Arrived, and safely!

Welcome to my blog for my summer trip to South East Asia. I'm going to keep things as up-to-date as possible, but as my access to reliable internet might be scattered, please allow for some grace!

So, we made it! Janine, Grace and I arrived, tired but happy, at approximately 7.30pm Jakarta time last night. By God's grace, we met few hassles, despite the team bag being overweight by several pounds and Janine and I carrying on long tubes containing all of the pre-made poster materials for our training sessions. Juliet graciously drove us to the airport on Tuesday morning, and as we were able to check in at home, left my house at 5.45am, rather than the previously scheduled 4am. We didn't hit ANY traffic (I don't know that I can say the same for Juliet on the way home...) and were able to eat a leisurely breakfast near our departure gate after going through a security screening that had absolutely no queue.

The plane to Tokyo was FULL. I think I counted 3 open seats on the HUGE 747...I was seated on the upper deck, where I had never been before, and Gracie and Janine were on the lower deck, in the very rear. I accidentally stole a sandwich from the business class "oasis" on the plane...but it was worth it because that was a good sandwich, haha! The flight was incredibly long, more than 13 hours, but it passed relatively quickly, thanks to sporadic sleep and a decent collection of movies for my viewing pleasure. Also, a big thanks to those of you who prayed for me and the huge stress/hesitation I was feeling prior to the trip--I was not nervous at all, and felt totally at peace from the moment I stepped on that plane, and the flight from Tokyo to Jakarta. Hopefully, that peace will be maintained for the 8 flights I have left to go!

I found Janine and Grace in the Tokyo airport, right before the transfer security. We made it through without any problems and had about 30 minutes before we needed to board our next flight. I was feeling rather ill from the previous flight, so I went in search of this magical pain medication I had previously found in Japan called "bufferin." I found it, and bought a bottle of water, and by the time our Tokyo flight took off, my headache was totally gone.

And when I thought that things couldn't get any smoother, I discovered that the seat I had checked in for on the second flight was actually a premium economy seat! This was a huge deal because I never get upgraded or anything. It's not like it was business class or anything, but there was so much more leg room and I had a leg rest and a foot rest...and I just totally felt spoiled. It was totally marvelous. The food on this flight was slightly questionable (I think I ate a piece of octopus sucker??), but no worries. I am still alive, whatever it was that I ate on that plane. I was also fortunate enough to sleep about 5 of the 7 hours from Tokyo to Jakarta, so I arrived in Jakarta feeling less than exhausted, which was marvelous.

Arrival in Jakarta was also smooth. One semi-hilarious moment occurred while I was waiting in line for my visa: I looked up to see a welcome sign in the airport that read "Welcome to Indonesia: Death penalty for drug trafficking. For some reason this made me laugh--what a welcome! Be aware that the death penalty is available here! I received a visa on arrival, which was actually this pretty intense sticker that they print out with all your information and takes up an entire page of my passport. I hope that there aren't many more of those kind to be received on this trip because otherwise I will run out of pages in my passport! The lines weren't too long, and I beat Janine and Gracie through the visa line and immigration, and headed over to collect our bags. Gratefully, all of our bags arrived, but one of our team members didn't!

One of Gracie's friends from Chicago was to be joining us on this trip, and when we didn't see her at the gate, we weren't too concerned, and expected her to join us on the plane. Only, she never did. It turns out that she did not make her connection in Tokyo and is currently still there, waiting for a flight out tonight.

I was able to purchase a SIM card at the airport (so I now have an Indonesian cell number--email me if you want it, haha), which just totally makes me feel more secure as I roam around, knowing that I can reach someone if absolutely necessary.

We took a really nice taxi from the airport to the home of the director of the teacher's college, about a 30 minute drive from the airport. The home was like NOTHING we anticipated.

First of all, this is place is like a mansion. I am so not joking. There are two of us to a room, but we have huge king size beds, flat screen TVs and our private bathrooms. It's also air-conditioned. The back yard has two fish ponds, half a basketball court, a pool and multiple trees lining a grassy yard and a patio with a approximately 5 tables surrounded by chairs. There's a spiral staircase leading to the room I share with Janine and a balcony that connects all the upstairs rooms. I can't even describe it...it's amazing. And the woman and her family are so nice and so generous--so eager to make our stay pleasant. We're spending the afternoon lazing around the pool, trying to distract ourselves from the beds that call to us so persistently...

And the training. Today was the first day, the first time we've had to put all our hard work and planning into action. We all got up around 6am (after 24 hours of travel--imagine!) and got ready for the day. A driver came to pick us up at 7.45am and we were then shown around the building that houses the teacher's college. We met many of the faculty and staff and then were shown to our room for the day and allowed to set-up. The room was perfect--the tables were situated just in the fashion that we wanted to model and there was lots of wall space for the various posters we were going to use. There was some uncertainty as to the English proficiency of the students we would be working with, so we were given a translator. She was awesome too!

It went REALLY well. I was to model a pictorial input, but done in Spanish, a language that no one in the room knew. The idea was that even though they don't understand the words that I'm saying at first, the pictures that are associated with them make the meanings clear. When I got up there and started speaking in Spanish, the whole room kind of gasped. But as things went on, as I would say words in Spanish, they would repeat them, and you could hear students getting their English equivalents ("Oh, condensation! Oh, oceans!"). They laughed as I moved through the drawings and did hand motions and pointed to words and repeated them, and when I finished, they clapped for me! I was the last strategy of the morning, so they'd been listening for 2 hours straight, and they clapped! I cannot even express the warmth that moved through me. It was an amazing feeling. I then explained why and what I had done, and the students were nodding their heads in understanding before the translator could even get to what I had said. Then we did what is called "reprocessing" where the students were given little cards with words from the poster on them and asked to come up and stick it in the appropriate location when they hear their word called. Every single one of them did it correctly, and they loved it when I said "que bueno!" after they posted their word. Then they clapped again. It was awesome. I was pretty nervous since I was going to be talking about the water cycle in Spanish, but God's provision was once again evident. All in all, I think there were very few ways in which the training could have gone better. We're up again tomorrow, and I hope it goes just as well.

We ate lunch after the training (It was delicious) and then went to a mall nearby and wandered around. We're now back at Connie's amazing house and Janine and Grace are waiting for me to join them in the pool, so I'd better sign off for now. So far, so good--but keep us in your prayers!