more than just a new year

We are well into January of the New Year, which marks 2 months of us being in this country.  It also reminds us that we have several more months of “rainy season”, which I like to call “moldy season”.  The other day I pulled out a pair of jeans that didn’t used to be green… and realized they were covered in a thin moldy film. Yuck.
We have a new Niece! Abby’s sister Chrissy and her husband Don welcomed darling Lily Renee into their family this past week. We are so excited for them!  Abby is now 17 weeks along in her pregnancy and we are getting excited to maybe find out if we are having a boy or a girl in the next few weeks. Continued prayers are always a blessing!

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As the weeks go bye we are learning more and more language and how to be a part of the life and culture here.  As new relationships start and grow it gets more and more fun to learn from the people who call this Country “home”.
On New Years Day we attended a parade in our village. The different sections of our city are all divided into what are called “RT’s” (air-tay’s). Our RT is number 10 in the region. For the parade, each RT had prepared their own performance and way of showing their unique culture and style. Some had children’s marching bands with garbage can drums, while others were dressed in their cultural Javanese style clothes and carried huge displays of food and fruit.  It was so interesting to see all the uniqueness that makes up this Country.

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Later that day we attended a carnival and got to see a common cultural practice called “Kuda Lumping” which means ”Horse Dance”.  People crowded around the roped off ring to watch 8-10 men in costume ride their “horses” (woven, painted horses) around to music and chanting. After about 15-20 minutes of dancing some would fall into trances and do some pretty strange things like eat sharp objects and lunge into the crowd at people. It was a real eye-opener to the deeper spiritual practices going on behind normal daily life.

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Eating Sate Kambing (goat) with my new friend Lidya.

A few days before that we had ordered what we thought was Chicken Sate, only to find out that it was basically everything INSIDE the chicken that they decided to put on the stick.  Yup- hearts, livers, and what looked like every other vital organ you could imagine.  I will try anything once, but some things only need one try!
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You can find just about any kind of meat on a stick here… but as delicious as most of it is, not everything is worth writing home about. Yesterday we got to try “Sate Kambing” which is Goat with some new friends.  It was very good! 

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We are on wheels! Nathan got a bike and has been practicing driving us around on back roads. It’s so nice to have a break from walking everywhere we go.  I will get my own scooter in the near future!

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