Selamat Pagi! (good morning)

I just realized this morning that I haven't written on my blog in a while. So, let me update you on the past week here in Indo.

This week was different than most because Tuesday was Independence Day. So, I had a day off on Tuesday. It was wonderful to sleep in when I normally had to get up for school! I spent the morning playing sports with the people from HMCC. HMCC is Harvest Mission Community Church. They are a church plant from Michigan. They have weekly services at SPH and lifegroups, or bible studies, on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. The Church is very new, and is made up of a lot of young people. One of their main purposes for being here is to reach out the University in Lippo Village (AKA Lippo Karawaci), UPH. The sports day was great fun. We played soccer and Frisbee on teams. I was hot and tired at the end, so I jumped in the pool afterwards! The rest of my day off was spent shopping at the mall (which was insane!) and hanging out with some SPHers at a BBQ in the evening.

Wednesday, was also a different day because we had some different Independence day events at school. The first was a flag ceremony. It was very formal. All the teachers had to wear their suit jackets to the ceremony, so I got to wear my new one! They had special marches and salutes. In fact, everyone had to stand and salute in unison. It was very cool to be apart of. We also had a few hours to play traditional games with all of the students. All of the staff and students are split into four teams that have certain colors and names (from volcanoes in Indo). I am apart of the blue team, called Bromo, but I had to be a judge for the games on Wednesday. It was so much fun to watch the students and staff all having fun together in real school spirit. The rest of the day was pretty normal with staff meetings in the afternoon and lifegroup at night.

This Friday night I played games with the HMCC people and then I hit up the movie SALT with some other teachers at the movie theatre for a whopping price and 20,000 (or $2). Saturday was very relaxing during the day, and in the evening I went to a Trivia night that was a fundraiser for a charity that helps with healthcare, orphanages, and education in Indo.

Things are still going very well here. It is starting to feel very normal, which is really nice. At the same time, I am hopping that I will still notice things that are different than back home so that I remember to take pictures!! I am normally good at taking pictures, but it has been harder to remember since I have been here. I will do my best to keep posting things!