Ron and Sally Jo Blog

YALT = YAMEN + SALT
YAMEN = Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network
SALT = Serving and Learning Together

Both programs are for young people ages 18-30. YAMEN is a joint program of MCC and Mennonite World Conference and exchanges are outside of U.S. and Canada. SALT is a program of MCC and involves exchanges between U.S./Canada and another country.

This year there are eight YALTers here in Indonesia from Uganda, Laos, Kenya, India, Canada, and US (3). They just finished six weeks language learning and cultural orientation here in Salatiga. We were not involved in the actual programming; we were just friends with them. We climbed Andong with them (described in an earlier blog), talked with them when they hung out at the office, and had lunch with them every Friday when all MCC staff ate together. During their last week in Salatiga we also helped host an International Supper with all MCC staff when everyone prepared food from their respective countries. It was delicious.

Saturday (Oct 17) we delivered three of the YALTers to their new assignments where they will live and work for the next nine months. It was a long day but enjoyable. The areas we went to are near the Muria Mountains which is the area of the first Indonesian Mennonites.

We left the house at 6:45 am, picked up the YALTers, helping them say good-by to the Salatiga families and loading their bikes and luggage. We dropped Sheria (from Uganda) in Demak meeting her new host family. The next stop was Kudus where we left Samanta (from India). They served us lunch at 11. Then on to Puncel, a very small village 2 hours from Kudus. Panya (from Laos) will be working there. As we got out of the car in Puncel the host father came “bouncing” out of the house and said we had hosted him in Goshen! (In 2006 there was a group of Indonesian pastors on a tour in the U.S. They visited Goshen and we hosted them for a meal. He even had the photo to prove it!) What an amazing coincidence! Panya had had a birthday just 3 days prior and they had a traditional Javanese birthday celebration. So we had another lunch at 2:30! And unloaded the last of three bikes.

By 3:15 we were able to leave and drove 2 hours to Pati where we planned to meet some friends. Paul and Meiske are the parents of Martin (who lives in Goshen) and Nathan (who we had learned to know quite well when he attended Goshen College.) Nathan now lives in Surabaya, a 6-hour drive, but came to see us. Paul and Meiske asked us to speak at their church service at 6:00 pm. So after driving all day, Ron gave a short talk. We then had supper – ikan bakar (grilled fish) at a small restaurant! What a lot of eating!

Sunday we went to the 6:30 am church service, had brunch with our friends, and were able to leave about 11. We decided to take little roads back to Salatiga so it took longer but the smaller villages were much more interesting.

Monday we had a wonderful R & R at a local resort. For a total of $30 we each got a one-hour massage, drink, snack, lunch, and use of the sauna, whirlpool and swimming pool.

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2015 at 10:54 am and is filed under Indonesia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.