The Newlyweds...

Meet David and Mik (Meek). They are newly married. David is the youngest son of Pak Naftali Baikole, a long-time worker for MAF as flight scheduler and prior to that a worker for the ZGK (Dutch mission). David had had a number of girlfriends but none of them was "the one". Earlier this year his cousin went back to their home village in the province of Halmahera and he promised to find a wife for David. While there he met Mik and got her number and gave it to David and so began a relationship by cell phone. Then, before David and Mik had even met, his parents went to Halmahera and met her and her parents and asked them if their son could marry Mik. They agreed and plans were made. Mik returned to Sentani with them and met David for the first time. They seemed to fit and so the plans went ahead. After a mult-week visit, she returned home and waited for David and his family to come. The wedding occurred on Nov 1st in Halmahera. According to custom, food was provided for the entire village and the Naftali family had to purchase approximately 400 kgs of rice to feed everyone! Yikes! The wedding went on without a hitch and the newlyweds honeymooned for three days in Manado before returning to Sentani.
Tonight there was a party for them at Pak Naftali's house so that all those who couldn't come to the wedding itself could congratulate the couple. We were told it would begin at 6:00 and in true western form, we were there on time but no one else was... The ceremony ended up beginning at 6:30. In the meantime, Brynnie entertained everyone by shinnying up one of the tent poles at the front. (we were all sitting on plastic folding chairs out in front of the house, under a rented tent roof) Our pastor was supposed to preach but his wife had to be hospitalized today due to a miscarriage and the need for surgery afterwards. So Pak Naftali called up another pastor from Halmahera to come, the man agreed but today Pak Naftali couldn't get a hold of him so wasn't sure if he was going to come or not. Then the keyboardist had to take off so things were falling apart. David's sister-in-law is a radio DJ and so she hosted the event and things moved on and we sang acapella. Mik's father then spoke about the happy couple. Then suddenly the pastor showed up and he came up and preached. He was a bumbling sort of character and we were left curious as to what his point was... There was a lot of laughing and "umm's". By then our pastor had shown up and so he was also given the opportunity to pray for the couple. Then a close friend of David also had the opportunity to pray. Then Pak Naftali came up to speak for the family and suddenly the sound system went to echo... After his little speech (thankfully, he knows how to keep things short) we were all invited to go up and get some food. The food by then was rather chilly and I didn't want to think about how long it had been sitting out.... It was the usual spread of rice, chicken soup, fish, fried chicken, veggies with curry, beef and of course, krupuk and plastic cups of bottled water. Traditional meals here tend to be heavy on the meat and carbs, and low on the veggies... The family had been cooking the entire day over little kerosene "stoves" with the help of the neighbours. Hugo and I, it appeared, were the only ones to actually present the couple with a gift. Earlier today I had purchased a book on marriage by Gary Smalley and inside we tucked an envelope containing a monetary gift. Most times there is a box prepared into which people can drop envelopes of money but today no such box was prepared.