Tuesday, July 22

From Danielle Burrus, I-K Synod Communications:

I received a phone call today from Jean Eisen in Indonesia. The SALT group is now at the Sopo Toba Hotel, located on the island of Samosir. They will not have good access to the Internet during the next few days, so I will fill you in on what they are doing.

For Jean, it was Tuesday night when she called, although it was only Tuesday morning here in Indianapolis. Samosir is 11 hours ahead of us. The last of the HKBP SALT workshop participants had arrived, bringing the total count of participants to 30, including the eight I-K Synod members. The entire group had already enjoyed its first SALT workshop session by the time Jean called, and she reported that it went extremely well. They will be at the Samosir Island location until Friday.

Jean related that the group is eating delicious Batak and Indonesian food three times a day, with two snacks. Earlier during the trip, they had eaten goldfish, served with heads intact!

The weather has been hot and humid, with rain every day except for today. The evenings cool down pleasantly.

On Sunday, members of the group preached in four different congregations. The Gospel text for last Sunday came from the book of Job. In the Batak culture, the Gospel text is not just limited to the four texts that we use.

Driving on the Indonesian roads amidst other vehicles, motorcycles, scooters and bikes has been quite the experience, Jean says. The road conditions are not the best and drivers of all vehicles pass each other whenever they wish. Surprisingly, though, Jean has noted very few accidents.

Jean will fill us in with more details next time, such as the abundance of geckos on every front porch and the huge snail crossing the sidewalk that the group encountered one day!

Stay tuned for more...