Nothing is more heartwarming than long friendships

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

The blessing of the afternoon is a group who is in hot pursuit of friendship with God. The conversations are life-giving, though we are spread around the planet and in different timezones. Indulging in a coffee-chocolate cookie from Keelee's Quiet Waters Bakery helps me focus. The verse on the back of the wrapper is my prayer:

"My heart says of you, "Seek his face! Your face, Lord, I will seek." Psalm 27:8

Somehow, God is renewing W and my hearts in the middle of a full calendar. How merciful and loving he is. I'm glad to be among his people, reflecting on scriptures, and listening to music.

I don't even have to make supper today. M has cooked rice and chicken, which W brings downstairs for me to enjoy when the meeting ends. It's been beautiful weather all day. The kids are good sports on the hilly 2.5 mile walk but we're all relieved to get home.

Wednesday

It's easy to cook breakfast with Western ingredients at hand: pears, cottage cheese, eggs, and sausage. 

Would it be fun to shop around a bit this morning? Once I get moving I change my mind. I go through some cabinets and toss 5-year old canned food from the pantry. It makes me feel shopped out. I sort things to take to our home across the sea, knowing that they're never coming back. Family things like my grandma's 6-piece Bavarian china are enjoyed during our brief stays in Seattle. 

"Take whatever you want," my mom tells me each time I visit. "I don't need anything - so please take anything you can use." I keep asking the children and extended family if there's something they would like.

We already have hand-me-downs from my auntie and uncle (tray below), plus furniture and dishes from my grandmothers. We love beautiful things, especially if they are useful. Sometimes I think how nice it would be to pull out this or that, which is stored in another country. 

We have more than enough to enjoy and host guests, whether here or back home. "The mother of all garage sales is coming up when you downsize," W often warns me. haha

Our apartment has 2 pianos, so I posted one on Craigslist a few weeks ago. The buyer who sent a $2000 cheque? Scammer. Sigh. The fake paper bounces at the bank today. Luckily W is cautious, so he catches the cheaters and we're not out any money. Why don't people work this hard being productive at real jobs rather than causing misery for others? I have a backup buyer anyway.

Speaking of scams, the blog already has +96,000 views this month. What algorithm is boosting it to the cybersphere? I'm no influencer: why would my journal be of interest? And book reviews or art blogs? Not groundbreaking. Yet writers write. My head is turbulent with words and ideas. I can either blurt them onto pages or explode. (Or lose the memories: friends know my selective/faulty recollections.)

"Don't do anything you don't want everyone to know," Jesus said. "What is hidden will be revealed." Living in Indonesia, everyone knows everyone's business anyway. I try to stay out of trouble. Admittedly, it is strange to visit another country and have a stranger say they read my posts and feel like they know me.

Let's taste some favorites before we leave for home? We order Vietnamese sandwiches from YehYehs. Pretty good.

Late in the afternoon W and I go for a short walk. The autumn berries are crisp red against the blue sky. Suddenly, my shoes start falling apart. Parts of the soles fall off and a structural piece of the footbed pokes into my foot. W gives me a thick tissue to place above the emerging hole but I still have a deep blister by the time I get in the door.

Baker Academic sends a new book Faithful Futures by Josh Packard for review and consideration as a classroom text. I forward the title to several lecturers and professors: it recognizes the unique flavors and needs of GenX and GenZ, distinct from previous generations.

Thursday

After yesterday's more peaceful pace, we are on the move after breakfast. We visit with a young family who prays for us and whom we pray for. The mom's an alumna and was in W's classes years ago. Those are the happy connections: to know something we did has been meaningful or lasting.

Lunch is at the university with NE Seattle leaders. It's nice to meet in the faculty lounge as a reminder of time well spent and conversations with former coworkers, including the alumni team.

The new university president is a former student and gives a rousing talk to the leaders present.

Supper with Don and Brenda settles our hearts. They are trusted friends and mentors who encourage us to faithfulness and faith.

Brenda gifts us with beautiful picture cards featuring photos she's taken on travels. They're too pretty to write on.

Friday

People day! starts in early morning at the Third Place Commons, my central location for meeting women from various circles each year.

We start with a visit with heart friends who have traveled from around WA state. It's an honor to meet in person! instead of just online.

Kim shares drinks and pears (oh yum). Stuff continues to flow in and out of my life, even on such a short trip. I pass out three "feather" canvases that came my way yesterday.

A dear WPPR sister shows up after noon to share a gluten-free quiche for lunch and stories about where we are now.

Sue drops in for a few hours of catch-up. What a wonderful day with people we have loved and worked with over the years.

I'm home in late afternoon with time enough to eat leftovers from yesterday.

I show the grandkids videos of when they were little before we say "goodbye for now." W and I are hopping on a plane to TX, early tomorrow morning.

Read more:

*Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. Hosea 6:1

*The Lord said, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your earnings for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good.” Isaiah 55:2

*Jesus said, “The widow out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Read the story in Mark 12:44)

*Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:7-10

Moravian Prayer: Lord of all creation, there is nothing that is of this world that we can offer to you. Our greatest riches are but a drop in the sea to you, but we can offer you ourselves, our devotion, and our faith. We humbly give what we can. Amen.

Happy Chinese New Year! 2025

Wednesday, January 29, 2025 Happy Chinese New Year!

I finally fall asleep at 2 AM and wake at 6. Not a long night. I start packing for Friday's flight to Canada, where I'll spend a week with my mom.

Happy New Year for the incoming Year of the Snake, which our friends consider a year for big changes. We have a wonderful lunch with Josie and her family. Her mother, who writes and edits the Mandarin newspaper, loves to cook traditional food. It's delicious!

We feel honored to be included in their New Year feast.

On the way home, we spot a motorcycle rider carrying a flower board - we can't see him behind his huge foam-core slab.

It's back to packing and editing for a few hours. W has written a few more chapters and sent them my way. It's more work for him to write than for me to edit, but with thick theology on the page, it is still work on my end.

Thursday

One more hike before I'm in the flat country of my hometown. And what a hike it is! It's been raining on and off for the past weeks so the clay soil, compacted and wet, is a slick as ice. 

We stab our walking poles into the ground and get a good arm workout. We're walking off-clay whenever we can, putting our shoes on the grass- and weed-covered rims. Sometimes it's not possible: there are drop-offs on each side.

Every one of us wipes out. I slide onto a knee on the last incline. Bummer. I thought I'd make it without getting a dirt patch on my trousers. Nope. And our shoes and socks are covered in mud.

"It's an easy walk," we're told. It's in the mountains so we're traversing up and down the slippery slopes, though we skirt the tall hills.

Our goal is the star at the top of the next mountain.

The wildflowers are abundant.

We climb over fallen trees and skitter along the track.

We stop for lunch at Opera, where the pasta is lukewarm but otherwise tasty.

I finish packing in the evening. I dream that I miss the flight, and then it's morning.

Friday

My body wakes me before the alarm at 5 AM. I'm in the shuttle to Jakarta Airport by 7. Our Jackel driver is excellent, not a risk-taker or constant lane-switcher (-swerver, as is usual). The constant lane-changing creates traffic jams - and high-risk slow vehicles suddenly "appear" in front of the car as a driver swerves over to get around a slower car.

At one of the toll booths into Jakarta, our driver takes an exit. Suddenly, we're on the other side of the highway with our lane is separated from oncoming traffic by cones. (Later in the day, they'll switch those orange cones to the other side of the freeway  to provide one more lane for home-going traffic.) We zip along since there's no way for drivers in our one lane to weave in and out. Meanwhile, regular traffic is stop and go. Mostly stop. He probably saves an hour or more and we're at the airport in under 3 hours.

There's construction in a wing of the airport, with workers high above the pedestrian walkways.

You can't have a fear of heights for that job.

Otherwise, the flights are uneventful - the best kind. The food is good in the Taiwan lounge.

The second-last (late!) passenger comes to my row and takes the window seat. Sigh. I almost had a row to myself for the 10.5 hour flight from Taiwan. He doesn't speak English and falls asleep quickly. He climbs over me once, eats all the meals and snacks, and is otherwise quiet.

I pull a fleecy jacket on backwards, suspend my sign "PLEASE LET ME SLEEP" in the tray latch, and pull the hood over my face. I sit. And sit. In the dark under the hood. My watch tracks 1:50 of sleep. Better than nothing. Our flight swings up the West coast rather than coming across the top of Alaska.

I emerge from my hoodie for breakfast. We've cross the international dateline, so we land in Vancouver after 6PM (Saturday 9AM in Indonesia). My brother picks me up and takes me to Mom's. She's had no idea I'm coming so he wakes her and shoots a video to send to her caregivers ... she's surprised!

She chats for over almost 2 hours before I head upstairs at 10PM for a shower. I read a bit ... and am fast asleep within a half-hour.

And get a phone call at 11:45PM. It's Mom, downstairs. "Didn't you hear the bell? [Nope, fast asleep after being up most of 32 hours ...] My care person isn't here." She usually has a night person who makes sure she has meds.

We message the caregivers and my brother but they're sleeping as well. I search for Mom's night meds, then sit with her until she's finished the pills and food, gets up briefly, and is ready to sleep. I fall into bed again but it takes an hour before I'm back to sleep. zzzz

Read more:

*The Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors. Deuteronomy 30:9

*Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his child David. Luke 1:68-69

*Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that 

we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:7-12

Moravian Prayer: Mighty God, you have provided for us throughout the years, knowing that goodness and mercy shall come. Help us to see your providing ways. We are never forgotten and never alone. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

"What, there's another one?" (How many trees are enough?)

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Mid week. Already. We set two little trees near the sliding doors. One starts as a mess of tangled lights in crushed branches, with few ornaments and a missing stand. Save or toss?

I think we can save it. W rigs up a stand and wedges the base into it. I strip it and start to fluff out the needles.

When the bells, ornaments, and lights are replaced, it gets a final straightening and a length of batik over the base. Looks good. Once upon a time, it was an expensive tree.

A still smaller tree on the table gets wrapped with silver tinsel garland, a few birds, and two stems of white berries. Random leftovers, in other words. This was last year's discard - maybe a tree topper? - until W drilled a hole in a block of wood and shoved the wire stem into it.

Then I putter, thinking through Sunday's talk and fielding calls. We letter Christmas ornaments for the "We Care!" giveaway.

"There's another big box in storage upstairs," says IbuS. There's more? Of what?

PakG hauls it down and the two of them set up the old-fashioned, big-needled pine inside. It's like the trees we had as kids. It has holes in a central 6' wooden pole. The branches have twisted wire ends that fit into the holes. The tree stand has 3 screws to hold the trunk in place, plus a red cup held by 3 green feet. Remember those? Over the weekend, we find missing branches here and there, including in a box in a storage basement at the hall.

I have no idea where we got this tree. The trunk is bare and ugly and I'm out of garlands. I root through the boxes we've returned to storage for a few ornaments, which we hang on the branches. Simple tree. It doesn't look too awful at the Porch entry.

I'm worried it will blow over when the wind kicks up. "Should we tie it to the porch railing?" I ask W. He says no, that won't work.

ChaCha and I meet at Ethnic for lunch. She's a follower of Jesus, a dear young friend, and a hard-working entrepreneur.

Thursday

It rained most days this week although today is dry. The hiking group decides not to risk the wet and slippery trails. W and I do a long loop (a few miles) with the dogs and I finish a few dozen more give-away ornaments.

Before lunch while the helpers bake cookies and bread, we run errands in town. W is replacing the hose on the hot water tank and getting the weedwacker repaired and replaced. (The yardman can't mow the lawn without it. He tackles the flowerbeds while he waits for our return.)

While W checks repairs, I browse ACE for something to cover up the bare wood of the 2 meter/6' Porch tree. I find 4 sparkly green garlands for the price of one: 75% off? My kind of deal.

After lunch, I wind the garlands up the trunk and around the bottom branches. I'm back inside when a gust of wind topples the tree. W finds 3 mossy bricks in the garden and puts those on the feet. Looks good and they should keep the tree upright.

For supper, we have "butter" avocados on IbuS's fresh-baked bread. The avocados from the corner fruit stand are finally ripe. W tries the new scoop/masher from the Dollar Store; woohoo, it works.

The windows rattle in the evening as the thunder rolls in. We hear the rain coming closer, hissing on the trees before it splashes onto the roof tiles. We're grateful to be inside and dry. So many are not so privileged in this city. Flash flooding is a hazard downhill as water from Bandung's mountains overflows catch basins and rivers.

Friday

Since I can't sleep, I pull out my computer and work on Sunday's talk. It's rare and frustrating when I have no clarity until the end of the week. But this is the second week of Advent so the topic is faith, which W defines as "trusting obedience." I have to trust that God will give us the message to communicate his love and care clearly. So I write in the middle of the night when that insight comes.

After about an hour's sleep, the sun's up and it's time to walk. W and I read and edit Sunday's talk together. Beside the gate, the vine clipped on a walk is blooming.

The neighborhood used to have modest 1-2 storey homes for elder scholars. The biggest shock is construction at the end of the small lane. Two houses on either side have already added rooms on top. Now this 4-storey apartment is rumored to become a rental for students from down the hill. That would change the neighborhood from residential to commercial. (With students come small food carts, loud motorcycles, and loud parties.)

Saturday

W's usual group is away today so we walk to Nara for breakfast. There's a company family Christmas party, complete with ear-splitting volume on voice and music. The kids play on the carpeted playground. In rainy season, that keeps the kids from getting splatted with mud.

See the managers in a team-building game (left)? Three people hold 3 balls. Two balls get wedged between the 3 people. One ball is held by the leader. The three run across the grass to their team members. Then the leader hand the ball he's holding to the first person in line. That person grabs the ball, drops to the back of the 3-person team with the ball on their stomach, snugging up to the middle person. They run across to do the same transfer on the other end. First group to get through every person in line wins. Too much proximity for me!

Dolly sent me an iris 2 years ago. Today it's blooming in the garden. 

The fish are happily swimming in the ponds. During sun breaks, the floating solar fountains circulate air back into the ponds. I grab handfuls of algae from the smallest pond and its pump kicks into gear.

The flowers from Monday's nursery run have been planted for a pop of color.

The green wall is regaining its plants after being accidentally stripped.

PakG brings down a patio table and chairs from the upper balcony = I have a desk overlooking the tidy garden if I am feeling extroverted. When I need focus, I sit the other way, with a laser-cut screen and plants on the wall. Both views are helpful. I rise to crush big ants carrying egg cases instead of setting an alarm to stand up. We don't need more ants!

My tasks are defining survey questions for my book; plus editing 2 more chapters of someone's dissertation toward their potential book. W heads down the hill to buy olive oil, get a long walk, and replace the light socket that burned out (perhaps during a lightning strike?) Electrical systems aren't grounded, though houses have a lightning rod on their roofs. Next week is our annual Christmas dinner-and-a-movie night so we're prepping that.

The worship team practices with me for two hours. My throat is raw and painful and I have a headache in the evening, usually the sign that I'm getting sick. I just got over the flu a few weeks ago. I pray for healing.

Sunday

It's the second Sunday of Advent.

Alice has spearheaded IES Bandung's fourth Art Sunday. People enjoy making bags and cards.

Some make ornaments. This one uses yarn I brought from my mom's stash in Chilliwack (Canada.)

After a meeting, some of the team eat lunch with us at Maxi's. My headache is worse so we rest in the afternoon.

Titik sends home this geometric arrangement - what art.

Monday

What! One more tree, found in a box. It's a crumpled mess.

Once unfolded and decorated, it's a lovely little thing that fits perfectly on the bookcases.

I take notes from the best books on Blinkest, sitting on the Porch at my new outdoor desk. W is getting his own headache, writing his book about women in ministry in another part of the house.

For supper, it's fresh bread and red pepper spread from a jar snagged last summer at Aldi in Missouri. Time to indulge. It's delicious on the hearty chia/flax seed slice.

Read more:

*Love truth and peace. Zechariah 8:19

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7

Moravian Prayer: Understanding Savior, you are able to comprehend the message of our hearts, even when words fail us. We rejoice to be seen, heard, and known by you. Amen.