halfway

Just a few days ago marked six months since I arrived in Indonesia. It’s a milestone of sorts among my colleagues here, but I wrestled with mixed emotions of celebration versus sadness throughout the day, and I guess to some degree always do. Sure, it may seem interesting and exotic to live abroad, and inspirational to be a part of endeavors like these – and it truly is. But (there is always a but, eh?) the flip-side is the hard part – being away, feeling immeasurably detached from the people and places you love the most, the strangeness of never being able to quite “settle” in a place that continues to be… foreign.

But you keep on. You live and stretch and grow and try to learn (some days much more so than others) and you try to make something familiar out of the unfamiliar while still embracing the new. And somehow, along the way, you discover new pieces of yourself that you never knew existed. So, in that sense, I celebrate these as six months of Survival… partly, of getting to know myself better.

I celebrate a Faith, that is sustaining and ever-present. The verse continues to prove true that God is faithful when we are faithless. Applying traditional ways of believing, living and loving just doesn’t work when the shapes of our surroundings are all are all suddenly (and continuously) unrecognizable. But through walking out on the precipice of Openness and Acceptance, one discovers that a leap of Faith really isn’t so far from the foothold of the familiar. And the world, and our Faith, becomes only Bigger if we’re brave enough to jump…

I celebrate the people of Aceh, and their manifestation of Resilience and Perseverance, of having the courage to blend Need with Dignity, Grief with Recovery, and Tradition with Openness. One of the little things I love so much about the people here is their way greeting each other. When they meet someone, they shake hands in a typical fashion, but when the extended hand is retracted, they place it over their heart, almost in the posture of saying a pledge, but for just a moment. To me, it symbolizes their acceptance of one another, and how in meeting someone, they truly take them into their heart. And I feel that’s what the people of Aceh have done with me. And for that I’m immeasurably grateful…

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I wrote the above paragraphs a few days ago, when I was obviously feeling a bit nostalgic and reflective. Today, I’m lingering in thoughts of a lovely Easter yesterday. Though I’m far away from my favorite egg-coloring partners in recent years, Sierra and Daniel, I got to share in that little bit of fun-for-all-ages with friends here who’d never experienced the magical joy of watching a Paas tablet dissolve or the seeing the first hints of brilliant color emerge on a once boring egg (yes, you know it IS that fun!). Instead of attending a church service with hymnals, a well-tuned choir and Baptists in their Sunday best, I found myself in a little sanctuary with a few dozen other internationals wearing blue jeans, singing songs slightly out-of-key. But when the preacher-of-the-week greeted us with a hearty “Christ is risen!” and my voice and spirit echoed “Christ is risen indeed!” –- I knew my steps had led me to the Perfect Place to remember the Resurrection.

I am surrounded by rebirth here, and New Beginnings. A few weeks ago I went to Chalang, a small town a few hundred kilometers south of Banda, and one of the areas hardest-hit by the tsunami. We’re doing “immediate needs” projects in the surrounding area (yes, there still are many urgent needs more than a year after the disaster) and supplying basic things like water sources and spouts, building roads and small bridges – projects that are “small” in comparison to other efforts, but life-changing for those they affect. The center of town sits on a peninsula that was struck on three sides by the tsunami. Of the 2,000 people that lived there, only 17 people survived. When our field officer approached the community about their needs, they told him honestly that houses were being built and water was supplied, but what they really could use was a place for their kids to play, something to help them return to “normal” life, even this long afterwards. So what did he do? Together with a team of locals, they built a volleyball/basketball court for the children and teenagers of the community, and now scores of local kids from the surrounding areas have a place to come and play, to just be kids, to continue moving forward with hope and laughter…

Isn’t it always the simple, little things in life that make such a big, big difference?

And I colored Easter eggs yesterday. And went to church, and picked fresh mangoes from the tree in our front yard, and cruised around by myself at sunset. And I felt something more than “making it through” in my own little struggles here… Amid the simple things, I had my own resurrection of sorts, a New Beginning at my Halfway Point… in the little things, I found a big reminder that my own Tale of Survival is much moreso a Story of Purpose...

And is for us all. Happy Easter.

With love from Banda,
bonnie jean