Saturday, March 24, 2007

Elder & Sister Kane's New Crib

Originally Posted Friday February 23, 2007

It is a very good thing that I keep a journal because time is blowing by so quickly that the past becomes a blur. We are alive an well and enjoying our experiences tremendously. It seems that as the weeks go by we just get busier and this week was no exception.
Thursday are really busy for us as we teach two English classes, one in the morning and the other in the evening and we also do all our preparation for the English classes on Thursday mornings and then go out to have all of our photocopying done. The photocopying place hires teenagers to do the work and they are amazingly efficient using old Cannon photocopiers from the 80s. We really enjoy teaching the classes and have fun doing it but it is a lot of work.
For the last several Thursdays the only interesting question has been the severity of the rain and the time of day it hits. It is something that you really have to experience for yourself. It can be cloudy for hours and then have a few drops come down as you are parking your car in a parking lot and have it turn to fire-hose volumes of water when you are half way across the parking lot. On the evening of 15 February it rained so hard that some of the streets in Bogor were flooded in less than 10 minutes. People will inevitably get sick of hearing us restate this but it is unbelievable to me that air could hold that much water. I have always enjoyed thunder and lightning and it is a thunder paradise here.




We continue to enjoy our new house. Things in Indoensia seem to operate at two basic speeds - HYPERSPEED of super-slow speed. Some things that I think should take awhile are doing in minutes and other things that should be relatively easy take weeks. The plumbers still not repaired the leaky toilets in two of the three bathrooms. There is a good chance that they will do it today but you van never be too sure. Many of the people here use small motorcycles as their primary mode of transportation and the rainstorms really travel dangerous and unpleasant on a motorcycle. It is also not entirely their fault as we have been so busy that we have not been able to schedule a time that was acceptable to both parties. We expect them to show up today at 5:00 PM but it is pouring as I write this update and it is 4:00 PM; we will have to wait and see.
Last Friday we went out to teach at our little school in the country. It is called Cikopo and the C is pronounced " Ch " . It is our favorite part of the week and we love going there. They are the happiest group in the world and we always come away from there feeling great. I was also able to write out a formal proposal for the English course we have been invited to teach too the faculty at the Pakuan University. It is a conservative muslim university and it will be a real adventure for us. It will be a conversational English course and we will use the 7 Habits of Highly effective People as the core theme. They appear to be enthusiastic and it will be very interesting to see how it all unfolds. In the evening we had one of our NGOs and their family over for diner and Sister Kane did a wonderful job on her Butter Chicken and it was a big hit.
Last Saturday we spent the morning studying the scriptures. We got picked up at 1:00 PM by Roeland Lee and his family and we drove to Jakarta with them. Both Roeland and Lie-Lie had to teach at the Seminary Super Saturday and Sister Kane and I took a taxi to the mall and met up with Rick and Christine Smith and shopped for the rest of the day. It was clear that the Smiths were a little surprised to hear me refer to my wife as Sister Kane and fiends at home and here probably thinking the same thing. The answer is fairly straight forward; we do it because we have been asked to by the Mission President. He asks all of the missionaries, including the couples to refer to each other as Elder or Sister. I decided to get over the initial clumsiness and enjoy it. I ask you to do the same. Sister Kane was able to buy some sandals for herself to solve the shoe problem that she is having. She is wearing out her shoes and can't replace them because no-one carries sizes above 40 and she takes a 41. We got back to the chapel in time for the Lees to drive us back to Bogor and we stopped at Lie-Lies' mothers home for diner. It was Chinese New year last weekend and all the Chinese have their family gathering and a big meal. It was fun to be there. There is a powerful Chinese presence in Indonesia and they still call themselves Chinese although most have been here for many generations. The Chinese control the lions share of the wealth in Indonesia.
On Sunday the branch president and his family drove us to church and we enjoyed the meetings. We had a relaxing afternoon and appreciated it. I prepared my weekly report and sent it off to the Mission President and the Country Director for Humanitarian Welfare Services and we had a meeting with Taufik and the two young service missionaries and we discussed a broad range of issue relative to the refugee camp project where the two missionaries will be working for four days a wek for a month. The Bahasa Indonesian capacity of the missionaries ( especially Elder Stuart ) is excellent and much of the discussion was in Bahasa; as a consequence, I am not sure that I understood all of the agreements but I got the gist of things. I believe that we came to a mutual understanding on all issues and I look forward to the project.
On Monday we went Visiting Teaching. Only one of the three women was actually home but we had an exceptional visit with the one family. They are converts of two years. They have a two room house with a bathroom in it. We met in the outside area, which is about 9 feet wide and has a plastic tarp over it to provide shelter from the rain and sun. We had one of the best discussions on faith that I have ever participated in. The depth and magnificent simplicity of their understanding of faith, their genuine gratitude for their blessings and the joyful nature of their countenance was inspiring. We also checked our account to see if the money from Canada had arrived in our account and it hadn't . The money was at the branch but not in our account as I did not instruct Ariana to use our full names. It was converted to Rupiah and placed in our account on Tuesday. We went and made arrangements to get a high speed internet service so that we can have more reliability in the quality of service. We continue to wait for the installer and it is now 5 days later.
On Tuesday we were off to an early start as we drove to Jakarta to get an official Indonesian drivers license and to look around for a good used car. It was a real thrill to get my drivers license and it only took about an hour. It will be an enduring and meaningful souvenir. We were unable to find a used car that felt right for us despite looking at many. It was disappointing. I am sure that we are driving our driver crazy as we continue the search but we will continue until we find the right one. Buying used cars is risky anywhere and Indonesia is no exception. We got home in time to go to the Roatary Club meeting where they had a guest speaker who runs several orphanages and a home for single young women who are pregnant. It was a very touching presentation from and Australian woman who has been here for 30 years and feels that her work is divinely inspired and directed- I would agree with her entirely. Her work has been an amazing act of genuine Christ-like charity.
I restarted my Indonesian lessons again on Wednesday morning and ran into the intimidating hurdle of prefixes and suffixes on the Indonesian verbs. It is a really intimidating aspect of the grammar an there is nothing you can do about it other than put your head down and grind your way through it, which is what I plan on doing. Sister Kane has " Cashed in her chips " o the language issue. She has decided that it just isn't worth it and she may be right. I feel the need to keep t it until I am a little more confident in my ability to get around unassisted.
We also went out delivering wheelchairs again on Wednesday. It was a typical wheelchair delivery day. We saw much of the horror and heartbreak that poverty can produce, intermingled with remarkable examples of the nobility of the human spirit even in insufferable conditions. One chair that was delivered to an older couple was to replace the handmade wheel chair that the husband had manufactured for his seriously ailing wife. He had been a bread salesman and he owned a two wheeled cart that he loaded up with bread and then walked around the neighborhoods with selling his goods. When his wife got ill he took the wheels off the wagon and built her a crude wheelchair that he carefully painted and made as attractive as possible for her. It was very touching. She was skeleton thin and had a look in her silent face that suggested to me that the period of her suffering will not be prolonged. She was only 60 years old and looked like she was 85. Her husband looked grateful and still appeared enthusiastic about life. I marveled at his smiling face and the obvious love he felt for his wife despite the crushing burden of her ailing condition. Few men would be able to measure up to his brilliant example of service. It was a privilege to have been near him. I pray that I can always be moved by his brilliant example.
Life in these small Campons ( villages ) is a very public affair. Everyone knows everyone else's business and there is a deep sense of community that has been long lost in the affluence of the western world. They live their whole lives under the ongoing scrutiny of constant community supervision and support. In the affluent countries we live our lives in acquired isolation.
One family we visited had two sons, both entirely disabled. The mother carried the skinny little 10 year old on her hip as you would a two year old; neither of them seemed to be disturbed by the situation and the little boy refused to sit in the chair when one was offered and the mother was ok with that. We left one wheel chair with the family for the older brother who was delighted with his gift. We decided to take the second wheelchair to another family where we were sure it would be used. We promised to return with another chair if the little fellow changed his mind; it will only be a question of time.
We delivered another wheelchair to a family where the teenage daughter pulled herself around on the floor. It was clear that the father was a mean-spirited man and it seemed to me that he was the picture of ingratitude. The plight of the daughter was compelling and it was clear that she was in great need although I doubt that the wheelchair will bring her much emotional relief from a father that appeared to hold her in little regard. These are the moments in life when we are able to look into the reflection of great suffering and catch a disturbing glimpse of the ugliness of our own ingratitude. In the clarity of the reflection of her suffering we see all of the blessings in our own lives that we just take for granted and rarely, if ever, acknowledge. I pray that we might never take our health, our hope and our loved ones for granted. I pray that we might be blessed with the spirit of discernment to see and appreciate what the kindness of God, the wisdom of our families and the wealth our nation has given to us. I pray that we may have the ongoing wisdom to be generous to God and our fellow men.

Thursday was busy, as all Thursdays are. We spent the morning at home and Sudin spent the morning looking for a car for us in the area around his home. We had looked at all of the cars in this area over the course of the last week with any spare time we had and we didn't see anything suitable that had not already been sold. We use Thursday mornings to prepare the lesson plans for all of the classes and it is a surprising amount of work , even though we have a well developed curriculum for the course at the church and I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do at Cipti Mandiri school. I really need to focus attention on the curriculum at Cipti Mandiri as it is the trial run for the course that we will be teaching the faculty members at Pakuan University, starting in one week. This is a conservative Muslim University with a lot of political influence. We feel that it will be one of the great challenges and opportunities of our mission.
Today, Friday 23 February, has been an active day. I was able to get on the internet and send a message back to our daughter in Utah. One of our NGOs ( Yanti ) daughters is a student at BYU in Provo and I sent a message to Charity and Ruth and Time to make contact and see what they can do to be of service to the young woman. I had a language lesson and then headed off to look at a car Sudin saw near his home yesterday. He was very enthusiastic and we were encouraged. We ended up buying it and driving it home. It was as exciting as it was stressful. It is an impressive looking 1996 Dihatsu that looks like a jeep but is really a two wheel drive vehicle that gives you good ground clearance. Driving in the hectic traffic, on the wrong side of the road, shifting gears with your left hand was fun. We checked the bank account yesterday and we were happy to see that the money transfer was successful.
We are grateful to be here and really feel that we are being sustained in our calling. We pray that we can be effective in all we do.

Elder and Sister Kane

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