The plan for today was that Liz B, Merridee and I would be at the meeting in Tawangmangu, then have lunch with Sam and Carol, and then head down to Gardingan to join the others at 1. But as you know if you have been here, plans can change at the drop of a hat, and ours have certainly changed a few times!!!
Our morning meeting went well, Merridee did her testimony and I spoke - the same message I did last night in Gardingan but stepped up a bit for the bible college students (as opposed to the teenagers in Fera's church) - plus I had a MUCH better translator so it didn't need to be quite so simple :)
Lunch was amazing, as per usual, but we had to eat without Sam, as he had gone to a town near solo to preach this morning, and left at 11am but what should have been a 40 minute trip ended up taking him 4 hours, the traffic is CRAZY because it is the last day of their public holiday. On top of that our driver went to visit family in another village and a different driver turned up, who spoke no English, and had no idea where Fera lived. Hmm. So things were a wee bit interesting there!! so in the end we decided we'd be silly to try to go, so we have ended up stuck at Tawangmangu for the afternoon with nothing to do...the students are out for the afternoon so we are sitting around the table drinking coffee and eating crackers and avocado and wondering what the real missionaries are doing!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently they had a 5.30am prayer meeting and then a 9am kids programme to do. Then the afternoon looked to be free until their 7pm meeting tonight, but not sure what will happen now...they may have to leave early if it's going to take more than 4 hours to get home!!!! It will be very interesting to see how their day has been. Not sure what we will do tonight...I don't know if they have an evening meeting here or not.
So that's pretty much covered everything up to now I think!!! I'm sure I've forgotten stuff, but never mind, might think of it later. And I'll try to get one of the others to write on here about their experience in Gardingan last night and today.
Hope all's well back home!!!
See ya,
Kirsten :)
Sunday, September 12, 2010
House of Sinai and Gardingan - Sat Sept 11
On Saturday we went down to Solo in the morning (met Fera there) and visited the House of Sinai. What an incredible place, and an unbelievable ministry that couple has - taking in the most mentally ill people around, and through simply love, prayer, and worship they all leave perfectly healed and go on to live very normal lives with jobs and marriages etc. Takes an average of 6 months before they are healed, but some as short as two months. When we were visiting with the ladies in their dorm they asked if Liz Griffiths was Princess Diana!!!! And Fera told them yes!!!!! hahaha!!!!
Went to Indonesian McDonalds for lunch, complete with rice and McSoup, and then to Gardingan where Fera and Debbie showed us around the church and the community, and told us about their projects etc. Very cool, and soooo lovely meeting the local people and seeing the way they live. I LOVE that I am here...can't quite get over the fact that I am cruising the streets of Indonesia, where the painted lines on the roads are purely decorative, and walking with these people through their villages, just seeing them go about their day to day lives, spraying their rice paddies, tiny little old ladies carrying big bundles of sticks on their backs, children running around the streets, it is seriously amazing and I am loving it so much!!!
Oh yes, we did have a bit of concern about going to Gardingan on Saturday, sept 11, what with the whole koran burning crazy pastor and the unrest, but after a bit of communication back and forth everybody decided it would be fine, which it was, you wouldn't have known anything was up at all.
That night we had the youth meeting which I spoke at, and Becs did her testimony again. Think it all went well!! Then Liz B, Merridee and I headed back up to Tawangmangu, while Liz G, Rebecca, and Janette stayed down at Gardingan for the night (they both wanted us in two different places at the same time so we had to split). We got home just before 10. Not sure how the others would have slept - Gardingan is MUCH hotter, with some vicious mozzies which we don't have up here, and no aircon. Hopefully they were ok. Will write about today in a different post :)
Went to Indonesian McDonalds for lunch, complete with rice and McSoup, and then to Gardingan where Fera and Debbie showed us around the church and the community, and told us about their projects etc. Very cool, and soooo lovely meeting the local people and seeing the way they live. I LOVE that I am here...can't quite get over the fact that I am cruising the streets of Indonesia, where the painted lines on the roads are purely decorative, and walking with these people through their villages, just seeing them go about their day to day lives, spraying their rice paddies, tiny little old ladies carrying big bundles of sticks on their backs, children running around the streets, it is seriously amazing and I am loving it so much!!!
Oh yes, we did have a bit of concern about going to Gardingan on Saturday, sept 11, what with the whole koran burning crazy pastor and the unrest, but after a bit of communication back and forth everybody decided it would be fine, which it was, you wouldn't have known anything was up at all.
That night we had the youth meeting which I spoke at, and Becs did her testimony again. Think it all went well!! Then Liz B, Merridee and I headed back up to Tawangmangu, while Liz G, Rebecca, and Janette stayed down at Gardingan for the night (they both wanted us in two different places at the same time so we had to split). We got home just before 10. Not sure how the others would have slept - Gardingan is MUCH hotter, with some vicious mozzies which we don't have up here, and no aircon. Hopefully they were ok. Will write about today in a different post :)
Tawangmangu Bible College - Thurs and Fri
Hi!! Well I have a few days to catch up on!!! Last time I wrote we were about to board our flight to solo, on thursday morning.
We arrived in Solo about 10.30 local time i think, interesting airport, and Liz B almost had her malaria tablets taken off her! That would have been interesting! Couldn't get any money out because of the public holiday - it is the end of Ramandan (sp?) and so they are all on holiday thurs-sun. Which means....things are VERY quiet for us!!! We all felt a wee bit guilty for the first day or two, very relaxed, just lots of hanging out together and with Sam and Carol who run the college, and with the students...eventually...after they got over their shyness!!! Sooo interesting talking to Carol and Sam and hearing their stories...they are AMAZING people and are making an ENORMOUS difference in this nation. Thursday after dinner we had a bit of a tour of the college and met some of the students in their rooms etc. It's fun to talk to them but they are really embarrassed about their english so they are not very willing to try!!!
That night was the massive celebration for the muslims ending their fast etc so it was chanting and fireworks ALL NIGHT, but we managed to have a fairly decent sleep despite all the racket around us. Liz G and I are sleeping in Sam and Carol's house and the rest of them in the wee dorm rooms below. We are VERY comfortable here and feel like we are cheating a wee bit on this missionary thing!!! No reusing teabags here!! The food is incredible, the people are amazing, the climate is perfect (cooler cos we are up the mountain), and we are being very well looked after. :)
On friday morning we got up for their 5.30am prayer meeting which was great - an hour of prayer and worship, and some songs we knew, although it's pretty hard to remember the english words when everybody around you is singing in indonesian!!!!! When they have the words on the powerpoint we just sing it in indonesian, it's quite an easy language to read. After breakfast went down to the waterfall which was absolutely beautiful, and heaps of monkeys all around which was pretty exciting. One tried to grab Rebecca's water bottle out of her hand. We are like celebrities here, everybody wants their photo taken with the white people hahaha and strangers push their very shy little children towards us to take their pictures with us!! Pretty funny. That afternoon I think was just more hanging out...as far as I can remember. chatting to students etc. At night we had our first meeting, Becs did her testimony and Liz spoke, both did very well :)
I'm going to end this here and carry on in a seperate post cos otherwise it's gonna get ridiculously long and nobody will bother to read it!!!!
:)
We arrived in Solo about 10.30 local time i think, interesting airport, and Liz B almost had her malaria tablets taken off her! That would have been interesting! Couldn't get any money out because of the public holiday - it is the end of Ramandan (sp?) and so they are all on holiday thurs-sun. Which means....things are VERY quiet for us!!! We all felt a wee bit guilty for the first day or two, very relaxed, just lots of hanging out together and with Sam and Carol who run the college, and with the students...eventually...after they got over their shyness!!! Sooo interesting talking to Carol and Sam and hearing their stories...they are AMAZING people and are making an ENORMOUS difference in this nation. Thursday after dinner we had a bit of a tour of the college and met some of the students in their rooms etc. It's fun to talk to them but they are really embarrassed about their english so they are not very willing to try!!!
That night was the massive celebration for the muslims ending their fast etc so it was chanting and fireworks ALL NIGHT, but we managed to have a fairly decent sleep despite all the racket around us. Liz G and I are sleeping in Sam and Carol's house and the rest of them in the wee dorm rooms below. We are VERY comfortable here and feel like we are cheating a wee bit on this missionary thing!!! No reusing teabags here!! The food is incredible, the people are amazing, the climate is perfect (cooler cos we are up the mountain), and we are being very well looked after. :)
On friday morning we got up for their 5.30am prayer meeting which was great - an hour of prayer and worship, and some songs we knew, although it's pretty hard to remember the english words when everybody around you is singing in indonesian!!!!! When they have the words on the powerpoint we just sing it in indonesian, it's quite an easy language to read. After breakfast went down to the waterfall which was absolutely beautiful, and heaps of monkeys all around which was pretty exciting. One tried to grab Rebecca's water bottle out of her hand. We are like celebrities here, everybody wants their photo taken with the white people hahaha and strangers push their very shy little children towards us to take their pictures with us!! Pretty funny. That afternoon I think was just more hanging out...as far as I can remember. chatting to students etc. At night we had our first meeting, Becs did her testimony and Liz spoke, both did very well :)
I'm going to end this here and carry on in a seperate post cos otherwise it's gonna get ridiculously long and nobody will bother to read it!!!!
:)
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Departing Singapore
Hi from Gate E6 at Singapore airport...we are boarding soon to Solo :)
A couple of things I forgot to report from yesterday, we also went to Raffles which was pretty fun to look around, and tried on $100,000 diamond rings in Tiffany's hahaha!!!
Also quote of the day from Janette: "It took us 45 minutes to cross that road". Lol this is actually true...it was CRAZY and we wandered all over the place trying to get to the other side of the road...however the ladies would like me to publish a disclaimer: they are setting up for the grand prix and there were barriers all along the roads separating the footpath from the road, so don't worry everybody, we are not a bunch of incompetent women, we are doing our best, it's just hard!!!! Runner up quote of the day from Liz: "I was a travel agent, not a tour guide". We had dinner at our hotel (the waitress was horrified that we had spent so many hours traipsing all over the city, she said "it's REALLY hard to get lost in Singapore!!!!) and then went to the night safari which was great and then home to bed for a VERY short sleep....alarms set for 3.45am aarrgghhh.
Hopefully we will be able to sleep on the plane, I think the flight is about 2.5 hours.
That's all!! We are all doing well!! Everybody says hi! :)
Over and out till I don't know when...
Kirsten on behalf of the team :)
A couple of things I forgot to report from yesterday, we also went to Raffles which was pretty fun to look around, and tried on $100,000 diamond rings in Tiffany's hahaha!!!
Also quote of the day from Janette: "It took us 45 minutes to cross that road". Lol this is actually true...it was CRAZY and we wandered all over the place trying to get to the other side of the road...however the ladies would like me to publish a disclaimer: they are setting up for the grand prix and there were barriers all along the roads separating the footpath from the road, so don't worry everybody, we are not a bunch of incompetent women, we are doing our best, it's just hard!!!! Runner up quote of the day from Liz: "I was a travel agent, not a tour guide". We had dinner at our hotel (the waitress was horrified that we had spent so many hours traipsing all over the city, she said "it's REALLY hard to get lost in Singapore!!!!) and then went to the night safari which was great and then home to bed for a VERY short sleep....alarms set for 3.45am aarrgghhh.
Hopefully we will be able to sleep on the plane, I think the flight is about 2.5 hours.
That's all!! We are all doing well!! Everybody says hi! :)
Over and out till I don't know when...
Kirsten on behalf of the team :)
Hi everybody
Very quick update from singapore!
Had a great flight over here, was weird doing longhaul during the day, haven't done that before and you feel like you should be trying to sleep but actually there is no need...I found it quite odd.
Everybody is happy!
We arrived at our hotel about hmm 6.30ish last night adn then wandered around a bit and ended up having tea at mcdonalds lol and then went to bed pretty early, just before 9 (1am in nz - can't believe how good i was feeling esp since i had been up since 4.30 and hardly had any sleep before that!!!!) - but I didn't get to sleep till about 10 and then woke up at 3.30 but managed to sleep again between about 6 and 7.15 so not too bad overall.
Today we have eaten heaps and it has all been awesome and cheap hahahah!!!!
It has been BUCKETING down all day which was pretty funny cos we got completely lost and ended up walking around for several hours...so pretty tired feet but no grumpy ppl thank goodness everybody considered it an adventure lol!!! So yup, I think we've pretty much seen singapore lol. Went on the Singapore flyer which is like the london eye, was quite good but would have been better if the weather was fine and clear, that would have3 been amazing!
Now back at hotel for about an hour and then we go to the Night Safari which apparently is amazing so looking forward to that.
Early start tomorrow - get picked up at 4.30 am (awesome) to go to the airport and then it's off to indonesia!!! the holiday part is over hahaha :)
So I probably won't have any internet access until we are back in singapore next tuesday (I think...altho our itinerary i'm pretty much taking one day at a time, I have no idea what we are doing lol. Should probabyl have a look at that :)
So yay, so far so good!!!! Hope everybody is well at home!!!
Love Kirsten xx
Very quick update from singapore!
Had a great flight over here, was weird doing longhaul during the day, haven't done that before and you feel like you should be trying to sleep but actually there is no need...I found it quite odd.
Everybody is happy!
We arrived at our hotel about hmm 6.30ish last night adn then wandered around a bit and ended up having tea at mcdonalds lol and then went to bed pretty early, just before 9 (1am in nz - can't believe how good i was feeling esp since i had been up since 4.30 and hardly had any sleep before that!!!!) - but I didn't get to sleep till about 10 and then woke up at 3.30 but managed to sleep again between about 6 and 7.15 so not too bad overall.
Today we have eaten heaps and it has all been awesome and cheap hahahah!!!!
It has been BUCKETING down all day which was pretty funny cos we got completely lost and ended up walking around for several hours...so pretty tired feet but no grumpy ppl thank goodness everybody considered it an adventure lol!!! So yup, I think we've pretty much seen singapore lol. Went on the Singapore flyer which is like the london eye, was quite good but would have been better if the weather was fine and clear, that would have3 been amazing!
Now back at hotel for about an hour and then we go to the Night Safari which apparently is amazing so looking forward to that.
Early start tomorrow - get picked up at 4.30 am (awesome) to go to the airport and then it's off to indonesia!!! the holiday part is over hahaha :)
So I probably won't have any internet access until we are back in singapore next tuesday (I think...altho our itinerary i'm pretty much taking one day at a time, I have no idea what we are doing lol. Should probabyl have a look at that :)
So yay, so far so good!!!! Hope everybody is well at home!!!
Love Kirsten xx
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