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!