Stories from MAF pilots

I am including a few stories from the Flight Journal which is a compilation of anecdotes from the MAF pilots here in Kalimantan. What you will read, is what these guys do on a daily basis. (Sorry about the paragraph formatting - with my limited computer skills that was a challenge I couldn't resolve.)

Flew a full load of PVC pipe into LAY for a community water project that they are starting. This was one of a number of pipe loads that we’ve carried into the village.

Today, Jason and I, Steve, performed two medical flights. We picked up a sick child in the village of Tiang Ohang. Then we went to another village that neither Jason nor I had been to before called Jangkang. In this village was a young father that had fallen off a motorcycle. There are not really any roads there so to speak, so I’m not sure how it happened, but he seemed to have a head injury and had a lot of pain from his chest. I’m assuming it was an internal injury. His wife, young child, and father rode along. I was able to pray with the family before we took off.

By the way, while we were in Jangkang we overheard an interesting conversation by
some of the kids. They were trying to figure out if the airplane was actually real or not. I’m not sure what they thought, maybe since there is such a belief in ghosts and spirits they thought the airplane might not be really physically there. At any rate, they had to touch the airplane to be really sure. After that conversation they began discussing how pointy my nose is.

Today I, Steve, was able to carry the Indonesian pastor of a GKII/ CMA church plant
here in PalangkaRaya to a village about 120 miles away for a Christmas celebration.
The village also has a small GKII church, but this pastor told me this morning how the people of this village are still deep into their ancient animistic beliefs and want little to do with Christianity. This pastor also told me that alcohol is pretty rampant in this tiny little village. I was also able to carry in about 10 live full size chickens into this village to help them celebrate Christmas.

Today, I also moved all of a family’s possessions from one village to another. They
will be moving to this other village, but there was not room in the airplane for both their possessions and their family, so the family plans to go on a later date. The interesting thing is that all these peoples belongings only took up about a third of thecapacity of the airplane. I tend to bring more than that back from the capital city whenever I go.

Snorkeling Trip to Derawan

Derawan Dive Resort

Walkway toward the crater lake where jelly fish live

Here are the photos I promised last week. The photo on the left is of the more lavish modern wedding. The one on the right is of traditional Bugis wedding attire.

Wow, my last post was Mach 7th and here it is the 22nd! How time flies.

A segue to my last post is that I did not become superfluous. David Holsten was granted a month's extension to continue working on getting his visa. That created some breathing room. The deadline now is April 12th. He is confident that he will have his visa in hand by that date.

Since I wrote last, I have been to two wedding "receptions": a Chinese family and a Muslim family of the Bugis people group. The weddings were as different as night and day. The Chinese wedding was large and elaborate (about 900 guests) and the Muslim wedding was simple and small. The only common feature was the gift-giving. It is traditional here in Indonesia to give the couple money. As you greet the couple with your congratulations, you drop your gift of money into the designated receptacle. I didn't know either couple but that didn't matter; I was invited anyway. :o)

Since writing, I also had a little R&R time at the island of Derawan. A bunch of us MAF'ers chartered a boat for the three hour ride out to the island. The main attraction is the snorkeling. It was amazing. I saw huge sea turtles, had a manta ray swim right at me, swam in a crater-formed lake with non-stinging jelly fish, and saw so many tropical fish that I can't keep track of them all. I don't know the proper names of all these fish so all I could say was, "Oh look, one of the kind of fish from Finding Nemo. :o) Pretty sad!

Hopefully, I will post some pictures tomorrow of some of these events.

I finally remembered to take a picture of the two girls that help me learn Indonesian. The one on the left is Elda and on the right is Octa (Octavia). Elda is a Christian and Octa a Muslim. They are 20 and 21. So young! Both are fourth semester students, majoring in English, at the University of Borneo which is located just outside Tarakan. Their English is quite good especially when you compare it to my Indonesian. I really like these young women. They are fun to work with and are very helpful.

Here is something to pray about as you think of it this week. David Holsten is the program manager of the East Kalimantan MAF work. Two of his children, Grace and Carter, are students of mine. David’s work visa expires March 12th. Frantic work is underway to complete all the necessary red tape before the expiration date. If unsuccessful, the entire family will have to go to Singapore until the paperwork comes through. I would then become somewhat superfluous. I would have one student – Faith Hollander. God is the Blessed Controller of All Things!

Chinese New Year

As I mentioned in another blog, last week was Chinese New Year. Let me set the stage. The MAF team gets together weekly for a meal and Bible study. We eat at a local restaurant and have been regular customers of a particular one which we call B-21. B-21 is the restaurant's street address. I don't even know its real name. Anyway, this restaurant is owned by a man of Chinese descent - as are many of the successful businesses here in Tarkan. But again - that is a story for a different time.

There is a troupe of "lion" dancers here in Tarakan who for a fee will put on their dance. Many businesses, individuals with large families or organizations will hire them to come to their place of business or home. The MAF bunch was particularly invited to join B-21's party. I will include a few pictures although video is really what it requires to get the full effect. The only "music" used for the troupe to dance to is drums and cymbals. They keep a beat and the "lion" matches his dance to the beat of the drums. When the dance was over, the troupe packed up their gear and headed off to do another performance. I pitied the poor guys inside the costume - they were sweating profusely - and I'm sure they still had many places to go yet. After the performance, Mr. B-21 invited us to join him and his family/friends for "soto". (Soto is an Indonesian chicken soup.) All the children were given 5,000 Rp notes - the equivalent of about 50 cents.

We went to another Chinese couple's house to pay our respects for the New Year. There I found out that I was born in the year of the Rooster. :o) Hmm.

Last week two Muslim girls from Kathy’s English club invited Kathy and me to an acara (a gathering). As a result, I have another cultural experience to relate.

There are many ethnic groups represented in Tarakan and each observes its particular rituals. The ritual I was invited to was the ritual of “bathing” a seven months pregnant woman along with her husband. Since my Indonesian isn’t very good and translating sometimes is difficult, I am unclear about the purpose of this ritual. I believe that it is to insure the birth of a healthy baby.

A special woman, a dukun (distant relative of witchdoctors??), performed the ceremony which was held out doors. Two big basins of water were placed in front of the seated couple, who were clothed in colorful sarongs. The dukun threw bunches of flowers into each basin. The flowers had to be 7 colors and 7 fragrances. After stirring the water and flower mixture, she began pouring scoops of water over the woman’s head – three scoops were the required amount. Then she rubbed the young woman’s face, arms, and legs with a spice which looked like saffron. She followed that with a milky looking concoction and then a sprinkling of special water that she had brought with her to the ceremony. When she finished bathing the woman, she proceeded to do all the steps again but to the husband. After she finished bathing him, 6 other women (relatives and/or friends) each took a turn doing the same steps on husband and wife. By this time, the poor woman was shivering and didn’t look to be enjoying herself. Although I must say, it was such a hot day, that water looked rather refreshing to me.

Of course, I don’t believe there is any country in the world which doesn’t combine its ceremonies with food. The food was good. It was the usual rice, noodles, vegetable mixture, chicken and beef. I like the “meal” food but I have a hard time with the sweets. I work really hard not to be impolite and try everything. But the sweets are hard to get down: jellied cake, pressed rice with coconut and a red sugar filling, a spicy mixture of grated fruits (including cucumber).

Although this family is Muslim, this particular ritual was not associated with any religious customs but rather is a custom that must have been passed down for generations.

Our Host's home and the church of Long Bawang

The Merlion of Singapore and inside the Suntech City Mall

Orchids at the Botanic Garden of Singapore

Singapore and Long Bawang

Singapore was an amazing place. I guess no more amazing than any other large metropolis. But I was looking at it through the eyes of someone just having spent four months in Tarakan, which isn’t a bad town but certainly not a metropolis.

Plan A for my trip: get my paperwork to the Indonesian Embassy on a Monday and leave on Friday with visa in hand. Need I say that I had to go to Plan B? I didn’t have the paper work in hand until late Wednesday afternoon; too late to take it to the embassy. Thursday morning early found me at the embassy hoping to expedite the process and still be able to catch my Friday flight. No such luck. My Friday evening flight had to be changed to Monday evening. Oh well, that gave me a couple of extra days to shop in Singapore. But not Dolce, Prada or Gucci. Rather what made my heart race was IKEA, Carrefour, Market Place, Cold Storage with their scented candles, chocolate instant pudding, almonds, raisins, sunflower seeds, Playdoh, Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, Snickers etc. ☺ I left Tarakan with a 10kg suitcase. I returned with 24kg. ☺

I didn’t spend all my time shopping. I went to the Botanical Garden, the Chinese and Japanese Gardens, the National Museum, the Merlion Park, and took a walking tour of Little India. Oh, I went to a movie theatre and watched a movie. We don’t have cinemas in Tarakan, so that was a nice treat.

A couple of weekends after I made it back to Tarakan I had an opportunity to have an experience the polar opposite of my Singapore trip. I went with the Holstens and Maynards to a village in the interior of Kalimantan. (David Holsten is the MAF program manager in Tarakan; Tim Maynard is the Maintenance Specialist.) David had been asked to speak at a church service for the CMA Bible School’s new semester. All of us were privileged to stay at the home of the school’s director. We were hosted simply, rustically yet with cheerful, generous hospitality. We were treated as honored guests. It’s quite a humbling experience. At Saturday night’s service, while the worship team led a song, we were asked to go to the front of the church while the rest of the congregation filed up to shake our hands and welcome us. That was a lot of “Selamat Malaams.” (Good evening)
The only thing about the trip that was a tad difficult for me was the bathroom facility. ☺ It consisted of a rustic squatty potty and a bucket of cold water for a shower. Since we were there only 24 hours, I opted for a sponge bath. Of course, the other had to be faced –no waiting 24 hours there. I got some pointers from Natalie Holsten on the best way to deal with that issue and am happy to say I survived. ☺

That is enough for this update. Maybe next Sunday I can recount some tales of the Chinese New Year celebration we had today. February 14, 2010 is the start of the Chinese year of the Tiger. But that will have to wait for another time.

I'm heading to Singapore tomorrow for visa renewal. My visa has been renewed three times in-country and that is the limit. So I must go out of the country.

My fellow teammates rant about how wonderful Singapore is. They say it is clean, efficient, safe, has great shopping, plenty of sight-seeing and good food. But I always get a little nervous when traveling to a new place. It's the fear of the unknown I guess. I will probably be there all next week. I should consider it an all expenses paid vacation. :o)

During my Christmas break I've had time to read some books. Three that I read took place in and around Borneo and Sulawesi (the island to the east of Borneo). Two were about missionary ladies in the 1940's and the other one was about American World War II airmen. They were good books. You might enjoy reading them. Here are the titles: The Airmen and the Headhunters, Evidence Not Seen, A White Lady Doing Nothing in the Tropics. After reading the things these people endured, my New Year's resolution is to try to never complain about the insignificant annoyances of life in Tarakan. I was about to list the things about which I am determined not to complain but stopped myself. That would just be a round-about way of complaining, right? Life is good because God is good. That really is the bottom line, isn't it?