Another week gone by... :)

Sorry I haven't updated in a while... here goes for the last 2 weeks:
We went to a monthly outreach event that one of the families here has been holding throughout the past year. We were able to meet several Indonesian friends and perform a drama that shared the Good News about the love of Jesus. We were talking about forgiveness that night and one of the girls on our team shared her life story with the whole crowd (of over 50 people) and how amazingly God has worked in her life. It opened up great conversation and relationships with people and I was able to meet a few girls that I've been able to hang out with during the rest of my time here!

After that, we had a weekend village stay in Kucur (KOO-chour) complete with
1. a nice cold mandi (Indonesian style bath where you just dump lil bucketfuls of super cold water on yourself)
2. eating fresh coconut milk after a guy climbed up the tree with his bare hands and feet and a machete
3. teaching 80 children english songs and games (with pretty much 1 translator)
4. entertaining a bus load of Indonesian cigarette factory workers that came from Malang (the city we are based out of) up the mountain to Kucur just to see us "bule-bule" (pronounced BOO-lay, its the Indonesian word for 'white people')
5. INCREDIBLE friends: The family that hosts us are well-respected in the village. It is our friends Eli ("Elly") and Isaachar (they are brother and sister... Eli is 30 and Isaachar 27) and their family that are involved in the church here in Malang. Eli actually went with me and my team to Sumba last year and is tiny and quiet until she gets up to preach or pray and then is like this little fireball of passion and conviction! She is incredible! Our favorite thing to say is "saya suka Eli" which means "I like Eli" in Indonesian.
6. DELICIOUS food: The women in the family and throughout the village come over and spend pretty much all day in the kitchen preparing the meals, and they are the best meals I've had up to this point in my entire time in Malang! Some of the things we ate were: rice, fried corn patties, tempe (fried soy bean... SO good), chicken wings, chicken soup, veggies, some yummy cupcake muffins, and lots of fresh melon.
7. The best part was getting to go through the village meeting families and praying for whatever they wanted prayer for. It was such a sweet time!

After getting back from the village on Sunday we went to a safari park where you just drive through and the animals come up right to your car! We saw lions and tigers and bears (OH MY!) and elephants, deer, giraffes, monkeys, alligators, komodo dragons, leopards, it was amazing! We ate lunch beforehand at this environmental research center (supported by USAID) that has all organic food (we had the best bananas I've ever had there) and it has lil bungalows you can stay in, too... it's gorgeous!!

Last week we had a lot of free time to navigate our own schedule. Ben and Mike (the two dads on our team) taught an IT seminar to educate Indonesians and give them job skills, and Sarah (my sweet friend and roommate throughout the trip) and I helped them. We spent time in the big city park meeting and praying for people, and we even met one man who invited some of us go to his village later that week and help 11 and 12-year olds learn English.

Most of our team left last Thursday to head back to Boston, which brought tears, for sure. After they left I went and stayed at a discipleship house that Eli started a few months ago. It was an awesome few days to get to live with 5 Indonesian girls and see what life is really like living here. We spent an entire night just laughing in bed because we couldn't communicate very well... our thumbing through the dictionary was comical :)

These past 3 or 4 days I've been staying across the street from the girls' house with a couple named MJ and Hayley. They are from a sister church in Texas. Hayley spends most of her time with Eli and the girls at the discipleship house, serving and mentoring them, while MJ has a graphic design and media art business that He is working on here.

That's pretty much it for now... I'm heading to Bali tomorrow for a few days. I'll meet up with one of the families from my original Boston team who stayed longer, too, (Ben, Carolyn, Aeden and Naomi) and I'm hoping to have a few days to relax and allow God to prepare my heart for my next trip to India.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support!