Ramblings...

Today we celebrated our tenth anniversary! We are very thankful to our heavenly Father for keeping us for all those years and for allowing us to experience life here in Indonesia. Wow, it feels like a lot less than ten years since that special day! Ibu Tati came and babysat the kids so we could go out for a nice dinner. We went to a big mall that’s actually still in the process of being built but is quite incredible. It is called Paris Van Java. There we ate supper at a restaurant that mixes Western and Indonesia tastes. The food was really, really good. I had my first Caesar salad in a really, really long time. Wow… We had appetizers, fruity drinks, entrees and then a hot beverage afterwards and it cost us only about $25! It was really nice to sit outside on a terrace and people watch.
This morning I woke up with a really tight muscle in my shoulder/back area. I asked Ibu Tati to rub some special muscle cream on it for me. She did and afterwards said that she was so embarrassed/shy because my skin was so white and hers is so dark. (I was just hoping I didn't have any big pimples on my back...) I still can’t get over the Indonesian infatuation with white skin. There are skin whitening creams everywhere here. I would say their infatuation is much stronger than our desire to have nicely tanned skin. That and their infatuation with our “pointy” noses…
At school this unit we’ve started watching a film about a rock star that falls in love with a good muslim girl. Traditionally rock stars couldn’t be muslim. So the film makes the assumption that this guy is a “Christian” and so he is free to have long hair and be in a band and do whatever he likes. It is interesting because the rock star guy and his friends use a lot of English words. The insinuation is that English is a Christian language because those who are true muslims use more Arabic. There is this perception that Christans are “free” to do whatever they want. Of course they feel this way. They all think that America is a Christian country and what they see of America is whatever is spewed out by Hollywood. What else are they to think? So the whole point of the film is to show that you can be a rock star and a muslim now.
One other funny thing that I heard this week is that when people go to the mesjid they have to take their shoes off before going in. The joke is that there are many who go to the mesjid with old wrecked shoes and leave with nice new ones….