Our personal Miracle Moment

 In the IJM, (the Indonesia Jakarta Mission) every Tuesday through Saturday, we meet as a whole mission on Zoom for a Morning Prayer Meeting, in Bahasa it's called Doa Pagi. Missionaries take turns giving spiritual thoughts and challenges and sharing their daily Miracle Moments. It's quite inspiring to hear them all. Because we are praying for them and looking for them, the Lord delivers! We had a particularly wonderful miracle happen to us this week that I can't wait to share in detail with you. But before I do, I want to say thank you for all of your kind birthday wishes! This was my 2nd birthday in the mission field. I am feeling my age at 62. 

Not quite ready to be put out to pasture but definitely aware of diminishing capabilities.

 Last year it fell on the Saturday of District Conference which was fun because just being with so many members of Coimbatore branches made it very happy. This year it fell on a P-day Monday, so in many ways it was just a ho-hum day of doing laundry, cleaning the apartment, grocery shopping, you know, the mundane sort of stuff. But the 17th was also a MAJOR holiday for the Muslim community. It was commemorating Abraham's willingness and faith in God to sacrifice Isaac. We thought that was a pretty cool reason for a holiday. The downside was that there was non stop singing all through the night before 'til about Midnight and then it started up again at 4:30am. If only they celebrated the sacredness of sleep, we could live with the all day singing! But they don't. Sleep deprivation must be part of the sacrifice. The upside was that there was hardly anyone on the streets or in the shops and for such a crowded busy city, the serenity was a very welcome contrast from the usual bustle. 

 We were going to meet with the Kusumarmantos and President Bodi, the 1st Counselor of the Mission and over the Medan Branch last Saturday and discuss the needs of the branch together but he was out of town so they asked if we could meet on Monday right when he got back. Well......sure! We didn't want to delay the meeting, no matter the reason of a birthday. But we thought maybe we could at least combine a meeting with eating out. So without mentioning it was my birthday, we asked them if they wanted to go out to eat while we waited for President Bodi to get home from the airport. They said, "Have you ever had Oxtail Soup?" Frankly we hadn't although we've heard many Americans say it's delicious so we said, "Sure, why not?" Let's make this birthday one to remember! They drove us to their favorite place but sadly it was closed for the holiday. Aw, shucks. And I actually had psyched myself up to try something new. We then suggested Plan B- Thai food. we knew of a place back in the mall by the mission home and we said we'd treat. They were game so we contacted Pres Bodi to meet us there too. He got there in plenty of time to order. We ate family style and it was great food, lovely ambience, and very sweet company. Plus we utilized the time to talk about our assignment and brainstorm ideas. Thank goodness Elder K speaks good English. He and Google Translate are our godsends.

                           The Thais that bind

My new favorite beverage. Coconut water, sipped in a shaved shell.

After our meeting, we said good bye to our sweet Indonesian comrades. Secretly, all I really wanted for my birthday was... (c'mon all you Parker girls, one guess) a chocolate malt but a chocolate milk shake would suffice. (me singing "Oh, Those Bengalore Juicy Days.") The problem is getting regular ice cream here has proven to be somewhat elusive. 

         First there's ice cream served with tea. Also there's also a whole other store in the mall that offers coffee infused ice cream. 

And if that doesn't beat all, there's even

 ice cream with a liquor component. 

Gah!! Where does a girl go in Indonesia that wants ice cream without breaking the Word of Wisdom?!

We Googled to find the nearest ice cream shop and we walked a good mile to get to this one.

Finally, an ice cream shop that doesn't require repentance! 

We actually enjoyed the long walk there because of the strangely quiet streets and sidewalks. Thank you, Jakarta, for staying home on my birthday and for not closing the only truly honest ice cream store for miles. Hah! It turned out to be gelato, false advertising Dishonest Spoon!  But no harm no foul,  it was absolutely delicious nonetheless and we loved having the place nearly to ourselves. A Jakarta missionary birthday just doesn't get any better than that. 

Now! For our missionary miracle story.

I'd heard about another cemetery for Indonesian soldiers in the city quite a ways from our apartment so we hailed a taxi to take us there. It was a huge sprawling area where official commemoration services are held. Not your everyday quaint cemetery. 

We had to sign in and there were security officers everywhere even though we were the only people there that day. Using the wonder of Google Translate technology, we read the rules.

We met the first requirements anyway, dress neatly and be poor.  ✔️The list of prohibitions were extensive; no flip flops, ✔️ no creating a comfort or saying the vow, ⁉️ makes scratches, !? smoking, wearing sunglasses. So far so good.✔️ But there it was- take pictures. Nooo! All this  for nothing. Ah rats. Well... It was picturesque and serene and we had a good visit with our personalized security officer who made sure we weren't making scratches or creating a comfort. He did allow us to take a few standardized tourist photos although I was looking longingly at all the rows and rows of gravestones with a symbolic helmet on each one. Sorry Jakarta war heroes, it's just not your time.

                 We'll get back to you someday

           Standard tourist photo, nothing more

 

So onto Plan B- We'd been wanting to return to the other War Memorial Cemetery because the whole Netherlands portion was closed to the public the 2 times before we were there for renovations. We went in a different entrance this time and learned this wasn't just a war cemetery.

        Hope you'll take a minute to read this

We learned it wasn't only for war soldiers, but for Indonesian civilians as well who had been put in concentration camps. We had no idea. We first went into the chapel and wandered through a reflection pool area and down  hallways with several shelves of urns of ashes. 

                          The loneliest church

Then we went outside to the rows and rows of white crosses. Rob found him a bench to write letters on while I started snapping away. We had the place to ourselves except one caretaker. No sooner had I started taking photos when the air filled with the eeriest sound I've ever heard. I tried to capture it on video but the audio really doesn't do it justice. 

(I originally had a 30 second video here. I tried to replace it with a longer one. It wouldn't format here so please find the video at the end of the blog and insert it here to fit the narrative.)

Oooooh. The low drone of voices sounded to me like the moaning of the spirits of the dead rising up out of the ground, trapped in their prison and personal hells. You could hear every prayer chanter in the city all at once for miles coming from every direction. It was akin to the background music of the cemetery scene in It's a Wonderful Life. Let your imagination expand the sound I'm describing. Very other worldly. We should've expected the Lord was merely setting the stage for something extraordinary. About a half hour later, a young man and woman came into the cemetery and were taking photos by the flag pavilion. It seemed an odd place for young people to be so I said hello and fortunately for me, the young man spoke English back. Rob wandered over too and we struck up a conversation with them. I showed him what I was doing there with Billiongraves and I asked the same of him. "Why are you here?" He shared the saddest story. He said "My grandfather is buried here somewhere. It says so but I can't find him. I've never met him. I was born on his birthday so I feel a strong connection to him. My father was a little boy and it was during the war. Grandpa told my dad one day that he was going to go out but not to worry, he'd be right back. But he never came back. Ever." It made me so sad to hear this story and the loss that family must have felt to never know what happened to him and why he never came back. With this new added knowledge, we too wondered if his grandfather was captured and put in a concentration camp. The unknown story always leaves a large gaping hole in people's hearts. We told this young man that we firmly believe we live after this life and that we'll see our loved ones again and there's a way family relationships can be sealed forever and that's the work I was involved in, so that people could find their departed relatives. We told him the Spirit World is very close. He said he absolutely believed that too. I told him to tell me his grandfather's name and I would look for it. He told me to look for the last name Hendrick van Bergen which seemed a very strange name for an Indonesian grandpa but the Dutch occupied Indonesia for years and who knows why he'd have a Dutch name?  I wrote it down and got his WhatsApp # so I could call him if I found it. We took some pictures together and they wandered around a little longer then they left.   

                          A Kkijhee Sandwich

 If you knew Suchi like we know Suchi

Well, I was more motivated than ever to find this one gravemarker for this fine young man. I did not want to give up til I found his grandfather. But now it was going on a couple of hours and our water was gone and we were both sweating profusely in the afternoon heat. I had taken over 1000 photos. One looked slightly promising so I sent it to him.

Ah rats. I was a little sad to think we couldn't give him a reason for our meeting.  As consolation, we could tell him where he WASN'T buried, at least. And I could honestly admit I gave it all the effort I could muster for one day. And I'd be more motivated than ever to come back and look again, right? So resignedly, we're walking out to the exit, past another section.  Don't ask me why, but I casually glanced back behind me as we're walking away. And there it was. I knew by the matching birthdate this was really him.

So of course, we felt insanely happy at what had just transpired, we glided out to the street higher than kites and in a state of utter astonishment. This young man now had the whereabouts of his grandfather's grave that he had been searching for and his family could come and pay respects and pray with the hope of a future reunion with his grandpa that he felt so close to but had never met.  There's no explanation why I happened to glance back when I did at just the exact time we were passing by his grave to notice it in that split second moment. It was divinely timed and orchestrated. If we had spent all day at the other cemetery, this lovely little miracle would not have happened. 

So now we needed to rejoice and celebrate together! Kkijhee invited us to join him at Kasablanca Mall for a meal of "comfort food" he insisted on paying for.  We took a tuk tuk 🛺 for auld lang syne to the nearby mall to get there quicker than walking. They don't allow them on the big city streets so this was our first time in Indonesia to ride in one. It brought back a whole flood of happy memories of this whole Southeast Asian experience. 

Oh Indonesia, Oh India, Oh Timor- Leste. 

We love you and your humble people! 

Drive on, little tuk tuk! 

So now we have some unlikely new young friends, forged by a miracle. We never know the end of these miracle stories but it's enough for now to know that they happen, that the Lord loved this young man enough to help him find his grandfather's grave through us and that it meant the world to him. We find sheer joy being instruments in the Lord's hand to bring people and families together, thus bringing happiness and joy into the lives of the children of God. 

"Now, concerning the state of the soul between death and resurrection--Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, whether they be good or evil are taken home to that God who gave them life. And then it shall come to pass that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from from all care and sorrow. "

Alma 40:11-12

 

Voices from the dust