WORLD RACE MONTH 11
Where:
Bandung, Indonesia (Kota Baru)
When:
Who:
The Goonies (Abbie, Anna, Sara, Kirsten, Lindsey, Alyssa) an Anna Street
Ministry:
This month, the Goonies are working with a school called the Bandung Alliance Intercultural School (BAIS). It’s an amazing Christian school that prepares the students for college. Their student body is made up of 209 students mainly from Korea and MKs (missionary kids).
Hosts:
The teachers at BAIS
Currency:
Indonesian Rupiah ($1 = 13,042.77)
Language:
English and Bahasa Indonesian
Dress Code:
This month, we are wearing teacher clothes! But for us, that just means covering our shoulders and wearing longer shorts or pants. The school gave us spirit shirts, so we have been wearing the heck out of those.
Food:
Yay… more Asian food. This month we are cooking for ourselves so we’ve been making chicken and veggies quite often. The teachers at the school have also been blessing us a lot by inviting us over for dinner and treating us. One school days, it’s honesly cheaper to order food then to bring lunch, so we have been ordering from the local Indonesian restaurants for like $2. For the second week of school, we ordered the school lunches and those were sooo good.
Lodging:
We have our own house! I repeat! We have our own house. It’s freaking amazing. We live in an area of Bandung called “little America”, so everything is pretty nice and modernized. We are living in a 4-bedroom house in the Indonesian suburbs. We are all sleeping on beds, we have a full kitchen, couches, a TV, and even a maid who does our laundry, makes our beds, and cleans our dishes. (I’m pretty sure this isn’t how the race is suppose to be, but it’s sooo amazing). It’s a perfect transition month back to real America. Our house even has its own mascot… a little rat.
<< Our pembantu (maid) is named Yani. She speaks very little English, but she is super sweet! >>>
Bathroom:
In our house, we have 4 bathrooms. 3 have western toilets and one has a squatty… no one uses the squatty. We also have hot water (if you are one of the first to shower).
Laundry:
We are so stinking blessed this month to have someone to do our laundry for us. It’s a huge blessing! She even folds it and puts it in our rooms for us.
Ministry:
ISSACC Soccer Tournament: This month as soon as we arrived to BAIS, we jumped right in to help them host the biggest event of the year, a 3-day soccer tournament with teams from all over Indonesia. It was so crazy, but also great to feel so needed and useful after only being there a couple of hours. We got passed around from teacher to teacher helping with things such as decorating, organizing supplies for each team, setting up the fields, and basically just running around doing whatever us needed if us.
Teaching Assistants: While at BAIS for the month, we were each assigned different classrooms to help with. This included just helping the teachers in their classrooms and doing extra projects for them. For example, my teacher had me sort through hundreds of books in her classroom and input and label all of them into the library system. It was so boring, but I did get to become friends with the librarian.
<<< Most of the teachers at BAIS are from America >>>
Abbie: English
Kirsten: physical education
Anna G: lower elementary
Lindsey: mandarin
Alyssa: upper elementary
Sara: music and art
Anna S: admin stuff
Chapel: Since we are working at a Christian school, they have chapel. Basically the students come together once a week to worship and hear a sermon. It was so cool to worship with the students and get to be a part of that. A couple of times we even got the opportunity to lead chapel and share some testimonies.
Adventures:
Exploring Bandung: One day, we ventured into the city with some of the teachers. We took the bus for $.50! While in Bandung we visited a giant mosque and took the elevator up to the top to get an awesome view of the city. Also, we visited the oldest coffee factory in Bandung called Aroma. We each bought a bag of coffee for about $3 to take home. From there, we visited a market.
– (PSA: markets are the same everywhere you go. They all sell the same stuff and all smell just as gross. And regardless of how careful you are, you will always leave with your feet being covered in a mysterious liquid). To finish the day, we visited a good ole Wendy’s fast food restaurant. Although it wasn’t exactly like America, it still tasted pretty good.
<<< when visiting a mosque you must take off your shoes and dress very modestly. >>>
Moto Adventure: People in Asia drive motos everywhere! Motos are basically just gas-powered scooters. They are sooo much fun and probably really dangerous #rebel. But one off day, we went on a trip up into the mountains and to a lake with some of the teachers. We each rode on the back of a moto (except me, I had my own). It was a long and bumpy ride, but we got to see so many beautiful sights and drive through real Indonesia with dirt roads and animals everywhere. When we got to the lake, we asked one to the locals to take us out on a boat. It was an amazing day! One of the most important things I’ve learned this year is that the best adventures are usually the ones that come from spontaneous decisions.
Bali (final debrief: Nov 14th – Nov 20th): OMG BALI! You hear about it all the time. I never actually knew where it was, but I knew it was a big deal. Beautiful beaches, delicious food, and exotic people, what more could you want. It’s an instagrammers dream! We stayed at an awesome hotel where we only had to share our rooms with ONE other person (Jill was my roomie, obviously). It was super close to the beach and all the stores. It was an awesome place to finish the year in.
On one of the last nights, we had our final session. It was sooo freaking sad! We did this activity where the majority of us sat in a circle facing outward. Our squad mentor read off some truths like “this person makes me laugh” or “this person has changed my life” and the people in the middle then tapped the shoulders of the people they thought those things about. It was awesome because you couldn’t actually see who was tapping your shoulder, but it meant the world to all of us. The tears were falling like crazy. Everyone was surprised by how many taps they all got. We also gave out squad superlatives and had a time of confessions where people admitted embarrassing stuff they did during the year. It was the perfect way to go out!
Thank you sooo sooo sooo much for all of your prayers and support this year. I could have never done it without you!
If you want to reach out to me, please do! Even just to say hi!
Facebook: Abigail Sheckells
Love you all!
Cheers, Abigail Sheckells
