Friday, July 8, 2016

A Wedding to Remember


*Late Post* 

So we recently had one of our doctors get married.... to one of our other doctors! It was quite the fun and busy month with a wedding ceremony and receptions in two cities (bride's and groom's). Dr. Dewi and Satria officially tied the knot on May 7th in Pontianak (the city 5 hours to our south), which is the city where Dr. Dewi is from. Here are some pictures from the big day...

You're invited to a wedding to remember
Dr. Dewi walking down the aisle with her dad. Check out that dress and veil! Typically here in Indonesia the bride rents her dress, so it doesn't quite fit right and they are always worried about it getting damaged or dirty so they carry the train everywhere instead of letting it flow out. Dr. Dewi bought this beautiful dress though. The next picture shows some of the bead work on the shoulders, which was gorgeous but then then really the whole dress was beautiful.  

Saying their vows
You may now kiss the bride - on her forehead :) 

Presenting the newly married couple

Our local Serukam Vocal Group sang the special music
The new couple with their immediate families and the pastor (and another view of the dress). 


I just love the way the groom looks at the bride shortly after they let go of their balloons. So in love! Made me want suggest it was time for a kiss, but that isn't really culturally appropriate :) 


The groomsmen - pretty in pink! Dr. Agus (left) is one of our general doctors and Dr. Muktar (right) is one of our dentists. 

Traditionally the reception is much better attended than the wedding and so a lot more time, effort, and money is spent on the reception. Their reception was poolside at a local hotel. Thank goodness for good weather!

The reception with the Serukam Vocal Group singing in the background. In the pink-lighted tent the new couple greets people who came to the reception and takes pictures with them. 


Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Latest Happenings

After a lovely more relaxing March with our annual team fellowship, the students on their semester break and Easter break; the new semester is here and April is coming hard and fast. Here are a few of the things keeping us busy in pictures...

We have enjoyed having Wendell (Opa) Geary here for a month. 


We are enjoying (and very busy with!) Medical Missions Course XI. In this picture I am hanging out with the nurse I am mentoring. More coming in another blog post.
Mondays and Tuesdays I am busy in the skills lab teaching 2nd year students pediatric and maternity skills. This semester I will be also spending time in the skills lab with the 1st year students as they learn the very basics like wound care and taking vital signs.

Practicing pediatric chest physiotherapy. It isn't all seriousness :)
Freshmen learning the basics about wound care

Yesterday we spent many hours on how to help a mom give birth and initial baby care



Obviously not very realistic but it helps them think through and visualize the process plus do a little role play on how the will talk with their patients and families. Favorite role on this day is always the birthing mom with her moaning and groaning and excitement at meeting her new baby :)
One of the more fun skills labs we get to do is infant massage. We don't have enough infant mannequins so the students get to practice on each other! I just wish it would be culturally appropriate for me to volunteer to be the patient :)

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Seed of Hope

Recently we had one of our couples return from school in Java. When they first came to Bethesda as young people, Mr. Lidaniel served in our chaplain department and Dr. Hanny served as a dentist. They met here and fell in love :) Then they joined MedGo which helped pay for their further education with the help of financial support of faithful donors. While they were away at school they also had a baby. Dr. Hanny returned to school for a Master's Degree in Oral Health and Mr. Lidaniel got further education in caring for children with special needs. This combined with his training as a chaplain perfectly gifts him to help care for some patients and families we have struggled to help. Here in Indonesia having a child with special needs is very difficult as there are few programs or helps in place.

When Mr. Lidaniel returned we were not sure exactly how God would open the doors and fund the program he hoped to start. But he found a place to call home for now in our old mission school (he is sharing the space with one of our missionary couples) and funding was found from a number of sources. He got to work ordering the supplies he needed and getting the word out. Patients were referred by our general doctors, our pediatrician, teachers in the area, our village health program and some just kind of showed up through God's provision. He already has 20 patients and I imagine that will continue to grow. He has even made trips to some of our remote villages where obviously it would be hard for families to make the trip here. Some of these families tell stories of their children having challenges since birth but many started experiencing their challenges after a severe infection like TB meningitis (when tuberculosis infects the lining of the brain).

So last week we celebrated the opening of his space - he calls it Seed of Hope. We dedicated and blessed it together knowing that it will bring hope, help, and comfort to many families who desperately it. Here are a few pictures from the dedication time...

Lots of equipment to help kids with motor development that is also fun

Kids and adults had fun exploring it 

This big ball was especially fun for one of our doctor's kids

After some play time we gathered to hear more about the planned ministry

There was a blessing by one of the chaplains

Pictured are just a few of the kids the program hopes to help


Please be praying for Mr. Lidaniel as he starts this program that he will be able to reach those in need. Pray also there will be no problems causes by sharing the space with our missionary couple. 

Monday, April 4, 2016

Nursing School Accreditation

It is time for me to play catch-up on the blog. There has been lots going on that I haven't gotten around to posting about. Sorry about that! So here is the first post of several...

I have been talking about it for awhile and asking you to pray about it for a long while too. Both our hospital and nursing school were due this year for accreditation. The process here (and it is similar in the US) involves preparation of many documents that are then submitted to the accreditation team and reviewed by them before a site visit. The site visit for the nursing school happened on February 5th (which also happens to be my sister Kristin's birthday!) but there many many hours of work and late nights before that, starting with the deadline to submit the documents several months ago and then again in the final days before the site visit. Here are a couple of pictures of many meetings held in the days prior. You can see the stacks of documents being prepared and finally shaping up to look quite nice in color coded files in our conference room ready to be shown to the assessors during the site visit.





The day of the site visit dressing up in your official Nursing School uniform was required. It is all polyester with long sleeves so it doesn't come out of my closet very often :) The school also got dressed up with a nice banner welcoming the assessors, some new paint, and trees trimmed. 





The scheduled visit is suppose to last 3 days including travel time but our assessors were hoping for a quicker trip so we did it all in one day with travel the day before and after. That meant an early start and a late finish. It was after 9 pm before we were done and they were stressful hours so everyone was quite worn down by the day's end. Following introductions (and barely waiting for those to finish) the assessors went for our jugular which is our lack of master's prepared teachers. Those who actually have a master's in nursing is one - me. We have one in school and plans for at least two others to go back if they can pass the entrance exams. We also have several with master's degrees in health or related field but technically not enough and I don't even really count as a foreigner. It felt like that put us on the defense from the beginning and caused people to be more nervous resulting in several missed steps. One assessor in particular kept asking the tough questions and pushing for the documentation to prove it. 

The assessor is on the right. One left are three of our staff explaining some of our documentation. 

By the end of the day we all looking a little worn around the edges! 
Our final grade was issued last week and we got a C. We had been hoping for a B but based on what I saw of the standards I think a C is fair. I could however probably argue that the standards are based on a developed country (I think there is a strong chance they are pretty much borrowed from somewhere in Europe or America) or at least a nursing school in a big city. That said they focused on some significant weaknesses we have and improvements that need to be made. We have been putting in a lot of work based on their recommendations that day and now that the grade is final with more feedback there is more work to do. Please be praying for us as we implement these recommendations to the best of our abilities and specifically that we would be able to focus on those that will truly help our program improve and our students be better nurses when they graduate. 



Monday, March 14, 2016

Field Fellowship

I just recently returned from our annual team meetings and time of fellowship. This year we were hosted by our teammates who serve in Southeast Sulawesi here in Indonesia. It was my first time to that area of Indonesia. It is always fascinating to visit another island. 

We kicked things off with a night of worship and prayer but thanks to some late planes and my need for a quick stop in Jakarta for an ultrasound of my leg the Kalimantan team missed the first evening activities. We were incredibly blessed by a special speaker and a team from his church who came out to help care for the kids of our team. Much of the time our team members are the ones leading, preaching, and teaching so it was a blessing to be on the receiving end instead. We were also blessed by the presence of one of the founding team members of WorldVenture Indonesia. He was able to share wisdom from his years of serving here. Each family/unit also had a chance to share an update of what is happening personally in their life and ministry and be prayed for by the rest of the team. There was also of course time for business updates and discussion of legal issues. Finally we ended with some play time. We took a couple of boats out to an uninhabited island with some great views, swimming and snorkeling. It was so relaxing and beautiful to enjoy the warm water with friends. 

Here are a few pics from our time together...

Listening to our special speaker - Dave. 
Listening to updates from each family. 
Hearing video updates from those who have been appointed to join us here in Indonesia and are in the partnership development process. 
Spending time with those who have walked this journey before and listening to their wisdom.
And then there was the fun times! A night of parlor games and a fun night. Apparently I have a real skill for pulling kleenexes out of a box one at time as fast as I can as that is the only game I won :) 






Our final day together we went snorkeling and swimming at a beautiful island. 

Nope that is not pool - just a beautiful white sand beach!

Some of my teammates getting a lesson on snorkeling before they head out. Note to self bring contact lenses next time so I can see while snorkeling. 

The best part though was spending time with friends...  

Plus I got to catch up with the little ones of our team who I helped welcome to the world last year. Little Josiah is growing so fast! 

And Miss Charlotte has hit her stranger anxiety age but we still managed to have some fun together. At 11 months old she is an expert satay eater :) 
All in all I came home tired and a little sunburned around the edges (missed a couple of spots with the sun screen!) but with some sore laughter muscles and a lighter heart. 

Monday, December 7, 2015

Going Home!?

I always though my first reaction to hearing I needed to go back to the US for a visit would be one of excitement and joy. I was sure I would be excited to see family and friends, visit places and do some shopping etc. When I heard that my Grandma was sick though I realized going home to the United States this time is very much a mixed blessing. Yes I am excited for all the reasons listed above but I was also sad and tired just thinking about the long trip and the details to be arranged. Honestly, I thought if I needed to go home it would be for a good reason - a sister getting married or something.

So it took awhile to process it all and finally book those tickets. It became a daily question for awhile from the teammates I was staying with - so have you booked your plane tickets yet? And my answer was always "belum" which is Indonesian for not yet. Maybe it was because they were expensive, maybe it was because they were on airlines I didn't prefer (United), maybe because time and weather difference in December is a physically hard adjustment for only two weeks, and on top of that reverse culture shock is mentally hard work too. Mostly though I think it was because I didn't (and don't!) want this to be the last time I see my Grandma on this earth.

As things have settled though and those plane tickets have finally been bought I am finding joy and excitement in the idea of being home for Christmas. There is so many people I want to see and so much I want to do! In reality though most of that will have to wait for my next home assignment scheduled for the end of 2016 or maybe the beginning of 2017 now. For now I plan to focus on being with my family and friends. Enjoying these moments with them and making memories.

You will probably need to have a little extra grace for me as navigate life in a place where I haven't lived for two and half years but is still considered home. I am sure I will occasionally say a word (or an entire sentence will pop out!) in Indonesian. I will most likely also be confused as what side of the car the driver sits on and which side of the street the cars should be on :) And there are places guaranteed to send me into reverse culture shock like Wal-Mart and grocery stores!

Please do be praying for the trip. It is never fun and more stressful to travel alone. Pray that I can be fully there despite the jet lag and manage to recover from reverse culture shock long enough to do a little shopping :)

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

The Haze Part II

And purple use to be my favorite color! In this case though it means the air quality is in the dangerous zone. This is from the city 5-hours away. Farther south it is above 2000. 

A video from the southern part of our island:


. . . . . TABRAKAN BERUNTUN DI BASARANG KAPUAS . . . KARENA JARAK PANDANG BEGINI . . . KADANG HARUS BERHENTI . . . KARENA JARAK PANDANG KURANG DARI 1 METER . . . DI_AMBIL JAM 06.10 WIB . . .
Posted by Marcos Tuwan on Sunday, October 18, 2015


Not only is the haze dangerous to drive in, it is dangerous and even deadly to breathe in, especially for such a long time. The Indonesian government estimates that 325,000 people have become sick with respiratory illnesses like asthma and pneumonia from the haze. And that statistic is over a week old now and only counts those who have been seen at government health facilities. They also estimate that around 3% of those people have died. That may not sound like many until you do the the math. That is almost 10,000 people killed. And I see the effects through my Facebook feed almost every day. It is customary here to take pictures of the bodies of family and friends who have died, so I will be scrolling through my feed catching up on news from friends and then suddenly there is a picture of a dead body, very frequently a child or baby. Their smaller airways and lungs are not as able to handle the haze.

Check out this BBC video on the health effects of the haze, especially on children.

Help is on the way though as Indonesia has finally accepted help from places like Singapore and Australia who are lending manpower and airpower to help fight these fires. Unfortunately, all of that help seems to be going to the island of Sumatra instead of Kalimantan. There are more hot spots there and it is closer to Jakarta, Singapore, and Malaysia making it the more visible problem. The air quality however has been worse in Kalimantan, especially Central Kalimantan. As I write this it has passed 2000 psi again in the city of Palangkaraya (I am not sure how far past because the gauge stops working at 2000).

Please continue praying for rain, that wise decisions will be made by the government of Indonesia as to where their resources should be allocated and how to best punish those involved in starting the fires. At this point I am needing to use inhalers frequently to keep my asthma under control, so I am thinking about relocating to another island in Indonesia for awhile to give my lungs a break.