The Nelson Family Indonesia

When we were recruited to join OIM back in 2021 and discussions of where we might be placed in Asia were underway, very early on Medan, Indonesia was a front runner. My boss had lived and worked there for four years. There was another LCMS family already stationed there. We’d have some support locally. And we were prepped that Medan had pretty much everything someone from the US would need and expect, but it wasn’t a first world city. If all the comforts and accoutrements of modern living both aesthetically and practically were what we needed, another locale would be better suited for us.

But we knew we preferred not to be in Taiwan at HQ, and we were pretty sure that we could manage in a more rustic setting. What that meant, we had no way of conceptualizing. Particularly coming from the very chic enclave of Santa Barbara, CA! Anybody who knows us would probably agree we aren’t chic people, but what it would mean being out of step in Medan vs. being out of step in Santa Barbara was beyond our ability to comprehend. We trusted God would provide and see us through. And He has.

Personally I assumed that living in a more rustic locale that was not a national capital would mean in part an unreliable infrastructure. Power might not always be available. Or Internet. Surprisingly, we’ve found these sorts of things to be remarkably reliable. We’ve had very few power outages over our 3.5 years living here, and the vast majority of those lasted less than an hour. We feel very blessed and probably spoiled in that respect.

I was preparing for work Tuesday morning and was setting the computer up just before 8am when the power went out. Of course when power goes out so does our Internet connection. However I could still make do for the meeting by using my smart phone for the video conference. I presumed power would be on relatively soon.

It wasn’t.

By 11am we had learned through our sources that power was out to a large section of the city due to maintenance. It was supposed to be off for three hours, but nobody was quite sure when that three hours started or ended. It had already been three hours since it first went out. We assumed worst case it would be three more hours and mid-afternoon power would be on again.

It wasn’t.

How good is God? How spoiled are we? Despite near-record heat levels over a prolonged period of time, Tuesday was remarkably mild. Overcast. With an unusual breeze blowing nearly all day. Our common areas in the house are not air conditioned. We opened up the front door and the back door (keeping screens closed to try and keep out the bloodthirsty mosquitos that are a constant threat) and a nice cross breeze emerged. We moved our small couches close to the front door and settled in. We were able to light the gas stove with a lighter and boil water for tea. And we spent the afternoon chatting, dozing, sipping tea, and constantly remarking about what a beautiful day it was, how calm and cool and mild. How good God is, as He obviously sent the clouds and the breeze specifically for our personal benefit. Obviously. And surely power would be on before dark.

It wasn’t.

As the day began to wind down, we cooked dinner in the last of the daylight and ate it outside on the back porch instead of in our house. We love the house we rent but we refer to it as the bunker as it has very little natural light. It was pitch black inside long before it was fully dark outside. We finished dinner, washed up the dishes and headed inside and to the front doors to assess the situation. Joyously, lights were on up and down our street. Curiously, ours were not.

I flipped breakers off and on again a few times but I knew that wasn’t likely the issue. A friend called the power company on our behalf and advised them our house didn’t have power. They indicated there were still a few isolated spots without power but that they would send a crew out as soon as they could. We had no idea when that might be.

While the day was pleasant enough, we now had to deal with the reality of going to bed without AC and without fans. This is something we’ve never had to do in our 3.5 years in Indonesia, and we weren’t excited about it. Pleasant enough weather in the day means the mid-80’s. But that’s not what we consider comfortable sleeping weather. Yet we had no choice. With no light or power there wasn’t much point in staying up, so we went to bed about 10pm.

We woke up just after midnight. Sweaty. It seemed hotter than when we had gone to sleep (something that is entirely possible in the tropics!). The stillness in our room was oppressive. No breeze could get into our bedroom, even had there been one outside which we were pretty sure was not the case. The heat was like a heavy blanket pressing down on us, suffocating. Perhaps we wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. Gena wandered downstairs for water.

She returned and indicated there were people outside our gate. We discovered that a crew from the electric company was at our house. We let them into our front courtyard and they went to work at 12:30am. Not quietly, mind you. They were yelling back and forth to each other as they scaled ladders to investigate things. Before long they ascertained that because of the unusual breeze that day, our power line to the grid had been cut or broken somehow. They replaced the line and our house lit up at 1am. We were ecstatic.

We went back to bed after some discussion again of God’s provision and timing, our general softness and weakness, and overwhelming gratefulness for the simple comfort of a fan blowing or an AC unit to take the edge off the heat. As well as for continued wonderment at how things get done in this amazing country, and how glad we are they didn’t simply wait until morning to come and check on us!