Reflecting on a Milestone

March 22, 2017: We made it! Six and a half years later we are at the END of the PhD journey, dissertation successfully defended, final edits turned in and signed off on, Jeff officially doctored.

Jeff with his friend Lance the night he successfully defended his dissertation.  Thanks to Lance & family for hosting Jeff and celebrating his accomplishment!!

Many times over these last years (the entire time we've been married, and while we were dating) it seemed like this day would never come.  There have been many roadblocks and delays (it has taken 3 months since his defense date just to get the signature page from his advisors, a requirement for graduation), but God has been so faithful and good to get us to this point, and to provide Jeff with a job that he enjoys and that's in his field.  He's been good to keep our marriage together and bring us 2 beautiful children while we've been on this journey.  He was good to us while we were apart for 8 days for Jeff to go to the US for his defense, and I'm so looking forward to his goodness on the other side of the PhD journey.

A picture timeline I made, showing all the major events along the PhD journey

It is also his gift of community that has gotten us here.  So many friends in Wheaton, and so many family members who helped babysit Lydia while I was working so he could write.  Our parents helping out with babysitting, as well as my mom driving up to watch Lydia and give him some dedicated writing time. We are thankful for all of your support!

Although we wish we could've celebrated with our stateside family and friends who really saw us through this journey, we were grateful to celebrate with our new community here.  Here is a peek at the celebration we had:

Friends and colleagues came to celebrate.  We had chocolate peanut butter themed desserts (Jeff's favorite) and other snacks.

Working on the "How well do you know Jeff" trivia game.

The new Dr. Spanogle pontificating (a word he would use) and the drink bar.

Jeff was encouraged that his advisors liked his dissertation enough to advise him to publish it.  However, that will be a project that will wait until next year, after his first year of full-time college level teaching is under his belt.

For now, we plan to celebrate this big accomplishment, and revel in the feeling of relief that it is done!

The Pasar

Ready to tackle pasar shopping.

After Christmas, I set a personal challenge for myself: I wanted to go to the local market (pasar in bahasa Indonesian) once a week.  It's cheaper than the grocery store, a good way to practice my bahasa skills, and I personally find it to be fun. You never know what you're going to find, and there's something satisfying in picking out your own produce.  Or, in my case, having the seller pick out tropical fruits for me so that I know they're going to taste good.  They'll even ask me if I want to eat the fruit today or tomorrow, and will find one for me that will ripen accordingly!

You never know what you'll find.  This pasar had an area with remote control cars that you could rent to drive around for 15 minutes.  Lydia was thrilled.

You may wonder why it's such a challenge to go to the pasar.  There are several reasons.  First of all, it is a good 25 minute drive because of traffic, although it is actually only about 4 km away from us.  (Welcome to convoluted Jakarta roads and immense amounts of traffic).  Twenty-five minutes isn't a big deal, unless each moment in the car is a ticking time bomb with your toddler and 9 month old.  Secondly, the drive to the pasar isn't the easiest.  The first time I went with a friend, I thought to myself, I will never be able to do this on my own! A big part of the drive is down a narrow road full of potholes, with motorbikes zooming around.  There are no stoplights, but several right hand turns across traffic, and the only way to make the turn is to go when the self-appointed traffic director waves you through.  It is also polite, I learned, to pass a few coins out the window to the helpful traffic director.

Just imagine, turning the steering wheel with one hand and trying to inch as close to the car in front of you as possible so that no other vehicle can crowd you out, and at the same time, rolling down the window and handing out change, hoping it will land in the guy's hand as you are trying to simultaneously keep forward momentum and not hit the vehicle in front of you.  I've learned to keep spare coins and small bills in the front of the car so that I am ready when a tip is needed. And believe me, I harbor no hard feelings towards tipping those traffic directors, who've made it their self appointed duty (or maybe it's appointed by someone else??) to stand in the hot dusty road all day, telling which cars to go and which cars to stop, breathing in the fumes of hundreds of exhaust pipes.

So, making it to the pasar is the first hurdle, and my first time driving there I felt pretty awesome.  There is nothing so freeing as being able to get around in a new place!

The next challenge is the actual pasar visit, and the great unknown: how will my children behave?  I think the only reason I've continued to make my weekly visits is because, mercifully, my first pasar visit wasn't a disaster.  There were some tears, but Elias didn't cry in the car until we had about 5 minutes left in the drive.  If he had started crying 5 minutes in, I probably would've turned around and headed home!

My general plan is to push Lydia in the stroller and provide her with some kind of snack or entertainment, and wear Elias in the baby carrier.  Many times, he falls asleep during the last 5 minutes of the drive, and so I load his carseat on the stroller and hope that he will sleep through our entire visit.  That's only happened once.  I always come with a backpack so I can carry the produce that I buy.

Lydia and Elias are the stars (as usual) the moment I enter the pasar.  The security guard always says hello to Lydia, asks what her name is, tells her she's beautiful or that she has beautiful hair, and peeks in at Elias as he sleeps.  All the while pinching or patting Lydia as Lydia tries to hide in the stroller.  Poor girl.  There is no escaping the attention.  I think that is the reason almost every pasar visit ends with Lydia in tears and asking to go home.  If it's a good day, the tears won't come until the very end.  At almost every vendor we buy from, Lydia gets patted, talked to, gushed over, pinched or squeezed and told how beautiful she is and how soft and silky her hair is.  There might be a picture or two taken.  As a parent, I'm not sure how to deal with it.  Indonesians love children and mean it for the best.  Culturally, this is their norm, so I can't exactly tell them to cut it out and leave her alone.  I'm still searching for the best way to indirectly say, "please don't touch her," without being terribly offensive.

This is a common occurrence (although this photo wasn't taken at the pasar). I don't know how many random strangers have pictures of Lydia.

As for Elias, he's usually safely buckled into the carseat sleeping, or strapped into my carrier, making him much less accessible to touching.  And his hair isn't as blond as Lydia's.  But even when he's sleeping and I have two shades over him, that doesn't stop people from pulling back the cover, peering in, commenting on how he's sleeping, all while I'm saying, "shhhh!"  with a smile and gritted teeth.  Please don't wake the baby!! Or as I'm walking by, I hear people say, "two??," because I'm sure this is one of the most bizarre things they see at the market each week.  A foreigner with a stroller carting around her two young kids.  No helper in tow to carry the groceries, no nanny holding the baby (why isn't she holding the baby, but inhumanely sticking him in a stroller??) and not shopping at the air conditioned grocery store down the road.  But people are always delighted to see the kids.  The one time I didn't bring them with me, people asked me where they were.  I saw far fewer smiles and wasn't nearly as popular that day.

While I'm at the pasar, I stop at my main vegetable ladies first, then if they don't have everything I need, I go on to search for my other vegetables.  Next I tackle the fruit stand, and if I have to buy a watermelon, I hope that Elias is awake so that I can load it into the back seat of the stroller.  By the time I'm finished buying the fruit, I'm sweating, trying to navigate the stroller which is heavier and not easy to steer, and both kids are getting antsy.  I might be able to distract Lydia at the fish stand as she delightedly watches them swim and splash.  Lydia usually is given some kind of fruit from the sellers, either a little banana or a small orange.  This last time we went, one of the vendors was enticing Lydia with the balloons she was selling. (I think indirectly trying to get me to buy one for her).

Lydia's true feelings about the pasar (and one of my friends in the background).

I try to make a quick stop at the coconut stand to get freshly grated coconut (for only about sixty cents), get some eggs, perhaps some beef (sliced for me on the spot) and maybe some spinach from the organic vegetable stand.   There's much more I could buy there, but I need another tutorial from my Indonesian friends: who should I buy my rice from?  Who sells the best chicken and fish?  Should I buy my pork there as well?

 Telling them to cut my meat in small pieces.  Do you see how sweaty Elias is? It's hot!!

The first time I went to the pasar, my brain could hardly keep up with the Indonesian of the vendors.  They would spout numbers at me and I would stare at them blankly, hand them some cash, and wait to see how much change I got back.  It doesn't make it any easier that money numbers are huge here.  There are no 1, 2, or 5 dollar bills.  There are 2,000; 5,000; 10,000 rupiah bills.  I could easily be told the price is 132,000.500.  Now imagine hearing that number in another language.  It sounds like: se ratus tiga puluh dua ribu lima ratus rupiah.  Yikes.  Finally, my listening comprehension is starting to improve, although I still have a long way to go.

It's a hot, sweaty adventure, a race against time, a deciphering game, and an attempt to feel like I live in Indonesia. I come home loaded with produce and any other odds and ends I've managed to get before my time bombs go off and tears erupt.  I arrive home feeling slightly triumphant, ready for a shower, and relieved that we all survived.

Church as an Expat

Outside of our church with some of the ITC students.

I grew up in the church.  Since my mom worked there, a good part of our childhood was spent roaming the halls and camping out in the classrooms, so much so that it almost felt like a second home.  Church involvement and being tightly connected into the fabric of church life has remained a priority for Jeff and I as we grow our family.  But church as an expat looks and feels so much different than traditional church in the states.  (Now, I’m talking about English speaking church as an expat in your host country, not the indigenous church of your host country). 

During my time in China, church was our 11 member team, meeting together every Sunday night to sing, pray, and listen to a sermon.  I think a few times we even took communion together.  It was challenging at first, but that micro church became so deep as we really walked along side each other and did ministry together and worshipped together.

Church in Laos looked like a group of about 70-100 English speaking expats from all over the world meeting together on Sunday nights to sing, pray, and hear a sermon.  There was a rotation for worship leaders and preachers.  Many of us had different theologies and came from different denominational backgrounds and traditions, but we were all united in our love for Christ and our love for the country of Laos. 

Now, here we are in Indonesia, with an expat church that is more of a traditional church than any I’ve been part of overseas before.  It’s really a wonderful blessing to be able to worship in our heart language with other believers from Indonesia, as well as other expats.  The congregation we are a part of here is around 200 people, probably half Indonesian, a quarter ITC students, and a quarter expats.  We have in common the English language, and again, a love for Christ.

But church here, again, comes with challenges.  There isn’t a pastor, and this is fairly common of expat churches, especially in less developed places.  So we’re left with that vaguely disorienting and unsteadying feeling of wondering what’s going to happen to us, wondering who’s leading us, and wondering where we’re going.  When you go to an expat church, you usually feel the lack of a shepherd.

An expat church isn’t an easy one to pastor or even an easy one to commit yourself to.  Everyone comes from so many cultural backgrounds, even different languages, and we’re all trying to come together because we are the body of Christ.  But can I say that it isn’t always pretty, and that these differences mean that it may take a lot more work.  To be the body of Christ to my Indonesian brothers and sisters at my church, I need to know them, I need to understand their culture, I need to have time with them.  And that is the hard part, as it seems like so many people at my expat church walk in the door for worship (maybe 5-10 minutes late) and then hurry out when the service is finished.  I struggle with comparing my current church with the church we just came from in the states, which was warm, supportive, while at the same time challenging.  Everyone bought into the “we are the community and the body of Christ for each other” and everyone lived it out.  That was the church culture.  It isn’t the culture here YET.

Truly being a part of an expat church takes commitment.  It takes commitment because to make it church, you have to do the work.  There aren’t necessarily programs in place or people who are going to notice if you’re not there.  You have to be the one to notice, you have to be the one to draw others in, you have to make the commitment and start the “program” or activity. It takes energy, and passion, and you have to really be convinced that it is worth it, because Christ loved the church and gave himself up for the church and it is the church that shows Christ’s love to the world.  If we aren’t doing it right within our walls, how can we do it outside of our walls?

Sometimes, being a part of an expat church means that you find your church elsewhere.  And by your church I mean your community of believers that encourages you, challenges you, supports you, is Christ’s hands and feet to you, is your family because you are all FAR away from family.  I am a part of a women’s Bible study of neighbors I meet with once a week—other expat moms living out this mom ministry thing with me, learning how to cross cultures and do it with grace and with 2, 3, or 4 kids in tow.  And it’s a wonderful, beautiful blessing, to meet with these other moms from Australia, Canada, and the States.  We pray for each other, share advice, lend groceries, watch kids, give rides, exercise together, go to the playground together.  I would not survive being a stay at home mom without these other ladies.  God has been good to provide these sisters to be church so that I can survive and commit to and be a part of my expat church.

Becoming members of our expat church.

To close, I want to say that the day we became members of our expat church was bittersweet.  It was bitter because I still feel that my church in the states is my home church.  There was a part of me that didn’t want to transfer my membership.  But it was sweet as I looked at the other 6 or 7 people standing up with Jeff and I taking our membership vows.  They were Indonesian, Nepali, and Filipino.  It was a beautiful reminder of how the body of Christ spans countries, languages, peoples and nations, and how we will all be gathered around the throne one day.

For better or for worse, we are committed to it, because Christ died for it—whatever that church looks like wherever he calls us.  If it’s traditional or not, in English or not, easy or not.  Here we are and here we go!

Token picture of the kids, displaying their personalities.  They are ready to go in a little bike cart. 

A smile to send you off.