It is a rare sunny Sunday afternoon here in Jakarta. Everyone told us that January and February are the worst months of the rainy season, and we now believe them. This has been a very rainy month – raining nearly every day, sometimes two or three times per day. Often when it rains, Mallory and I go out on our porch and watch the rain. One evening during a thunderstorm, Heidi heard a loud crashing sound coming from the backyard. She looked outside and we saw a huge branch from one of our palm trees had fallen and came crashing down into the pool. The boys thought that was great.
A couple of weeks ago we started to notice a bunch of goats and cows at little stands on the side of the road. We found out that they were for the Muslim holiday Idul Adha, which is associated with “the Haj” and the pilgrimage many Muslims make to Mecca. Apparently on the morning of that holiday (it was a national holiday and I had the day off work), all Muslims who are financially able are supposed to buy one of the cows or goats and then they sacrifice the animals and give the meat to the poor.
Mallory is still the cutest little girl in Jakarta. We had the 12 people from my department over for dinner on Friday night (December ended up being too busy to do a year-end dinner), and Mallory was the entertainment. A bunch of people took pictures with her and she loved smiling at everyone and showing them her toys. Heidi didn’t mind hosting the dinner because we had it catered (we found an American woman who runs a catering business and serves really good and extremely reasonably priced American food).
Mallory is very talkative. Her vocabulary is expanding, and she understands a lot more than she can say (Heidi asked her to go to her room and get a diaper this afternoon – she ran off to her room and came back smiling with a diaper in her hand).
Mallory also has learned to turn on her CD player in her room. One of her favorite things to do is to have someone put her black Sunday shoes on her and then she turns on her CD player and dances all around her room. She seems to have new moves every week.
Every month or so one of the mothers from the boys’ school classes invites all of the other mothers over for a “Coffee Morning” to discuss what’s going on in the class. Heidi had one at our house last week for Grant’s class. Well, Heidi decided not to serve coffee. She had plenty of food to eat and a couple of beverage options – fruit juices and whatnot. Well, when all of the ladies came over and it was about to start, one of the ladies said she wanted to get a cup of coffee before they started the meeting. At that point, Heidi told everyone that she didn’t have any coffee. To say the women were disappointed is an understatement – some of them were on the verge of walking out (I was sick and stayed home from work that day, and I could hear the uproar from the other room). In the end, everything worked out, but I don’t think they will ask Heidi to host “Coffee Morning” again.
Last week Heidi and I were called in to speak with someone from the mission presidency before church, and I received a call to be in the branch presidency (the former 2nd counselor died in December). It’ll be interesting to see how things work in this small of a branch – I don’t know how much busier I’ll be, but we’ll find out.
The church does a lot of charity work here in Indonesia. In addition to the aid they are giving to the people in Aceh (the area hit by the tsunami in Dec 2004). A few months ago the missionary couple in our branch who are here working with all of the church’s humanitarian efforts asked us if we knew anyone who needed a wheelchair. I asked around and found out that one of the drivers at work has a mother-in-law who is ill and needs a wheelchair. So, we were able to get one of the wheelchairs for her (I think they imported about 1,000 wheelchairs and most of them were given out through other charities around Jakarta and in Central Java – there was a photo and short story about it in the Jakarta Post (English-language newspaper) a week ago or so).
Luke lost his first tooth about a week ago. It had been loose for a few weeks. One night all the boys and Heidi were in Luke’s room looking at his tooth. Suddenly, Grant pulled Luke’s head back, opened Luke’s mouth and stuck his hand in and yanked out the tooth. It was quite a sight. Grant tried to pull out the one next to it as well, but Luke wouldn’t let him. We all think Grant is either going to be a dentist or a doctor.
This week people are celebrating the Chinese New Year here – Jakarta has quite a large Chinese community. It has been great to see the decorations around in shops, office buildings, and the mall. The area just north of the city is where most of the Chinese community lives. We have heard that there is quite a celebration up there. Maybe we will go there next year.
