Homesick. . .

It's the feeling that washes over every missionary kid at some point, the longing for home, the land of your youth even though it is not the land of your birth. It is this land that beats with your heart, this land that breathes air into your lungs, this land that captures your mind and soul and lets your spirit dance. For me this land is Indonesia, the land of beautiful smiles, humble gentle hearts, the land that for me represents beauty and peace. It's flag is simple red and white and yet I feel the stirrings of my heart and the National Anthem reverberating in my head when I see it before me. I have been away for far too long, it has been 17 years since my feet touched the soil of my heart, since my eyes took in the feast of beauty that is Indonesia, since my skin felt the dew of humidity on my skin and felt that same humid air take my breath away, since my lips tasted the sweet Salak and sampled the Durian despite the warnings from my nose, since my ears heard the crickets sing, and hear the language like music rolling off their tongues, and since my soul danced with worship just to be part of this land. It has been too long, and my very heart aches and breaks with longing; I am green with envy for my sister who gets to go back in a few months.

I long to shop in the markets, to barter with the best of them and to see how shocked they are when a white girl with strawberry blond hair and a million freckles knows how to barter, and will not be taken; their native language flowing from my tongue as easily as theirs. I long to see the twinkle in their eyes as we pass that knowing smile of a joke between us that no one else understands, the joke of a kindred spirit. They are a beautiful people, a people with humble generous hearts, a people who love life, and laughter and who love to tease, a people who live simply with grace, in peace.

I miss long beaches and playing in the sand for the whole day. Going home with a sunburn face, blonder hair, and a face full of freckles, tired and exhausted from a day of swimming, shell hunting and castle building. I miss waiting for the sunset on the beach, the clouds turning pink, purple and the sun turning a deep orange and finally a deep red as it sinks into the horizon. I always felt it was like God lifted a corner of the veil that hides the glory of heaven from our mortal eyes to give us a glimpse of the beauty that lies ahead for us if we persevere in faith.

I miss the blue/purple mountains in the distance like watchful giants you could figure out where you were in the land from where the mountains were. They peak out around the clouds and the clouds surround them like a beautiful painting. Wherever you go, whatever island you are on it is always like a painting set up before you, you take more pictures than you ever even thought possible because beauty lies all around you. The beach, the clouds, the mountains, the fishing boats dotting the horizon is only one of many scenes that play out before you, causing you to stand in awe of the Great God who created such diversity and beauty for us to feast on.

I miss the rice paddies that stretch as far as the eye can see. My house was situated on a hill that overlooked rice paddies and every day I spent some time gazing down at the paddies below me, watching the farmers working the fields, watching the sun set over them. They were in a sense in my back-yard and more in tune with my heart that the landscape of suburbia that is the North American scene to look behind and just see fences, stores and more back-yards. There you could inhale the sights and smells, languish in the sound of nature that is all around you. The paddies, mountains, beaches, the star filled nights, and bright blue skies, the world at your feet teeming with life, as Anne would say, "so much scope for the imagination".

I miss my homeland, I miss the fruit the smells of the market(fish), the beauty all around I miss my homeland. It's hard to accept that I may never return and see this land laid out before me again, or have a chance to delight in the delicacies laid out before me. I love rice even rice three times a day, fried curried chicken, curried beef, fried bananas, Salak, Durian, Go-Fu, the list is endless and my stomach growls grumpily as I let my imagination soar with the dreams of the feasts that I miss so much.

This is my house, the shutters that were green are now Blue and although it is a small house, tears come to my eyes and I remember all the joy that I experienced there. All that I was taught and come to know, the laughter, the cement driveway my parents put in just so we would have somewhere to roller-skate, the red jeep(the only red jeep at the time on the island), the beatuiful people, the peaceful nights, I am homesick tonight, I am aching to be back where I belong or to find a new belonging but after 25 years it is just a dream. Maybe my mansion in the sky will be in the Indonesian part of Heaven.


This is my front yard. I always walked that path on my way to school everyday. The flood this brings back is indescribable.

Jessica as a cute baby. . and now a tempermental tween.

A Frump. . .

Well Jessica is growing up, sigh. She was such a cute baby, such a sweet little girl and now such a smart and brave tween. At the moment she is over the moon that her school is having a dance on Friday night for grade six and up which means she can go and I have never seen her so excited. I tried to play the evil parent and say that she couldn't go but I couldn't keep up the charade.

Then there was yesterday when I heard her and Gil having an argument that I didn't expect to hear so soon. It was like a scene from the show 8 Simple Rules to Dating my Teen-age Daughter, it went something like this;
"you are not wearing that to school!"
"yes I am."
"no you are not!"
"Why????"
"Because it is not appropriate to wear that out of the house"
"Why???"
"Because that is something you wear around inside the house."
"not it's not."
"Yes it is and you are not leaving the house wearing that."
"Yes I am!!!"
"NO YOU ARE NOT!"
"But that's the only thing I wanted to wear."
"I'm sorry you will have to find something else."
"FINE I'LL JUST GO LOOKING LIKE A FRUMP THEN!"

At this point I am upstairs trying to figure out what on earth she could be wearing to create such a stir since Gil NEVER notices what they wear, and I have to control myself from bursting out laughing because what the heck is a "frump"? So I gingerly make my way downstairs into the war zone, happy that it is not a war between Jess and I but that for once Gil is the bad, over-reactive parent. She is sitting on the stairs now in nice white pants and a giant rust colored hoodie. The hood pulled over her head to hide her scowl as she glared around her. The cloud of rain over her head reminding me of Eeyore in the hundred acre wood on his worst days.

So I casually ask what's going on as if I haven't heard the tale already word for word from my boudoir. She begins with saying "Daddy wants me to go to school looking like a frump!" She then further explains in the tersest of words and with as much drama as you would expect from a hormonal teen-ager and not the pre-teen that she is, that she had started her day with a tank top/tube top combination. The tube top being a top that her cousin Rose no longer fit in and had given her but then discovered that it was way too big and there were not enough pins in the world to hold it up,(again on the inside I am rolling around laughing trying to imagine that outfit because she really has nothing to put in any tube top and the thought that she would try to strikes me as hilarious.) so she further explained that the next combination she came up with was a dressy pink lace robe with gold stitching over her tank top since they are not allowed just to wear tanks at school.

Well to Gil's credit it does look sort of like lingerie and I know that must be what went through his head at first but it isn't. It's an Indonesian dress robe that a young girl would wear over a tank dress or dress up outfit in Indonesia because the fabric is airy and would keep the girls cool yet at the same time maintain a level of modesty. Bare arms on young girls in a Muslim nation is usually frowned upon. So although here it may look revealing, in a different culture it's the opposite, and it was given to Jessica and Elizabeth from her other cousins from Indonesia since they have out-grown it.

Once I see it I understand her father's concern and so begin to explain to him that it isn't lingerie, etc. So then it's decided if she wants she can wear it, then she says "well what if people DO think it's lingerie?" Now the real test of a parent. I can't promise no one will think it is or isn't, I have not idea what pre-teens think is cool and I don't even want to guess. So I say well take the hoodie and if people bug you then you can change if you want. When she returned from school I was a quiver with curiosity as to the reaction from her peers and in typical Jessica fashion she responded, "yah they said it looked like lingerie, I told them it wasn't and it was an Indonesian dress robe and that was that!"

The Result!!!!

The Hair Cut Cont. . .

The Hair Cut