Hello!
This month I don't want to write a profound update with an important lesson I’m learning, but rather, I want to treat this blog as something of a journal entry. It might interest my readers to understand what day to day life looks like or some of the joys and struggles of living in a foreign culture.
Everyday has a beginning and an end. Well no duh…however, I am working on the habit of beginning and ending my days in the Word and prayer so that everything I do begins and ends with Jesus. I’m not perfect by a long shot, and am still working on making it a habit in the evenings. Every morning I usually eat breakfast and then drink tea on the balcony overlooking a street in my neighborhood while reading scripture in the cool morning air. This is right after the morning call to prayer when everything is still and the sun has just risen promising another hot muggy day.
My days are generally full of various responsibilities but in a different language which makes me very tired because I’m not entirely fluent. I am often frustrated by my inablity to directly communicate gospel truth to my Muslims friends in the evenings when I hangout drinking coffee with them. Sometimes the indirectness of the culture can frustrate me as well as the cultural push towards religious tolerance. This emphasis on tolerance forces me to be cautious when sharing about my beliefs so that I don't seem too pushy. Also, there are many many people here and sometimes I can get stressed because of the lack of open lands and beatiful sunsets wears on me.
On a positive note, I love the people here. Almost all have very warm hospitable personalities and the food on the whole is delicious. I appreciate their simple way of living and sometimes their attitude of taking it slow can be nice except when it comes to traffic or construction. For this reason my friends like to call Indonesian time rubber time because there’s not a huge emphasis on good time management skills. Of course, from an efficiency perspective it’s the exact opposite of a western minded worker. From a traffic perspective, almost everyone drives a motorcycle and the wealthier own cars. Most roads were poorly designed and traffic is almost always heave except during the middle of the night.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. If there's something any of my readers would like to know or want me to talk about let me know in the comments. Keep moving forward and trusting God my friends.