Greetings from Indo—that’s right, here’s having my delayed end of year break finally! 🙂
As usual, I spent my time in the plane catching up on some movies. I watched Venom: The Last Dance (a complete waste of time). All I can tell you is that Venom is in some serious need of orthodontic treatment. Invisalign certainly won’t fix it, Venom will have to take a decade for the treatment. Not only ugly, that thing is so annoying, makes my food hard to swallow looking at that face. I pity the host Venom’s attached to. Then I watched Despicable Me 4—s.o. m.u.c.h. b.e.t.t.e.r.
It’s been cloudy and raining on most days, which makes the weather cooler than usual. I don’t remember when it was ever this cool in Indo. Anyway, we went up to the mountain in Bogor for a few days recently in anticipation of a planned protest nearby. It was even cooler up there. When my brother said it’s good to go up for some fresh air, I realised I didn’t actually notice it (how fortunate I am to be breathing fresh air in Melbourne all the time so I couldn’t tell, is that fresh air in the mountain?)
I also find myself less drawn to things I used to, say, certain yummy food. I’d much rather pick a place to eat based on proximity (traffic is really bad in Jakarta!) and where it’s mozzies-free please ⛔🦟🦟🦟. I had chosen more on ambience anyway, but I become even more so with time. I’d rather skip my fave food altogether if that means I get stuck in the traffic for an hour for example, or that I’m feasted by mozzies while I’m trying to have a feast!
Things that raise the eyebrows 😯
That’s right, each time I come back, there are still things that surprise me. Well, isn’t that just the case even back in Melbourne and just with everyday life actually!
Treasure hunt for miracle oil
Remember the Benjamin miracle oil mentioned in my last year’s post? Well, we couldn’t find it and the uncle who got a dozen of them and distributed to us long time ago had died.
What’s amazing this time is not that the oil is miraculous, rather my cousin actually found it in Singapore! 👏
The animals🦎🪱🐱
A lizard in the toilet bowl! It scared me I flushed it out of existence right away. You never know what might crawl on your butt when you go to the toilet here 🚽. But I’m sure you’ll be equally surprised by how many spiders are around when you come to Melbourne.
Did I say it’s a cooler time of the year in Indo now? perhaps that is why you see yellow-spotted millipede
everywhere, in the house, outdoor, at the driving range, just popping up in all places!
Likewise cats, I’ve almost forgotten how many stray cats there are in this country. But you know the ‘lucky cat’ displayed in Asian store with its incessant paw beckoning customers in? Instead of those doll cats, to my surprise, I saw two real cats with red collars slouching about right in front of my favourite pastry shop Fin’s Recipe.
I asked the staff what are those cats doing out there? They said, ‘that’s their place.’ I asked, ‘what about customers who are afraid or allergic to cats?’ They asked if I was, I said no, but I’m asking have they thought about it? It turned out this is not the only place where the owners have placed these ‘lucky cats’ out the front, I have come across others since. Odd stuff people do! As my friends say, ‘but they are not the cute cats on display.’ That’s right, unfortunately the real cats aren’t so cute, they really meant them to look like this:
The nearby school 🏫
I remember back in the days the passing mark was 60% in Indo. Then I left to Singapore and was surprised the passing mark was at 50%! And when I later went to Australia, I was even more taken aback that one of the university courses’ passing mark was 40% (not even half!). No wonder Aussie has the reputation of being the place to go if you aren’t academic haha😅
Recently, I heard that my niece and nephew’s school has a 70% passing mark for the religion subject. Wow, I am impressed. Not a bad thing.
The other thing I’ve recently found out is that there is a reformed evangelical church literally in the same housing complex where we live called GraceLife Community Church. I am SO glad about it (not least because there’s no traffic for me to get there!) I just didn’t know that it’s been planted here since 2022. They use the chapel in my niece’s school, so I asked if she knows there’s a church service in her school on Sunday. She said, ‘yes, there is a big fat sign that says GraceLife is running a service there and many parents send their kids to their Sunday school.’ 😄 I visited on Sunday, and bumped into a friend who had come back for good from Melbourne years ago. His family now go to that church too.
Another coincidence is I soon learnt my cousin-in-law (also living in the same housing complex) had been wanting to check out that church for her kids too. My nephew plays with them. Hopefully my niece and nephew will check out their Kids Church at some point too. Meanwhile, looks like I’ll be going to this one instead when I’m back in Jakarta now.
One other thing that encourages me lately was when I heard Mom said, ‘Oh, they Christians are like that.’ I later found out that she was responding to some people who were chatting about how genuinely different my cousin-in-law is (in a good way). She attributed her behaviour to her faith (which is precisely correct in this case). So I texted her and she’s in turn encouraged that she’s been an extension of God’s blessing to others.
Cultural blind spots
Talking about church, I went to another church before I found out about GraceLife. I was chatting to a friend and found out that they’re also currently practising for their Easter choir item (as we did start our Easter choir practice back in Melbourne recently). The difference is they practise weekly from 1 to 3pm and for the whole year. We only do 1 hour, and only for Easter and Christmas season. Try making it 2 hours weekly, we’ll have a hard time finding anyone in the choir 😬 I’m always impressed by some of the things they do here.
There are weaker areas in any one church though, normally due to the culture we swim in. I have the benefit of having both the perspectives from Melbourne and also here in Indo, two very different cultures and societal norms and expectations. That gives me the advantage to see them in the light of each other.
During the Sunday service in that other church, one of the announcement items was on their upcoming community kneeling prayer meeting (which they do regularly and I think is a very good thing). I remember some of the topics of prayer last time were about raising up the next generation of gospel workers, praying for the wayward children, for salvation of souls,.. things that are heavenly minded. This time, however, the topic was: for the older young adults to find a life partner. 💑
It surprised me, and I think it is unhelpful. While it is okay to bring before God the desires of your heart, for a church to hold a session for a particular group of the congregation singles to find a life partner says a lot about their theology of singleness. You may pray to do well in exams too, or to have a good career outcome—I think people do that in their private prayer. But when you hold such as an official church event, it is another level. Where is the kingdom perspective? If there are struggles, which is completely normal especially given the kind of society we’re in, that’s a good opportunity to bring everyone to a biblical understanding on the topic instead of asking for something that is never promised. I suspect, for the vast majority, it will nurture discontent and instill false hope more than anything else that is helpful. Not wise in my opinion.
While the churches in Australia have their own blindspots, especially as we swim in the gender ideology stuff, (and perhaps also somewhat due to or related to it) they have invested in taking a good look and reflecting on the topic of singleness from the biblical perspective, so there are more resources available to help and equip Christians think and live, minister and relate to each other rightly in the family we are called to be. It’s worth checking out, there is a whole ministry that provide past talks and Q&A sessions for free: SingleMinded Ministry. It is not about elevating singleness or marriage above the other, but to view and honour each as the bible does (instead of taking cues from our culture).
Dinosaurs et all going 🦕🦖
One day while having reflexology (we have the person come to our house regularly), my nephew came bringing a bag of stuff including some of the dinosaurs toys I had fixed for him last year and told him those are for him. It turned out my brother is trying to teach him generosity, which is so good to hear. So he’s been giving some of his toys to this reflexologist’s son.
I was so pleasantly surprised. He has a truckload of toys scattered all over the house, they will go to better use elsewhere. The funny thing is, he came in the second time, with another bag of toys and asked the guy, ‘uncle, does your kid like game boy📟?’ He said, ‘yes, he does.’ My nephew asked with genuine curiosity, ‘so is he so sad that he doesn’t even have one?’ That is so uncalled for haha.
When I told him it is a good thing he does, he said, ‘yes, because I am very generous, so I give what I don’t want to play anymore.’
That got me thinking. When we give lots (relatively speaking compared to others) but they aren’t actually much where we come from, we often flatter ourselves with generosity. Although it doesn’t cost us much (or even at all), yet because we know it’s meant so much for the recipient (because of their poverty), we think ourselves magnanimous. Is that the case with God and us?
Did it really cost when He gives? Because of how big and infinite He is, He can actually give anything and it is still nothing for Him. We are poor finite fragile naked creatures who can use lots of help from Him. But no, the difference is He is truly generous as He gives not the leftovers and excesses that would have still meant so much to us small insignificant helpless beings, but He gives all till it cost the most precious blood of Christ. He is infinite and He gives what is most precious by His own measure. Not using our scale, but His. That is an amazing thought I am pondering over.