1 April 2007 – Sunday
A rather laid back Sunday for us – at least after noon. In the morning I was looking for when the conference broadcasts would be available on lds.org and found that BYU was broadcasting them live. When I checked there I found that they archive their TV broadcasts and we could watch and listen to Saturday’s conferences on demand. So before we had to leave, we watched the first 45 minutes of Saturday afternoon’s conference. I sat Total Recorder to capture the audio portion while we were gone.
President Jensen – i.e. Sinambela – was asked to be the guest preacher at the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Geraja. This is a very large, very famous Christian church in Jakarta. The members are mostly from Sumatra or at least their roots are there and is supported by the Sinambela family who adopted president and sister Jensen soon after we arrived here. It is a great honor for him to be allowed to address the congregation. The choir from the Selatan native branch was asked to sing.
Sam picked us up at about 7:15 and we went to the church so we could caravan to the church. We took 5 of the sisters with us. As usual we – that is the Jensens, Petersens and Piers – were asked to sit in a special area near the front. The services were very interesting and they had a wonderful spirit. They alternate spoken text and music – and collections. There was four choir numbers – the best was a group of young adults that were dressed quite casually and sang in English. There were not a lot of them but they had wonderful voices and sang with great volume. Our choir was OK but you could tell they were not gifted singers.
Once we figured out how to read the program, we were able to sing along with the congregation for most of the songs. The songs are in a book that includes the words – it was not until the last song was over that I figured out that the numbers and symbols above the text told how the notes were to be sung – at least the beat per syllable.
President gave his talk in Indonesian without reading anything except the scriptures. I think he did a good job but I am not sure because I was reading from the bible in Indonesian. Mary later said that she could follow him for most of what he said.
After he spoke there was a baptismal ceremony for three children – two infants and one boy about 1 to 2. It is a simple ceremony with the parents answering questions from the priest. Then the priests dips his hand in the water and wipes the head three times for the Father, Son and Holy Ghost – then he lays his hands on their head and I imagine confirms them as members of Christ’s Church.
That ended the services and everyone went through a line to congratulate the parents of the newly baptized children. After that we went up to a room where there was a traditional Batak ceremony where each of the children received a small piece of pork – from a whole pig on a platter. This was after all the families had said something in Batak that sounded ritualistic. Then food was served .
We then went back to our chapel where I met with president Weaver of the English branch for a few minutes. I asked him about how I could get to meet the HR people from the companies the ex-pats work for. I want to know how to find out about jobs that might be available for our members and what were the best schools for young people to go to. He suggested that we have a luncheon so we could talk to them all. Hopefully this will open a few more doors of opportunity for us.
The Weavers have been here over 5 years and so must leave. They are being re-assigned to Africa. The children are excited because they do not want to go back to the US. They have never really lived there and so there is no attachment. They live in big homes in guarded communities, go to very good private schools, and associate with other children with the same privileges. It will be interesting to see if they ever consider themselves Americans or will spend their lives as ex-pats themselves.
We got home just before noon and listened to the other half of Saturday afternoon conference. I tried to record the morning session, but the connection was so poor that I gave up. Hopefully I can record it some other time when the traffic is not so busy – maybe tonight while we are asleep. We read from the Kitab Mormon – we are working our way through the Parable of the olive trees. It is just as confusing in Indonesian as it is in English. At least we have learned prune, digged, cut off, and throw into the fire…not to mention nethermost
Mary fixed omelets for dinner – the first evening meal we have actually prepared at home for a week or so. It was very good.
No April Fools day here in Indonesia. I imagine there will be some on the music boards tomorrow – or tonight in our case.