No Phone...

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted and with good reason. Apparently the last tenants of this house did not pay their final phone bill and so we were disconnected until the bill was paid today. Here in Indonesia phone numbers remain with the house.
Sunday we went to the Gereja Kristen Immanuel church here in Bandung. It is a very nice large church. They have a fairly liturgical worship service. We sang “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and at the end we sang the Doxology (Hymn 6). So it was nice that we at least knew two of the songs. The people were very welcoming to us. Although we felt a little like zoo animals as everyone was standing around looking at us and everyone wanting to touch or hold Marc and Brynne, which they didn’t want of course. We found out that there is a house congregation nearby to where we live. We are going to look into this as it is much closer and easier to get to. Plus a smaller group is more conducive to relationship building.
This week our neighbours have been having a well dug in front of their house. There’s been three or four guys working on it and they dug it all by hand. When it got a bit deep they set up a bamboo structure to hold the rope with the bucket on the end and down they went. They carried all the dirt out with weaved baskets hanging on a plank of wood which they rest on their shoulder. (I forgot to get a picture of it)
Bandung is a city of 4-5 million people. There are quite a few foreigners living here, but when I walk down the street there are still people who will nudge their children and point at me (with their thumbs as it is rude to point with your pointer finger…). They think that we are all beautiful and handsome. It is interesting how each culture has its own ideas of what is beautiful.
Today I went for my very first Indonesian haircut. One of the other MAF wives told me to say: Saya mau potong rabut. I want my hair cut. So I did. It’s nice and short now… They asked if I wanted a massage or a cream bath too…. Wow, maybe if I had more time. I only paid $30,000 Rups for my hair cut, that’s $3.84 Canadian. And this place is a little higher end than some of the other ones… Plus you don’t have to tip….
I realize now that I forgot to mention that we did receive the suitcase that we were missing. It came a couple days after we arrived in Jakarta, but because the MAF office was closed for the long weekend, it sat there until Tuesday….