For those of you who have not yet heard, my team has had an additional stop on our route. Due to some visa complications, the Lord has brought us to Indonesia for roughly two weeks this month. I am thoroughly enjoying my time here and think it may be my favorite country so far! Stay tuned for more details on how the Lord brought us here, and please pray that we spend our brief time here well reaching out and loving those around us!
Fun and Interesting Facts about Indonesia
- Capital: Jakarta – the most populous city in Southeast Asia
- Population: 258,316,051 – 323 people/sq mi
- Slightly larger than the size of Alaska
- Official Language: Bahasa Indonesia with over 740 different languages and dialects spoken
- Religions: Muslim 87.2%, Christian 7%, Roman Catholic 2.9%, Hindu 1.7%, other 0.9% (includes Buddhist and Confucian), unspecified 0.4% (2010 est.)
- Life Expectancy: 73 years
- Literacy Rate: 93.9%
- Exchange rate: $1 USD = 13,330 Rupiah
- Gained independence from the Netherlands and pro-Dutch civilians in 1945
- The national dish is Nasi goreng – Asian fried rice often made with sweet, thick soy sauce called kecap (pronounced ketchup) and garnished with acar, pickled cucumber and carrots
- Average temperature in April is 88° and an average of 6 inches of rain
- Comprised of more than 17,500 islands on either side of the equator with about 6,000 inhabited
- Roughly half of the population lives on less than $2 a day
- Borobudur is the world’s largest Buddhist temple and was completed in A.D. 825
- Part of the Pacific Rim “Ring of Fire”, has some 400 volcanoes, about 150 of these are active which is around 75% of all currently active volcanoes on Earth
- Indonesia is the only country to see the Komodo dragon, the world’s largest lizard, in the wild – they can reach 10 ft in length, weigh 330 lbs, and live 30 years
- Jakarta is the world’s largest population center without a metro train system which results in some of the worst traffic jams in the world (I experienced this as it took us roughly 90 minutes to drive 15 miles to the outside of the city!)
- Throughout the months of July and August it is common to find coming-of-age tooth-filing ceremonies throughout Bali which is believed to help people rid themselves of the invisible forces of evil, and renders someone more physically and more spiritually beautiful – teeth are the symbol of lust, greed, anger, insobriety, confusion, and jealous
