Two tests and the journey's end

Monday, January 31, 2020

The night is short: 10-4, but hopefully the early awakening means we're acclimating to SE Asia time after being on the west coast of N America. We usually get up between 4 and 5am anyway.

We had the first swab/saliva covid test Sunday evening. This morning we are summoned for a second one. I wonder if that means we can go home earlier than Wednesday. We'll see. (Nope.) Near the elevator is a beautiful 4' ceramic vase wrapped in rattan. I snap a picture: a little beauty goes a long way in confinement.

It rains off and on most days. I wonder about all the people living under the clouds. The big picture window helps expand the hotel room. I watch the skies change as motorcycles, buses, and cars zoom by below.

The morning zips by between the covid test, a 2-hr visit with a friend (Zoom), recording my usual 5-minute Monday talk (FB), and the morning study of the gospel of John (Zoom).

The hotel meals have been pretty good. If they're Indonesian, there seems no difference between breakfast and the rest of the menu.

If it's Western, lunch and supper are interchangeable, but breakfast is continental (sausage, beans, pastry, eggs.) I hand my tater tots to W, who likes them. I don't. The food tastes are not as good as it was on the weekend, I admit. Must be a different chef using similar recipes.

In the early afternoon, I'm ready for some writing, maybe some reading, and a quick nap. Instead, we rewrite the talk for Sunday about Noah. What an interesting man. Then we record, setting up our own backdrop. We trap printed fabric under the picture frame but it slides down around our shoulders. W has to keep taping it up.

The raindrops on the window sparkle like the crystal I found tucked into tree branches along the sidewalk in Seattle. Soon we'll be walking outside again. This time it will be warmer than Seattle.

When we're done with work, I read. And read some more, before supper and in the hot bath. Phew, the smell is awful. The bathroom drains are leaking sewage fumes so I cut my relaxation short. I'm asleep before 10.

Tuesday

Both of us wake before 4am. I listen again through much the first book of the Bible (Genesis). I've heard it four or five times this week, and what a saga it is: betrayal, love, jealousy, murder, promises, and faith! God stays the same. And humanity pretty much is carrying on the way our ancestors did.

Outside my window, ropes and wires dangle from the rooftop and sway in the wind. Will window-washers come around? Does something need hauling up? I don't know. The wires and ropes drift back and forth. Industrial textures are among my favorite things, like the girder of a bridge that I snapped last week.

Breakfast includes a black strand that looks like a 3" dog hair attached to a pastry. I lose my appetite.

But lunch is very tasty: I think the regular chef is back. There's goulash, mashed potatoes, and some vegetables. I've had some chocolate almonds (Trader Joes) since breakfast was small; that means I'm not hungry and can share the abundance, including the gravy, with W, whose lunch is rice, fish, and a drier version of beef (equally delicious). We finish with a dessert of sweet papaya cubes.

The front desk sends extra teabags and a promise that we'll have our covid test results today. Any time we use the elevator (so far only upon arrival or for the tests), we have to stand on a spot and be escorted by someone. They hustle us into the box the minute the doors open - with minimal time for air exchange from exiting passengers. Oh well. God help us all.

I wonder how many roaches will be lying dead on their backs in our bedroom and bathroom at home. Usually 3-5 cockroaches and innumerable ants eating them await, out of reach of the helper's broom.

Last week, the ladies snapped a picture of themselves at work, scrubbing down the kitchen for our arrival. You don't leave a place in the tropics for a month without it getting full of dust, dirt, and bugs.

I have a final bath - the sewer smell was an aberration: today is just fine. The water is hot. My book is interesting. The shampoo makes good bubbles. What's not to love?

Wednesday

Yup, up at 4 again. Guess that's the new routine. Breakfast is hot and delicious: tender scrambled eggs, twice-fried potatoes, flaky croissants, warm sausages, and guava juice. I'd come here on a regular day if it was closer. For anyone who has time in Jakarta, consider the #MillenniumHotel near city center. The staff was kind and responsive, the food excellent (90% of the time), and the room clean and welcoming.

Will we be released today? W calls the front desk in the morning, but the quarantine officer hasn't come by the lobby yet. What do you think? Will we go home today? [For me the hardest thing is saying yes - or getting into motion - and then having to wait. How about you?]

Read more:

*Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

*My word shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:11

*Enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Acts 4:29-30 

*We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 

None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 1 Corinthians 2: 6-10

Moravian Prayer: Great God, accomplish your purpose in us. Strengthen the prophetic voice in each of us, that we may speak boldly for you. Make us proclaimers of your name and workers of your will. Amen.