Indonesia

With all our visa paperwork in hand we set off to Jakarta to get our visas, Christina a one year education visa and me a six month tourist visa. Christina's friends, Brandi and Trevor are currently working on the new Branch in Jakarta and got us in for four days!!! When we got there we had an awesome mini condo fully stocked with ice cream, chocolate and cheese... our only sources of happiness in life :) and access to a pool and gym!

Awesome! It is really unlike any Branch we've visited, if Malaysia was innovative- set in a variety of mansions in a posh neighborhood, Indonesia takes the cake. Set in several highrises attached to a giant Asian mall. The Branch has bought several floors in these highrises- that will comprise the new Indonesian Bethel. 
When a religious order wants to build in a neighborhood, they must present a petition signed by 100 neighbors and a petition signed by 100 church members to a board that rules on whether they can build or not. The last attempt was quashed by the catholic priest on that board. Happily the brothers were able to resell the land and not lose their money. However it was then decided it would be easier to setup in already existing structures. So the residence building is several floors of apartments in one high rise, then you walk through the mall to the other complex where the dining room, lobby, translation and service departments etc. will be on a floor of the office building.
Laundry and kitchen are a couple kms away in another area, since cooking is prohibited in the office building. Every day the food will be loaded into vans, transported to the office building, loaded into a service elevator and served in the dining room. The bethel rooms are little apartments so they are basically the nicest rooms I've seen for bethelites with no seniority. Christina did try to get us in but the home overseer wasn't having it :) We really enjoyed spending time with the construction crew/bethel family and meeting everyone in Brandi and Trevor's congregation. It will be neat to go back in a couple years and see it all finished.

After we navigated the visa nightmare... seriously! (Note to visa seekers; make sure your money is snappy- if it has a spot, fold or dullness to it- it is rejected. Also only American money. Because clearly we are in Indonesia at the Thai Consulate- so Rupiah and Baht would be nonsensical.) Anyway we headed to Bali for a couple of days.
 It reminds me of Hawaii. Touristy, beaches, surfers etc. etc. We spent four days there "resting".

Actually we got up at two am and climbed this volcano to watch the sunrise. Yes, two AM. As we were starting the two hour climb my guide said he had never climbed the mountain... hmm, how are you my guide? Kept things interesting! He nearly guided me off a cliff twice. Somehow I always enlist in these great adventures with super athletic people who essentially leave me to die on the trail. Like the 4 hour bike ride from Donner pass to Nevada city, where I caught serious air when I accidentally launched off the cliff. This was no exception- I came to affectionately refer to my co-climbers as Captain America and Tinkerbell. Needless to say Ross a brother from Australia and Christina climbed with gusto. Ross was gone, I never saw him, granted it was pitch black, but I'm pretty sure he took an elevator or something. Christina was intermittently visible ahead and then disappeared.  I contemplated my mortality as I clambered up the slick lava rock trail in service shoes and listened to my guide chat me up. At first it was normal DR convo- do you have a boyfriend etc. Then after an hour it was, so your friend is in much better shape than you. Ninety minutes in he kept offering to sit down for a bit. Of course I blasted past several American groups where the girls were all gasping and wilting on rock perches, as their boyfriends coaxed them and cheered them on. But they weren't my climbing party. Nope I had to climb with Captain America and Tinkerbell... In the pitch black I was pretty sure the top was never going to materialize and my guide after nearly launching me off the mountain twice (conservative guesstimate) kept telling me 30 more minutes. It was actually 5. Thanks! Reminded me of the illustration we've had about the swimmer who swam the English Channel and she was just a couple miles short but quit because through the fog she couldn't see the shore was that close... to illustrate the importance of keeping our hope firmly in our minds eye. Lived it! So we made it there with 45 min to spare, well I had 45 min before sunrise. Cap Am probably got there 12 hours earlier and Tinkerbell came in a close second. Why did I have to get up so early? O right because we had breakfast. Ahem, using the term loosely. So those of you who know Christina, are aware of her deep and abiding love for bananas :) Our breakfast- drumroll please... banana sandwiches! Even for me who actually likes bananas and considers them one of the food groups on the nutrition pyramid, it was not that exciting. But steamed bananas spread on white bread and boiled eggs were our delicacies. After that climb even Christina tore into it like it was a four star meal. Here we are at the summit camp. This is a hiker we found who had been lost in the mountains for several weeks- just kidding it's Ross.

A few minutes before sunrise the last wilting trekkers reached the top. We watched the sunrise and then headed back down the slippery slopes. Me in service shoes, Christina in flip flops. Always prepared... From there we took a 40km bike ride through the lush rice fields. Because we thought we'd get all our exercise for this year in one day. But first we marinated in some hot springs just to ease the morning trek a bit. After a long day we fell into bed. Then we headed to the beach and I got my lobster on :) No one believes me when I say I have only two color settings- albino and lobster... until we got home. LOL. So that was our visa run. Now we are home again with so much going on! More on that soon! Love you all, take care of yourselves and keep in touch.