December 2010 JL Bangao # 18

RT02/RW01
Number 25 KEL Mangunsari
Email : chris_price@ntm.org.uk Cabean
david_price@ntm.org.uk Salatiga 50721
JawaTengah
Indonesia
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:16

Dear friends,
Selamat Tahun Baru (Happy New Year) to you all. We trust that you
had a good Christmas and New Year whichever part of the world you
celebrated in. We had a good Christmas. On Christmas Eve we spent
some time with friends having fellowship and food. After that we went up
to our church to practice for Christmas Day. We spoke last time of
being challenged out of our comfort zone, well we have certainly learnt
more about that recently but not in the way we had expected! A few
weeks ago our pastor asked us if we would sing at the front of church on
Christmas Day. Anyone who knows us well is aware of the fact that this is our church
something we are not naturally gifted in and would gladly admit to being tone deaf! Our natural inclination was to
give a polite “no”, but here it really is not the done thing as it’s the partaking that is the important thing, not the
quality of the singing!! After having a big Moses moment when we cried “Lord, send someone else who can actually
sing!!” we agreed to sing “silent night” if after the first verse the congregation would join in. When we arrived for the
practice we found that the congregation wouldn’t be joining in at all and it
was just us!! Too late to back out now! On Christmas Day we dutifully
turned up to the service to find a man with a VERY large video recorder
recording the whole service!! Mercifully we were on pretty early so once we
had sung we could relax for the rest of the service!! As one friend put it “if
it’s really that bad then at least they won’t ask you again!!” , it did go better
than we thought it would (i.e. no-one got up and walked out or threw rotten
tomatoes at us) but are quite assured that the pastor probably won’t ask
Our pastor, his wife and little boy us to sing again!

We are starting to feel more at home

here in Salatiga. Some of you may be
wondering about some of the practical
issues of daily living. Shortly after we
arrived David was able to set up our own
water filtration system using a couple of
buckets and a filter candle, which means
we can have as much safe drinking water
as we want without having to pay for it.
Cooking is not as complex as we at anyone for granola?
Price’s Perrier first thought it would be. We have a two ring
gas burner and when we want to bake anything we simply sit a
 biscuit tin like oven (which has a
hole in the base) on the top of
one of the rings. Amazingly once
you get the hang of adjusting the
temperature it does a brilliant job.
Some of the cuisines to emerge
from it are granola, honey loaf,
banana cake, homemade pizza and
German bread.
our local shop tofu sellers in market.
Many things are different in everyday life than in England and NZ but they are starting to feel normal now. We
get a lot of our groceries from a local “warung” or corner shop, and fruit and veggies from a local market. We are
now able to buy most of our things by ourselves though there are of course times when we need help from others.
We are amazed at the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables available here. Alas mango season has now passed but
in season at the moment are rambutan which we are enjoying. There are allsorts of different types of foods to try.
We have to say that Indonesian food is delicious!

We have now been in our official orientation programme for a month and
language and culture study dominates life! Much of our learning comes
from experiencing things first hand. For example if we are learning about
ordering food in one of the food stalls we will go to one as a group with our
language helpers and tutors. We actually go through the different stages
of ordering the food and take photos of both nouns such as the satay, rice
and verbs such as people chopping the meat, skewering it on the sticks and
cooking. While we are enjoying the satay, our language helpers will be
recording with language helper pointing out words and phrases, culturally relevant things to do, as well as
answering any questions we may have. That afternoon we process the photos, making a photo booklet and also
put it onto the computer programme used in tribal areas. The hard work
comes the next day when we have to ask our language helper what
different things are. She then drills us by testing us on which words we
can recognise using the pictures. Finally we record the words and phrases
and transfer it to the computer programme to drill ourselves. The process
is repeated for many other things: shopping, using public transport etc. It
is really great to see all the things we learnt in the second year of our
training with NTM, particularly in mission simulation, being put to
practical use. language study can be fun at times!

We are encouraged to spend as much time as we can in “live language” with the local community, especially our
neighbours. This means that almost everyday we try and get out and about to talk to the people. Fortunately the
people in the area are very used to having people learning Indonesian and most are extremely friendly and willing to
chat and help us. Each month there are area meetings where the community get together and discuss issues similar
to the things which concern those in western communities; such as the need for more sports facilities, someone
being sick, the roads need mending etc. There are separate men’s and ladies meetings which we have both
attended now. As it is all in Indonesian and no-one speaks any English there, it was quite an experience but it is
really an important part of belonging to the local community. I had a bit of a shock when I realised the lady leading
 the meeting asked me to say a bit about myself!! I managed to tell them my
name, where I lived, I had a husband and the culturally acceptable “belum”
to the question of children, which means “no, but I am hoping” and then
had to admit defeat! This month we hope that we will understand and be
able to communicate a little bit more when we go! Another major area of
live language is of course our church meetings. There are several items
which are now essential for any visit to church. A parallel
Indonesian/English Bible, Indonesian dictionary, notebook and pen to
jot down those words we need to revise before next week. We have felt
essential items for a trip to church really blessed to find such a friendly church which not only has lively
worship but really hold to the Word and have solid teaching. We are encouraged that although it is still slow going
each week we are able to understand more of what is said and sung! We had
a very special New Years Eve service with them. We met at 9pm and had
prayer and worship, then they discussed what God had done in their life over
the past year and the areas they would like to grow in during 2010. Then we
had some food and then prayed and worshipped again until midnight.
Although we missed a lot of what went on it was very precious to us to be with
God’s people here in Indonesia worshipping Him at the beginning of the
New Year. We hope to join a midweek Bible study this month partly to help
with our language but mainly to be able to get to know people in the church
better. Please pray that we will be diligent in our learning and that we will also be New year’s eve
a blessing to those we fellowship with.

We are constantly reminded of the reason we are here and going through all the challenges of a new country,
culture and language. Recently we were challenged by some missionaries who had worked in an area of Indonesia
amongst the tribal people for 30years. They laid before us the need of the growing church which had been
established, the continuing Bible translation and discipling which needed to take place before the church can truly
function independently. The couple are now unable to be in the tribal area due to health issues. It is a good focus
to remember that it’s for people such as these that we are here, to support those missionaries who are able to go in
encourage them to maturity. As well as continuing work there are many needs for new works – please pray with us
for workers to fill these places.

On Christmas Day, as the service was actually at 3pm, afterwards we we treated

ourselves and went to a local restaurant for a simple Christmas meal. It was really
nice to relax and enjoy the outside atmosphere of candlelight table.
Thank-you so much to each one of you who play such a vital part in reaching the
lost for Christ. Without your prayer, financial support, care and encouragement in
so many practical ways we couldn’t be here. Please keep in touch and let us know
any ways in which we can support you in prayer. We really enjoy hearing from you.
With love in our precious Saviour
David and Chris