Traveling fridges

Sunday, January 8, 2023

The first week of the year is past. We set up at 7 at GG for the second Sunday of January's theme: "Jesus, the Light of the World." W leads with his story of how he got to Indonesia. As he speaks, I think how differently the same events were experienced by him and me. God has gotten us here relatively intact, both as a couple and as individuals. It's a marvel.

Oh my, the top shelves in the office are dusty! The cleaner is short and doesn't see that high so it goes uncleaned until I swipe the grime off.

I dislike today's bouquet enough to yank the grass out of it. It's more balanced without that. The bare "flower" branches from the palms look like miniature trees on either side. I hope no one snags on them so that the whole thing falls apart. (We're safe. Whew)

It's almost Sam's last week at IES. Friends and those who have benefitted from his being here pray for his safe travels and a good landing in the USA. He's done a good job leading the youths, too. He'll be missed.

We share a "Happy New Year" lunch with friends at Ethnic Resto.

Back home, over 30 young adults are hanging out on The Porch. They eat lunch, play games, and make new friends. We love it, esp because Sam and others host while we provide the venue.

Usually the dogs are tied up since Indonesians fear dogs. Today they roam and find willing hands to pet them.

The new round patio table is a hit.

Monday

After a walk, I have 2 hours of language school before it's time for home study. I struggle to lock in vocabulary - the vowel sounds slide around between meng- and per- and other prefixes. Today's lesson on customs includes what to say to someone sick in the hospital if you are menjenguk or menengok (visiting).

"Gimana keadaan kamu sekarang?" (Reply comes, then ...) "Semoga cepat sembuh." Yes. It's that different from everything we know.

The big chore today is cleaning the upstairs kitchen and our fridges. In our back storeroom, there's one for movie night, Hangout items, and the cookie stash. Last Saturday, the back fridge repeatedly blew the whole-house electric system. Early this morning, a repairman swings by. The LED light strip is the culprit. He fixes it for $10, including his trip.

We decide to send that cooler to the office.  Gum's friend borrows a little pickup so they can muscle their way to the office to drop it off, along with 10 boxes of cookies.

"Are you safe?" W asks PakG, who says, "Sure."

W asks a few more times, "Is the fridge safe?" as he looks at the side-to-side straps securing it to the truck sides. PakG grabs the bar behind the cab and leans against the fridge as the truck bounces up the street. They make it there in one piece.

The guys bring home the little office fridge and carry it upstairs. The guest fridge in which W kept "his" snacks near his upstairs office has been a hassle; keeping everyone's food separate is an ongoing discussion. Since he mostly works on the teras on the main floor and we'll have guests all next month, so we settle that fridge into the recently-vacated storeroom, closer at hand for him. It will also cool movie night and Hangout items.

I'm checking how well the grasses from the yard dry: can they be used in arrangements? Some do okay. 

Others droop unless we dry them upside down. Once they're stiff, they're ready for use.

 I drape silk flowers into vases and onto pieces of wood (= experimenting.)

Sam makes an overnight visa run to Malaysia. He asks if we want anything from the KL airport grocer. Yes please = how about the BOH tea we can't find here? Except the shops are closed during the time he's there. Oh well.

Tuesday

With language school a priority, team meetings move from morning to afternoon. After one more meeting on The Porch, house-guests Wolter and Fenelin arrive with their cheery 5-mo-old Falk. I make supper for all of us before we head for rest. 

I move paint chips around on the black canvas and take pictures of every move. What if I want to go backward? The green block on the edge bothers me.

An abstract project can take a few weeks. The changes are subtle on this one though many chips move around. How many can you spot? Once it settles in, I'll fix them in place.

Wednesday

After a good night's sleep, W and I head for our date breakfast. The hedges are full of color. Isn't this a pretty shrub, with white, pink, and red showing off at the same time?

On the porch, the hoyas are balls of fragrance.

We're shedding things in an annual New Year's ritual. I have a last look at the wonderful Indonesia pictures taken by our former neighbor. What a gorgeous country. (What an artist #JezOHare is with a lens.)

We're going through linens - who needs more than 2 sets of bedding per bed? Have we used that bed or table in a while? Everything is fair game.

The dogs challenge the many neighbors coming in and out. There's no sneaking around with them barking a warning. One neighbor leaves the gate open and Juno goes outside. She comes back when I call. Good thing none of our animals is a runner.

W records his weekly video and takes our visitors grocery shopping. I write the weekend talk. As the sun goes down, it feels like a day of movement and satisfaction.

Read more:

*From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised. Psalm 113:3

*But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

*May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15:5-6

Moravian Prayer; Lord, give us a spirit of cooperation and goodwill. Help us to see the pathway within our circumstance where we can journey alongside others for your glory. Amen.

Digging up the lawn, 68 more legs, and a march through the vegetables

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

No language school today. W and I take the dogs for a walk, return them to the house, and walk to our weekly date breakfast. They're fixing the lawn that gets the worst wear. (There's little drainage in the common area.) The dirt gets chopped into big chunks with a mattock and then beaten into smaller clumps. Some strong thin Indonesians haul tools and gravel down the hill.

Our team meeting is hybrid. Those in person enjoy a good cake from Paulina and Rudi.

ChaCha comes for lunch and a few cookies. The last Christmas tree, which gets wrapped and put away with decorations intact, leaves our bedroom table to be stored away. We'll miss the soft light in the evenings. We are officially Christmas-decor-free.

W and PakG head out for the remaining pieces of table and chairs (68 legs, total!)

"Ibu, your house is full!" exclaim the helpers when the furniture shows up. "Where will you put that?

I acquire what feels right at the time. Remember the TV trays from "the olden days?" This will have the same function; it comes apart in 8 rounds and a center circle.

Indonesians are clever craftsmen. When you take the round table apart, you get a lot of small tables for a laptop or a plate.

A friend likes this patio set so we send it over to her place.

The white table from outside becomes an entry table.

As I settle into the morning, these bullet journal questions capture my attention. They're designed for times of overwhelm or confusion. At the beginning of the year, many encourage journaling. It's fun to see "embrace inconsistency" on one. (Lost the source, sorry!)

Yup, inconsistent blurts would describe my journals. They are my ongoing "wild and mean" books. I write what won't find the light of day otherwise: processes and annoyances, as well as hopes and dreams. Hopefully someone burns my journals when I die rather than reading them. I've been writing (off and on) in the latest fat book for almost a year.

Juno is an efficient small-animal killer. Today she captures and plays with a sparrow who tried to pick up some dog food. She's quick, efficient, and her mouth is as gentle as a retriever. She takes her time to play with the little bird on her way to the backyard, where she tosses it into the compost. We have less birds trying to steal from the dog dishes since she came.

Thursday 

We're on a new hike through the vegetable fields that cling to the volcanic hillsides.

Someone finds an empty can of Roundup, a toxic weed-killer. Oh boy, that's not healthy.

The fields are laid out in rows under plastic, with bamboo stakes carrying the taller crops upward.

Lunch at IP Farms is good - it's an organic farm so they use compost instead of synthetic fertilizers. Today it's windy so there are less flies than usual, which is nice.

When we get home, the helpers have made 4 kinds of cookies.

We exhausted the supply of 6000 cookies eaten or given away during the Christmas season. (And I don't even really like cookies ...)

Friday

On our porch, the hoya continues to bloom and scent the whole porch.

After a morning walk and several calls, I remember that we bought silk flowers on a trip to the Philippine, @50-90% off (of course). Using them will save us money on hall flowers. So I find them in a cabinet and spread them out on the nook table.

There are many colors to choose from.

I put a two bouquets and a few green stems into a dry vase, along with grass plucked on our walk. To finish off, we tuck 2 palm twigs on either side. Odd, but it works. I'll look at it again Sunday morning.

I drape a few silk sprigs on a warped piece of wood. Pretty.

The living rooms slips from Christmas Red -

to a quiet purple.

The bookshelves get their black boxes back.

 

The dining room becomes more restful with a blue tablecloth.

Saturday

We stroll the block and pause to watch neighborhood kids at their soccer camp. They work and play hard.

There's a new section of wall going in along the street: the rocks have been set and mortared in for one side of the gutter; the other side will be built with these little boulders.

One end of the new "tall wall" (9' at the far end, 8' here) is an interesting project.

I poke my head through the scaffolding to see how it has evolved from foundation to top course. Every day, there are more rocks, more sand for mortar, and men crawling beside and atop to build it. It's quite amazing. And almost finished.

What are you building at the start of the New Year?

Read more:

*Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Isaiah 60:1

*Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. He prayed to the Lord, and he answered him and gave him a sign. But Hezekiah did not respond according to the benefit done to him for his heart was proud. 2 Chronicles 32:24-25

*God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. 1 Peter 5:5

Moravian Prayer: Give us humble hearts, gracious God, that we may see the world as you desire it to be and that we might know our place in it. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Happy New Year 2023 - and a rat

And just like that, another calendar page turns over. The flowers are beautiful this time of year. This hedge has many colors of flowers in it.

The tropics have a lot of interesting flowers.

These exotic bulbs light up the side of the street.

The neighbor's addition is going well. W and I watch it go up, day after day.

Anytime Bailey is too muddy to come inside, he watches me through the glass door. He follows my path through the house, window to window. He's such a fun companion. In a few minutes, the mud sheds off and he can come inside.

Friday, December 30, 2023

There's a bit of this and that - I start peeling the paint chips off the folders. 532 paint chips later, I'm done.

They're spread onto a black-painted canvas. Each is 1X1.25" (2X3cm). I'm thinking about what I want to do it with it: a face, a landscape, a pattern? or ...?

Saturday

It's quiet. We get ready for tomorrow's New Years gathering. I take apart the wonderful but dying Christmas bouquet. It yields greens and aging roses. I submerge them, flowers and stems, in water. A trip to the garden gives me a pail full of flowers. It toss everything into the full bucket of water to hydrate.

A few hours later, a bit of jostling in the old oasis results in a new bouquet for New Years.

(After the weekend, the roses have drooped beyond repair. The surviving pieces give us one last bouquet in a new vase.)

We decided against a neighborhood New Year's Eve party this year: we're too tired to ask for that much permission. Instead, we contact those we love. We watch a movie, pray together, and go to sleep mid-evening. The neighbor's guests keep coming and going so the dogs are in a furor. We finally put them in crates and things are quieter. They're amazing watch dogs.

Sunday

We wake to a new year. We are at IES early but thing go sideways and back to center a few times before everyone arrives. It's the nature of events with many moving parts (and cultures.) 

When the morning is done, we have had a good gathering. New Years Day is normally the smallest gathering of the year: people stay up late with their families and friends the night before. We are happy to see those who show up!

W feels dizzy so we don't go out for lunch. It's another quiet day. My one self-assigned chore last week was language review, which didn't happen.

Today I finally get to it but my mind is blank. I've forgotten most of what we learned earlier in the year. Oh well - I rarely use Indonesian so the words get lost. I'll relearn them.

Monday

W and I do a quick walk around the block. The wall is going up stone by stone.

Baby Dutch still has their selfie station up. It looks like a Hansel & Gretel cottage.

PakG drops me at the school 15 minutes early - so I sit on the front step. Ibu Roni from my last series of classes comes to say hi. She introduces Etsha, my new guru. Oh boy, have I ever forgotten a lot! We review words and chat in Indonesian. She gently corrects my grammar and mispronunciation. I gratefully accept.

It was much easier studying with someone else (Kristi, last round). In a bigger class, you hear the words repeated and have time to think them over. My brain is tired after 2 hours and I'm happy to go home.

From ground beef and other stuff in the fridge, IbuS & I make meatballs. We eat lunch before W shows me how to upload the classroom files so I can retrieve them. I study and listen to past lessons most of the afternoon.

W's project is replacing a broken fan in the upstairs (guest) bathroom. When he's done, both our bathroom fan and that one are purring.

Supper is meatballs with chili and fresh-baked bread = a taste of home. As I'm cooking, a rat jumps up on the counter from behind the oven, sees me, and jumps back down. It runs into the living room and climbs up into the ceiling, where we've heard it gnawing wood for a week. Ugh.

W catches the rat in a glue trap within a few hours and disposes of it. We leave a few more traps out just in case more rodents live in the ceiling.

We watch Glass Onion, the sequel to the Knives Out movie we recently watched. It's interesting to compare reviews with our reaction to the film. I hope parents don't let their kids watch it. I'm trying to think of what my reaction would have been at ages 13, 15, 17 ... Beyond its suspenseful plot, it contains violence, sexual content, and foul language. It's like bathing in mud - and confirms that Hollywood-style movies and my soul don't get along.

Tuesday

2 more hours of language school. I get another 20 words to absorb. Once I'm done, I wait on the street and spot this strange tree "across the street" (sebarang jalan - see, Indonesian is nothing like English!). The round spiky fruit is not edible but it's pretty.

When i get home, the big Christmas tree has been taken upstairs. The rest of the living room is reset with broken glass on the ledge (from 2 mirrors that smashed last year). It's a reminder to shine with all the broken parts of the past. The art will come down later this week.

Someone broke a big ceramic tile (used on the kitchen counter) over the holidays. The pieces create a nice line behind a panting in the dining room.

The day fills with calls. People want to pray together as the New Year begins. What a privilege to share the joys and burdens of life.

Read more:

*I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord has done for us. Isaiah 63:7

*My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? Psalm 42:2

*For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:8

*If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Romans 8:31-32 

*God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Ephesians 2:4-5

Moravian Prayers: Lord, your promises are sure. You guide us and guard us, protect us and save us, but best of all, you love us into eternity. As this year ends, walk with us into a new beginning, dear Lord. We thank you for the gift of curiosity, the hunger to know more of you, and the desire to grow deeper roots into the soil of your grace and love.

We ask, Lord, and you respond. Merciful God, we are grateful for your tenderness and patience with our failures and flaws. Help us to fix our hearts on the power of your love and the transformation it brings, as we journey with our imperfections. AMEN.