Memaw and Pop-o visit Indoland

They arrived!

Dad enjoyed morning coffee at Java Dancer with whoever would join him

We enjoyed playgroup

rode elephants

and fed them

Mom went in her room for a week while the rest of us celebrated Olivia's 3rd Birthday

Then Mom came out and we went to Batam

We found good food in Batam

Caroline had a bite of Pizza

We enjoyed the view of the ocean and Singapore

Monkeys came to our door in Batam

Then we took the ferry to Singapore

Ready to go

Mom and Dad took a picture with Adam and Eve

Papa D, Mama K and Big C went to Universal

We took a picture in the Merlion's mouth

Of course Clara found the ChaChas

Baby C was happy eating her toes

Big C getting her last tickles from Memaw

All their bags are packed and they are ready to go

But not before one more hug

Anger

I'm sitting here on the island of Borneo, watching American Idol, reading my sister's blog on meeting Desmond Tutu, and listening to the Bible School students' nightly devotion outside my window.

Our family will have to move back to America when my husband receives his green card.  I am a pretty honest person so I will continue to be that way with you, whoever you are.  I'm happy to move close to my parents, siblings, sister in law, nephew, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, etc.  I am happy to eat food that I have spent missing over the past six years.  It will be nice to not feel different when I go out in public and comforting to know how I should act and speak in all social situations.

But...

I believe in the work that we have done here for six years now.  I believe in giving others hope and love.  I believe in sacrificing so that someone else can have more, can know the love of God for them.  I believe in bringing education to those who would not have it otherwise.  I believe in the work of Christ, the work of loving others, of fighting for those who have no voice to fight for themselves.  I believe in reaching the orphan and widow, the homeless and hopeless.  It is a breath of fresh air out here to me on Borneo with people not having so much that they have to buy a bigger house for their family of 4 so they can fit more stuff in it.  It is refreshing to clean out the stuff we have here and give it away to people who really, really need it.

I am scared of life in America.  I am scared that I will get so fired up by the injustice that I see, by the selfishness that is so prevalent in the Land of the Free that my mouth will blow and I will offend people.  I don't want to offend people, I really don't.  However, sometimes I feel pure anger when I see someone complain about a waitress being too slow because my heart is thinking about the many Indonesians that aren't waiting for a slow waitress, they are just waiting to eat, anything, bugs, dog, cat, anything..."just let me eat, I'm starving".  I'm scared I'm going to blow a gasket when I watch my child's first sporting event and some parent spends the game screaming at the ref while I am thinking why can't you get that angry about the girls and women around the world who are being raped by the second as a weapon of war?  Why can't we Americans get angry about that instead of about the pee wee baseball ump?

Why can't we get mad when someone is treated as anything less than the very image of God but yet we can get mad when the President wants to make a speech and it interrupts our favorite tv show?

How can I move back to the Land of Plenty when I have lived so long here watching people who have nothing sacrificing their "nothing" for their neighbor who has even more of "nothing"?

I am happy to move back to America.  Don't get me wrong.  I miss so many of you and have spent 6+ years dreaming of the day when I would move home.  As this day approaches though I am becoming more and more scared.  And what scares me most is that I may forget what I have lived through here, what I have seen and tasted and become a part of; that I may become that person that only gets mad at the slow waiter or the bad ref and not at the things that matter such as people being treated as less than God images should be treated.

Lord, never let my passion for the "least of these" die away.  Let me always get angry about injustice or lack of love or lack of sacrifice.  Help me to always seek to live a life a sacrifice and not a life of comfort.

**I hope this post does not offend anyone.  I love America and the people who call themselves Americans, just as I love people from every country, race, and people group.

Thoughts From a New Land

Let's just start by saying: Sorry, no pictures yet.  

We have moved.  We now live in Kalimantan which is on the island of Borneo.  We moved on February 8th.  It is hot here and a bit more difficult to live here.  We do have a KFC and I am enjoying it even though when we move from this city I will probably never eat it again.

Big C has had a hard time transitioning.  She seems to think that she lost everything that was familiar to her so therefore she may lose every person familiar to her as well.  With that thinking motivating her I have not gone to the bathroom or taken a shower alone since February 7th.  Lord, bless this child and give her comfort in the knowledge that no matter what you will be with her and caring for her.

Baby C, however, transitioned with ease.  In the past two days she has begun standing alone!  She is developing so quickly and while I am celebrating her new independence with her, I am also lamenting the quick disappearance of my baby girl phase.  She thinks that Big C is the funniest person in her life.  Big C can just run by Baby C and Baby C will let out a big belly laugh.  Big C thinks Baby C is the cutest person in her life and loves to run up to Baby C, press her face to her sister's face, and say "you are so cute" then quickly run away bringing on another belly laugh from the baby.

I am learning, continue to learn, to walk each day in light of God's grace and God's goodness.  Last night at 8 pm we had some unexpected guests drop by.  I was about to take a shower and put Big C to bed, Donny was out leading the nightly devotion with the Bible school students, and the last thing that I wanted to do was to welcome this couple into my home.  However, I kept thinking how we are called to love all people and to treat all people with gentleness and respect and to be hospitable.  With that running through my mind I opened our door wide with a smile on my face and invited them in.  We had not put dinner away yet so I offered them dinner which happened to be a very special dinner in this area; jungle pork, aka warthog.  Donny came home and we shared pictures from our wedding and chatted until they were ready to leave.  I did run take a shower while they were eating and they left soon after eating.  

Often we forget all that Christ called us to when Christ said "follow me".  We like to think that if we profess Christ as our savior then we are done with the whole Christianity thing.  That is false thinking though.  Christianity, being a follower of Christ, should affect how we face each and every moment of our life.  It should affect our decision to swing wide our door or to just stick our face out and say "could you come back tomorrow, I'm busy right now".  Christ in our lives should affect how we treat people.  Is it really important that we belittle others so that we can debate our doctrinal beliefs or should we say like Peter in 1 Peter "seek peace and work for peace"?  These are just minor issues that we face each and every day.  Are we treating people with respect and gentleness or are we a bit too harsh?  Is the love of Christ flowing out of our very being or is the love of Christ just something we talk about?

These are just some thoughts and challenges that I have been faced with during our first month in a much harder place to live than I have ever lived before.  When comfort is only something you dream of is it still something that you can seek to give to others?

Relationships and Parents

Our Indonesian life is a life of transitions, goodbyes, hellos, and forward motion.  We constantly are looking at the big picture and listening for the quiet voice of direction.

I'm writing this blog update from Singapore.  I just had 17 days with my parents.  We spent 14 days in Indonesia and the last 3 in Singapore.  Other than the fact that my mom became very sick for a week my time with them was a dream.  I'm one of the blessed people who love and cherish my parents.  Maybe we don't always agree on everything or see eye to eye but when it comes down to it we love each other much deeper than any issue that we don't agree on.  Actually I don't think we disagree on many issues either.

I was able to get coffee daily with my Pops.  We talked about cultural issues that we see in Indonesia and in America.  Where the poverty of Indonesia is very evident here I think the love of money and self is very evident in America.  We talked about the goods and the bads of raising my girls in each place.  We talked about rather Mom would EVER get better.  I spent time looking into his eyes and recognizing the wisdom that dwells within them and the love for God's people.  No matter how many days left I have in this life, those daily coffee dates of the last 17 days will always, always be held close to my heart.

On our last morning together I sat on the bed filling out some forms while mom rubbed her fingernails across my back.  It is something she says I would ask her to do often when I was younger.  We talked about the transition that we, Kaembas, will be making eventually back into the U.S.  We talked about things that will be hard and how we can solve those issues.  She told me of the family support that we will be able to count on and I believed her.  I know that we will not have to make that transition alone.  That moment, on that bed, will be the moment that I remember as I look back on this trip in the years to come.  The touch of my mother...so sweet, so gentle, full of love.

We did and saw so much.  We took advantage of every moment that we had together.  However, what I will hold onto this next year that we are apart is the conversations, the hugs, the smiles, the laughter, the togetherness....the relationship.

Our world puts so much pressure on us to own as much as we can.  Americans have a "bigger is better" mentality.  We like to go, go, go.  However, at my young age of 30, I have figured out that what matters in this world is the relationships.  Oh God, how I love the relationship that you have given me with my parents.  I thank you, sweet Lord, for them and for the past 17 days.  It was a sweet time of relating.

My heart aches, my eyes water, and yet my lips smile; for I have tasted heaven in the arms of my parents.....

Mom, Dad know that I will see your face over every coffee that I drink and every ice that I turn down until we meet again

Papa D's birthday

The other day Papa D turned 34.  When we met he was 28.  For some reason 34 seems a lot older than 28!  We celebrated Papa D all day on his birthday.  We went shopping for a new watch for him.  We saw the cost which was 3xs the cost of that watch on Amazon.com and thought better of buying it.  We will buy it for his 1/2 birthday in June!  After that we went home to have his favorite pork dish for lunch.  It was delicious (I didn't cook this, Ibu Sri did).  After naps we took our Malang family out for hamburgers which was a special treat for us all.

I want to say that I love celebrating my husband.  He is a good husband to me and a good father to the girls.  Our marriage is not perfect (show me one that is) but each year we grow in our understanding of each other, respect for each other and in our love for each other.   We have a happy marriage.  We enjoy playing card games together.  Since Baby C's birth we have not been able to play one game due to pure exhaustion, however, we know this is a season of our lives and we are loving every minute of it.  I cherish the moments when we get to sneak away on our motorcycle and have lunch together or run errands together.  When we get a chance to put Big C down to bed at night together I soak it all up as I watch him hold her and tell her stories.  I know the day will come when we will not be wanted by Big C to put her to bed but for now it is a very sweet time.  We enjoy taking trips together.  We share a love of travel.  Papa D and I know how to laugh together.  We have a great joy from entertaining the other.  Papa D is a person who loves to laugh, he likes a clean house with order, he lives by faith, he strives to be a better man each day that he lives, he enjoys trips and seeing new places, he can fix anything, he shows his love by serving people, and he loves our God with all his heart, mind and soul.  Thank you Lord for Papa D.

The first birthday celebration

And the 2nd

The birthday boy

Christmas Day

Santa Came!

Christmas 2010 Photo

A cash register!  Who could want anything else?

Forget the toys, I want the tree

Martha's family, we have been blessed by her for 2 years

Ariel is one of Big C's favorite people

Christmas with the family

This New Year

This has been a very nice and simple Christmas break.  We stayed here in East Java at our home.  I have spent my days with my family and friends for the past couple of weeks.  I need to tell you that I have been homesick for my friends and family in America very badly and at the same time I need to tell you that this was one of my sweetest Christmas' that I can remember.  It was simple.  There were not a bunch of parties to go to or gifts to open (even though my aunts and friends tried their best to not make that true).  There were not a bunch of Christmas specials on tv or trips to take.  Instead there was a lot of sitting and being.  There was a lot joy in the simplicity of it all.  I have enjoyed three conversations over coffee that have really touched me.  I have enjoyed playing Barbie with my 2 year old.  I have enjoyed getting slobbering kisses by my 6 months old and I have enjoyed sitting with my husband while watching movies or just chatting about life.  My favorite times though were on Christmas day visiting good friends of ours at their houses and seeing how they live....so different from how I live in this same country.


One thing that seemed to be the topic of many of my conversations and thoughts is the perspective that we have.  You know compared to many of my Western friends my family lives without a lot of "stuff" and my house may seem small and my salary may seem little.  However, I never really noticed that my house was small until coming back to it after going to America for four months last winter.  When I walked back into my house from that America visit I remember thinking "I don't remember this house being this small, did something happen to it while I was gone".  Nothing happened to the house what happen was my perspective of house size was changed.  Well on Christmas day we went to visit our helpers' families and seeing their houses made me think "Oh my, my house is so big".  Again the house didn't change but my perspective did.  Our house is plenty big for our family of four.  We have three bedrooms and while they are small compared to American bedrooms they are the perfect size for us.  We have two bathrooms and one of those bathrooms is in my bedroom!  What a luxury that is!  Do we need two bathrooms for four people? No!  However, we have that, how blessed are we!


Another point of my perspective that has changed while living in East Java is wealth.  Many of the students that I use to teach in the U.S. were "poverty level" kids.  However, that definition of poverty is so off compared to the poverty that I see here.  I just read a friend's blog talking about just that.  She speaks of how the poor of the U.S. live like kings compared to the poor of Haiti.  That statement could be made about the poor of so many countries in this world.  My first resolution for this year is to remember the poor.  I hope that everyday I take a look around me and recognize how much we have and then I hope that I take a bag and pick up just three things that we don't need or use in this house, then take that bag and walk 50 meters to the end of my neighborhood and give it to one of the 100,000s of people who live in this city who would use that stuff much more than I do.


In one month our family will move to Kalimantan, the island north of Java.  Our lifestyle will again change drastically.  When I moved to East Java many of my American friends and family asked me how could I leave a comfortable job, friends, and family and go to a place that is not nearly as "good" as it is in America.  While now I find my Javanese friends asking that same question about our move to Kalimantan.  My answer is the same "Life in God is 'good' no matter what the conditions around me look like".  Please don't think that we are about to move to the jungle, there will be a KFC in walking distance.  It is just that life will be different and how we live our lives may be a bit different.  We will adjust though, we always do.  My second resolution for this year is to not let others define what a good life should look like for me.  I know that life can be good if you just choose that it will be good.  Even when hardships and sadness come our way I can still choose to see God's goodness in my life.  I refuse to let my surroundings or situations define if my life is good or not, I will let God define goodness for me.


I really hope that I can keep my perspective in God's truth this year.  I really hope that I can live with less and give more.  I really hope that I can think less of Mama K and more of my neighbor.  I really hope that I can stay away from self pity and stay close to God's truth.  I am not one to make resolutions but these are two areas that I can use some work in and so I am choosing to focus on them this year.  Lose weight, yeah I want to do that too.  Read more, yes that too I would love to do.  Many other things I would love to change about myself this year.  I think that if I focus on the two highlighted above that many other things in my life that need to change will follow suit.  





Mama K