 Lake Sentani I’ve seen many types of “bridal currency” since living here in Papua, Indonesia - stone axe heads, shell money, porcelain plates, turtle shell bracelets, glass beads etc, but the one thing they share in common is voices falling to whispers as they are brought up and the serious “hush” that surrounds the revealing of the item. These are prized and valuable possessions, handed down for centuries. Sure, a stone axe head isn’t of much practical use these days with the mass produced metal axe heads available in each corner store, and people don’t spend shells as money anymore. But these items are more than just objects. They are tied to the culture of trade and negotiations over brides.  Mama Bati with Noah Mama Bati clutched the mass of glass beads in her hands, shooing away her grabby grandson who was desperate to have them. “Jangan!” her normally loud voice fell to a hard whisper as she scolded her grandson and raised her full hand higher, toward me. She looked at me with shining eyes as she opened her hand to show me the beads, strung together with strands of hand spun string made from tree bark. “Ini kami punya harta!” - “This is our treasure!” she whispered again proudly before stuffing them back in her pocket and resuming our walk through Seboiboi, her village on lake Sentani. What does that mean? What had she just shown me? Later I would learn more about what the “manik-manik” she had shown me were, and why they were precious and not to be handled by irresponsible grandchildren, but that day it was just another thing that I didn’t understand, another thing to push to the edge of my brain and learn more about later. In Nabire it’s all about the porcelain plates. Hundreds of them! I enjoyed learning about that bridal currency as I celebrated the final payment party for my friend Sofia. The marriage had already happened 7 years earlier, but the full payment had not been made by the groom’s family yet. In the eyes of the local “Mor” community this meant the marriage was not yet official. This can get very complicated and I have no idea how they keep everything straight on who owes how many plates to whom, but they do know, down to the last saucer. The agreed on price is decided by the two families, and is payed by the groom’s side. On this day, Pak Jakson’s family was bringing in hundreds of plates to officially complete the transaction.  Traditionally, this transaction happens before the wedding, and prices and exchanges are settled ahead of time, but as times change this process is becoming more and more complicated by things like having children out of wedlock, or young couples choosing to live together before a bridal agreement has been made. Running away with a boyfriend or girlfriend whom the family doesn’t agree with carries a lot more cultural drama than you might think. One friend shared that he was really disappointed in his daughter who had gone to university and had a pretty good education, but instead of arranging a proper marriage and earning her family a fat dowry, she had run off with a scoundrel that couldn’t offer any payment whatsoever. With her education she would have fetched a higher bridal price. Things get really complicated when a wife dies before the whole payment can be made.  Back at Jackson and Sofia’s event, the truck loads of family kept arriving, each person’s arms laden with large porcelain bowls and plates, packed carefully with cardboard between each one. They marched them across the porch, swaying along to the tinny sounding music blasting from the speakers and set them, stack after stack, in the “ruang tamu” where all the furniture had been moved out to make room. There must have been several hundred, including several tall “urn” looking pots. Each had a unique design painted on them. My friend Dora patiently tried to explain what it all meant. Though this was the payment for Sofia, she herself wouldn’t keep any of the dishes, or even use them. They were given to her parents and family. Later on these plates would be traded when one of their sons, or grandsons made a marriage match. Sofia wasn’t even supposed to touch them, or else something bad could happen to her. She may get sick or become itchy.   This made more sense now as to why years earlier in Sentani, Mama Bati was so insistent that her grandson not touch the manik-manik (beads). No child is ever to touch the trade items as they believe they could be cursed or cause bad luck. Even an adult should wash their hands after holding an item. In Sentani instead of plates, the currency for bride price is the manik-manik and stone axe heads, along with cash.  After the giving of the plates and a yummy feast, the real party began. As the music pumped, the crowd formed a ring and began their shuffle. Swaying back and forth, with knees bent and feet scuffing the ground, they paraded round and round, stopping every once in a while to bend forward and stomp in unison. The music could be heard long into the night after I went home.  There is still so much I don’t know about all the details of these transactions, but it’s been interesting to piece together more and more information as I see different people groups here use these items. One thing is true, people are valuable and there has been a payment made for each one! A bride price that no amount of axe heads, plates or beads could ever pay.
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White smoke was pouring out of the hood of our car, a 1982 Honda civic specially purchased for the arrival of Noah. We were trying to meld into the Indonesian way of doing things as much as we could, but when it came to carrying our newborn in a sling on the back of a motorcycle Nathan drew the line. So began the search for a small car to get us around. After looking at many a shiny, sticker covered car that turned out to be a mess under the hood, Nathan found the old but stable rust colored Honda with the big squishy seats and it became “Noah’s car”.  Now smoke was billowing out of the hood only a half hour from Mas Wawan’s house. One thing that I love about Javanese and most Indonesian culture in general is that when you find yourself in a pickle, it only takes a few seconds for perfect strangers to crowd around and try to help fix the problem. I think it’s probably due to crisis culture. There isn’t much preventative thinking in Indonesia, but when a problem arises they hop to action, often “jimmy rigging” the issue for the time being. There were already a few men inspecting the car with Nathan. I sat in the back seat with Noah in his brand new car seat. If you think it was hard to find a car, that was nothing compared to finding an appropriate car seat! We ended up with a forward facing car seat from a mall in a neighboring city (the only place that might carry something so foreign) as the best we could find and were immediately the subject of much curiosity. “Dia punya kursi sendiri!?” followed by lots of giggling and shaking of heads. Yes, our baby had his own seat. Something so normal and in fact required in America was a thing of confusion here.  We were on our way to visit our friend *Mas Wawan. About 8 months before, we had taken a trip to “Little Deer Island” where we spent a few nights at a rustic little off grid cabin. It was our last outing before Noah was due and floating over the gorgeous coral reefs surrounding the island felt great on swollen pregnancy feet. Mas Wawan had been our energetic and cheerful Island host and guide and Nathan and I hit it off with him right away. He was so friendly and excited to show us all the fun things about the Island. He taught me how to catch those super fast crabs by flashlight on the beach and took us to the best snorkeling spots.  Since we had only been in country about 5 months at that time, we could understand more Indonesian than we could speak, but Mas Wawan had so many questions about Christians. “What’s the difference between Catholics and Christians?” “Why are you studying Indonesian?” “Where will you move after Java?” Sitting around the campfire on the beach while boiling those crabs we had caught, we tried hard to answer his questions the best we could with our limited language. He invited us repeatedly to come visit him and meet his family after Noah was born. After realizing he was from a small village only 1 1/2 hours away from where we were staying in Salatiga, we agreed. 10 Months later he called and said he was on break for rainy season and had come home. He wanted us to come meet his family and bring our new baby. It turned out we only had a hole in our coolant line and that was quickly jimmy rigged (see? I told you they could fix it) for the time being. Wawan showed up on his motorbike and led us the rest of the way to his home. He warned us that his neighbors had never seen a white person before and might be a little excited, especially to see Noah. Boy was that an understatement!  In my 12 years of life in Indonesia I’ve experienced a lot of “excitement” over my kids, especially when they were babies. But I have never yet seen the sheer thrill like on the faces of Wawan’s mom and her neighbors when we arrived. Wawan’s parents were so honored that we had come and served us a beautiful meal in their adorable green house. Green is a very common house color for Muslims as it symbolizes nature and life.  Noah was passed around and quickly slipped into *sarongs of different women, each eager to sniff his cheeks and squeeze his legs. Interestingly enough, the word for “kiss” and “sniff” is the same in Indonesian - “mencium” and I’ve never seen the truth of that so much as how the ladies “sniff” the babies! Instead of kissing with their lips, they drag their nose across the cheeks with a satisfied snuffling sound. Noah gots lots of that.   When it was time for me to feed Noah, they led me to a side room, but I’m not sure why because there was no intention of giving me privacy. The ladies all crowded into the small room and watched Noah nurse, reaching over to stroke his hair or pinch his cheek. There are many moments here where in my head I am just laughing and thinking “I can’t believe this is happening”, or “this is so weird!” (Just to clarify, if I feel genuinely uncomfortable by something going on I will say something and speak up for myself or my kids, but many times it is just a matter of getting used to a different way of doing things and being flexible).  It was beautiful to visit Wawan’s village and family. He showed us all the family animals, the neighborhood water park, and the koi fish farm next door. I met the angriest monkey I had ever seen, who reached out of his cage and slapped my phone out of my hand when I tried to take a picture! (Check out the picture and tell me he isn't the worst monkey ever!).
I have never regretted accepting an invitation to visit someones home or family here. They are so gracious to invite and generous even if they have little. The communal way of life in Indonesia is something to admire. So if someone invites you to some place new, go! *In Java, “Mas” is a general term for younger, unmarried men. *Sarong is a long piece of fabric, commonly tied over your shoulder and use as a sling to hold your baby.  I sat on the metal bench in the wide, open air waiting room and prayed. I didn’t know how far into surgery they were, or how long I would be sitting there. There was no one else around except the occasional uniformed nurse passing by, her heels clicking on the tile floor. The only information I had received was a curt text message saying “dia sudah masuk ruang operasi”. She has gone into the operating room. I had jumped on my motorbike and zipped to the other end of town and now here I was, sitting in the waiting area of the operating room. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do here exactly. The medical world in Indonesia is a confusing and sometimes infuriating place. Just the process of getting her in and scheduled for surgery had taken three days since she had given birth. The fact that Tarisi was still alive was a miracle in itself. I remembered back to just two days prior as she drifted in and out of consciousness in the “emergency room” while the attendants slowly typed up her paperwork and asked what seemed like a million questions. Can’t they see she is dying here?! What is the hold up? The careful dance of being respectful but also persistent so that your patient doesn’t slip to the background in the chaos of the hospital. Be too demanding or pushy and you could end up stonewalling progress. Shaming someone (intentionally or not) who isn’t doing their job fast enough will get you avoidance and no eye contact. The operating doors suddenly swung open and Tarisi’s bed was wheeled out by a nurse who nodded at me and unhooked a heavy looking black plastic bag off a rung of the bed and handed it to me. Then off we went down the hall, turning down open air tile walkways, passing heaps of garbage where cats rummaged until we reached the recovery room. Tarisi was still unconscious, hooked up to an IV and a bag of blood. I knew exactly whose blood it was too. In Indonesia there are generally no blood banks stocked for emergencies. When you need blood, it is your responsibility to rally your troops to come and donate blood on the spot. Tarisi had lost so much blood after her delivery that she needed at least three bags of blood donated. Amazingly we had three fellow missionaries in town who had her same blood type and were able to come and donate right away. That in itself is miraculous considering out of the five adult missionaries in our town at the time, three of them had her blood type! The recovery room was a cement walled room with 8 beds, about 4 of them occupied by other recovering patients. A plastic fan bolted to the wall buzzed tiredly back and forth. The others in the room looked like they had been there at least a little while since they had their “tikar” or plastic mats unrolled on the floor around their loved one’s bed and seemed to be quite settled. I was thankful for an empty bed next to Tarisi and sat down. I set the plastic bag on the ground under the edge of her bed. I didn’t have to open it. I already knew what was inside. I thought back to a story I had heard from an Indonesian friend a year or so earlier. Her husband had been in a horrible accident and was in the operating room while his wife waited and prayed for good news. At last the nurse came out and handed the wife a black plastic bag. She opened the bag to see her husband’s foot. It had been amputated and this was the way she found out. I knew that inside Tarisi’s bag was her retained placenta. The very reason she had been flown out to our small town to get medical treatment. She had given birth to twins and retained the placenta. Now the bag was mine, to do with as I pleased. No professional disposal service here! Most would probably bury it, or throw it into the river.  I sat there for a few hours, wondering where Aulina was. Aulina had come out of the village to accompany Tarisi and be her translator since she only spoke her Dem tribal language. Aulina was a Moni tradeswoman who knew both Indonesian and Dem. Tarisi moaned and rolled to her side. There was dried blood on her vinyl mattress. A kind man also waiting in the room with us told me to call the nurse to change her IV bag - it was almost empty. I thanked him and went to get a nurse. After making sure Tarisi wouldn’t be moved in the near future I ventured across the hospital to the NICU to check on the babies. Little plastic incubators lined the NICU, most holding alarmingly small bundles, wrapped tight in swaddling cloths. Their round little faces poked out the top, fluffy jet black hair crowning their sweet little heads. Five pounds is a good sized Indonesian baby, and many are born smaller than that. To an American they seem even smaller. A nurse who looked about 15 brought the twins out to me. They were wrapped like little burritos, snug side by side in their little nest. They looked so different from each other, two boys. One small and one larger. One with tiny features and one with a large nose. They were doing well, although the nurse told me that the one had been started on antibiotics. Why? I asked. “Darahnya jelek” - his blood was ugly. I tried to clarify what exactly they had seen in his blood work but they just said it was some kind of infection. They were being fed with formula for now, but my goal was to bring a pump and teach Tarisi how to pump her own milk as soon as possible. Those babies needed every drop!  The nurse handed me a plastic bag, this time it was full of laundry… and used diapers. I needed to wash the laundry and replenish the stack of baby clothes and diapers for the twins. I had already gone shopping for some of those things, but the clothes were running low since they normally bathe the babies twice a day. At least I had a washing machine at home to do most of the work for me. Many of the residents at the hospital were washing their clothes in buckets and hanging them on the railings along the walkways to dry in the sun. When I went home that night I had several bags in tow. The black plastic bag with “you know what” inside, the babies' laundry and diapers to sort through, and Tarisi’s bag of laundry. Aulina had eventually shown up and handed off the blankets and clothing that Tarisi had been sent out in. They were encrusted in damp blood and smelled of the same. Later as I dumped them into a large tub of water and watched it turn red as I plunged them up and down, I was amazed again at the amount of blood she had lost. Praise God she was still alive! Praise God her babies were alive!
The next week I went back and forth to the hospital each day, bringing clean laundry, food, diapers, checking on the babies and sitting with Aulina and Tarisi. She was now in a larger recovery room with better air flow. She wasn’t allowed to see the babies yet, so I would show her pictures of them on my phone and she would coo and murmer proudly in her own language. I had hung onto my old hand milk pump thinking “someday I’m sure I will need this” and sure enough it came in handy! I was concerned that the NICU staff would not allow me to bring Tarisi’s milk to the babies. Sometimes doing things “out of the box” is just not accepted here. Indonesians love baby formula, and sadly do not always have a good understanding of the value of breast milk. I prayed that they would understand and allow me to try it. I was so pleased when the nurses agreed with me that the babies would do much better on their mother’s milk! Thank you Lord! Through sign language, explaining in Indonesian and with Aulina’s help translating Tarisi understood that her babies needed her milk to grow strong and caught on quickly to using the pump several times a day, filling bottle after bottle with precious golden milk. The nurses were so pleased to accept the milk and encouraged her to keep pumping! As she regained strength, eventually the babies were able to be brought to her one by one for nursing, and praise the Lord they both took to it like champs. Once Tarisi was released from the hospital there were still several months of providing care for Aulina, Tarisi and the babies since their airstrip back to the village was closed due to covid.
When I think about this story I am reminded of God’s help and direction in all the details. It felt overwhelming and stressful, but He answered my prayers (and many other’s) and spared her life. Tarisi is from the Dem tribe, which at the time was only months away from hearing the gospel presented by our coworkers in her own heart language. Because of God sparing her life, she got to be there when the message of the gospel was shared! She is in God’s family now. Her babies (she has several more too!) get to grow up with access to the good news.
  I always have ideas of how I’m going to keep up this blog, and then either internet isn’t strong enough to actually load a new post, or it takes a back row to other priorities. As you might have noticed, we are back in Indonesia now! We’ve been here about a month now and still haven sent out a new update! Like I said, internet has been an issue and still is! At this moment all the lights on our modem say we are good to go, but our computers are sending another message. Anyway, we will hopefully be sending one out soon! I’d say we are pretty much settled back into life here in our little coastal town with the heavy humidity and beautiful sunsets. I was a little concerned on how our kids would do adjusting back to life over here after the longest time we have ever spent in America as a family. They were so enjoying “American life” and making connections with new little friends. Noah had cried several times when talking to me about moving back here, saying he didn’t want to leave America and say good bye to his family and new friends. Man it really tears you up to watch your kids process grief and goodbyes! It's hard enough for me to deal with, but when it’s your kids you really have to push forward in faith that God will meet them where they are. Of course He always does. The kids have surprised me in how well they have jumped back into life here though! Last term they were pretty shy around any Indonesian person they didn’t know well and were very hesitant to do anything in public without me by their sides. Indonesian Church for example was always an exhausting event since they didn’t want to leave me to play with the other kids or even sit more than a seat away. Since getting back I have noticed a surprising change in their bravery and friendliness! It helps that Shem is older now, and can go along with Noah as his security blanket :). Our first Sunday back at Church, the boys asked to go out on the porch by themselves half way through church to play with the other kids! Of course I said yes! Usually kids to be running all over the place during Church since there isn’t much of a children’s program to occupy them. It’s so not American culture, but since it’s normal here, I’m happy my kids are finally wanting to join in. At the end of Church we found the kids playing on the porch and Noah saying “Mom, I LOVE church! I don’t want to go home!” Wow! Thank you Lord! Neighbourhood kids are often in our yard in the afternoons which the boys really enjoy now too. They can’t communicate too much yet, but with time I am sure they will learn. The Lord has answered some concerns of mine quite quickly as well. I was wondering what I would do for a consistent house helper now that my mornings are filled with homeschooling. I didn’t even start looking for one before a friend offered her house helper as an option since she was moving away for several months. I now have a house helper that comes 3x a week to help around the house. I cant tell you how wonderful it is to come out of the school room and see the floors swept and mopped and the dishes and laundry done. It’s amazing how much of my day is spent just keeping the house clean when I don’t have a helper. It has been a huge blessing for me and my helper as well to earn some income. I used to feel really awkward having someone do my housework, but it seriously helps my sanity to have her! Nathan is back at teaching Bible lessons weekly at a local Church, and doing supply buying for our Church planting teams. This next week he gets to help out a coworker by traveling to the north west end of Papua to bring a boat to their ministry location. He loves those kinds of opportunities! I’m thankful to be feeling well health wise and I’m just taking things one day at time. I really feel your prayers, so keep them coming! All for now.  Photo ops at the Beach The boys were in bed, the day was drawing to a close and Nathan and I were relaxed in the living room, watching a movie. It gets dark at about 6pm year round for us, so it was already dark out. Our couch sits to the left of the back door and I was sitting on the end closest to it. Amid the noise of the movie, I suddenly heard the familiar click sound of the door opening. It startled me, and I looked to my left. Sure enough, the door was about an inch open. I immediately felt alarmed. I said “Nathan! someone just opened the door!” He jumped up and ran to the door, grabbed the handle and yelled in Indonesian “Who’s out there?!” The door wouldn’t open because whoever was trying to open it was trying to pull it closed again. Nathan yelled again and yanked the door open and started chasing a man into the dark. At that exact moment the power went out. I was standing in the middle of the living room in pitch black, listening to footsteps disappear into the darkness. I shakily scrambled around for my phone and turned on the flashlight. Waiting. Wondering who had tried to come into our house when they could obviously see that I was there and the TV was on. The power flickered back on and Nathan came back, saying he chased the guy down the road before he slipped down a side street. It was too dark to tell who it was.
Was it the young man who I had already had 2 awkward and inappropriate interactions with on the road recently? The way Nathan had been sitting in the corner may have blocked his visibility from the window. Was he trying to come in because he thought I was alone? Uncomfortable thoughts that bothered me the next few days. I found myself glancing at the door frequently throughout the next day, and locking it during the day whenever Nathan was gone for anything. This had already been a seriously stressful few months with moving into a house that needed to be totally gutted and being the only western family in town for months at a time. I was exhausted emotionally and physically from so many bouts of sickness with either me or the kids. Then a handful of incidents with men in the community made me question going out on my own (with the kids or without) anymore. I noticed that I wasn’t looking people in the eye anymore when I went out into town or to the market. I generally hold my head up and smile and nod at those in passing but I realised I wasn’t doing that anymore. My eyes were down and I was avoiding any eye contact with men especially. I didn’t want another awkward interaction. At times I was on edge almost constantly, jumping at sudden sounds like doors slamming or phones ringing. The physical symptoms came during all of this too. I won’t go into detail, but it was a pretty traumatic thing to feel so many things going on in my body and have nowhere to go for help. Looking back it’s pretty obvious it was stress, but I had never had experience with anxiety or any of these other things so it was very hard to accept or believe that it was “just stress’ when it was affecting me so strongly that I couldn’t even function. My body couldn’t cope anymore. It had gotten itself stuck in stress response and would be triggered by almost anything. We decided to move up our furlough time to get to the bottom of my health struggles. Our time in the states has been enlightening to me regarding stress and trauma. I had to learn for myself what my body was doing in order to believe it. I’ve been reading a lot of books, have had lots of info from doctors regarding stress and its amazing impact on the body. Now, I do have a mild case of autoimmune thyroiditis, which definitely exacerbates the affects of stress. I think the meds I am on now for that are really helping! A huge piece of my “healing journey” (I’m gonna be cheesy and use that phrase) was actually believing 100% that this is all stemming from a sensitive nervous system that is hyper reactive to stress. It couldn’t be someone else just telling me that, I had to find it out for myself. Brain science is so fascinating! It’s really fun to learn about this stuff. (Maybe I should have been a neurologist...) I have been doing a program that retrains the brain to get it out of chronic stress response. I do an hour (most days!) of practice a day to retrain my brain! How crazy is that! I believe it is actually working. God’s design is incredible! He has designed us so intelligently and it’s a testimony of His great wisdom in the way He has designed the brain to protect us. I asked myself why I am sharing this, and the main reason I guess is that we are going back to Indonesia hopefully at the end of August and I wanted people who pray for me to know a little more of the kind of stresses I personally have been facing overseas. I hope it will help you to know how to pray! Some may be wondering why I am going back after all the stress. I believe through your many prayers on my behalf that God has rekindled an excitement in me to go back. For a while there I was willing to go back, but there wasn’t a real excitement about it. I feel that in the past month specifically I have regained the desire and excitement of going back to our ministry. I don’t think this could be from any other source than God. He is so patient and kind to me. I don’t feel afraid, even though it is always hard to leave our friends here in America. I’ve never felt so weak or helpless as I have in the last year and half, but I also know that God doesn’t waste trials. He will work all things together for good to those who love Him. He is teaching me how to love Him! I have been thinking about my good friends there, and the opportunity to share Christ with them in these next few years. Lord willing, He can speak through my non-eloquent words and ways to share His truth with them. I am so glad He will do the work and that it’s not up to me. |
AuthorBurris Family, living in Asia Pacific Archives
April 2019
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