Christmas in March

Yes, it's true.  Our family had a mini christmas celebration yesterday. I'm sure it's not that uncommon for people living overseas.  My in laws arrived this week, Mother, Father and brother in law.  They will be in our town wrapping up their life and ministry after 36 years of working here.  They hand carried Christmas presents for our family from their youngest son and daughter in law.  The boys enjoyed opening gifts that were wrapped in hand decorated paper with snowmen and Christmas trees.  Watching them made me so thankful for our families and the effort they go through to make our lives here easier and more enjoyable!

Tropical Rain

One of my favorite parts of living overseas is the tropical rain.  It rained all night last night and we woke up to the sounds of a gentle rain on our tin roof.  The rain means cooler weather until the sun comes out!  It means the fires that people have started to burn their trash or grass clippings will be put out! The down side is that it put a hiccup in my morning plans.  I was going to drop the boys at a friends house while I went shopping at the local outdoor market, but... I don't go to the market on rainy days.  Last time I made the attempt the my flip flops and the mud at the market was not a good combination!  I was also planning to pick up fruit and veggies for my mother in law and brother in law, who arrive tomorrow morning.

Return to Indonesia

Indonesia...We are looking forward to getting back. We have tickets for October 23, but we won't be able to use them! We have to reapply for a visa and our sponsor is telling us that will take 3 months. So, we are in the process of changing our tickets from October 23 to January 7. Although we are disappointed with the fact that we cannot back to Indonesia as planned we are looking forward to spending the holidays with family and friends. The extra time will also allow us to continue working towards a more stable financial status. Jon is planning to be a part of Urbana during this time also.

Our time in the states has been wonderful. We have traveled a lot and seen so many of our friends and family. Of course, there is always someone else to see, so in the coming months we may take another road trip!
Please pray that our visa gets processed quickly and before January!

Christmas traditions

Of course you already now that life in Papua is very different than life in America.  I wanted to share some Christmas traditions that we have experienced here in Indonesia so you can get a taste of just how different life is.  

Papua is considered a Christian province, much like American is a Christian nation.  Christmas is a lot less family oriented and much more focused on church activities.  People start preparing for their Christmas event as early as November (maybe sooner for some)!  Since there are so many different tribal groups out here each group has their own Christmas gathering.  It's common for national you know to come around asking for contributions to fund their event.  It varies from group to group, but generally these events consist of multiple speaches or sermons, lots of singing and a meal to wrap it up.  The meal itself is quite an ordeal.  They cook the food in traditional Papuan style.  Covered with banana leaves and hot rocks.  

Another tradition is visiting.  On Christmas day and the day after people spend most of their day visiting friends and co-workers.  The hosts serve lots of cookies and drinks and depending on the famiy they may even serve a meal.  I find this to be an interesting tradition.  It's very similar to what Muslims do at the end of the fasting month.  The difference is for Idul Fitri we would do all of the visiting to our neighbors house.  At Christmas friends and neighbors usually come to our house.  In the past this is one tradition we have participated in fully.  This year we chose to stay home with the kids instead of taking them around to house after house.  Although they enjoy all the tasty snacks it's hard for them to sit still for the long conversations!!

A final tradition that we were surprised by and just learned about this year is in relation to Santa! Parents sign up at their church to have Santa visit their kids.   Santa, a couple of fairies, and some guys painted with black tar hop into a pick up truck.  They drive to the childs house and the guys in black go in and make the children feel bad and ridicule them for being naughty, almost to the point of tears. Then santa and the fairies come in and make the kids feel better. Sometimes they may even give small gifts like candy.  We found out about this tradition because we saw the truck full of people drive by our house.  We had never seen anything like that in Sumatra, so we asked a friend what it was all about!  They even offered to come to our house, but we gently turned them down!!

Merry Christmas to your family!  We would love to hear what some of your traditions are!

Peace and Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful time celebrating Thanksgiving with our team last week.  Our teammates from New Zealand had their first Thanksgiving meal and really seemed to enjoy it.  

Today some of the local people will try raising a Papuan flag to claim independence from Indonesia.  This is illegal under Indo. law so who knows what will transpire.  Please pray that their will be peaceful demonstrations.  If you are interested in reading just a short  history about it you can do a google search for Papuan Independence and read what wikipedia has to say.  I found it very helpful to clear up a few questions that the local people couldn't answer for me.  

We hope to have a snail mail newsletter coming your way soon!

Local church meetings

This is a big week for the local church here. Jon works closely with them to train and disciple believers. They are having their annual business meeting this week. Jon has been to a few of the meetings to have a bit of input. It's also a great time to network and encourage the leaders. This morning he is scheduled to share about the churches role in cross cultural ministry. Please pray that the group would listen attentively and seriously consider what their role should be. I ask that because after a week of all day long meetings people sometimes start to "tune out" speakers.