Joko Tarub

I heard a Javanese legend in class today, and it was really quite an interesting story, so I thought I'd share a little bit of a cultural experience with you all and tell you the story.

Joko Tarub

Joko Tarub was a young man that lived a long time ago on the island of Java. He lived in a house just outside of the jungle, and one day when he was sitting in front of his house he saw a beautiful bird fly by. This bird was so beautiful that Joko Tarub decided to catch it. When he got out of his chair the bird flew into the jungle, and Joko Tarub being filled with the energy of his scheme followed it. After a while Joko Tarub became very tired and thirsty, but he had run after the bird with such haste that he had forgotten to bring any food or water. He rested for a bit and then began to look for a place to drink. Not long after that he found a river and immediately began to drink, but as he was drinking he heard laughter. Joko Tarub was shocked and hid himself while looking around to see who was laughing in the middle of the jungle. Presently, he saw 7 beautiful women bathing in the river, he was shocked by their beauty, but then he noticed that they had all taken off their wings and set them on the rocks. They were not women in fact, but angles or fairies from Heaven who had come to Earth to bathe. 

Now Joko Tarub was a bit of a mischief maker, so when he saw the wings laying on the rock he reached out and stole one that was shiny and green. After a while, when the women/fairies were done bathing they all put their wings back on, but one noticed that hers were missing. "Where did I put my wings?" she asked all the others, "Surely they were here on this rock? Could they have floated down the river?" While she looked her sisters all headed back to heaven, and after a while she sat down on the rock and began to cry. Where was she going to sleep? What was she going to do? How was she going to get home? After a while a man appeared, of course it was Joko Tarub. "Why are you crying?" he asked her, but she made no answer. "Do you have a place to sleep?" Still she was silent. "Come and stay with me." he encouraged. After a while she finally agreed, and went to Joko Tarubs home. 

After a while, as you can guess, Joko Tarub married the fairy,whose name was Wulan and not long after that they had a little daughter. One day, when the daughter was still a baby, Wulan was making a pot of rice. "I'm going into the jungle to get some vegetables," she told her husband, "don't open the lid of that rice!" and then she left. Why can't I look in the pot? Joko Tarub thought to himself, and after a while his curiosity got the better of him, and he opened the lid. Joko Tarub was shocked to see that though the pot was filled with water, there was only one grain of rice! Of course he realized, she is a fairy, every time she makes rice, she only uses one grain, that is why our rice has lasted so long! Soon, Wulan came back and opened the pot to see if the rice was done, she was surprised to see only one grain. "Joko Tarub! She yelled, "Why did you open the lid of this rice?" "I didn't do it!" he replied, "Why do you lie to me?" Wulan asked again, "I know you did, and because of that, the magic won't work anymore, so now I must use the normal amount of rice."

After a while, the rice drawer was close to being empty, because, of course, now Wulan must use as much rice as everyone else. One day when she was scooping out the rice, she saw something shiny and green hidden in the bottom, and was shocked to find her wings! It was quite clear to her now that Joko Tarub had stolen them in the first place, and she went to him immediately. 

"Good bye." she said simply, "I want to go home now, please take care of the baby." Joko Tarub tried to protest, but she put on the wings and flew up to heaven. When she arrived there, she was stopped by a guard. "You cannot enter." he said, "Why not?" she asked, "This is my home, I live here." "It was." replied the guard, "But, because you have married a human, you cannot live here anymore." Wulan was now as sad as she had ever been, she was not allowed to return home, and did not want to go back and live with the lying, thieving Joko Tarub, and so she plunged into the sea. 

No one really knows what happened to Wulan, but most people believe that she became the Queen of the sea, and many an accident is said to be on her account. The superstition is that you cannot wear green on that beach, or Wulan will take you, searching for her wings. The people of Java still have ceremonies and make sacrifices to keep her happy, lest the sea come at them, trying to reach the heavens.

I hope you liked my story, I thought it was really interesting. Much love to you all. <3

Holiday Season

Well, Thanksgiving is now passed, and Christmas is coming, shortly after that will be New Years, and this is the second year in a row that I will not be with family for the Holidays. This is a very difficult blessing for me. I am so thankful to be here, despite my struggles, I love it here, and am so happy. In fact, I keep The King and I on my computer so that I can watch it and think about how much I feel like I can relate to her....except there is no Yul Brynner here, which is a shame. 

This Thanksgiving was amazing. I didn't have any turkey, I didn't talk to family, I didn't get any pumpkin or apple pie, but I had more to be thankful for then I could even put on my annual thankful list. I went to school in the morning to study Indonesian, and I had a blast. I went to school in the afternoon to teach English, and I had a blast...there was even one student in particular who is difficult, who had the best day we have ever had learning together. I went home and got some much needed rest without feeling guilty, and that night I preached at the weekly chapel that the kids have. 

A few weeks ago I began to feel that God was putting a message on my heart for them, and I asked if I could preach some time. The next week was busy, so they said "Two weeks ya?" Which, unbeknownst to me at the time was Thanksgiving day. When I realized it I began to think of how I could preach what was on my heart, and also say a few words about being thankful...Glory to God I was able to mix them together quite well, and I think that I was able to really say a few things that needed said. Of course, the translation was a little bit difficult, and the mentors were tag-teaming it and discussing the meaning of what I said sometimes so it took a little while, but I cannot even tell you the joy that I felt in preaching that night. 

My heart is so full here; there are days when the homesickness is almost more than I can bare, and then all of a sudden it just goes away, not the missing of family and the season, but the "sickness" of it. God is so good to those who follow Him. Actually, my message ended up being about James 1:4 "Count it all joy when you go through various trials, knowing that the testing produces patience." The Father always brings about the good, there was another verse I preached on, I would have to read it to write it down here correctly, and my Bible is not with me right now, but it says "having nothing, yet having everything." We have everything in our nothingness, and I have fulfillment in my loneliness. I had always been taught how to be thankful, and had always felt that I knew what Thanksgiving was about, but I think this year I have really begun to understand it in a whole knew way. 

I am still unsure what exactly I will be doing for Christmas or New Years, but whatever it is I know that I will miss you all terribly, and that I will thoroughly enjoy myself every step of the way. 

Like a Duck Out of Water

It is no secret that I don't really fit into this culture, or this country. I am a head taller than most people, my hair is blond, my eyes are blue, and I like to hug my friends on Sunday mornings instead of just shaking hands. I don't speak the language (yet) I don't understand the "Whys" and "Hows"  that I am faced with every day. I can't drive myself anywhere, and the public transportation is literally sometimes a little bit too small (although I do fit, I just have to either sit sideways or not stand up all the way). 

I am here to learn and to teach, to inspire and to pray. I am here to build relationships and build the Kingdom, but before this I had very little experience in; public speaking, preaching, praying over people, having a lot of friends, teaching, getting where I need to go by myself, or living anywhere that spoke another language. Needless to say, there are days when I feel that I am a duck out of water. 

The trick to learning a language is remembering to be patient with yourself, while at the same time working very hard to improve as fast as you can. The trick to teaching a language is getting them to try and use it more and more so that they can learn. I have to say that I don't know which trick is harder, while the one is purely self motivated, the other requires a mix of intuition, spontaneity, cleverness, and practicality. Preaching and praying for people, thought sometimes nerve wracking, is still doable...but when it is in another country, you have to remember to use words that the translator can understand, and structure your sentences in such a way that the congregation will understand when it is done being translated. Getting around is ok, but it is still difficult, and I often ask a friend to go with me. As for the relationships...that is a whole other subject entirely. 

Making friends was never something I was good at, I am not always sure why, but it has always been difficult not only to make them, but then to keep them as friends after a while. Something always seems to go wrong. As I have been here I have been learning a lot about making friends. The language barrier seems to both hinder and help. It hinders in that it makes good communication difficult, but it helps in that sometimes things that shouldn't be said aren't. The problem I am now facing with it is that I so wish to go deeper, because I know that I am an introverted person, and that if you are going to really get to know me, it will take time and effort and usually a lot of talking. 

I think everyone can understand when I say that people usually have a lot more to give than they know what to do with, I feel like that. I feel that there are certain things that I not only know how to do, but am good at, and there are other things that I am just not good at...unfortunately, most of the time the things that I am not good at have to be in place before the things that I am good at can come out and be established. And yet, I know that it is God who sent me here, I know that He has a purpose in what I am doing, and I trust Him enough to know that he picked the right person for the job. So, I guess I will just have to give everything to Him in prayer, and risk looking like a fool sometimes. Perhaps this duck will learn to fly. 

A Challenge

I am wondering if I should say anything about the elections? 

I will be brief. Although I am sad that Obama has won a second term, as it speaks of the state of our country and I don't know what shape it will be in four years from now, I can't help but think that this could be a good situation. I don't think that because of what I have seen so far, but because I know that perhaps under such a man the Church will begin to pray. 

I have often thought about Daniel in the Bible, and about the fact that this simple servant, this slave, who simply prayed to a God that he knew, was able to influence and change three different Kings of the most powerful kingdom in the world at the time. Just because we do not have a godly man as our President does not mean that this cannot change. What if there really was a "change" what if there really was "hope"? Not in Obama, that would be against the point, but in a God who loves us, and for His people to really begin to look to Him. 

The reason our nation is falling apart is not because of one man or the other who lives in the capital and 'suggests' some laws and Vitos others, but it is because of the lack of morality in the people. You all know this already, but the question is, when are we, when are you (specifically you) going to honestly pray...not say you are going to pray and then forget, or pray once when you are upset about it so that you feel better before you go to bed, but really pray. When are you going not only to 'believe' in moral principles, but walk them out. Teach your children about the word of God and live it without expecting them to turn away (lets face it, there are tons of Americans who expect their teenagers to be rebellious, my parents didn't and my siblings and I were not) If the Church was using it's money to take care of the poor instead of build a nicer building then we would have far less empty buildings, and the government wouldn't have to tax us in order to give more and more to welfare. This is a fact. When will we begin to actually live the way that we talk? 

So many people say that they believe in forgiveness, but ask them to forgive a person who had an abortion and they will not know what to do with you, especially if it is recent. Ask them to pray for the President and they will pray only that he looses his job, is that showing Christian love? 

I don't mean to preach, I mean to challenge, I want you to think about what I am saying to you. I want you to take the time, literally and actually pray for President Barak Hussein Obama, and his family, lets face it, his beautiful family, that they would be courageous, and wise. That they would become patriots, and that they would learn to fear the Lord. I pray that these four years we could learn to love our enemies, and that instead of ranting, we would be the change instead of expecting or blaming someone else for the change that is around us. Maybe not brief, but I hope you get my point.

Up and Down

There are some days here that are harder than others, the past few have been like that. Sometimes the lack of understanding is heightened, sometimes the lack of communication seems exasperating, and the slowness of learning a language is frustrating. I know that it takes time, and actually I am learning fast, but there are days when I feel like I simply cannot do what I need to do. 

I know that God is good, and even this week one of my students came to my room just because they did not want to be alone...after 15 minutes they released their heart to me and asked me to pray, we talked and prayed for the better part of an hour and there were a lot of tears. I am so happy to help, in any way that I can but I just wish I could do more. 

There are so many things that I wish I could do, so many things that I see that need done, and all that I can seem to do is wish that I could fix it. I spend a lot of time praying and studying, and usually I am good with that, in the knowledge that it is preparation unto a greater end, but that end has seemed to be very far in the future this week. 

There are a lot of good things going on, and I have been incredibly busy this week, but every spare moment I am fighting to keep my joy. I have been meditating on the things I have to be thankful for, reading my Bible, praying...everything I am 'supposed' to do. I guess I am just asking you all to keep me in prayer. I am trying to decipher from my head, my heart, and my emotions, and act on what I know is true, and what I know is right and good. I am trying to let go of things that don't matter, and hold on to the things that do. 

Sometimes Indonesia is frustrating because it seems that the people take very great offence, or make a very big deal about little things that really don't mean anything. I heard a story today about a young couple who got married within 6 months of meeting each other (one American, and one Indonesian) anyway, they wanted to wait to start a family, and the neighbors decided that she hated Indonesia so much that she refused to raise children here; another example is if I eat too little food, the cook could easily be offended. On the flip side, if they promise to do something, even a promise to their boss, that is no guarantee that it will be done, and they will probably be angry if you insist.

So please just keep me in prayer, that I would be wise and forgiving, and that I would know what to say and what to do. Please pray for Indonesia, that they would become the people and the nation that God has created them to be, that they would know what is worth getting upset over, and when your word is your word. As you go about your day, and as you say your prayers at night, think of us, because even with all of this going on I know in Whom I believe, and I know that this story doesn't only have a happy ending, but a triumphant one. All my love I send to you, see you soon.