A bit of a wild ride

Snacks (Krupuk) loaded
on the back of a motorcycle

Thursday, October 7, 2015

Some days are more of a wild ride than others. Today qualifies.

2:50am The alarm goes off for a conference call with women across the USA and elsewhere in the world. I draw the ugly time zone – the rest are online during daylight.

4:00 The call is over. I fall back into bed with relief. My head is buzzing with the day ahead but I’m tired enough to fall asleep.

5:30 I’m awake again. Time to get up and see if there’s business to attend to: I check emails and updates from yesterday's newsletter. After writing replies, it's time to dress and make breakfast. 

W helps by setting the table, beating the eggs, and tidying up. He’s invited his Thursday morning group over for breakfast at 7.  We prepare French toast, sausage, oatmeal and the fixings. And of course some sweets. Drinks? tea and OJ.

Yunnie and adorable Desmond

7:00 A wonderful young couple arrive with their newborn. We asked God for this child last year because his parents couldn’t have kids. He’s adorable and we get an Oma and Opa fix as a bonus. The couple brings packages of nasi kuning, the traditional yellow rice used for celebrations.

8:00 The helper arrives. We're sitting at the breakfast table but she needs instructions for the day.

8:15 I leave for the Thursday walking group. There are only 3 of us this morning. After driving up into the hills, we wander the dirt paths for almost 3 hours. It poured rain yesterday, starting off rainy season. The weather was so violent that trees fell, shop signs toppled, and the wind blew through town in great gusts. Parts of the city flooded.

As we walk, the wet clay clings to our shoes. My pack of water gets lighter as I drink: the day gets hotter and hotter and we're not always under cover of trees. We keep having to stop to knock dirt off our shoes: that stuff is heavy. We go a few miles - what beautiful scenery.

Through the rice fields we go.
Note the high-rise overlooking the valley.

Over a woven bamboo bridge.
Yay! It has a handrail, a sagging length of bamboo.

A sluice for concrete: bamboo forms reach
from the road to the construction site below

12:30pm We meet another gal for lunch at Fantastic Pasta. Good food. Great company. She promises to ask her neighbors about medical care for K.

An "almost Italian" lunch

2:00 We're on the way home. In the car, I get a call from a lovely neighbor. She’ll swing by with her daughter in an hour. I say, Sure, c’mon! We’d hate to miss seeing them: the daughter is headed to Jakarta later today.

While S’s driver takes V home, she takes a house tour and then hangs out with me on the porch. When she leaves, I jump into the shower and wash off the dust clogging my pores from head to foot.

While I’ve been gone, the electricians have been rewiring the dangerous circuits in the house. W’s not happy with some of the wiring and has to redo a bunch of it to make it safer. 

W and Pak Asep have painted the frame of the swing in the yard red. We needed a focal point to keep the eye from traveling aimlessly around – This pretty and practical one was dreamed up by a Seattleite and creative friend, Laura Bunda, who visited us earlier this year with her family.

Instant focal point: the red swing
See the amaryllis hedge on the right?

3:00 I pull oatmeal and chocolate squares from the fridge, find chocolate cookies in the cabinet, and make some mango BOH tea (Malaysian brand we like). Our friends come by – another house tour - and then we relax in the living room with a cup of tea and treats. What nice goodies they bring as treats.

3:50 When the “gotta run” alarm sounds on the side of the fridge (kitchen timer), my friend and I go to the garden. We cut a bouquet of red amaryllis – a favorite that brings back memories of her mother - and we snap some pictures at the gate as our friends leave.

A handful of amaryllis
for Dr Hanna and Alice

4:00 It’s into the car again. Traffic is stop-and-go at the bottom of the hill so we creep toward our destination.

4:30 W drops me off at the Bamboo Shack on the next hill and takes K to the doctor’s. Today she’s under the weather. She see the doc and gets meds, both antibiotics and pain control.

6:30 Riga and I are done with a fascinating study of Mark 6. What amazing stories of God-with-us! She gives me a ride in the cutest VW Van (yeah, one of those!) to the Thai Restaurant down the street.

W and K are on their way: K thinks her stomach will tolerate coconut chicken soup. They don’t have it – so she chooses pineapple rice instead. I get a Pad Thai and we head home.

7:00 We have supper, including the nasi kuning from this morning. The "Thai meal" is distinctly Indonesian.

Afterwards, I root through an upstairs cabinet to find pillows for K’s bed. Hers are missing after the helper washed bedding today. All set? Time to rest.

8:00 Except, K calls: she’s thrown up in bed. “Are there spare sheets?” Poor kid. She's had a rough few months - and hasn't been well since she arrived with food poisoning and an arthritis flare.

I go back upstairs. Her bedding is still drying on the rack, but I find fresh bedding in the same cabinet as before. After we change the bed, I fall into a chair by the TV in exhaustion. W brings a mini-Magnum chocolate ice-cream to reward us for getting through the day.

8:30 W falls asleep. I’ve still got to do today’s language lesson. Book and recording ready! This takes another hour, but then I’m going to sleep like a log - hopefully by 10:30 or 11.

I’m glad every day is a new beginning. Tomorrow’s chore: lesson prep for next week’s classes.

Read more:

*The Lord says, “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings.” Hosea 6:6 ESV

*Like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it, he will spare and rescue it. Isaiah 31:5 ESV

*If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31 NIV

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:9-10 NIV

Moravian Prayer: Gracious God, our Father, we owe all that we have to you. Reveal the work you have set before us and preserve us in true faith. Freely may we give, in the joys of discipleship, to the glory of your kingdom.

Blessed Christ Jesus, you have our eternal thanks. You understand our deepest needs and present them, with love, to God. May we choose to be living witnesses, to present our hearts in prayer, and to gratefully celebrate the lives we’ve been blessed to have. Amen.