Chris on Indonesian TV!

Check it OUT! Our school  was recognized on the Indonesian news channel,
and Chris made the cut! :) The special was about international education and expatriate teachers. Chris' class is featured during part of it, along with one of our other teachers who is from the Philippines. Don't expect to understand any of the words, except for when our principals are talking (Mr Dave and Ibu Daisy in the shot below).

I think Chris looked like a natural! Did you catch him spinning the earth on his finger?!? 

It's the little (BIG) things: prayer

Chris' dad emailed us this picture. It's from the Sunday before we left for Indonesia. 

What a blessing our Perrydale church family is to us. They sent us off with prayer, and we were sent this picture as a reminder that they're still praying for us. Chris grew up going to Perrydale, and I became a part of this wonderful church community the summer of 2007, when he and I started dating. They warmly embraced me from the very beginning and then celebrated with us as we got married this past summer. We both miss the fellowship and awesome messages every Sunday from Pastor Greg! It will be great to be back with everyone for several weeks this summer. But for now, we just want to express how thankful we are for all of you who are praying for us back home! It's such an encouragement to know how big our prayer family is. God is good, and we're blessed by all of you! 

Fun with Google Earth

I decided to have a little fun with Google Earth tonight. I haven't really used it much, but I was curious to know how far we walk to school each day. Take a look below. . .

Yep, .95 miles to school both ways! The walk is, to say the least. . . "exhausting" says Chris. Haha, pretty 'punny'! But really. He's not joking. This morning he went to take a deep breath to sneeze, and never made it to the sneeze. The thick polluted air got caught in his throat so he coughed instead. 

[ no exaggeration ]

But back to Google Earth -- it's is so cool! I had fun scanning the area and making more sense of where we live in relation to everything else around us here. Chris is the Google Earth pro though -- he uses it to teach quite frequently. His best trick is spinning the world on his finger. He's that cool teacher. 

What's depressing though, is to compare the pictures of our homes in Oregon to here. The differences are strikingly obvious :(  

I miss all that green that my house is surrounded by!

And that great yard full of green grass at Chris' house! Oh the simple joys of having some space to throw a football, or play bocce ball, or volleyball, or wiffle ball. . . 

Three more months and that's where we'll be! 

Signed, 

"missing our homes"

PS. How great will it be when we can put both of our names on the same house?!? :)

Pineapple Pancakes

You can't say those don't look delicious! I can tell you they sure taste that way! 

I saw this recipe on a food blog that I follow, and I've been waiting for the weekend to try it out. The only problem with them. . . is that I didn't make enough! Chris and I both wanted more, they were so tasty!

They were pretty simple to make. The recipe from the blog happens to be vegan, which worked out perfectly for me cause I was all out of eggs. If I'd had eggs, I probably would have been lazy and just used regular pancake mix. I'm so glad I didn't though. I could definitely taste the difference in quality from normal pancake batter. So if you're gonna try these, do it the "from scratch" way first :) You won't be disappointed.

Recipe from {Yes, I Want Cake}

PINEAPPLE

• 1 T coconut oil
• dash of cinnamon
• 4 pineapple rings*

PANCAKES

• 1/2 c all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 T sugar
• 1/2 t baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 c almond milk
• 2 water + 1 T ground flax seed (this is your egg)
• 1 T coconut oil, melted
• 1/4 t vanilla

* To make the pineapple rings, I cut off the outside, sliced it into 1/2 inch slices, then used the top of a baby bottle to push out the core in the center. You could use a knife, cookie cutter, shot glass…whatever works. {I just used pineapple rings from a can}

Melt the coconut oil with the cinnamon in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the pineapple slices and  and cook until they start to brown. Set aside.

Combine the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients for the pancakes in two separate bowls, then add the dry to the wet and mix until just combined.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Set a wire rack on a baking sheet. {I put the pancakes straight on the baking sheet} Then heat a pan or griddle over medium high heat and spray with non-stick spray. Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto the griddle and cook until bubbles form on top. Then place a pineapple ring on each pancake. Flip and cook until pancake is turning brown, about 2 minutes.

Then put each pancake on the wire rack + baking sheet and put it in the oven for about 6-7 minutes to finish cooking.

 Like I said, you'll want more of these, so you might want to double the recipe! 

I forgot to check before, but this recipe only makes 4 pancakes. Two were enough to fill me, but they just tasted so good I wanted more. Chris wanted six.

Door Handles and Cream Cheese: "How Jakarted"

. . . two things that Indonesia struggles with. Random, I know. But sometimes, I just need to express frustrations with the way things work/don't work here. Here's a list of common phrases to describe these all too common occurrences:


TIJ (this is jakarta)
"How Jakarted!"
"I just got Jakarted on"


#1
One night, we shut the door between our bedroom and bathroom. Next thing we knew, it wouldn't open. The door is capable of locking, but the button was not pushed. We can still get into our bathroom using the main room entrance, but it really steals away the convenience. Convenience is a commodity around here. Dear Jakarta, please don't steal away any more of it, pretty pretty please?
P.S. The same thing happened to Amanda and Erik's bathroom door about 2 months ago. Who's out to get the bules?!

And now, to the cream cheese
#2

What are your first thoughts?

German chocolate frosting with nuts?

Coconut flakes?

Well, I'm sorry to say that it's just ugly, chunky, frosting. 

Nothing like what frosting is supposed to look like :(

It was supposed to be just a regular butter cream frosting. I'm blaming it on Indonesia's brand of cream cheese -- its basically the consistency of sour cream at it's most solid state. Not right. Where is Philadelphia brand when you need it?!? I also don't have a hand mixer wich would have helped a bit, but oh well -- it still tasted good despite it's curdled appearance.

Oh, and it's just a regular yellow box mix cake, but Chris was feeling chocolate frosting and I wanted vanilla, so we shared it 70 - 30.

Chris just reminded me of one more "Jakarted" thing. This clothes rack.
#3

Preeeetty pathetic.

When we first tried to put it together back in July, it made us want to go home. I think I cried over it. It literally did not fit together! The rods where not the right lengths and the screws didn't fit in the pre-drilled holes. Chris, who never gets blisters, blistered his fingers trying to create his own holes using a tiny screw driver, determined not to fail at his first "husbandly duties" (his words not mine).  Not his fault -- the dumb thing was just not manufactured right. He got it up, but it was obviously lacking stability. It finally died about a month ago, so Chris duck-taped it (blue indo version = not as good). That quick-fix lasted until three days ago when we came home to find it looking like it did in the first picture :(

TIJ

Stay tuned for the next edition of "How Jakarted!" :)

Celebrate Reading Day [Dr. Seuss's Birthday]

Last Friday was quite the eventful day for my class!

It was Dr. Seuss's birthday, so all of the primary classes celebrated by wearing pajamas to school! It was a comfortable day, and nothing is cuter than seeing all my kids in their pj's. 

Class pictures!

After our morning devotional time, all of the grades (Kindergarten 1, 2, and 3, the two grade 1 classes, and grade 2) joined together for group reading time. Each kid brought two of their favorite books, and we put them into mixed age groups. It was so sweet to see the older kids reading with the younger ones.

The kids were also treated to a special rendition of Green Eggs and Ham by one of the other married couples who teach at our school. Mr Sam (I am) and Heather Cheesman :)  They did such an awesome job of making the story fun for the kids to watch and listen to.

Here's a picture during the classic green eggs and ham debate:

Heather also read The Gruffalo to all the kids. She's a mom, so of course she's good at reading stories! 

lots of kids!

All the teachers. . .

Maribelle, Hellentina, Kaitlyn, Amanda, Heather, Me, Chaney, Mia

Sorry Chaney, I missed the memo that we were supposed to make our 

"nervous for assembly" face!

That's another story. . . we had an assembly just two hours later that we'd been planning with our classes for 3 weeks! I told you it was a crazy day! That blog post will be up next as soon as I get some pictures :) 

The aftermath of time well spent.

Rumble!!!

“Do you dig it Soonho?” A tall thin Korean boy pears back at me through his designer glasses resting between a slight smirk and swooping black hair that screams Korea.  Attempting to use his limited English vocabulary to formulate a response, he replies . . . “yes, in the ground.” 

Such are the joys of teaching English B at SPH International Kemang Village.  I could not help but laugh knowing that Soonho knew full well what I meant, but was attempting to make a joke.  It worked.  For me at least.  Delivery is everything. 

Coming to teach in Indonesia I expected to teach Humanities, and possibly some computers as well.  A small price to pay I figured, and how bad could it really be?  However, as the year has progressed, I seem to have joined many different departments.  I am an art teacher, an English teacher, a computers teacher, a part time sound/light tech in the theatre, an assistant basketball coach, and a Humanities teacher.  Next on my list will be Beard Growing . . . another subject that I have limited experience in  . . . very limited.  All jokes aside, God has been very good and has constantly taught me that He will work through my inadequacies to make me adequate according to His mercy and grace.  Among other reasons, it is yet another sign of God’s plans that go far beyond anything that I could have ever asked or imagined.  It may not be my choice to wear some of those hats, but God knew that I would be needed in this way at school.  Therefore, I wear them with pride and attempt to go Col 3:23 in every area I have been called, from Typing Tutor, to the House of Tudor, from painting boxes, to boxing out in the paint. 

So where does Soonho fit in to all of this?  Last Tuesday, my grade 9 English B class met the Grade 9 English A class on the roof of the school to fight for supremacy.  Over the past term, both classes have been reading the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, a book that features a struggle between two classes in a small town in 1960’s America.  Socials vs. Greasers.  So, to make a long story short, these two very different social groups have a “rumble” at the end of the book to attempt to settle things between the two groups once and for all.  Therefore, the teacher of the English A class and myself decided to have our classes take on the personas of the two social groups.  Can you guess which group I chose?  Oh yeah.  Greasers baby.  You dig it?  Your response? “In the ground.” 

So, on a hot Jakarta day, we got dressed up, slicked our hair (I was really wishing I had more to really slick back . . . oh well) and headed up to the roof.  Not too often do you get to have fake cigarettes and empty label-less Rootbear bottles hanging from the lips of 9^th grade students at a conservative Christian school in a Muslim country.  However, in the name of a good role-play, we did just that.  To top it off we had a knife fight using permanent red markers and old white t-shirts.  Those who were marked by the red marker on their t-shirt were pronounced dead.  Unfortunately, a slice to the gut of none other than Soonho sealed the deal and the Socials won the rumble.  As for Soonho, he ended his day . . . you guessed it . . . “in the ground.” 

The Greaser dudes from left to right:  Soonho, Chan, Mr Chris (oh yeah), Andersen, Michael, Edwin

I always jump at any opportunity to bring learning alive for students, and, I also jump at any excuse to get to dress up like Halloween on any day of the year.  The students had a great time, and though I was soaked in sweat, so did I.  Me and my gang of ESL greasers have since returned to the classroom, wearing our uniforms, and trading in our switch blades for pencils so that we can work on our English skills.

Me and Andersen.  I know that I am not supposed to have favorites, but he is definitely one of them.

   From left to right: Callista, Jasmine, ChaiWon, Chan, Michael, Andersen, MinJung, Sabina

A few of the "Socs."  

Role play . . . to horse play . . . to Mr Chris picking up Andersen off of the ground and telling the boys to  settle down.  Good times.

Me and Soonho.  Though he is not confident with his English, he is another one of my favorite students. Also, the sky is not overcast.  That is smog.  It was very hot and sunny . . . ish.

Top Row from left to right: Me, Edwin, Soonho, Andersen, Michael, Chan, Callista, Camila, Liam, Anndrea, Tristan, Corenne, Jessica, Jeremey

Bottom Row from left to right:  ChaiWon, MinJung, Jasmine, Sabina