It's a "people" weekend

Saturday, September 13, 2026
We eat the same boring seed/grain porridge after a walk.

Our guests at the Project say farewell after they pray a blessing over us. Those prayers mean the world to us.

I attend an online women's leadership call. The speaker is a former Miss America, who tells us to listen for God's Voice in every situation. She encourages us to withdraw from distractions, challenges, and busyness to seek God's face. "Then don't just listen when he speaks, but obey completely and quickly." Good counsel.

The neighborhood kids are back! after a long break. Yay! Someone donated pencil bags with a few supplies. The +70 kids are happy with the gift, and delighted to reconnect with the volunteers they love.

I make chili & eggplant noodles for supper and bake an apple cobbler (low sugar) for dessert. Neither is terrible but neither thrills the tongue. Oh well.

Sunday
We walk. Anton the poodle keeps lunging for cats, his kryptonite against good behavior. He's not chill this morning.

Last week's flower arrangement is reconfigured into two smaller bouquets.

They brighten the guest spaces.

Character pruning isn't fun when it's personal; part of you gets cut off and left behind. I'm reminded of that with the heap of fading greens trimmed away this morning. I save some stems and will try to root them. Let's see if they have enough life in them to regrow.

IES Bandung is wonderful as usual. We pass the Lord's Supper to each other with, "His Body broken for us. His Blood shed for us." Amen.

Lunch at Maxis is with a group who loves to serve God and others. My beef skewers are served on an unheated satay grill. Nice presentation, but they cool quickly because they're exposed to air on all sides. The hot peppers are lifted off to one side. I'm not quite back to my heat index since being in the USA.

We pray for each other before leaving. One couple heads to the station to catch a train for Jogjakarta while the rest of us pulang (go home) around Bandung.

We lock up the guest quarters, eat a supper of homemade cold cuts (who knew! = a successful food experiment), and are ready for a relaxing evening. W has installed a screen flap on our bedroom door, which means we can air the room in the morning and before bed. And that's without a mosquito invasion. The view of a thriving palm is relaxing with not a person nor chore in sight.

Monday
Thank God for ordinary mornings with walks, meetings, and meals. I update the calendar for the next week, marveling at how appointments flow naturally from one to the other. The afternoon's "sweet-smelling" delivery (at least my farmer dad said it was sweet - she wrinkles her nose) is 6 bags of horse manure for the gardens.

Tuesday
A friend comes by for tea. She's never tried crepes so asks for them and cookies - done! I cook before she arrives so we can visit. We interrupt our conversation many times as I go in and out of the house fulfilling various requests.

Daniel and friends haul away wood decaying in the yard.

I'm working through a mandatory course from our company. 16 sessions with a workbook and 8 hours of videos? Yikes - that's a lot. I glaze over before lunch with a young friend. We head to the restaurant across the street. I have the capacity to cook one meal a day for company. I love time with Madelyne.

The afternoon passes with the intermittent wail of firetrucks.

Fires are burning about a mile (1.5 km) away. Garbage (littered food wrapping, plastic bags, and household waste), leaves, and plant trimmings are regularly burned streetside and in yards. Fires are often lit at the base of trees or near other flammables. This one got out of control and spread to the neighborhood hillside. Since the area is densely populated, it is burning near homes.

Two cars can squeeze by in the narrow lane to our old neighborhood but one firetruck takes up most of it.

Our old neighborhood has the closest fire hydrant. Trucks line up to be filled with water, while the firemen rest nearby.

W is curious about what is happening so we walk by to see how things are going. Construction of the white palace is closer to being finished. It replaces a plain home.

The 10'/3 meter flowering hedge is backed by a tree flaring in yellow against the evening sky.

We planted an avocado tree at the old house. It had hundreds of tiny avocados on it when we moved away. This tree, completely full of blossoms and little fruits, had nothing edible most years. We got one durian from either this one or one that it's overtaken. What is this?

Supper is leftover crepes with chicken and vegetable filling, plus chickpea wraps with a mud-colored eggplant mixture. Hmmm. Not very appetizing from the look of it. Tastes good. It's a warm humid evening with wind whipping through the valleys. No rain is in sight. Prayers appreciated, that the fire is soon under control. Thanks.

Read more:
* David and all Israel were dancing before God with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets. 1 Chronicles 13:8

* What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39

* Rejoice always. 1 Thessalonians 5:16

* But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10

Moravian Prayer; Joyful God, we lift our voices in praise, rejoicing always in your goodness. Like David, may we worship you with all our might, singing and dancing in your presence. Fill our hearts with unshakable joy as we celebrate your endless love. Amen.