It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here almost 3 weeks now, in that short amount of time I’ve seen some amazing things, but I think the most amazing thing I’ve seen has to be the church here. I once again got to experience the church of acts tonight, 25 people crammed into a tiny room listening to a teaching and worshiping...there’s now words that can describe the purity of it, it’s absolutely amazing.
Something that is still hard to get used to is the amount of poverty that you see where ever you go here. It’s constantly in your face, and there’s no way to escape it. Trash thrown on the street animals and humans alike relieving themselves on the streets or along the road as your driving.
The driving is absolutely insane, there have been times where I genuinely feared for my life because the oncoming trucks were waiting til the last minute to swerve back into their lanes...there seems to be no order at times, and people us their horn constantly, the only time it’s quiet on the road is if you can’t see any cars coming. The cars here though are amazing, they can get 60-80 miles a gallon! SUVs get 50-60 miles a gallon, some motorcycles can get up to 230 miles a gallon, that’s not a typo btw 230 miles a gallon! There’s a car here that brand new costs 3000 USD
If you want to see a visual of what it’s like, the movie that best portrays it that I’ve seen is The Year of Living Dangerously, It’s on of Mel Gibson’s earliest films, it takes place in Jakarta and was filmed on location. You actually see the slums as they are
I’ve witnessed some things that you don’t normally get to see. For instance, last night I was out on the porch and a scorpion about 8-10 inches long is crawling around. I’ve seen children that have a disease that will kill them eventually (HIV) so happy because there are some dentist and dental student, who are the first people willing to work on their teeth, how many kids do you know excited to have a tooth pulled? I’ve watched a cremation. A man who was HIV positive, who was nothing more than a skeleton with some skin stretched over the bones, was placed onto a funeral pyre, wood was stacked around him salt and kerosene were poured on him and a match was lit. I’ve seen the largest vegetable and fruit market in all of Asia, beggars so excited to receive what in the U.S, is a quarter, because now they get to eat tonight. People whose face light up simply because you took their picture, and people whose hearts broke because you were in too much of a hurry to spend 5 seconds and take a picture of them and their stands. Cows roaming free in the streets and markets. Lizards running around on my ceiling when I wake up, I’ve heard 4 women sing in a language completely foreign to me, yet it was the most beautiful music I have ever heard that far surpassed any choir I’ve ever heard. But the most beautiful was today, I watched 4 people be baptized in to the family of God...It was amazing, everyone was dripping with sweat but they were all there to watch them take another step on their journey with God.
Something that is still hard to get used to is the amount of poverty that you see where ever you go here. It’s constantly in your face, and there’s no way to escape it. Trash thrown on the street animals and humans alike relieving themselves on the streets or along the road as your driving.
The driving is absolutely insane, there have been times where I genuinely feared for my life because the oncoming trucks were waiting til the last minute to swerve back into their lanes...there seems to be no order at times, and people us their horn constantly, the only time it’s quiet on the road is if you can’t see any cars coming. The cars here though are amazing, they can get 60-80 miles a gallon! SUVs get 50-60 miles a gallon, some motorcycles can get up to 230 miles a gallon, that’s not a typo btw 230 miles a gallon! There’s a car here that brand new costs 3000 USD
If you want to see a visual of what it’s like, the movie that best portrays it that I’ve seen is The Year of Living Dangerously, It’s on of Mel Gibson’s earliest films, it takes place in Jakarta and was filmed on location. You actually see the slums as they are
I’ve witnessed some things that you don’t normally get to see. For instance, last night I was out on the porch and a scorpion about 8-10 inches long is crawling around. I’ve seen children that have a disease that will kill them eventually (HIV) so happy because there are some dentist and dental student, who are the first people willing to work on their teeth, how many kids do you know excited to have a tooth pulled? I’ve watched a cremation. A man who was HIV positive, who was nothing more than a skeleton with some skin stretched over the bones, was placed onto a funeral pyre, wood was stacked around him salt and kerosene were poured on him and a match was lit. I’ve seen the largest vegetable and fruit market in all of Asia, beggars so excited to receive what in the U.S, is a quarter, because now they get to eat tonight. People whose face light up simply because you took their picture, and people whose hearts broke because you were in too much of a hurry to spend 5 seconds and take a picture of them and their stands. Cows roaming free in the streets and markets. Lizards running around on my ceiling when I wake up, I’ve heard 4 women sing in a language completely foreign to me, yet it was the most beautiful music I have ever heard that far surpassed any choir I’ve ever heard. But the most beautiful was today, I watched 4 people be baptized in to the family of God...It was amazing, everyone was dripping with sweat but they were all there to watch them take another step on their journey with God.
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