit of the city and am now at the computer and then headed for my long flight to San Francisco. For some reason I find it extremely satisfying to be retracing my steps.

Well, the last entry didn't go so well. I am going to try to rewrite as naturally as I can the entry I created a week ago and subsequently deleted. There is so much to say about my experiences, and I intend to use most of the upcoming 14 hour flight to try to recount all that transpired over the last 6 months (most of it is extensively recorded in my journals, but in preparation for the strange transition I am making back into "normal" life I feel prompted to relive it and rewrite it all one more time :) I can't even begin to retell all that happened on outreach, especially because there is a fifteen minute limit to these computers.

But there were a couple stories and a some thoughts I wanted to share.

One highlight was the time I ate chicken head. I thought it was a leg. Until the host started rattling off in Bahasa Indonesia and the only thing I could catch were the words "kepala" and "ayam" which I unfortunately understood to mean head and chicken respectively. I tried to pretend in my own head that I didn't understand. But she persisted. She really wanted to know whether I liked the chicken head or not, so she asked the translator to ask me. When he said in Bahasa "no, she doesn't know, let's not tell her, it's better that way" I could no longer feign ignorance. I looked down at my plate and sure enought there was the place where the eye ball used to be and there were the neck muscles and part of the beak. I will never look at a chicken the same way again.

Another highlight of outreach was Senter Klas, the dutch holliday where a big, jolly, old fellow comes in a suit in the middle of the night and leaves kids presents. No, this is nothing like Christmas I am assured because unlike Santa Claus, Senter Klas deposits gifts in shoes not stockings and because instead of coal if you are naughty, Senter Klas's assistant will come and take you away in the middle of night to Spain for a whole year. I don't know what the Spanish did to the Dutch that was so bad that a year spent there is considered punishment rather than a vacation. Anyway, we got gifts in our shoes and we each wrote a poem for another person on our team, like Senter Klas does (another clear distinction between the big bellied holiday heroes), and read them out loud in the morning. To use my friend Amanda's favorite word: it was "precious."

On the serious side, it is times like the last three months that I really appreciate the education I got in sociology. Indonesia is a great place full of incredible people. It seemed the worse off people were economically the more hospitable, loving, and generous they were. While some were reserved, the vast majority welcomed us into their homes and yes, many invited us into their hearts. We developed relationship with people, which proved to be of more worth to many than gold, literally. Not just for us, but for them as well. Several people commented on the fact that they had seem many "bule" (foreigners) come in before. They drop off food or try to start a service project and then leave as quick as they can. But not us, they said, we kept coming, not just to give them something but to know them. Many couldn't understand why. Why would we have interest in them? That, we quickly discovered, would be our main "mission" in the slums of Jakarta. Everywhere we went they called us beautiful. It was a nice compliment we akwardly accepted at first. But when women started asking us to pray for their babies to be born looking like us a huge flag went up. It was then that we realized what they meant by "you are beautiful" was also "we are ugly." More and more we tried to show people and tell people of the value they have, their beauty and worth, not just in our eyes but in God's eyes, even if the whole world would tell them otherwise. I learned alot more about poverty in the last three months. Sociology at Cal taught me unbelievable things about the way the world is structured, how poverty happens, and how inequality is perpetuated and exacerbated along racial lines. What I learned in school helped me to explain to the wealthier Chinese-Indonesians why people in the slums are not lazy, not less. And it gave a voice to those afflicted by Indonesia's racial economic system. But with all that I learned at Cal I did not understand till recently that poverty is not just material, not just physical but spiritual also. Poverty doesn't only cause empty bellies, it empties people's souls. The people we met had been taught all of their lives by all spheres of society that they were ugly, valueless and meaningless. That is a kind of poverty and lack that clearly affects quality of life. I also discovered that it affects the material as well. Many of the people we interacted with, spent time with, prayed for started looking for jobs for the first time while we were there. Sometimes poverty is caused, or worsened, by hopelessness and fatalism, and feelings of worthlessness. Poverty is not only material. Nor is the solution. Unfortunately we had a church back out of slum adoption because of concerns over the world economy. It was such a sad day. The lie that money solves everything paralyzed a group of people that had the potential to continue what we had been doing for the previous eleven weeks (without a penny). I don't know if I am doing a very good job trying to articulate this, I hope I am making some sense. What I learned is that the problem isn't only material nor is the solution purely material. If we want to address poverty, we have to recognize and address all the needs, not just some. Without hope, faith and love the material will never be enough. I wish there was more we could have done, but I know we did alot. And I know it is not over. This is the first of many experiences in the world's most desperate places. It's where God's heart is. And now, it is where mine is, too.

Fresh Air, Ozone-Free

I am back in Australia. So sorry that it has been a MONTH since I last wrote. The internet situation in Jakarta was dire, and only got worse as outreach continued.



I am sitting in a pleasant cafe in Perth, enjoying my Early Grey and the soft breeze and pleasant smells. I haven't really enjoyed breathing for the last eleven weeks. The air here is so delicious.


Wow... I just wrote a huge entry and spent nearly two hours writing and editing it. And it got deleted somehow. I am very sad right now... will try to rewrite it later... may not happen till I get to the states again... :(

Fire drills, Jellyfish, and Chicken Feet

I am using my friend's laptop right now to write this.  What an absolute pleasure. Someday I will have this luxury. 

I am in Bandung. One of my closest friends from training phase lives here and me and another friend got to come along for our free day and enjoy her home, her family and her hometown.  I thought this would be an exotic mini vacation, but I pretty much traded Jakarta malls for hers.  But it is really nice to be in a home and her family is beyond kind.    They took us out to dim sum this morning, which was great!! Dim sum in southeast asia, what could be better.  You have to take advantage of every chance right?  So I tried chicken feet and jellyfish.  This is remarkable considering I am the same person whose mother serenaded her as a child singing "give food a chance!"  Then I got to try jackfruit and snackfruit.  No kidding. Rhyming completely random. They were yummy, too.  I oughta be more adventurous.  I will be more adventurous from now on.   I am far too cautious in life.  :)  It's a good thing my mom doesn't read this blog. Ha. 

In other exciting news, our apartment had a fire drill yesterday. You know, like the kind they organize in elementary schools at the beginning of the year? Yeah, one of those.  And they don't play around.  They stopped the elevators and everything.  We had to take the stairs down from the 27th floor, which is actually only like 20 flights because of the whole missing floors phenomenon.  But still, our calves are still hurting.  But it was definitely worth it.  We didn't just have to leave the building and stand out in the sun, oh no! like I said, they take it seriously.  They had a little "evacuation area" set up in the parking lot, a beautiful frilly red and white awning, and rows and rows of fold up chairs.  We all took our places and waited for further instruction in a language we don't understand.  There was very little space between rows and the lack of leg room reminded me immediately of an airplane ride.  As soon as I thought this, as if on cue, they started handing out snack boxes! I kid you not!  We had rice and a pastry and water.  Mmmm.  Then came the in-flight entertainment portion.  They stood in front of us and explained, still in a language I don't understand, how to use a fire extinguisher.  Awesome. Wait, it gets better.  After explaining, they took out a large tin garbage can and started a fire in it (never thought you'd see a fire started rather than being put out during a fire drill!) and then allowed people in the audience to practice putting it out. This was a great idea I thought, except for the fact that the chairs were set up down wind and we were all soon inhaling and coughing up fire extinguisher powder.  But the show must go on!! Soon they were building an even bigger fire and getting out the big hose. This was truly the climactic part of the presentation... until they were unable to get the hose working.  About ten minutes later an anticlimactic spurt of water came out and put out the flames. We all cheered and then rebuckled our seatbelts as we prepared to land.

Things are strange here.  I find it highly entertaining. 

More news from the slums next week... 

Good News

Yea! Breakthrough. Can't write much, but just wanted to share that we have seen great exciting progress here... Two churches have agreed to each adopt a slum community. This means they are committing to two years of involvement- spending time in the community, building relationships, trying to assess the greatest needs of the community, trying to meet those needs as well as teaching the people how to meet their needs themselves (empowerment/teaching skills/social networking etc). I love the vision of slum adoption, it is amazing what God can do through it. It has the potential to seriously meet physical, social, spiritual, mental and psychological needs. I am such a fan.

This will mean a much busier schedule, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

Also, in follow up with Jantik- new mother. I have it on my heart to fundraise money for their hospital bill and to possibly buy them a new mattress- which I found out would only cost about $100-150 USD. Keep this in your thoughts and prayers.

until my next rushed entry hopefully a week from now...

thanks faithful readers!

Growing Gap

I spend most of my times here in the slums. Let me share a bit with you about what it is like and who I have been meeting.

I have done some traveling in my day, but let me tell you I have never seen this big of a contrast between the rich and the poor. Nor have I ever seen it in such proximity- what I mean is that the slums border the richest neighborhoods here. Yards, literally, separate one-room wooden shacks from mansions bigger than the ones you see along the Lake Michigan shore in Evanston. Many of the people in the slums have come to the city from the countryside in search of work, the grand life that city jobs provide. Unable to find jobs and unable to raise enough money to return home they end up living in these slums. The slums by the way are mostly illegal lands that the government threatens to bulldoze any minute while the people living in these awful spaces actually pay rent. Speaking of injustices, the corruption is so bad here that many teachers actually bribe the parents- if the parents want to see their children move to the next grade they have to pay the teacher. Most families in the slums cannot afford school past junior high. Yet every family I talk to emphasizes the importance of education, these parents starve so that their kids can go to school. From the information I've gathered I think it costs less than $100USD a month for a good education, but this sum is way way too high for these families to pay.

Just one quick introduction. I have been visiting a beautiful woman named Jantik. She just gave birth to her first baby, who they named Jordan. They are smiling and happy and so glad to have this little blessing. We gave her some nutritious milk mix for her to drink while she is breast feeding. Unfortunately she had to have last minute c-section and owes the hospital $500. This doesn't sound like much to us, but it is a huge debt. They have no way of paying it. I would also love to see them own a bed, or at least a mattress. They sleep on the floor and own two pillows. My heart's desire is for them to have something soft to sleep on with their baby. Praying into how these needs can be met.

There is so much need.... I am glad I am here. I am glad I am doing what I am doing. It is easy to get overwhelmed. Again, I remind myself: one person at a time. One at a time.

Finally in the hot spot

It's hot here. And the food is spicy. Mmmmmmm. It's times like these that I am really grateful for the part of my upbringing that included annual trips to tropical Mexico. I am adapting remarkably well.

This place definitely is foreign. The buildings are missing floors because certain numbers are bad luck. The highways don't have lanes. The whole city shuts down for a couple days for Eid - the end of Ramadan celebration. There are no intersections or crosswalks. On most roads, if you want to turn across traffic you must find an opportunity to chuck a U-ey and then drive back a distance to the road you wanted to go down, resulting in repetitive turn arounds- back and forth, and back and forth. Al Gore would certainly find flaws in this system. At first we thought the taxis were trying to cheat us.. or severely confused. But then we understood that's just how the roads are. Trying to cross the street involves the wave of your hand and a prayer that you make it across alive. You can't wait till there is a break in traffic, or that the cars stop or slow down on their own, of you'll never cross the street. Seriously.

But surprisingly, I don't feel foreign here. Except for the constant reminders from the people -"buleh! buleh!" (westerner) they shout- I feel almost at home here. Ok, the language barrier is a bit of a reminder, too. But the point is I feel good here. It is tough being in the slums here though. There is nothing normal about that. People live in one room homes with no furniture, atop wooden piers that are constructed above highly polluted and littered water. They live next to dumps and among the dead rats and dead cats. The first family I interacted with was a couple who had lost their five year old daughter a couple months ago. She became sick and they took her to the better hospital but found out it they could not afford it. By the time they arrived at the public hospital she was already dead. It is difficult to sit there and listen, knowing that just outside this slum there is a HUGE megamall where people go every day to spend hundreds of dollars. It is difficult to try to explain why I believe in a God that is good. Most of all it is difficult to know that most likely, no matter what I do in these ten weeks I will not be able to bring her out of poverty, and I certainly won't be able to undo the injustice that cost her her child's life. But the trick to this do-gooder thing is to not fall under the same spirits that afflict those you've come to serve. If I give in to hopelessness, then this trip is finished. The key is to remember that one person helping one person can change the world... and that no matter how big the situation, my God is bigger.

Another departure....

So... I will be leaving in eight days... to a place unlike any other I have been to. I am nervous and excited and overwhelmed by the preparation process. There is alot to do right now.

I may not be able to write again for a while, because I am not sure what the schedule and internet cafe options will be like once I am there (sorry faithful followers). But I will fill you in on the most recent news and just hope you don't suffer too much from eager anticipation till my next entry. I am being really sarcastic now given the fact that I think my readership has plummeted recently to just two.

Fun story: here on base they do birthday tables almost every night. They are real fancy, have lots of sweets and snacks, a table cloth, candles, napkins (I've already mentioned that we use our jeans for napkins here right?), cordial (kinda like pop?) and a cake after dinner. Hospo (hospitality crew) does all the set up and preparation and everything. This is all great and exciting except when you don't have a birthday during your stay here and haven't managed (despite all your selfish attempts) to make any friends with birthdays during these months. It's very sad. So my clever friends and I decided to make our own fake birthday table. We put out a sheet as a table cloth, bought our own sweets and cake, made little name tags and used an old board game as a center piece. Instead of setting it up in the center of the room where the birthday tables usually are, we had ours in a random corner. It was quite a hit. We got many confused reactions and quite a few laughs. I love the creativity and randomness of my friends here.

Another fun event: "commissioning night." It's a little ceremony to honor the people that will be leaving for outreach. We had ours this Wednesday. Everyone gets all dolled up (which is a treat in itself) and they say nice things about us and honor us on stage and then we get to eat yummy food after. Mmmm so good. Well, the night was nice enough in itself but the added treat was that I was asked to share something about my experiences in front of the whole base. I was so nervous but it was a real honor. After the ceremony, everyone talked, laughed, danced and took pictures till late. It was an incredibly lovely evening. This pic is from that night- these are my friends Edolbina and Leah. We work together on 'property'/'maintenance' which is non stop hilarious fun.

More exciting news: for teams that only have one staff member, one student is asked to help lead. They asked me. It is a humbling honor as I am younger than some of the people on my team, but I am excited for it as I know it will be an opportunity for lots of growth. Student support leader means I will pray with the staff leader every morning and help lead if the staff member ever gets sick. It is not a huge role- as my friend Ian described it I will be a mechanic making fine tune adjustments to our car (fixing the oil and stuff, making sure we are in unity and encouraged and staying strong). It's going to be a great challenge. I can't wait to be stretched.

I think that is it for now. Sorry to be so brief... and blunt. Until next time, whenever that is!

Nonprofit community living: how to's

I had a realization the other day that my blogs have been very egocentric in nature lately (you're thinking, "Duh, it's a blog,") but I ought to use this resource as a means of sharing and educating people on things pertaining to their lives. I realized I am not just experiencing life in a nonprofit organization but also, double whammy, a very close(literally)-knit community. I feel a great reponsibility to share with you the knowledge that I have been acquiring over the weeks. These helpful tips should come in very handy should you find yourself living in enclosed spaces with a bunch of people who have no money.

Lesson #1:
The first thing that I have learned is that when living in a "nonprofit community" life is like a game of memory. You know that game you played as a kid with the cards that you have to flip over two at a time and try to make pairs? If you can think about the things around you in those terms, all your needs will eventually -after enough flipping- be met. Last week when I was rummaging through the travel mug bin in the kitchen I saw a plunger that goes to a small french press. Interesting but not useful without the container. Then this morning as I was rummaging through my friend's shelf to find her ipod charger (we do a lot of rummaging here, but that is not a lesson- it is just a fact) I saw that she had a small french press with a rusted decrepid plunger. Aha! I remember seeing that card in the kitchen. I went to retrieve the plunger from the kitchen later in the day, brought it back to our dorm to see if it would fit and sure enough it did! Now we have a functioning, rust-free coffee maker. (The best part about this whole story is that I have been praying for and wishing for a french press for the last couple weeks. It all started when I inherited a couple pounds of normal coffee (way better than instant) but had no means by which to prepare it. Determined to consume my favorite means of caffeinating I have been using a tea filter: filling up a mug with grinds and hot water and then transferring, spoon by spoon, the coffee into the tiny tea filter atop another mug and then dumping out the grinds again and again until my grind-free cup was filled. This process took a good ten minutes, which is a lot of time when you only have twenty minutes to get ready.)

Lesson #2:
When Goodwill meets spring cleaning. In the "forprofit individual world" things accumulate until the point that we can't stand the clutter and then we stuff it all in bags and give it to Goodwill/Salvation Army. (Then we buy new stuff, which I have to say strikes me as somewhat counterproductive.) But when living in a "nonprofit community" the need to get rid of stuff generally matches the need to get stuff. It's a beautifully sustainable system of internal supply and demand- make the most of it! We have here a "Salvo" bin- a bin for clothes that we want to give to the Salvation Army. But the funny part is that I don't think any of it really gets to Goodwill- it is snatched up before it can get that far. I myself can boast of scoring two pairs of shorts, four shirts and one skirt from salvo. I haven't spent a penny on clothes (the category of clothes does not include accessories- I am guilty of purchasing a pair of monstrous, multicolored hoop earrings) and yet my wardrobe is constantly mutating. And I have to admit there is a healthy amount of competition among some girls here to see who can get the best stuff from the bin. Whereas in the "forprofit individual world" people boast about how much their things cost, here we boast about how zero it cost. It also becomes a fun game of "who did I see wearing that shirt last week?" a sort of a "connect the dots" until you get to the original owner... unless of course the original owner comes up to you and ruins the excitement by saying "nice shirt- my grandma gave me that last year for Christmas."

Lesson #3:
This may come off as very anti-community and somewhat selfish in nature, but you would do the same thing too: strategic dining. Here there are tables that fit 6 people or 8 people. The tables get roughly the same amount of food, so if you are hungry or if it is a dessert night, your best move is to dine where there are only six people... or lots of babies.

Lesson #4:
Learn to improvise. If all "nonprofit communities" are the same you will find in yours that you never have all the ingredients you need for the cookies you want to make. You probably won't even have all the ingredients for breakfast. When there is cereal you will be out of milk, when there is oatmeal you will be out of brown sugar, when you have jam you will be out of bread. Learn to be innovative. I have found enough ways to comsume cereal without milk to write a recipe book.
You will also probably never have the tools you need. You will learn how to make cement out of sand and how to use a quarter as a screwdriver. Just the other day our work assignment was to paste a poster onto cardboard so it could be hung in an office. We had no normal glue so we improvised- using cement glue- glue that adheres various types of metal and heavy plastics- instead. This had a nasty smelling, mind-altering vapor to it, but it seemed to be doing the job. We came back a half hour later to see if it was sticking, only to find that the glue had completely eaten through the outer edges of the poster. Ah! Not having money enough to replace the poster with a new one we just had to improvise. So we got out the paints to draw a pretty little border around the edges where acidic bubbles had knawed through it. But there were no paint brushes so I improvised by using a stick I found in the yard. In the end I drew a really cool design and the poster looked fabulous. Sadly, it turns out the poster/cardboard combo is too heavy to hang where they wanted it so they will improvise by using it as a floor mat. Obviously improvisation also requires great humility.

Well, I hope these lessons will come in handy for you some day. If I learn anything else I will be sure to pass it on.

Cheers!

Gidgegannup getaway

So I will fill in the details as soon as I can, but for now I am just posting pictures that I took while I have the chance to use my friend's computer. Can't wait till the day I own a laptop.

We went overnight to our friend's house and got to walk around the "bush" the next day. It was such a great little break from the city, the hustle and bustle and the busy school week. We played a bit in her huge backyard and then took a scenic drive in the country, and then up to a nature preserve where we walked, climbed boulders and sat by a beautiful red rock river. Australia is so different from anything else. I have only gotten a tiny tiny taste for it, but I can say it is one cool country!

Outreach Teams and a Bit of Openness

Apologies to the faithful readers who have been devastated by the lack of new editions to this little column I write. Shout outs in particular to Dad, Sara, Suky and Christina (and the other faithful subscribers that I just don't know about!)

The last three weeks have been incredibly busy. I'm not entirely sure why. Partly I was sick. Partly we had several really long application days (the Fridays on which we apply to our lives everything we learned through out the week), and partly because we have been filling up most of our Saturdays with car washes to fundraise money for outreach. And, to be honest, partly because of not knowing what exactly to share on this blogspot. Not because nothing is happening here, but because so much is happening here that I am not sure how to put it into words. I can't possibly capture it all here, even if I tried. So I will just offer a little sampler.

I am starting to delight in the things that used to drive me crazy. I actually made up a song with a friend to the tune of "Isn't it ironic" by Alanis Morissette. We tend to run out of things in really ironic ways. For example, we will have no milk for the longest and then all of a sudden the day we get milk is that day we run out of cereal. Same goes for the brownsugar and the oatmeal, the bread and the jam, etc. etc. This at one point torture is now a source of entertainment.

I am learning to let go of control. I have decided to trust God with my life and let Him decide what is best for me. I don't know what this means for my future, but I know it will be good. Right now, I am considering continuing on with this organization in the future. We will see... more will be revealed.

I am also learning how to love people. I apologize as SOON as I've done something stupid or not very nice. And I am seeing the people around me the way that God made them to be and little glimpses of their futures- the people that they are becoming. It is exciting and immensely fulfilling to love people who are extremely different from you- people who you probably, if you were honest, not be friends with under normal circumstances. And it has been a gift to my soul to love people in the active, selfless way love is always supposed to be. We have talked alot here about how love is usually thought of in terms of a feeling. And it is something we are always trying to get. But we ought to give love. And we ought to remember that love is an action- on behalf of the good of someone else. I realize how selfish I have been in relationships. And I am by no means cured of it, but I am working on it. And it gets easier to love people here as we shed our insecurities, hurts, and pride. People are being transformed around me and it is inspiring. In a strange environment like this one- unfamiliar, far from home, intense- you get a lot of opportunities for growth. You are constantly bombarded with opportunities to choose. Choose to love someone you don't know. Choose to ignore harsh words spoken and return it with a blessing. Choose to look for the good in every situation and give thanks in every circumstance.

My biggest challenge this week was getting our outreach group assignments. They are breaking our school up into four groups for outreach. All four teams will be in the same city in Southeast Asia for the whole three months, but we will be in different regions and will only get to come together once a month. I found out who I will be with, which seven other students and which leader, for three months. To be honest, I was really disappointed. I have made some really close friends and some pretty good friends. None of them is in my group. I was really sad, and felt a fair amount of grief. Sounds dramatic, but it is an unnatural thing to develop intense friendships in close quarters for three months (think about it- I spend almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with the girls. Not even most married couples spend that much time together) and then be ripped apart. But I have had, in the last few days, the chance to reflect and pray and I can now say with confidence that I am really excited about my group. I am excited to get to know these people I know nothing about. I am anxious to see these nine different people from seven different nations become a family over the course of eleven weeks.

By the way, I am praying for God to provide $1,300 more dollars for the outreach phase of this adventure. If you pray, please pray!

In the meantime (until the next edition) I will leave you with some random achievements from the last few weeks:
- I have learned how to build a brick wall
- I have learned how to say "how much is that beautiful, wild, crazy, awesome, great monkey? I want to buy it!" in my friend's native tongue
- I have spoken in front of 400 people (shared a little story/testimony in front of the whole base)
- I have been to a photo exhibit held by an organization that seeks to spread awareness about child-trafficking
- I have been in charge of designing and creating a new announcement wall for the school offices
- I have tried what is called a lemon bitters, which is an Australian thing and quite delish
- I have still not seen a kangaroo, an unaccomplishment really
- I have met a woman who was born and raised in Berkeley, California
- I have been the source of envy for many who want my cool camping foldup chair
- I have played a game of volleyball and not left the court pouting, name-calling, or bashing myself up
- I have won a team scrabble game (in which we were behind by over thirty points) with a single letter placed on the board
- I have misspelled the word 'won' by spelling it 'one' on my blog. Don't look for it, you can't see it, I've already deleted it

Thanks for reading, until next time!!

rainy days

I apologize in advance for any incoherence to this entry. I am sick. Just a cold. I've learned through my experiences working with kids that if it's just a cold I have nothing to complain about. So here we go... feigning normalcy.

This week has been one of the best. I am finally getting used to waking up to forty different females' faces. I am finally enjoying the lunacy of frozen milk and exercising at six in the morning.

Boy, it sure rains a lot here. A lot. In fact, it has become my number one source of entertainment. Tuesday night after small group, (one of the leaders and three other girls and myself hang out on Tuesday nights- which has been great fun and very refreshing) the four of us girls started walking back from our leader's house. It had been raining most of the evening but had decided to take a break. Just as soon as we got a block away, it started sprinkling. Sprinkling turned to rain and rain turned to downpour and we were left between a rock and a wet place- we were almost exactly between our starting point and home. No one had an umbrella or rain gear or anything, so we started to run through the middle of the deserted streets. Then simultaneously we all burst out in laughter. I think we realized how ridiculous we looked- I mean, first- we were running (as if we will out run the drops of rain as they fall and escape somehow miraculously dry). Second, we were wearing ridiculous outfits. We had left Janine's house in our slippers and socks & flip flop combos and a straw hat with flowers that we had found on the ground. Truly a sight, if anyone had happened to pass. We dropped off one of the girls where she is staying, took a few pictures and then splashed through every puddle we could as we walked through the alley to our house. The laughter and joy of feeling like a kid again stayed with me for the rest of the week.

The second rain experience I am grateful for this week was a double rainbow. I saw them early Thursday morning just before starting morning chores. They were in the shape of an ark from one spot on the horizon to another. One rainbow was magnificently bright- rainbows here seem to be brighter than ones I've seen elsewhere and they also contain an almost fluorescent pink under the purple. The other rainbow was the exact same shape, above the bright rainbow and a little more faded. I've never seen a sight like this one. It was incredible.

Now, I'm just going to go ahead and be cheezy for a minute. I can't help but take these physical experiences and apply them as a spiritual lesson. There are so many things to complain about here. The living situations, our schedules, etc. are totally out of the ordinary. In fact sometimes I'm surprised to find myself still here. But I know I am here because of what God does. He takes the rain, the gray, the cold, and turns it into a source of laughter, joy, rejuvenation, and beauty. That's a promise.

first encounter with a deadly animal

..or insect rather. It was a beautiful sunny, warm afternoon (one of the best days I've seen yet) and I was peacefully staining the outdoor picnic tables (my work duty project for the day) when I heard a scream.... "hey, Claire, wanna see a cool spider I found?" It was actually more of a loud request than a scream, now that I think about it. I ran over to rescue my co-worker. He lifted up a tarp that was lying on the ground to reveal a big black spider with a red dot on its back. "A black widow!" I gasped. "No, a red back." Yeah, yeah same diff. The point is that these things, although only about the size of a quarter (maybe a bit bigger) can kill you with one bite. And they're everywhere. Okay, they're really not everywhere; I've seen one in three weeks and only because I was working within close proximity to the garden crew. And they don't really kill people anymore, since the invention of modern medicine... but still, it was exhilarating.

Equally exhilerating was the lecture topic this week: how to reconcile a belief in a good God and the existence of so much suffering in the world. Why are people hungry? Why do children get abused? Why do people get cancer? How can a good, omnipotent God allow these things to happen? This has been a particularly relevant question in my life since the passing of one of my best friends, Christelle, and my cousin's husband, Dan. I don't think I can adequately provide an answer in a short blog entry. And the unsatisfying part of it all is that sometimes there is no answer. There will probably never be an answer to the why questions. But there is an answer to the how. As to how can God allow bad stuff to happen, the simplest but most true answer in most cases is: free will. See, we believe that God loves people, all people, and that His greatest desire is that we would love Him. But He cannot make us. Real love involves choice. We cannot be forced to love someone, that is not love. So He gave us choice. We can choose what to eat, what to say, what we believe, what we do. And unfortunately we can choose to do hurtful things. The sad fact is that this world is a big mess of people's choices. Corporations can choose to use slave or child labor. Rulers of nations can choose to deny foreign aid and relief workers into their country after a national disaster. People can choose to pick up a weapon and end someone's life. We choose to lie, cheat, steal, hurt, offend. And each bad choice has a ripple effect on the people around us. Bad choices are also often carried on and repeated from generation to generation. Does this mean He doesn't care? No. He cares deeply. He grieves over the state of the world, just as a parent is sad when his or her child makes mistakes or decisions that hurt himself or others.
See, once you understand that most of the suffering in this world is not caused by Him, you really only have to decide whether you think He is sick and twisted and likes that we make these messes, or that He is really like the Father He says He is and grieves over it. I realized that I used to believe in His goodness but the death of my friend had shaken that faith. The decision to doubt His goodness closed my heart up, building walls that kept out His comfort. This week reopened my eyes to His compassion, to the fact that He feels our pain and sorrow.
Many things, like cancer and tsunamais and the like, are still beyong comprehension. They probably always will be. The fact that the universe is "infinite" and not only that but expanding (into what? is my question) is beyond my comprehension. I don't understand everything, but I choose to believe that when God described Himself as gracious, compassion, slow to anger and rich in love He wasn't lying.

A teardrop on earth
summons
the King of Heaven.
- Charles Swindoll

my mailing address

Just so you all know, if you want to send letters or treats or anything like that, my address is:

P.O. Box 8501
Perth Business Centre
Perth, WA 6849
Australia

(It is NOT expected at all, but stuff from America can be quite good leverage in trying to get favors from people here. Just kidding. Kind of.)

Feel free to send gummy worms, Trident gum (spearmint), reese's pieces and other such health food items. Or, you know, whatever you think you would miss if you lived with a herd of kangaroos. Incidently, kangaroos can be quite aggressive and nasty and they actually box each other while balancing on their tails. True story.

the Bunk Bed Bounce

So, I figured living in a top bunk for 3 months would be a fun experience (now that I am no longer eight years old). Indeed, it has been. So let me give you the set up first, the visual, real quickly. I sleep in a bunk in the corner of the room. Running parallel to the bunk are four large shelves for putting our clothes and other personal items. The person in the bottom bunk gets the bottom two shelves, and I get the top two. Great. Now, just the other day, tired from yet another very long and exhausting, though satisfying, day I excitedly prepared to jump into my cozy, high altitude place of rest. I got into my p.j.s anxiously anticipating the comfort my pillow would bring to me. I started my ascent. I put one foot on the shelf across from the bottom bunk and one foot on the bottom bunk itself. I then took off my glasses and put them away (I usually take them off when I am already fully in bed, but it's hard to reach across to the shelf so I figured I'd just take them off on my way up). Next, I moved my foot up to the next shelf. I braced myself for the jump, propelled myself from the leg on the shelf and grabbed for the side of the bed nearest to the wall so that I could pull myself into the bed. This is my usual routine. But having already taken off my glasses I miscalculated the width of the bed and missed the edge by a sparrow's fart (Australian for a very short distance). Having nothing within grasp to catch myself (other than an unanchored sleeping bag) and having already removed my foot from the shelf below, I found myself hurdling through the air frantically twisting in order to land on my feet. So there it is. I fell from my bed. Luckily, I did land on my feet and no parties, myself included, were injured. But Yoo Jin (my bunkmate) and I found it about the funniest thing we had ever seen. The fact that people were sleeping and we weren't supposed to laugh made it even funnier. I admit that that night, for the first time in my life, I actually laughed myself to sleep.

On a much more serious note (sorry to shift gears so abruptly, allow yourself time to adjust): this week was Forgiveness week. In order to really affect people and be effective on outreach, we need to be able to love. One thing that hinders us from loving people -whether they be our family, our friends, or strangers on the street- is bitterness due to unforgiveness. So this week we talked about forgivenss and then had a chance to "apply" it on Friday. People were given the opportunity to ask forgiveness (from God or from others) for things they've done and/or to forgive others for things done to them. This was done, by those who chose to do it, in front of everyone in the class. I have never been through such an emotionally intense day in my life. We started at 9:30 a.m. and ended at 4:00 a.m. Yeah, in the morning. It was heartbreaking the things people in my group had been through. People forgave rape, incest, molestation, physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and even the murderer of a friend. Many asked for all kinds of forgiveness, too. Everyone who asked for forgiveness or extended it received prayer. It was an incredibly healing and freeing experience. Since then, I have seen in the faces of the people around me a newness and a lightness. Interaction between us is markedly different- free of shame, free of bitterness, free of insecurity. At the end of the day we all realized how broken we really are and how easy it is to operate out of that brokenness and hurt. We weren't magically "fixed" overnight, but heavy burdens have been lifted and there is room for greater healing, greater communication, and greater love. If I went home today, it would all be worth it. Luckily, I am in this for the long haul.

6:00 a.m. exercise and other fun surprises

So, in terms of actual events taking place there is little to update. But I've been in Perth almost a week now so I suppose I should have something new to say.

Just to give you a little idea of what my life looks like here, so far:
(By the way, newly acquired Australian vocab will be highlighted in bold. I think you can figure out the meaning from the context. If not, feel free to ask.)

I share a room with twelve other girls. Across the hall (sharing the same bathrooms are thirty more girls.) I live in a top bunk, which means I am fine-tuning my abilities to balance, climb in the dark, and turn without shaking the bed. The dorm is lovingly and affectionately called "2-2-8" because it is located at 228 Lord St. No pun intended. We have a small kitchen that is stocked with muesli, bread for toast, and milk. Thanks be to God, there is a hot water dispenser. If you don't know, I have recently recovered from an addiction to coffee by picking up a far more pleasing addiction to tea. The presence of a hot water dispenser assured me that no matter how hard things get here, I will be able to survive.


The schedule: We wake up at 6:00 for morning exercise. Now, I'm pretty sure I read the website well before applying to this program. I don't remember anything about obligatory runs at 6:00 a.m. (at which time it is still dark and very cold, remember, because it is winter here). At least, I tell myself, I was physical at some point in my life. I used to run back in the day... and not just from people, but for fun. Anway, after our fun little run we have time to get ready for our morning chores at 8:00. Sweeping, cleaning toilets etc. I whistle while I work and it goes by fast enough. Lectures fill the rest of the morning for the most part till lunch at 12:30. Oh wait, I am forgetting morning tea! We break every morning for tea around 10:00. This is a tradition I fully embrace, enjoying tea so much. The only downside is that they offer heaps of bread and pastries which have been donated by local bakeries. "Downside?" you say? YES. The secret to how this program runs successfully on the little money it has is that they receive lots and lots of donated bread. There are always free bread and pastries lying about. This isn't so bad except for the fact that lunches and dinners are mostly pasta or rice. After just a couple days here you will find yourself, willingly or not, on the all carb diet. They warned us that most girls will gain 15 pounds while in training. I'm starting to understand how.


In the afternoon we are assigned to do work duties. I have been assigned to "property," which basically means maintenance. Now, God only knows how I ended up in this group. The entire extent of my experience with maintenance and repairs is the belief that duct tape fixes anything. The strange part is that I filled out a form prior to being assinged to this group in which I indicated my TOTAL lack of handyman skills. The funny thing is that these people pray about EVERY decision they make, even which people to assign to which work duty groups, and ask for God's guidance. So I can only reasonably conclude that God is making a funny. This oughtta be interesting. (I have to say though, after the first day that I am really grateful to be in this work group. One of my new friends here is in the group and we get to learn how to repair things, tear down walls and create new things, paint etc. I keep thinking "this is how I will gain the skills to be able to compete on Design Star!")


After work duties we have dinner at 5:30. Which is a perfect time to tell you all that along with a gas, energy, and water shortage the great nation of Australia is apparently also suffering from a great napkin shortage (or serviettes as the Aussies call em). I'm pretty sure the base just doesn't have the money to buy them, but they won't admit it. So the most amusing thing about meals around here is the fact that everyone -young, old, male, female, sloppy or meticulous- uses their pants to clean their hands. It'll be even funnier when I keep doing this even after returning to the states.

Well, that's about it. I'll have more to report soon, I reckon (truly, they say this in Australia).

Pray for rest for me. This thing is a full-time gig and then some.

Thanks for stoppin by, see you again soon!

Good Morning Hong Kong!

I think this particular entry may come out in jibberish. I am sitting in the Hong Kong airport (huge) sipping on a delicious cappucino and enjoying free (well, with my beverage purchase) internet access, waiting for my friend to meet me so we can go enjoy the city! The key pad has all these symbols on it, which are rather strange looking having never seen them anywhere but on food packages in multicultural San Francisco. I can't help but look out the window every couple seconds to enjoy the view. The airport is mostly made of windows, allowing it to easily and silently boast of the gorgeous mountains that surround it. I have never seen anything like it. I feel so humbled and exhilerated and captivated by this new, strange place I am in. Finding yourself in a new place, especially a place in the world that resembles nothing of any of the other countries and places you have seen, is one of the greatest gifts. I wish I could put into words what I felt as we were landing. The sun was rising- pink, gold, orange, and blue in patterns and shapes that made it look like it had been brushstroked onto the sky. There were big puffy clouds as well as thin, wispy clouds and mist like condensation that just exaggerated the colors even more. Best of all, these tiny little mountain islands scattered throughout the sea were sprouting up from the rather calm looking water. The combo of the seascapes and skyscapes made me feel like we were landing in the label of a fancy package of Chinese tea. My breath was stolen and replaced with a sigh of gratitude. How lucky! How blessed to be seeing what I am seeing. And the day has just begun!

Ah my friend has arrived and it's time to see Hong Kong!! To be continued...

Back again (now in Perth, several days later, but pretend I haven't gotten there yet)...

... a quick recap of the flight (before the euphoric landing) will reveal that I am not always so grateful and "centered". Shari, the kids, and Christina dropped me off at the airport, and as they all pulled away I was flooded by the feeling and thought: "What am I doing here? Where are you going?" I stood at the curb for a good long until I figured out that since I was at the airport, I must be there to get on a flight. I looked through my bag for further clues. Sure enough there was an itinerary for a flight to Australia, via Hong Kong in my purse... with MY name on it!! So I checked in, happily shedding the 200 pounds of luggage I had brought, made my final good bye calls, and then headed for my gate.

I sat at the gate waiting to board, thanking God for this opportunity and for my amazing last day and evening in Berkeley. I decided I wanted to add to my thanksgiving by listening to a worship song. I got out my ipod and tried to turn it on.. but it wouldn't work. I started pressing the buttons frantically. Oh no oh no oh no. Not a fourteen hour flight without music. Please God no. I put it back in my bag, tried to calm myself and then took it out again. It really wasn't working. It was totally dead. I had labored hours the night before carefully selecting what music I would want to listen to for the next six months. I had charged it for more than 24 hours. How could this be happening? It would be no exaggeration to say that Jesus's famous last words nearly crossed my mind (the bit about being forsaken). I nearly cried. My pathetic little technology tantrum was cut short, thankfully, when I was called to board. I saw the plane for the first time then, through the windows, and my jaw literally dropped. It was the size of of three story apartment building. I giggled in delight. How do they make that thing fly? I gave the guy my ticket and started to walk down the little boarding gate/hall thing. Okay, you know a plane is big when there are two separate halls leading to it, and the one for economy class is long enough and has enough turns and twists to get you lost. When I finally got on I was equally delighted by the inside. It was a high school. Two rows, ten people each, and probably over a hundred rows. A small city was flying to Hong Kong. It was great. I couldn't hide my excitement. I exchanged mystified looks with an elderly Indian man. It's big! I said, stretching out my arms. I sat down and asked God forgiveness for my rotten attitude earlier. I am the luckiest person on earth.

Well, this post is already getting quite long and I'm sure I've probably lost 60% of my readers, but I must comment on my day in Hong Kong. It was awesome. My friend Gregory showed me around. We had breakfast at a fancy cricket club, did a tram ride up to a very scenic view point, we took a ferry across to Kowloon, we went to a park in the middle of the city, equipped with a bird sanctuary and all. We had so much fun in fact that I nearly missed my flight. It was to depart at 3:00. I was still going through immigration at 2:45, then discovered that my gate was nearly a mile away. I ran so hard I couldn't breath. I was the second to last to board. Exciting. This flight was not so smooth, but I will spare the negativity. Suffice it to say that by then I was tired of traveling. I think I grumbled angry sentences in my half sleep, and I definitely started crying at one point. I was a total basket case. I'm sure I was frightening the passengers around me. I recovered from my grumpiness about ten minutes before landing only to discover that the girl who was sitting next to me the whole time is in the same program as me. Boy, talk about first impressions.

And that topic... I will save for the next entry. Thanks for faithfully reading to the end. I'll try to keep it shorter next time.

60 hours and counting

So... here goes my first attempt at blogging. I've been resisting the idea of blogging for fear that I'll spend a great deal of time writing, editing, trying to be clever or profound and then no one will read it. Now that I've begun typing, my biggest fear is that someone will.

That preoccupation aside, my greatest fear confronting me now as I get ready to leave for Australia is.... will they have the kind of gum I like there. The runner up fear is that I won't taste beer or wine for 6 months. Those are my biggest concerns. My friends and family have warned me about malaria, terrorist groups in Indonesia, plane crashes, tsunamis, intestinal maladies, and no less than 1000 lethal Australian-native animals and insects (from jellyfish to crocodiles to black widow spiders to little sea creatures disguised as seashells- very clever trick, wouldn't you say)... but nonetheless my biggest anxieties, I admit, relate to teetotaling and oral hygiene ("when you can't brush, chew" is possibly the most effective gum slogan ever come up with in the history of advertisement.)

But of course when you came to this blog you were hoping for something a bit more substantive, especially if you have supported this trip with your hard earned dough. So the best I can do right now (given that I am not yet in Australia and actually farther away than I was a week ago- in Chicago) is give you my travel plan info:

Friday July 2nd I will leave for the airport at about 11:00 P.M. I fly direct (14 hours) from SFO to Hong Kong. I arrive at 6:30 a.m. and will meet up with a friend of mine from college to tour Hong Kong for my 8 hour layover. I re-board at 3:00 P.M., I think, (this is July 4th mind you) and arrive in Perth at 10:40 P.M. where I will hopefully pass out immediately and begin exploring the "campus" and city the next day.

May I take just one more moment of your time (since your're here already) to point out that in this whole travel scenario I will be not get to experience July 3rd, 2008. It will not exist in my life. I get on a plane on the 2nd and exit that very same plane on the 4th. Where did the 3rd go? Of course, the 3rd does exist somewhere (law of conservation of mass or something like that)... I'll just be passing over it somewhere near Fiji. Pilot: "If you'll look out the windows to your left you'll see the beautiful islands of Fiji... and to your right you'll see July 3rd, 2008." Thanks to Bill Bryson for pointing this out.

Pray for good sleep on the plane... and that they'll provide me with lots of snacks. I still eat like a starving college student. Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you when I get there!