We have a joke on our squad that our Race has been “bougie” (BOU-JEE) Meaning we have had it pretty easy and have been living a rather high quality life.
We haven’t had to give up a lot of comforts. Not once have I used my tent, and I’ve only used my sleeping pad a couple of times. Mosquitos and bugs in general haven’t been an issue. All of the places I’ve lived has had AC to use at night for sleeping. I’ve had access to WiFi in every country. (Although it hasn’t always been great) My teams have always been located in cities, so I’ve had decent grocery stores, malls and restaurants nearby. For a majority of the Race, my team has been in charge of cooking our own food which means we can control what, we eat and we haven’t had to eat any bizarre disgusting foods.
In some ways I feel like I haven’t had a true taste of what the World Race is like,
but hey I’m not mad about it!
Prior to finding out our placement in Indonesia, my mind was set that all three teams would end up in Bali, you know the really nice touristy town. I mean afterall, all of my placements have been in big cities and the World Race sends teams there all the time. Surely that’s where I’m going and it’s going to be awesome!
A week before Indonesia, I was informed that my team was not going to be in Bali. Feeling bummed was an understatement. Instead, my team would be going to Medan, which is very far from Bali. On top of that, Our setup sheet indicated that we were staying at the church and that we wouldn’t have AC. I thought ok that’s not too bad. Then a couple days later, one of my teammates had a call with an AIM staff member and when she told her where we were going, the staff member didn’t highlight it in this best light. She had had a squad leader who went to Medan and apparently there wasn’t anything to do and no WiFi. We saw online in our World Race information dashboard that WiFi in Indonesia is 73% slower. I thought, “Where in the heck I’m I going?!”
We started looking into our city more and finding out things to do. One of my teammates put in our location into google maps and noticed that there was a mall within walking distance and a Starbucks. The mall also included a gym which got me pumped. This gave us a little hope to hold on to – maybe it’s not as bad as it was made out to be…there’s a Starbucks that means WiFi right?
It wasn’t just our team who would be experiencing these living conditions. In fact my team was told we had the best living situation out of the three teams, and I’ll take it!! A few of us actually passed on our sleeping pads to other squadmates who weren’t going to have a bed this month. One team was told they were living in a storage unit that was attached to a squatty potty that fills up quickly. #gross. #gladthatsnotme
When my team arrived to the church on the first day, we got out of the van and walked towards the back of the church to our new home. Immediately we passed two bathrooms, but there was one major problem – they were both squatty potties! I thought to myself “This is not going to be good…I don’t do squatties.”
Then just around the corner we were shown our room. It was smaller than I expected with 6 mattresses laying on the ground in a row; however, it was definitely enough space for us and our stuff. No complaints, but WOW does it get hot and stuffy. Thankfully pastor David, our host, brought us a fan later that evening. I don’t know how we would make it in there without it!
After traveling for a couple days, typically it’s nice to shower and get cleaned up. We had been wondering where the showers were; we hadn’t seen any at this point.
We had an inkling that the church didn’t have actual showers and that we would likely need to take bucket showers, but I still held on to the small hope that they were somewhere. After all, I’ve gone 9 months on the Race and have had showers all through Africa, surely I’ll have one for this month too.
Well not too longer later, my teammate dropped the news that not only do we not have showers, but the bucket showers we have to take come the same vat of water as the one we use for flushing the squatty potties. I looked at a few of my teammates and in agreement we said, “Looks like we won’t be showering this month”. This was not a joke by the way.
From the church we saw what looked like a nice hotel called Ibis, and I thought I’m going to buy a hotel room once a week and shower there. It will be totally worth it.
The following day we had church and after we had planned to go check out the mall and gym with Clarance. I thought maybe just maybe there will actually be a gym there and it will be nice and have showers, but I wasn’t banking on it.
We saw the Starbucks, score! Then we stopped at the supermarket inside. We then headed up the escalator to the gym and when my eyes met the fitness center it was this hallelujah moment. Through the glass window you could see all sorts of equipment: treadmills, ellipticals, weight machines etc. I thought WOW not only will this be a great place to workout but there’s now a chance that they will have a locker room with showers.
We stopped at the membership desk and from there we could see a couple studios where they have typical fitness group classes (body pump, body combat, it’s, Zumba etc) and a cycling room. We asked about the cost for a one month membership and we were told $50. $50 for one month wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t ridiculous either. However I didn’t necessarily want to commit because we hadn’t been told what our ministry schedule looked like exactly.
We then asked if we could have a tour and they gladly said yes. A few steps around the corner my eyes caught eye of a door to a locker room with a mural of a woman in bathtub with a towel on her head.
I’m pretty sure right then and there I grabbed my teammates arm and pointed towards the locker. immediately I and the others went in that direction. To my glorious surprise, we walked in what looked like an American locker room. Nice sinks, lots of lockers, western toilets and…..SHOWERS!! We were jumping up and down. HALLELUJAH!! In one accord we all stated “IM PAYING THE $50!!! IM SOLD!!” I still laugh at what one of my teammates said, “Best $50 I’ve spent on the Race.”
A few minutes later we were at the counter giving them our IDs and money to sign us up.
The message at church earlier that day had been about God’s favor. I could not help but think and know that I for sure have God’s Favor!
The following morning I went to the gym put in my headphones and ran on the treadmill. It felt amazing. Within a few minutes the song, extravagant love, by Stephanie gretinger came on and I almost started tearing up. It’s an incredible song that sums up gods love. The lyrics go “it’s extravagant. It doesn’t make sense. We’ll never comprehend the way he loves us. It’s unthinkable. Only heaven knows. Just how far he’ll go to say he loves us.” I almost started tearing up – God used the freaking gym and a western hot shower to show me how much he loved me. And boy did I feel loved. I turned the song up even louder and held back my hands from rising up in praise to the Lord as I continued to run.
Now that you have an idea of what life in Indonesia has been like…you’re probably wondering what we have been up to. To keep this post from going on ending longer here’s the gist of what we’ve been doing this past week and what’s ahead.
– Clean the church
– Teach Sunday school
– Preach the Sunday messages and have two people share their testimonies each time.
– Teach kids English, play games and sing songs
– Teach a weekly youth meeting (which turned out to be young adults)
– Pray for the healing (elderly and ICU babies)
I’ll expand on the ministry and what God has been teaching me in a future blog! But in the meantime please be praying for my team and our ministry. We see the potential for a lot of fruit to come from this month which is really exciting but prayer is necessary for that to happen.
Thank you and God Bless!
