INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day IX

Oh my goodness, it's been over two years since this mission trip, and I'm only posting the last of the episodes now! I'm so sorry for my lack of discipline. But I am very happy to announce that I have finally finished undergraduate studies, which leaves me with an honours bachelor of arts degree in humanities! I'm definitely utterly blessed and very grateful to my parents who have been very supportive of my studies. Next, on to the other BIG things in life!!

I have mixed feelings about this episode. I'm glad the series is almost over (which means I can focus on something else), but at the same time, it's been a fun ride posting about the trip. Nonetheless, I hope all of you have been enjoying my mission blog posts. I encourage everyone to do something extraordinary at least once in life and share it to the world. It truly is a satisfying experience. For my loyal readers, thank you for sticking by me through the end. I always appreciate your feedback. God bless.

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Sunday, May 29, 2011

Jagalan, Surakarta

Today we had our 2 Sunday services – the morning one at 7AM and the afternoon one at 5PM. At around 4:30 this morning after our morning prayer and devotions, I went up to the rooftop to take pictures and record a video of the pig slaughter to take home as hardproof evidence. Unfortunately, I attempted to no avail since I could not get a clear shot. It was still extremely dark and the distance between the abattoir and where I was standing was quite far. Instead, I settled for the excruciating sound of the crying pigs and images of the slaughterhouse, as well as the pigs before and after they were slaughtered (see images from the last post here).

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day VIII

May 28, 2011

Jagalan, Surakarta

I am a very curious person. When curiosity strikes my conscience, most of the time following through becomes compulsive. That is what happened to me today. This morning I braced myself to actually visit the slaughterhouse in the flesh. I had been waiting to do this since the second day I got here (because on the first day, I arrived after they had finished butchering the pigs). I hope my photo-taking skills were subtle enough as not to have offended the workers there. The experience was more emotional and psychological rather than physical. But of course, I dared not making any tangible contact with the animal's dreary and gruesome remains. Still, my insides were churning as I allowed my mind to conceptualize the notion of consuming this animal as tonight's dinner, and the fact that back in Canada, I had been indulging in the scrumptious, mouthwatering tang of this animal in the form of a succulent rack of BBQ Baby Back Ribs. Now it has definitely given me the heebie jeebies. Here are some visuals to feed your lingering curiosity. May I warn those devout pork-eaters, however, that after seeing these pictures, you might not be as big of fans of pork anymore (or not, if you've got "less of a heart" for "that kind of stuff"). Proceed at your own discretion.

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day VII

May 27, 2011

Jagalan, Surakarta

This morning, the pigs were yet again, screaming at the top of their lungs, ruthlessly and endlessly crying for mercy (if you don't know what I'm talking about, refer to the post here). 

It was Kak Ester and Kak Elyda's turn to present at today's seminar. Their topic was Children's Ministry. Kak Ester did the first half and Kak Elyda took the second. Their presentation was highly interactive and fairly engaging! We got to do a really neat tie-dye artwork nearing the end.

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day VI

May 26, 2011

Jagalan, Surakarta

I gave a 2-part, 2-hour lecture today at STT AIMI (School of Theology). I had not fully finished my PowerPoint presentation, so last night I had to stay up later and woke up later to finish it. As an unfortunate consequence, I missed my daily morning devotions today. Anyway, I was fairly nervous to give my lecture, as I had never done anything alike in my life. My seminar series was entitled "Relationship With God Through Songs". And yes, the whole thing was successfully conducted in Indonesian (praise the Lord), even though there were a few glitches here and there with the vocabulary (I promise I'm still a native speaker!). But overall, the students very receptive and welcoming to what I had to say. Whenever I struggled with some of the Indonesian words in the middle of the lecture, the students would always help me figure out the right words – their English was surprisingly good! And they were hilarious!! Because of this, I had such fun and greatly enjoyed leading the seminar, and the whole 2 hours of lecture went by in a breeze! It was more of a casual lecture as opposed to a formal one, which was better for me because I had been worried that I would bore the students to sleep (typical me).

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day V

May 25, 2011

Jagalan, Surakarta

Today we returned from Muneng, back to Jagalan in the afternoon. In the morning, Ibu Suryani (Mas Urip's wife) took us to their carrot and mustard cabbage plantations to help harvest the ripe ones. But because I was holding the camera, I did not get my hands dirty from plucking out the vegetables. I do not remember the exact hours we spent there, but it was productive and we managed to harvest quite a big number. Ibu Suryani, out of the kindness of her heart, even let us take some of each to bring home to Jagalan.

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day IV (Warning: picture heavy)

Muneng, Central Java

May 24, 2011

We left for Muneng around 7 AM today. From what I was told, the village at which we are staying is located behind Mount Merapi. We took a few pictures along the way as we were reaching to the top. We were able to see Mount Merapi from a good distance.

The mission crew + Mama Damaris in the van

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day III (iii)

Here is the third (last) part of the mission series numero trois! I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted the previous episode of my mission trip series. Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy the following post :-).

Click here for pt. i
Click here for pt. ii

Part iii

After Malanggaten, we visited an orphanage called "Anak Seribu Pulau" in Karanganyar, Surakarta, which is also one of the constituents of Ibu Mary's organization, Yayasan Nafiri Kasih (YANAKA). Before I even got out of the car when we arrived, this one particular child was standing near the car and said, "Halo, kakak." At first I could not recall who he was by looking at his face. I then spotted Moris and was reminded of the children I had met at the kindergarten school, Tunas Bangsa, in Pucang Sawit. Apparently some of the kids at Tunas Bangsa live in the orphanage. I was beyond thrilled to see them again!
At the orphanage, there were many kids. What struck me was the fact that a portion of these children still have parents; they just aren't here or are unable to take care of them, mostly due to harsh financial circumstances. It was truly amazing and a humbling experience to witness their mundane living environment, yet these children are living with such zeal, joy, and happiness. Not to mention they looked very healthy and well-fed. By visiting these places, God opened up my heart and mind to realize that I have a passion for children, indeed.

Visit Anak Seribu Pulau blog here!

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day III (ii)

Here is a continuation from the earlier blog post I posted with respect to the mission trip, dated May 23, 2011. Oh, by the way, Happy 1st of August! It's Civic Holiday here in Canada, so we get a day off :-). The intention of this holiday is to 'not work', but on the contrary (as ever the case with me), I will be working on my essay. I hope everybody's been enjoying their long weekend.

Previous post: click here for pt. i

Part ii

Subsequently, we dropped by a plantation in Malanggaten. There were other miscellaneous crops estates, ranging from corn, wheat, etc. Our church intended to oversee their project, which was to build a plantation block house (I don't know what it's called in both English and Indonesian – maybe Gubuk Sawah? If anyone does, please do let me know). I just received confirmation from Ko Steven, saying that they have successfully built the house. I will try to ask for pictures, so I can post them here. In the mean time, here are the ones that we took:

Silly me! I must have forgotten to take a full-sized photo of the house by itself. I apologize.

For reference purposes, it is that house behind me (and the one in which I took this photo).

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day III (i)

Dear my lovely readers,

I sincerely apologize for the lack of updates on my mission trip series. I've been utterly (and honestly) busy with summer school, as it has kept me occupied for the past 3 hectic weeks. Right now I have a little time to transcribe the next entry from my diary onto the blog before I start doing some school work :-). Enjoy!

P.S. Because the entry for this particular day is quite lengthy, I didn't want to bombard you with you with an extensive post. On that note, I decided to divide it into 3 parts :-) and this is the first. Warning: this one is picture-heavy.

Jagalan, Surakarta

Monday, May 23, 2011

One of the things I've noticed from this trip is that with each day, there are more and more activities, hence more amazing experiences. Today we left the house at 7 in the morning and visited a Kindergarten school in Pucang Sawit, called Taman Kanak-Kanak Tunas Bangsa. The school is part of Nafiri Kasih Organization, which was founded and is now headed by Ibu Mary Hartanti. Because Ibu Mary is staying in Jakarta at the moment, the person who currently runs the school is Ibu Mary's sister, Bunda Herti. As the name suggests, this school only consists of two separate classes: a Junior and a Senior kindergarten class. I can't recall how many kids there were in total. When we arrived at the school, the kids were very excited to welcome their unexpected visitors. They were running around, just as kids their age would. The two groups were then combined into one big class for our presentation. Ka Ester shared an interactive story, Ka Elyda taught them a new song, and I had my allocation of teaching them a bit of English. Two kids stood out to me the most: Michael and Moris (unfortunately, I don't have a picture along with them :(). At this school, we distributed books and milk. There was a swarm of warmth sweeping us off our feet to see these kids so happy with what they received. Not to mention, they were bright students! Their English was surprisingly GREAT. They were able to answer me back in English. When we were about to leave, the kids set out to see us off and shook our hands. Some kids had even done it 3 times. I thought, how different the situation would be to that of the city! Rural kids sure know how to put a smile on our faces with their amiable presence and childish, yet genuine disposition.

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day II

Jagalan, Surakarta

Sunday, May 22, 2011

I thought I had the strangest dream when I woke up this morning. I heard sounds I would perceive as the excruciating screams and cries of a man being possessed by a demon. It was tremendously audible from where I was sleeping in my pastor's room. Later on in the day I asked Kak Elyda (she and Kak Ester lived in this dormitory several years ago) what those sounds were and where they came from. She casually said they were the sounds of pigs being slaughtered. It would appear that there is a pig slaughterhouse situated right behind the building in which we are staying. Well, that uh... explains a lot.

The abattoir

This morning we were supposed to wake up at 4am for our daily morning prayer and devotions. However, my roommates and I misunderstood the given information and set our alarm to 4:30 instead, so we missed this morning's devotional meeting. The prayer is usually held inside the church, which is located upstairs. The only way to go upstairs is to first go outside, where the stairs are, through the front door. At 4:30, we found that the front door was already locked from the outside. To compensate for our negligence, the three of us did our own prayer and devotion session together in our room.

INDONESIA: Mission Trip 2011 Day I

After a long and patient wait, finally!!!!! I'm back in Canada now and I'm very sorry for all the pending. I thought I could have started this blog posting series back in June, but it turned out I was kept occupied by family matters and didn't have much time to sit down and post. SO, to all my loyal and faithful readers, I offer my huge apology. I was back in Canada 3 days ago, on June 27. It's been rather a [jet lagged] rest, but now I'm ready to start this mission series. The format is simple: I will be writing in a diary mode. I brought my favourite notebook with me on the trip and I wrote down everything every day for the 9 days that I was there. I may not reference what I've already mentioned in my earlier blog posts regarding the mission trip. If you have not read them already, here are the links (earliest-latest):

• Indonesia: Pre-Mission Trip 2011 pt. I

• Indonesia: Pre-Mission Trip 2011 pt. II

• Indonesia: Pre-Mission Trip 2011 pt. III

• INDONESIA: Mission Trip {Introduction}

Jagalan, Surakarta

Saturday May 21, 2011

At 22:06

We flew from Jakarta at 11:40 in the morning by Sriwijaya Air and arrived in Surakarta (Solo) at 12:55. The first thing I noticed when I got here is that Solo is much less crowded than Jakarta. But it's HOT, and I don't mean that figuratively. It was a scorching afternoon, as the sun played her joke on us. The other 3 people who came with me on this mission trip are Kak Ester, Kak Elyda, and Ko Steven. All three have a theological title: Evangelist, Junior Pastor, and Pastor, respectively. I surely felt a bit out of place being the only one with no title whatsoever, but I didn't let that stop me anyway. One of the pastors (whose name escaped my mind) fetched us from the airport, accompanied by the senior pastor, Pak Markuat ('Pak' means 'Mr.' in English). He drove us in a mini-bus type of car. I was humbled by his car - an old, beaten down, shoddy vehicle, whose machine clonked and clanked as it went, but it was able to carry us to our destination without a single scratch. OK, maybe the car was not completely beaten down, but it was definitely not your average car, accessorized with a radio and/or a functioning air conditioning system. In exchange for those, we got to indulge in the 'natural' Solo air.. and smell.

INDONESIA: MISSION TRIP {Introduction}

I HAVE RETURNED, MY DEAR READERS!!!!!!!

I'm finally back from my 9-day mission trip!! It was hands down the best and most amazing experience I've had in my life. I have so many interesting, tear-jerking, heart-wrenching stories to tell you! But first, please allow me to rest. My teammates and I departed from Surakarta (or Solo) at 5:40pm today, and we arrived in Jakarta one hour later. Our pick-up friend was an hour late, so I got to my aunt's house pretty late, as well. But praise the Lord, we made it back safe and sound without missing any limbs (hehe). I am completely restored, refreshed, rejuvenated! I'm ready to work hard and fulfill the undefinable will of God that's been laid out in front of me.

One VERY important lesson I've learned from this trip is that Jesus is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH bigger than any of our problems. Mathematically, it would look like this:

JESUS >>> our problems

Updates are coming up very soon! I just have to finish writing the entries in my diary first before I start posting them on here :-).

I've missed you all!! Much love always,

Hazel xx

Indonesia: Pre-mission trip 2011 pt. III

I apologize for the lack of updates. I've been extremely busy in Indonesia, spending time with my family and traveling here and there. Also, I'm afflicted by what I like to call the typical Indonesian Dysfunctional Digestive Syndrome (or IDDS). My poor stomach has been very upset for the past 2 weeks, following my arrival in Indonesia. I've been swallowing countless digestive tablets and Norit (carbonated pills) to no avail. I'm sensing a slight burn in my gastric pouch as I'm typing this. Moving on.

Those who don't follow me on Twitter may not be aware that my mission trip has been pushed back to the 21st of May, which falls on a Saturday. We are coming back 9 days later, on the 30th. I believe we will be leaving by plane from Jakarta to Solo. We are having our first pre-trip meeting tomorrow, May 16. I will update you with more details as soon as possible. The theme I have been given to cover is "Relationship with God through music/songs". I'm still working on both the Power Point and written work, as I seem to work best under a lot of pressure.

I'm sorry to cut this brief post short. It is actually almost 2 o'clock in the morning (05/16) in Jakarta, so I need to get some sleep. No, it isn't my jet lag; I took a 3-hour nap at 2/3pm-ish today. I will keep my readers updated with what's going on with this mission trip.

~* COUNTDOWN: 5 DAYS *~

Bonne nuit,

Hazel x

Indonesia: Pre-mission trip 2011 pt. II

It's coming, it's coming, it's coming!! Here is the countdown till my summer mission :-) (I would manually count it myself, but since I'm terribly awful at Math, I'm not even going to try.)

Due date: May 15, 2011

I am excited. I don't know what else I can say or feel. This is going to be my first-ever bona fide mission trip. When I was 9 or 10 years old, I went on "ministry trips" to the rural areas of East and Central Java. I consider them ministry rather than mission trips because I was simply going around singing at the local churches there, but didn't do any preaching, evangelizing, and/or community service whatsoever. This time it'll be different because I've been asked to share a little bit of my testimony, to sing, and to speak and lead the youth. From what I was told, we are also going deep into several different villages to serve the people there, while testifying our faith to them. There's only about a month left before I rock it, but I still haven't prepared my speeches and whatnot (I'm definitely bringing my flashcard pack everywhere!). Hopefully my prayers will be answered in a swarm of inspiration for the next 2 weeks or so. I can already feel that this is going to be a ground-breaking, life-changing experience for me. It's what I've been waiting to do all my life. God is finally using me to live out my passion and do something outside my comfort zone for the good of others. Those of you who know me, follow me on Twitter, or read my blog probably know how passionate I am to be involved in charity work. Well, guess what? My dream is coming true! What I can do now is to just view the upcoming few weeks in optimism (as I'm finishing my third year of university), get myself ready, and trust in HIS power. Only His hand can get me through each step of life.

Your prayers are crucial. I'm asking every one of you to please pray for our team, the people, and God's work in this operation. May it be as fruitful as a fertile mother and produce as many offspring of love as God desires.

Love in Christ,

Hazel Theresia

Indonesia: Pre-mission trip 2011 pt. I

Hi all, I will be starting a new blog series, in which I write about my mission trip to Indonesia. It is divided into different parts. The first parts contains:

• General Information

• Itinerary

• Early/rough schedule

• High expectations :-D

General Information

My church in Indonesia, Gereja Bethel Apostolik Profetik (GBAP), does an annual mission trip to different parts of Indonesia. I decided to join them for an upcoming mission trip in the summer this year. For the most part, our mission will take place in Central Java (where our head church is located) during the month of May. I will be there for at least a week serving and "doing various things." That is still vague as I don't know exactly what we're going to be doing, but I will update you as soon as I gather more info.

Itinerary

My flight has been booked and I am set to depart for Jakarta, Indonesia via Hong Kong on Monday, May 2, 2011 around 15:00, I believe. This will be my second time traveling on an airplane alone - I did manage to go to Indonesia by myself in July last year. People, I arrived safe and sound! :-) Just in case you were concerned. As of now, I am still unsure about who is supposed to fetch me from the airport. But I must say, my homeless status in Indonesia has certainly put me in a highly uncomfortable plight. I would strongly reckon that a lot of people have been burdened by me, due to the fact that I don't own a permanent home (or a home at all, for that matter). I will have to sojourn at someone else's house over the course of my trip.

I am scheduled to come back to my beloved maple country on Monday, June 27, 2011. It's a long trip, indeed. I could be asked to stay longer if I didn't have summer school as an excuse for my 'early' return.

Rough Schedule

Please bear in mind that this schedule is tentative and still susceptible to further changes. Here, I have broken it down into a timeline mode.

MAY

Sunday 15 - Service in Colomadu, GBAP Smirna @ 8:00

-> Sharing group (youth and adults) after service

Monday 16 - Sharing group (youth) in Colomadu, GBAP Smirna @ 18:00

Tuesday 17 - Preparation and visitation to Solo, Malanggaten, Pucang Sawit, and Muneng

Wednesday 18 - Bible training STT Aimi @ 18:00

Thursday 19 - Sharing with Colomadu's team; night prayer; Jagalan

Friday 20 - Training at STT Aimi @ 18:00

Saturday 21 - Youth Service

Sunday 22 - Morning service -> divided by areas: Malanggaten + Jagalan; afternoon service

Thus far, this is more or less what I have. We are also going to be visiting an orphanage while we are there.

For the first two weeks or so in the month of June, I will be serving locally, specifically in East Jakarta. I've been asked to speak at a youth service in English (I shouldn't be nervous since it is my first language, but I am!).

Picture 1:

The white-haired lady standing up is the head pastor of our church.

Picture 2:

Head pastor and congregation of GBAP Smirna

As you can tell, I am pretty stoked for this mission trip. Not only that this is my first 'legitimate' mission trip, it's also something I've been waiting and wanting to do for YEARS. You could just imagine how excited I must be to have finally been given the chance to do it!

I require a small favour from you, my readers: PLEASE pray for me as I go through the whole mission process and progress. Pray that everything will pass smoothly and that nothing goes wrong. Pray that every heart and life be touched by our ministry. Pray that every soul be blessed by what we are bringing and giving. Pray for those who are lost, that they WILL be saved and found in the eternal love of Jesus Christ. Prayers are crucial, and yours could mean a great deal. Your prayers and support are tremendously valued. Thank you.

From the deepest depth of my humbled heart,

Hazel