I doubt I’ll ever lose my amazement at how quickly and how far we can travel so easily. Partly my historian roots and understanding that until the last century (and less!) travel was very expensive, very time-consuming, and very dangerous. Now, with just a ‘mere’ 25 hours of travel time we can be on the… Continue reading Back to Indonesia
Category: Change
A Visit Home
This summer LCMS teens from around the country will gather together – as they have every three years for nearly 40 years – for the National Youth Gathering. What’s different about this one is that for the first time (as I understand it) a scholarship is available to enable families serving the church overseas to… Continue reading A Visit Home
Pesta di Rumah!
Indonesian culture is a very neighborly and communal one. Emphasis is placed on togetherness in many different forms rather than individualism. While this is shifting as Western culture is increasingly available via media and the Internet, communal consideration is still paramount with the family standing at the center of it, as God intended. So when… Continue reading Pesta di Rumah!
More Relationships
Since Indonesia began allowing foreign nationals to come back into the country on short-term visitor and socio-cultural visas, foreign nationals have been doing exactly that – coming back into a country they have been unable to get into since early on in the Covid pandemic. While Medan is still not a tourist hub and bule… Continue reading More Relationships
Pasar Priggan
We live just south of one of the few surviving traditional markets or pasar in Medan, Pasar Pringgan. Walking through this market is a fascinating blend of what Indonesia has probably been like for decades, and the country it is becoming. A mix of old and new, adapting and accommodating each other with a degree… Continue reading Pasar Priggan
Mega
When you go to Walmart, or Target, or Home Depot, or any other number of retail establishments, you expect when you walk in there will be someone you can ask questions of, someone to show you where things are. Sometimes you have to hunt them down, but they’re there. Somewhere. Here in Medan, when you… Continue reading Mega
Sick
You know it intellectually. You move to another part of the world, the flora and fauna are different. Climate is different. Microbes are different. There will be issues. One of the less glamorous aspects of working abroad is adapting to these differences, and therefore coping with the resulting issues. The tricky part is you’re never… Continue reading Sick
Learning Culture
I’m listening to the gradually waning sounds of laughter, splashing water, and hoots and hollers coming from our front porch area. Our three kids and three of their friends/teachers from the language school we attend have been busy pouring bucket after bucket of water down our carport, accompanied with some rather nice smelling bodywash, apparently.… Continue reading Learning Culture
Ride Sharing
We don’t have a vehicle here in Indonesia. While the kids are eager to try their hands at the ubiquitous motos or scooters, we aren’t sure that will actually work out for them without a valid US drivers’ license first. Time will tell. Beyond the switch from American roads and driving on the right-hand side… Continue reading Ride Sharing
Goodbye Jimmy
That’s Jimmy, our first pet in Medan. Kind of anticlimactic in many ways. We didn’t pick him out, he picked us. We rarely saw him, except when we’d inadvertently open a cabinet door he was hiding behind. We joked about the parties he would throw when we were away from the apartment, but he was… Continue reading Goodbye Jimmy
The Nelson Family Indonesia 