Dear You, All of You:
Last Thursday for our English class at the church I taught family vocabulary using family photos taped up to the board in a sort of visual family tree—which was pretty and happy and maybe made me slightly homesick, but also incomplete because our family stops at us four unmarried children. No room for in-laws or grands, right? Right. Not helping with the learning, then. But with a little help from a seventy-cent teen tabloid and my handy-dandy pocket scissors, voila! Naomi was married to Justin Bieber. I had Selena Gomez for a sister-in-law and Joe Jonas as my fiancé! It was the very height of Hollywood magic which the kids loved to no end, and actually believed. Believed! For a split-second of wide-eyed hilarity. They only stopped the jaw-drop when I taped Joe's face next to mine. Only then was it a yeah right, Sister Rhondeau. (Slightly demoralizing. My sister can marry Justin Bieber but no way josé is Joe my beau? Do you think we're sad, Georgia?)
On Sunday we woke up early to walk down into Boldy Bawah with a wee-sized cake for a wee-sized girl; it was Femi's sixth birthday and so we all shared a small slice of chocolate in the celebration before walking back with their whole family to church. Femi is the youngest child of three in the P- family, a name you may remember from an email months back when we had our last baptism in Malang, her older brother Jordan's. Now the whole family is learning with the missionaries; sometimes the sisters teach, next week the elders. Last week when we stopped in to pick them up for English class the girls hadn't taken their afternoon shower yet* so we followed them down through the gangways and alleyways and sidestreets and sidesteps to the riverside well, where we pulled up bucket after bucket of cool, clear water to haul back up to the shower spaces in their little neighborhood baths. It was an Experience. Femi running circles around us in only her smallest shorts and tiny singlet. Towel swung like a frenzied lasso around her cheeky pixie cut. Non-stop energy. Unlimited dance moves. Real happiness. Living enthusiasm. Even as we are pulling water up a crumbling well in plastic paint buckets along a muddy shore on the banks of a Malang river in Indonesia.
Hmm. Life.
A lot of it, actually. Sister Lili's dog had puppies and cat had kittens and then Sister Tina's Corgie had little teeny tiny Corgies and it is just almost too, too much. Last Wednesday after emailing we were out at Sister Lili's for a lesson, which I taught with two small pups curled up on my lap and another snuggled into the crook of my arm, wee head lolling over my elbow in deep dreaming, whimpering . At Sister Tina's Sunday night the little things were just learning to walk, stumbling over each other in desperate stands to prove their self-sufficiency. Have I just never been around truly tiny animals before? Did none of my PetVet childhood prepare me for such arresting adorability? Apparently not. My cute quotient is about to explode.
Because that was just the baby puppies and baby kittens, but what about baby people? Indonesia has those, too, and they are perfection (as I suppose most babies are). One of our investigators just had a little girl last week, and yesterday, once home from the hospital, we stopped in for a visit and ended up staying quite a while. The whole family greeted us at the door saying "are you brave? are you brave?" and I was confused and thinking "brave what?" when suddenly yes, I guess I am brave enough because I am sitting on their floor with a six-day-old life in my arms. Sister Nab was not brave. I don't think I am, either, it just happened so fast and so it happened, you know, but the entire next hour as little Nafranda Adinda Melina Regina Novidewa** slept right there in my arms I was thinking my goodness this is a life, a real little life! Am I brave? Plus a lot of other mind-stretching things like pre-mortal existence and eternal identities and purposes of life, etc. Such a lot a lot of thought from such a very small, small thing.
Sunday Sister N came to church. Read: miracle. That's the second non-active I've taught that's made the return, and absolutely made my day. Just swept into Sacrament Meeting as if she's been doing it for the last four years too, nothing doing. Gobsmacked (me). Grateful (us). If the E family comes this week like they promised, I will build a monument to miracles.
One last thing before I go: I read the Gospel According to Mark this week, and according to me it was most marvelous. I was going to try to describe why in my own words but turns out the Bible Dictionary did it better: "The Gospel contains a living picture of a living Man. Energy and humility are the characteristics of his portrait. It is full of descriptive touches that help us to realize the impression made upon the bystanders." Yes. I loved it for all of that, the real and raw humanity of it all while documenting Divine Life. I loved how crazy-fast it was, how the hurried chronology accentuated Christ's energy and undivided attention to the work and His purpose—and then the small asides that set everything back for just a second to remind you that Jairus' daughter should be brought something to eat, and the disciples worried that He is beside himself, always so busy, and Christ walked to the fig tree if haply he might find anything thereon. It is a living picture of a living Man. And as I read I am learning to be living, too, to exclaim with all the multitudes, He hath done all things well.
I love you. I miss you. Have salt in yourselves [Mark 9:50].
Sister E.
*everyone in Indonesia showers twice a day. without fail. one year in and I still don't much understand it, especially in breezy beautiful Malang. oh well. anyway.
**really. Indonesians like names, except for last ones. It's not the least bit confusing.
Note: The Celebrity Siblings applied to dad, as well—since Mont and Julia were Brad and Angelina, since Maddie could be Maddox and Nathaniel was Zahara. Or the other way around. Whatever.
Last Thursday for our English class at the church I taught family vocabulary using family photos taped up to the board in a sort of visual family tree—which was pretty and happy and maybe made me slightly homesick, but also incomplete because our family stops at us four unmarried children. No room for in-laws or grands, right? Right. Not helping with the learning, then. But with a little help from a seventy-cent teen tabloid and my handy-dandy pocket scissors, voila! Naomi was married to Justin Bieber. I had Selena Gomez for a sister-in-law and Joe Jonas as my fiancé! It was the very height of Hollywood magic which the kids loved to no end, and actually believed. Believed! For a split-second of wide-eyed hilarity. They only stopped the jaw-drop when I taped Joe's face next to mine. Only then was it a yeah right, Sister Rhondeau. (Slightly demoralizing. My sister can marry Justin Bieber but no way josé is Joe my beau? Do you think we're sad, Georgia?)
On Sunday we woke up early to walk down into Boldy Bawah with a wee-sized cake for a wee-sized girl; it was Femi's sixth birthday and so we all shared a small slice of chocolate in the celebration before walking back with their whole family to church. Femi is the youngest child of three in the P- family, a name you may remember from an email months back when we had our last baptism in Malang, her older brother Jordan's. Now the whole family is learning with the missionaries; sometimes the sisters teach, next week the elders. Last week when we stopped in to pick them up for English class the girls hadn't taken their afternoon shower yet* so we followed them down through the gangways and alleyways and sidestreets and sidesteps to the riverside well, where we pulled up bucket after bucket of cool, clear water to haul back up to the shower spaces in their little neighborhood baths. It was an Experience. Femi running circles around us in only her smallest shorts and tiny singlet. Towel swung like a frenzied lasso around her cheeky pixie cut. Non-stop energy. Unlimited dance moves. Real happiness. Living enthusiasm. Even as we are pulling water up a crumbling well in plastic paint buckets along a muddy shore on the banks of a Malang river in Indonesia.
Hmm. Life.
A lot of it, actually. Sister Lili's dog had puppies and cat had kittens and then Sister Tina's Corgie had little teeny tiny Corgies and it is just almost too, too much. Last Wednesday after emailing we were out at Sister Lili's for a lesson, which I taught with two small pups curled up on my lap and another snuggled into the crook of my arm, wee head lolling over my elbow in deep dreaming, whimpering . At Sister Tina's Sunday night the little things were just learning to walk, stumbling over each other in desperate stands to prove their self-sufficiency. Have I just never been around truly tiny animals before? Did none of my PetVet childhood prepare me for such arresting adorability? Apparently not. My cute quotient is about to explode.
Because that was just the baby puppies and baby kittens, but what about baby people? Indonesia has those, too, and they are perfection (as I suppose most babies are). One of our investigators just had a little girl last week, and yesterday, once home from the hospital, we stopped in for a visit and ended up staying quite a while. The whole family greeted us at the door saying "are you brave? are you brave?" and I was confused and thinking "brave what?" when suddenly yes, I guess I am brave enough because I am sitting on their floor with a six-day-old life in my arms. Sister Nab was not brave. I don't think I am, either, it just happened so fast and so it happened, you know, but the entire next hour as little Nafranda Adinda Melina Regina Novidewa** slept right there in my arms I was thinking my goodness this is a life, a real little life! Am I brave? Plus a lot of other mind-stretching things like pre-mortal existence and eternal identities and purposes of life, etc. Such a lot a lot of thought from such a very small, small thing.
Sunday Sister N came to church. Read: miracle. That's the second non-active I've taught that's made the return, and absolutely made my day. Just swept into Sacrament Meeting as if she's been doing it for the last four years too, nothing doing. Gobsmacked (me). Grateful (us). If the E family comes this week like they promised, I will build a monument to miracles.
One last thing before I go: I read the Gospel According to Mark this week, and according to me it was most marvelous. I was going to try to describe why in my own words but turns out the Bible Dictionary did it better: "The Gospel contains a living picture of a living Man. Energy and humility are the characteristics of his portrait. It is full of descriptive touches that help us to realize the impression made upon the bystanders." Yes. I loved it for all of that, the real and raw humanity of it all while documenting Divine Life. I loved how crazy-fast it was, how the hurried chronology accentuated Christ's energy and undivided attention to the work and His purpose—and then the small asides that set everything back for just a second to remind you that Jairus' daughter should be brought something to eat, and the disciples worried that He is beside himself, always so busy, and Christ walked to the fig tree if haply he might find anything thereon. It is a living picture of a living Man. And as I read I am learning to be living, too, to exclaim with all the multitudes, He hath done all things well.
I love you. I miss you. Have salt in yourselves [Mark 9:50].
Sister E.
*everyone in Indonesia showers twice a day. without fail. one year in and I still don't much understand it, especially in breezy beautiful Malang. oh well. anyway.
**really. Indonesians like names, except for last ones. It's not the least bit confusing.
Note: The Celebrity Siblings applied to dad, as well—since Mont and Julia were Brad and Angelina, since Maddie could be Maddox and Nathaniel was Zahara. Or the other way around. Whatever.
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