Indonesia – Part 2

 

I’m writing to you from a high rise apartment in one of the biggest cities I’ve ever been in. Jakarta feels industrial and metal and smoggy and developed and closer to home than any of the other cities we’ve been in yet. There are paved highways and high rises and swimming pools and GIANT shopping malls galore here. Today will be our 3^rdday. 

 

Floating in the swirl of it all, again I’m reminded that I haven’t written in too long. It’s been about two weeks since I introduced you to Nusa Penida and my friends there. 

 

Nusa Penida

 

We spent about 7 days on the island, longer than we expected. After the initial relationships we developed, we felt pulled to stay and continue to plant seeds. Our list of friends grew by about 3 or 4 and each day we would search for our friends in their usual shops or places seeking them.

 

As I reflect on our time there, I smile. 

 

The locals were so confused. No “tourists” stay for more than one night on the island. It just doesn’t happen. People come for day trips to hit all the selfie spots and then they leave. Ferry in. Ferry out. So imagine the local’s confusion as they watched us shopping the markets, hanging out with our local friends, lingering. I giggled as the drivers that flooded the ferry area started to recognize my face and stopped yelling “taxi” at me. They knew my answer. “Terima Kasih, I’m walking.” The women at M’s restaurant (the one I told you about in my last blog) started considering us friends and would look forward to our daily visits. Smiles are universal and google translate is a great tool. We did our best. Our interactions were personal. I had friends that I sought after and my teammates had theirs. Each of us different in our approach, it was a beautiful thing to watch as God used us in different ways. Andrea – quietly gentle writing notes. Brent – patient, so so chill, cool. Me –at the ready, focused, heart strong. There are sweet stories peppered within our time on Nusa Penida. I’ll tell a few. 

 

S 

 

S is a mother of 2 who works at M’s restaurant. She is FUNNY. She is loud and boisterous and a little shy. She asks lots of questions and has the most animated expressions. She cares. Deeply. She is the one that showed up on my instagram on our last day. Our goodbye was emotional and raw and beautiful. She would be the first of our friends to tell us she got chills when we prayed. I love it when the Holy Spirit shows up that way. S and I are still chatting over Whatsapp. I keep up with her about every day asking her questions and she loves knowing where I am. I’m planning on sending her the Jesus film when the time is right. 

 

Y 

 

Unsatisfied with our first conversation I referenced in my last blog, I was eager to meet with Y again but unsure if we would have the time. A few days had passed and it looked like he was uninterested but then he popped back up to the surface and we made lunch plans. Careful, I asked one of my male teammates to come along plus I wanted Y to see a Christian man, strong in his beliefs, in the flesh. There’s power in that, amirght?? Zack joined me and we took Y to lunch at our favorite café. My stomach was at an alltime pain that day. I was zapped from the heat. It was one of those get up and fight kind of days. We sat with Y for about 2 hours engaged in small talk. To be honest I was restless, thinking we would never get to the good stuff. It didn’t feel right to go straight into it and I didn’t want to push just to push. I silently prayed, “Lord don’t let this moment pass us by without us getting to share you.” Another 30 minutes passes. Y is on his 5^th cigarette. 

 

I can’t remember exactly what initiated the conversation but what I do remember is that Jesus entered the room. Again we found ourselves chatting about him and all the energy flooded back into my body. I was so proud of my friend Zack. He and I bounced off of each other so smoothly and we were having fun, laughing with Y. Slowly and after many interruptions, I was able to share with Y about why I love Jesus and why he is powerful to me. With strained eyebrows, Y wasn’t really having it. Like a quick puff, a thought entered my mind. “Get Y a bible.” I asked Y, “Have you read the New Testament?” “No,” he said. “Would you read it if I was able to get you one?” “Yes, Yes I think I would,” he said.

 

!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I was buzzing through my mind trying to figure out how I was going to get an Indonesia bible to this man when the Lord simply said, “He has a phone.” Ten minutes later, I had downloaded the Bible app in Indonesian on Y’s phone. Thank you technology. 

 

I would see Y one more time after that. A strangely beautiful run in. We were worshipping in the street with a deaf man that we had just prayed over. He was smiling saying “I hear better now.” I like to imagine that wherever we worship is holy ground, paved in white in the spiritual realm. As we sang, Zack says, “Hey isn’t that Y?” Sure was. He buzzed up on his motorcycle and asked what we were doing. He didn’t stay long and he didn’t sound sad that we were leaving the next day but I smiled knowing the perfume of our worship must have gone with him as he drove through our song. 

 

Wander Day

 

Nusa Penida is known for some really incredible beaches. Somewhat undiscovered, the tourism is new to the island so you feel like you’re seeing sites beyond the ones you’ve grown up seeing in tropical magazines. It feels untouched, new. My heart was set on interacting with more than the village we were staying in and the best way to get around was to hire a car to take us to all the “sites.” Our thought was to enjoy the beauty and use the drive as an opportunity to pray over the island.  Plus, this was the day I would receive my Valentine’s present from Jesus, seeing Diamond beach. This day sticks out for so many reasons. The beauty was shaking and if you’re like me, when I see a site that takes my breath away, I go into immediate worship and often times hear God saying “I made this for you.” This day was filled with those moments. We worshiped and sang “So Will I” over a towering cliff that looked over Diamond Beach. I won’t forget that moment. We encountered people along the way, some that would start to follow me on Instagram to track my travel (but I get excited about them seeing Jesus.) We encountered more spiritual heaviness. The famous temple we visited inside a large cave gave us all the creeps and I left feeling like a demon had spoken infertility over me. That was a weird one.  We prayed into it all. We worshipped through it all. We waited for opportunities to be kind, to move, to interact, to encourage those around us. We brought Kingdom wherever we stepped. 

 

 

Nusa Penida > Bali

 

As we left Nusa Penida, we left calm. We were ready to head back to Bali for a few days and spend time resting and Jesus had given us the go ahead. 

 

In Bali, we were able to stay with the same host we had been with at debrief. What a gift. Like a second family, they welcomed us back in. We had been getting nudges from the Lord that we needed to talk with our host, pray with him and help him with a few things so though we Sabbathed, we were also focused. I was able to help him set up a few different online platforms that would help him get more business at his hostel. He sat next to me for the whole 3 hours I worked. Setting things up in Indonesian is a challenge, I’ll tell you. He never left my side, even though I told him I could. He would rub my back every few minutes and say “thank you, thank you, I appreciate you, you are kind.” I loved doing it and I love serving this family and when the Lord nudges you and you move, you are blessed. Our team wrote cards to each of the workers at the hostel and made them bracelets and prayed with them. Then our host prayed over us. “Lord? What are you doing here?” We may never know. 

 

Bali was a deep breath this time for me. On Sabbath, we were surprised to find that another team had joined us for the night at the hostel. My heart had been sick for the rest of my squad the whole time we were separated so I considered this a specific answered prayer.  I spent almost the whole day with my friend Allie. I had prayed that she and I would get time to connect just us. I wanted to hear her testimony and I wanted her to hear mine. I was eager to extend the heart connection we had already made. It never gets old you know, the spark of a new friend. It’s a high I ride so gladly – being known and discovered and discovering and knowing. The day was one of a handful that I actually forgot where I was. I took a real vacation from the stress of the race, the heat, the stomach pain, the anxious thoughts, the striving and I sat across from someone who loves me and someone I love and heard their heart. For me, that’s rest.  Allie is poetic, quirky, colorful. She’s sassy and emotional and so soft. She’s knowing and she gets me and our pasts intertwine and I needed to hear that someone got me at that level and I needed to put out all my ugly pieces on a table and hear someone say, “you don’t scare me.” And Jesus knew I needed it. 

 

 

Bali > Jakarta

 

A 24 hour bus ride carried us to Jakarta. The coldest ride of our lives, I swear they kept it at 45 degrees. Even with provided blankets, two of my teammates ended up sick after spending that long in a refrigerator. The bus stopped about 3 times at these random places where we would get out and eat a buffet meal. Dazed from the ride and tired, we would pile out and try our hand at the food. Let’s just say I pretty much fasted during this period. The ride was a period of silence. As a team we spread out and most of us fell asleep. I don’t sleep on moving vehicles. Like I can’t. So I spent time with Jesus and read, listened to music, etc. It was a forced downtime and though I didn’t like it, I probably needed to lean on him and listen to him in the silence. Trust him with my discomfort. Tell him about how I was feeling. It was a strange time warp, that bus ride. I was confronting a lot of feelings, a lot of heartaches, a lot of missing people I loved. I was tearing up and writing love letters and I felt oddly poetic and deep. And in all of that I was reminded that Jesus is enough. Him sitting next to me on that bus is enough even when I’m homesick for my people or I feel lost in the moment or I don’t know what the heck I’m doing on a frigid bus in the middle of Indonesia. 

 

We’ve been in Jakarta for 2 days now. Already we’ve made friends and planned to go to church with them tomorrow. I’m so excited.  These friends were put in front of us in the form of a little coffee shop right under our apartment. We were doing bible study and they listened and caught on and that led to them coming up one evening to hang out and worship. They are Christians. Seems small right? 

 

We would later find out that our friends had been in a dry spell with Jesus and were aching for community. Our regular evening was a breath of fresh air for them. You should have seen how thankful they were to just hang out with Christians and sing and worship. You can’t bottle that joy. Our friend G said “I’ve never felt like this before. This is amazing. I have chills. I love this.” All we could do was smile. “It’s the Holy Spirit. He does that.” 

 

Eager to get to work in the city, yesterday was spent in the ER with a teammate (who is fine now). The Lord continues to halt me in my tracks and make me stand still when I’m ready to come out swinging. 

 

 – Ministry is life. Life is Ministry. “Say it again, Lindsey.” Ministry is Life, Life is Ministry.  You can’t do anything to earn this. “Say it again, Lindsey.” You can’t do a single thing to earn this. –