Adventure Time with Keri!

After the dedication program was finished we ate a ton of food and then the group distributed soccer (or football depending on which country you’re in) jerseys they brought from Canada plus other presents and goodies. You could tell the kids loved every second of it – from the smiles and the giggles to the shouts of glee outside. The boys right away put their jerseys on and ran to the soccer/football field to play a game. Austin, Gillian, Nathan, and Ryan joined them…although I think they were a little too much for Ryan b/c he came back out of breath and looking for water. Haha! Poor Ryan. We had to cheer him on. The guys were super good and we had a few of them do back flips for the camera as well. I think I was so mesmerized I forgot to take pictures. Hahaha. 

Brooke and Brittany

Brooke and Brittany with the girls from the orphanage.

Jerralyn passing out the jerseys.

Trying to finish up the roof to the new dormitory.

Posing with their new jerseys

This cool pastor had this awesome handshake!

Pastor Sakul and Arody hamming it up.

Bryan, Pastor Sakul, and Arody having a moment.

Our awesome and fearless drivers.

New dormitory being built.

Current girls dorm

Brooke and Brittany with the girls.

Arody and Jerralyn

The girls picking out goodies

Running across the football field.

Ryan and Austin playing with the guys.

Gillian playing soccer/football with the guys.

Our awesome and fearless driver is really good at soccer/football.

Another driver playing soccer/football

I like trying to look awesome with their equipment. Hahahahahaha.

Arody loves his cameras....

That night I led out in VBS again and  managed to survive another evening with those energy-charged kids. They were absolutely wild but I’m ok with that b/c they were all somehow still paying attention. I think that was the night Julianne and I forgot the blue felt background from her mom’s room…so we had to make do and tack half of the felts onto the board and kept a watchful eye on the rest of them. Haha. I made sure I read the Bible story that I told a few times from the felt book as well as from the Bible…but I really hope I told it right…because I went purely off of my memory when I told it…which is never a good thing b/c we all know my memory is horrible! Only by the grace of God. Haha! 

My kids singing songs.

Pastor's daughter singing. I love her smile!

My kids singing more songs!

Our translators were awesome!

The following story happened on either Sunday or Tuesday…I can’t remember, but it was quite amusing to me, so I will document it here. As I said earlier, Julianne came every night to assist either me or her mom. Since she’s tiny and definitely looks like a foreigner (compared to me…I mean, come on, our own team leader thought I was a local one night), all the church members were very concerned for her and wanted to make sure that she was eating. This is pretty much the conversations that happened while we were eating (side note: I found out beforehand that she doesn’t particularly like plain rice):

Church member brings a whole bowl of rice over to her asking her to take more b/c they see she barely has any on her plate.
Julianne looks up and doesn’t know how to decline.
Me: Uhhhh…Dia tidak suka nasi. (She doesn’t like rice.) *apologetic smile and laughter* 

Different church member brings over a whole fish.
Julianne looks at me, the fish, and then the church member with a stricken look on her face.
Me: Ummm…Julianne…they want you to take the fish…do you eat fish?
Julianne: Not that kind of fish!! (Meaning…not one that’s looking back at you…haha)
Me (to the church member): Dia tidak suka ikan. (She doesn’t like fish) *more apologetic smiling and laughter*

Another church member brings over gado-gado sauce (spicy peanut sauce to go over your veggies) noticing that Julianne didn’t put any over her veggies after I had told her it was a bit spicy.
More overwhelmed looks from Julianne.
Me: *laughing openly at this point because I realize their concern for her* Dia tidak boleh makan pedas! (She cannot eat spicy!) (Also, I found out that they say pidas…not pedas….oops, no wonder I had to say it a few times for them to understand me.)

And at this point I’m just dying of laughter. Poor Julianne! She was such a good sport though, especially during all the picture taking. 

I honestly don’t remember what we did on Friday except that the group presented the conference with a laptop and projector along with the felt sets and other donations that they had brought over with them. I love giving. I say that as if I had anything to do with what they were giving….hahaha. No, but seriously. The phrase, “It is better to give than to receive” comes to mind and the group emulated that. I mean, just look at all the stuff they brought! =)

They brought a ton of stuff!

Presenting the president of the Minahasa conference with all the donations.

Preparing for VBS always took quite some time depending on the stories being told. The group brought enough felt sets for each of the churches we were at. The problem was going through all those felts! If any of you have ever had to use felts, you know that finding those minuscule but important pieces are like finding a needle in a hay stack. I had to have Julianne go through them for me after I looked through each pile twice when I couldn’t find what I needed. Thank goodness for another set of eyes! Putting the craft supplies together was a bit easier as they were well organized before they got to Indonesia. Whoever put them together in Canada…God bless you. No, seriously.

Mrs. Crombie and Ken were a lot more organized than I was...haha.

The kids were rambunctious as usual and some of the kids and I started teasing each other. They knew I could speak a little Indo so they would test my patience to see how long it would take me to tell them to sit down (sila duduk) or to wait (tunggu). When they would crowd around me and try to sneakily get more craft supplies or stickers I would cry out, “wei, wei, wei!!” It’s a Chinese expression…it kind of translates to, “hey, hey, hey!!” Lololol. All the naughty boys that were the ones I was saying this to thought it was the funniest thing…I’m not sure whether because it was coming from me or whether they aren’t used to it, but at the end of the night they would come up to me, say it, and run away laughing. It made me crack up. Why are the all the naughty ones the cutest??

I know this is super blurry...but I was trying to capture the smiles of the two twins on the right.

Me, Julianne, Jenna, and Auntie! Translators FTW!

My adik, Rachel!

Making crafts!

Me with Julianne and Vanessa

Since it was the last night at each of our sites there were TONS of photos taken and no one got home before 11pm (or at least I don’t think so…haha).  Julianne and I were in the car with the pastor’s family all ready to go but Mr. Nathan was nowhere to be found. So I made the mistake of stepping out of the car and going to find him. Yupp. BIG mistake. As soon as I went into the church to look for him I was asked to pose for a picture. And then, of course everyone else wanted a picture. Half an hour later, I was able to sneak back to the car…and I still hadn’t gotten Mr. Nathan. I had to cover for Julianne too b/c she was tired and didn’t want to take photos…so I had to make up some excuse for her. Lol. I felt bad, but I knew she was exhausted. Another half hour went by before Mr. Nathan was able to tear himself away from the crowds. The pastor, our driver, was joking and said, “Mr. Nathan, we’ll just leave you here at the church till the morning.” Hahahaha. 

Posing with some church members

With some of the youth of the church.

Sabbath dawned and promised to be a blessed day. All the churches in the conference convened at the big auditorium at the academy and there were probably over 2000 people there! It was pretty crazy. I was running around with the boys getting some shots as they got theirs. As always, our group had little notice that we were doing a special number before the sermon…thankfully we had thought about this beforehand and had prepared something. Because the guys and I were sitting on the side of the building, we managed to attract a group of kids. Half of them were my kids and I was happy to see them one more time! 

Four way picture taking!!!! Hahahaha.

Posing with the kids!

My naughty boys!! Hahaha.

Somewhere during the service it started raining (per usual). Except this time it didn’t stop after half an hour or even an hour. It was POURING rain the whole time and it sounded like radio or TV static turned up to the MAX. It was extremely hard to hear Pastor Warren speak…well, I guess sitting behind the speakers didn’t help me either. Haha. Pastor Warren stretched out the sermon in hopes that the rain would stop by the time he finished. No such luck. There was still a torrential downpour when he ended and no signs of it stopping. Everyone was stuck inside the building as all the food was inside all the church member’s cars. So what did we do? We took pictures or, more like they demanded to take pictures with us. Haha! We were all amused b/c they had to not only take group shots but also individual shots as well…which you can imagine took forever and a day. I tried to blend in as much as I could on the side…to no avail. I was dragged into picture after picture. At one point, I was dragged by the wrist to the middle of the stage to take pictures with this one family. Apparently I had given this guy glasses and he was SUPER happy about it. Hahaha. 

Kids from the orphanage/academy doing a special number for Sabbath School.

Bryan getting B roll

Youth of the church serving as deacons.

I had Arody go up on stage to take a pic of the mass crowd.

From the back of the auditorium.

Pastor Sakka, our site driver and pastor of Pioneer Todano SDA Church.

Pastor Warren

Pastor Gerungan, President of the Minahasa Conference, and Pastor Warren.

The girls with Brittany.

Special music...thanks, Dan for holding the mic for me!

My boys...they're so naughty. Haha!

This group sang amazingly!

The kids that were hanging out with us on the side.

We ended up on the stage...so I snapped another picture....haha.

The Holly family!

They forgot to give Arody a corsage cuz he wasn't on stage...lol.

The pouring rain!

We were finally escorted out to a bus which then took us to one of the classrooms (or chapels…I’m not sure) to have lunch as the rain had let up a bit. We were all a bit concerned as to whether or not they would have the baptisms as planned since it was still raining. We joked that we could just send them outside and then have them come back in through another door and call it a day since it had been raining so hard. Haha! After tons of food we made our way back to the auditorium to watch the conferring of the baptismal candidates (or whatever you call that…I can’t remember!).  Our group sang a special song to them right before the baptisms. I tried to play my violin…but I think b/c it was super loud and not everyone could hear me, people starting singing in their own key so I stopped playing midway b/c I could hear like three different keys being sung. Haha!

Playing/singing to the baptismal candidates before everyone starting going off key. Lol!

Despite the rain, we all ran out…ok, more like walked carefully with umbrellas b/c I was helping the guys take their camera equipment outside, and gathered around the half-filled pool as the rain fell steadily around us. About 6-7 pastors got into the freezing water and thus began the mass baptisms. Altogether, 85 people gave their hearts to God that rainy afternoon!! PTL!!

That night we had one last hurrah during worship as we wrapped things up with our group. It was bittersweet to say the least. It had been an exhausting week physically and mentally for all of us but I am so incredibly PROUD of every single person in the group. I couldn’t have asked for a better team to work with and I’m so thankful for each and every one of them!! I want to see you all on another mission trip with us!!

Ok, enough with all this sentimental stuff. I can’t handle more than that. Haha! 

Side note: This little tidbit is more of a general thing that happened the whole time we were there (kind of like the rain). They drive absolutely CRAZY over there!!!! I kid you not. You can ask every single one of the team members and they will tell you that each person had at least a few mini heart attacks while we were on the roads. First of all, the roads are tiny, especially the back roads. Second of all, it is perfectly acceptable to pass the car in front of you even if there is an oncoming car about to run you over. Third of all, there are no stop signs and no traffic lights. Ok, I lied, there were a few but NO one heeded them, I can assure you. 

Moving on. 

Sunday, the group left super early for Bunakan (a top place to dive at), which I was a little sad about b/c the boys and I didn’t get to go since we were flying out that day for a little R&R time in Bali. I was half asleep when I heard a knock on my door. Groggily I opened it up and Julianne stood in front of me telling me the pastor of our church needed to give me something from our translator. I glanced at the mirror to make sure I didn’t look too scary and with horror realized that a stupid mosquito had managed to bite my right eyelid. It had swelled up and I hoped it wasn’t too noticeable and I cursed the mosquito as I ran out to meet the pastor. I think he realized I had been sleeping b/c he apologized profusely as I tried to thank him profusely at the same time. Hahaha. I’m going to miss his family. They have three beautiful girls, the youngest one being a baby still…who was extremely intrigued by the puppet Juliann always carried with her…she especially liked the puppet’s nose. Hahaha!
Anyway, inside the bag was a shirt from the SDA University, where my translator is a professor, and a couple bars of chocolate from Indonesia called Silver Queen. We had had a conversation earlier about that…they didn’t realize that that particular brand of chocolate was only sold in Indonesia. It made me smile when I pulled them out of the bag.

I fell back asleep and finally woke up at a decent hour…with my eyelid still swollen. =.= Ok, let me explain to you why this is such a big deal for me. One, if you hadn’t noticed, I have small eyes. A swollen eyelid means my eyes are even smaller thus making it harder for me to put my contacts in. Also, my eyelid hurt more than it itched. Second of all, this happened twice in Tonga last summer and I was NOT amused. Ok, maybe it was kind of funny. Sigh. I loathe mosquitoes.

Anyway, swollen eyelid and all, the boys and I packed everything up and headed back to Manado with Pastor Terry. We killed some time at the Manado mall and had lunch at Pizza Hut…don’t hate…it wasn’t my idea. Lol. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare and chilled out for a while in the tiny airport waiting for our flight. From there we flew to Makassar, the opposite end of the Sulawesi island, and then finally to Bali. 

I’ll finish documenting the Bali part of our trip later. =)

Second day of clinics...with my pseudo-translator that always said, "YA!!" Lolol.

Worship time! Thanks for letting us lead out in evening worships guys!

Butterfly in the sky...or hand.

BABY BANANA!!!! Yes, it was a real banana and there really was a tiny banana in there!!