Puppets and people

I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Two monkeys perform in the intersections at the traffic lights as we walk to school.
This one walks on high stilts.  The other resignedly rides his little bike in circles, looking bored. 

IES Jakarta uploads last weekend's photos. Ours make us laugh.
I look tired but W looks like he's dreaming up new IT stuff.

The new mixer and blender work great.

Our helper passes a jasmine shrub on the way over. She plucks a few branches. The fragrance fills the house.

We do a Google Hangout with our daughter-in-law and two adorable grandkids.

The language school sets up a visit to a puppet-making factory Thursday. It's a "cultural event." The owner tells us she inherited the business from her father. 

"The man in the corner is a master painter," she points out. "He's worked here for 40 years, since my father's time. Parents used to pass along the skills to their children, but now the children don't want to learn for such low wages. I think in 10 years, we will no longer have a factory." 

Each employee has a specialty: the men carve and paint the faces. The women embroider cloth, assemble jewelry, and sew the costumes.

Women and men from the villages work at the factory to earn extra money between harvests.

Indonesia's version of Romeo and Juliet
as beautiful puppets. These are nearly 2 1/2 feet tall.

When we try our hand at painting faces and costumes on wooden pens, the results are not like the experts. However, Waldemar's pen is the best-looking - almost professional. We are in awe.

We are growing to love the culture and the people here. Can you tell? We feel God's heart, urging us to embrace those who have not yet heard and to share Good News.

Read more: 
*Sing praises to God and to his name! Sing loud praises to him who rides the clouds. His name is the Lord - rejoice in his presence! Father to the fatherless, defender of widows - this is God, whose dwelling is holy. Psalm 68:4-5 NLT

*Thus says the Lord God: Repent and turn away from your idols. Ezekiel 14:6 NEV

*Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. When the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, “Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God.” Acts 14:12,14-15 NEV

Moravian Prayer: Lord, so many things blind us to you: health, money, family, responsibilities, reputation, recognition, personal goals. Please help us to follow and trust you in all things. Amen.

C. S. Lewis, from The Problem of Pain:
It has sometimes been asked whether God commands certain things because they are right, or whether certain things are right because God commands them. . . . I emphatically embrace the first alternative. The second might lead to the abominable conclusion . . . that charity is good only because God arbitrarily commanded it—that He might equally well have commanded us to hate Him and one another and that hatred would then have been right. I believe, on the contrary, that “they err who think that of the will of God to do this or that there is no reason besides His will.” God’s will is determined by His wisdom which always perceives, and His goodness which always embraces, the intrinsically good. 

But when we have said that God commands things only because they are good, we must add that one of the things intrinsically good is that rational creatures should freely surrender themselves to their Creator in obedience. The content of our obedience—the thing we are commanded to do—will always be something intrinsically good, something we ought to do even if (by an impossible supposition) God had not commanded it. But in addition to
the content, the mere obeying is also intrinsically good, for, in obeying, a rational creature consciously enacts its creaturely role, reverses the act by which we fell, treads Adam’s dance backward, and returns.