Mountains and other challenges

Last Sunday when we were in church, we heard about the church bombings in Surabaya.  When we got home that afternoon, we wondered if the news had reached the US, where people would be waking up.  I turned on NPR news, and it was the lead story.  So we contacted our close family to let them know that we were on a different island and okay.

On Monday we went about our business, but there was another bombing in Surabaya, and in the afternoon all young missionaries in Indonesia were sent home with instructions to stay in, at least until Wednesday.

Senior couples outside of Surabaya were left to make their own decision.  We had committed to go with the youth to a mountain hike on Tuesday morning, and after praying about it, we decided to proceed.  (Elder Porter quipped that we would be safer outside the city than in it.)

We left at 2 a.m., setting out on a twisty-turny drive that took over two hours.  And then we started hiking in the dark, determined to see the sunrise from the mountain top.

On the drive up to the mountain.  

We think of ourselves as good hikers, but that is when we are on our own, going at our own (apparently slow) pace.  The youth were excited to have us, but we slowed them down and they worried about us.  Whenever I stumbled, a hand reached out to help me.  I wanted to be insulted, but I remembered all those times that I told people:  When you allow others to serve, you are giving them a blessing.  So I thanked them and kept going.

Mt. Sibayak is a volcano, as are many of the mountains in this part of the "Ring of Fire."  So there were fissures with steam or smoke coming out, and a strong sulphur smell at times.  There were a few spots where the path was very narrow and slippery and the youth ahead warned us to be careful that we would be lost if we fell.  Of course the ascent was in the dark, with flashlights and headlamps and phones.

Arriving at the top gave us a great sense of accomplishment, and a bit of disappointment as we did not see a beautiful sunrise.  It became lighter, but there was so much smoke, steam, clouds and haze that we did not see any golden rays. It was also windy at the top, and I was glad that Elder Porter offered his windbreaker

Then on the trip down, the direction of the wind changed, and everything became clear.  A mountain suddenly appeared!  It must have been hidden by the smoke and haze.

We made it down safely, and went into the market town of Berastagi. We all had lunch at a local restaurant:  rice and a wedge of quiche and some greens.  Since everyone at our table was eating with their fingers, we did as well.  The restaurant did provide bowls of water for cleaning hands before and after.

We went home, took a nap and made preparation for the next day.  We had given our driver the day off on Wednesday because he had driven for the hiking trip the day before.  When we got in a Grab car, we had to take a detour and there were lots of police out.  The driver told us about a machete attack that morning on a police station on our island. He happened to be Muslim, and his friends had told him not to go near a Christian church, but not only did he drive us safely to our church building but he and Elder Porter chatted for a few minutes. He was frustrated at what was being done in the name of Islam and insisted that the terrorists didn't have a religion because they were serving the devil.

We were going to church because a 13-year-old had been killed by a train, and the local custom is burial the same day.  We went to the funeral in the family's home, but while the other missionaries went to dedicate the grave, we left to teach English class.  The young missionaries stayed in again on Thursday, and we curtailed our travels far from home.  The English class we teach on Thursday is an hour away, so we decided to cancel.  We invited the missionaries over to our apartment, and went to collect them in our car.

Between the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan and the elections here, it is a sensitive time.  We try to balance common-sense safety procedures with our determination to be about the Lord's work.  We updated our information with the US State Department so that they know exactly where we live in case of an evacuation, and we are already getting the alerts.  However, in reality, we are probably as safe in Medan as we would be in a big city in the U.S.

Today Colleen gave a 10-minute talk in sacrament meeting, in bahasa Indonesia.  It was about prayer, and some parallels were drawn to the hiking trip.  We were never alone; a young person was always there to help us.  Which is like our Heavenly Father.  And when the haze cleared and everything was clear, that is like how we can suddenly know what to do, as an answer to prayer.