The third week of our trip

More and more fun we had this week. We were totally recovered from our craziness of adjusting with the time, food and culture. We get used to what is happening around us. Thinking like the local, if I can say that way. But, we are living differently. God is helping us to have more patient with the situations and people. These people that we met (mostly drove us crazy) were not Jesus’ follower. What they did and why they did what they did it was because they didn’t live in God’s salvation, grace and love. Showing love to them is what we have to do, and it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible (Matt. 5:13-16; 5:43-47; 7:1-5; 7:1214).

This week we explored some tourism places. First we went to a place where we could find all houses from every culture and provinces in Ina, and some attractions, too, called “Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.” But too bad that not all displayed house were open on Monday. Not many people, too. But it was a very warm day. We walked from one house display place to the other, those who were tired, sat in the car and followed us… hehehehe… and finally we were tired, too. we drove in the car for the rest of the journey. At the end of visiting, we took the “Gandola”, a hanging cart that went a cross the area and we could see more stuff from the sky, too. Then on the way back, we decided to have our dinner in Bogo*, a city of rain. It was known by its fresh fish and other delicious traditional food of Sundan* people group. The majority of this city is the Cousin.

One of the traditional houses from Sumatra

The first place used by the President (a.k.a. Ina's Air Force One hehehehe)

Helen & Abigail at one of the traditional houses from Kalimantan

Windy and Callista at one of the traditional houses from Sumatra

Then on Thursday, my parents took us to the “Pantai Karang Bolong”. It was about 2 hours driving from their house through the capital city of Banten Province. There were several beaches but it was one of the famous ones. We stopped there only for picture taking. It was too hot to swim and also too many reefs. The location was at the west coast of the island. It was beautiful beach, only one thing that they need to improve, the cleanness. I bet if the visitors don’t care and throw away trash everywhere, in 2 years that place will be the most dirty beach. So sad to see that happened there. The good spot to swim had been taken by big hotels and resorts, and we had to pay to get in. Too bad.

Pantai Karang Bolong (Perforated Reef beach...I think in English)

Ending the week, we celebrated my youngest sister’s graduation. Congratulations, Sella! She finished her 3 years study on Computer Accounting. It was a great blessing for her to be able to study and so thankful for her faithful supporters for all these years. God bless them all. We all so proud of her. She had the graduation ceremony at one of the conference hall in Senayan from 7 in the morning until afternoon. While waiting for Sella, mom and dad, we (Windy, Tony, Callista, Dave, Abigail and I, of course) were taking Callista to her doctor to get her shots, then we went to the mall where we all would meet each other to have a little family dinner to celebrate Sella’s graduation. Before the dinner, we took a whole big family pictures at a photo studio. It was a very good time because all of us were together at the same time and the same place. So thankful for the very wonderful and fruitful week we had.