Throughout lecture phase, anytime we had a last minute change in schedule or something crazy to do or I just had no idea what might happen next I would tell our students “This is good outreach prep guys!” It started to catch on and eventually the students were saying it too. Everything unexpected was “outreach prep.” The last week before we leave for outreach is called “Outreach Prep” week. We had to get up at 4am to hike Koko Head. We did crazy team building exercises. At a nursing home we performed a dance, some dramas and songs, gave a testimony and a sermon and then led our audience in games and exercises. We ate crazy food (spam! 😳).
All this because outreach is always full of surprises. Our students (and us leaders too) need to be ready for any and everything at a moment’s notice.
Our first 24 hours in Indonesia were quite easy, nice. We stayed at a nice hotel, ate great food, recovered from our long journey. Outreach prep came in handy at about 25 hours in…
We are spending our first two weeks in the city of Jember, which is in eastern Java. Our contact here arranged for a mini-bus to pick us up at our hotel in Bali and bring us straight to her base in Jember. About a week ago she told me she’d have us picked up at 12 and the journey is about 5 hours. On Tuesday night I got an email saying we’d be picked up at 4 and the journey is 7 hours. I told the team to be ready for anything. One of the boys that lives in the orphanage we’re staying at was visiting his uncle in Bali so he was riding back with us. At about 5 pm, he and Vijay were picked up. Only 10 people could fit in one van so they had to ride separately. I had our only phone so I prayed we wouldn’t have any problems meeting up with Vijay later and that our van would show up shortly. About 45 minutes later it came. We all piled in with all of our luggage. It was actually quite spacious and comfortable. KJ told me “Mandy, I could ride in this for 30 hours!”
After about an hour or so, our driver got gas and then pulled over to the side of the road and tried to communicate with us something about him eating across the street and us walking down the road. We had been told that the ride included dinner so don’t pay for anything, so I was a little confused about what was happening. But our driver spoke very little English and I speak even less Indonesian. So we all walked down the road until it became clear there were no other restaurants. After adding a few more people to our conversation we figured out we were stopping so our driver could eat and our restaurant was about 2 hours down the road. Okay. Right after that we ran into Vijay and our new friend Deven who explained that because of Ramadan our driver could eat now that the sun was down and we would all eat later at the restaurant that the driving company contracts with. Deven also told us we should arrive in Jember at about 5am – making our journey a little over 11 hours. Back in the van we went.
At midnight, a little over 6 hours into our journey, we got on a ferry to go from the island of Bali to the island of Java. That only took about 30 minutes. At about 2:30, most of us were either sleeping or dozing when our driver’s phone rang and after a quick conversation he turned off the road and stopped the van. Right before he turned, though, we could see that a van looking like ours was stopped ahead with a group of people surrounding it and at least one person looking quite injured on the road. Obviously there had been an accident. After a few minutes, Vijay and Deven came over and told us their driver had hit a motorbike carrying two men and one of them was injured and the other one was dying in the street. It was awful. I think, in a way, most of us were so deliriously tired from jet lag and the long van ride and confused about what was going on it didn’t hit us at the time.
At around 3:15, 9-1/2 hours into our journey, we arrived in Jember. We piled out of the van, made quick introductions with some of the people who greeted us and went to our beds to sleep. Shortly after laying down, the Muslim call to prayer started over the loudspeakers. We’re actually surrounded by about 6 mosques and training centers so often we hear more than one call at a time. The calls last for over an hour each and start at 3:45am and end between 10 and 11pm every day.
Sorry this was such a long post. I’ll write more about Jember and the amazing ministry we’re working with here later. I just wanted to share our first crazy experience. Everyone had great attitudes and we all laughed through most of it. I’m so thankful for outreach prep. And for the awesome 10 people I’m traveling with.
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