Fresh Perspective

Being far far far away from family over the holidays is challenging for most missionaries.  We all deal with it in different ways.  Many at least loving the fact that we have Skype and phones.  For us:  we are still learning to embrace new traditions, savor a few old ones, and fill our days with friends who are also trying to fill the void of family and sweltering heat. This year was one of our best Christmas’s since being overseas.  It wasn’t because of the gifts under the tree.  No, the children literally got 2 small things each and Darron and I didn’t even exchange a thing.  It was the BEST because of the special people we got to hang out with.  Come peep into our Christmas Coping of 2014. Christmas Eve was so special because the expatriate Australians prepared their traditional Carols by Candlelight, Christmas Eve program.  Over 170 of us gathered as the sun was going down on the lovely hill at the International School.  There we s...

Darron had been asking me for weeks or maybe even months,  “Please, Ruth, hold a cooking class.”  A few days later, “A cooking class sure would be helpful”.  And later, “Ruth the Indonesian’s keep asking how to use whole wheat flour.”  From another angle, “Ruth, are you willing to go over to the school and help teach how to use wheat?”  I would hear each request, but making it happen was getting lost in the demands of everyday.  In all of Darron’s travels he met the manager of Indonesia’s flour processing plant.  To whom Darron was most eager to make a friendship because there is no whole wheat flour for sale in any typical grocery store in Indonesia.  With the accept ion  of specialty stores in Jakarta.  So all we have available is highly processed white flour, that has been bleached to prolong the shelf life.  The plant manager admitted that he does not use white flour, because he sees what they do with it in the factory.  G...

8:00 p.m. Friday night and Darron has gone to bed.  2:30 a.m. Saturday morning, I hear the shower curtain metal clasps scrape against the metal rode.  Opening.  Closing.  Opening.  Closing.  I glance at the clock and remember asking Darron before he fell asleep, “Do you need an alarm clock?”  “No, God will wake me up….”   I think I hear the metal clasps scrape again.  That is the last I heard.  5:45 a.m. I awake.  His pillow is empty.  He is gone. His church clothes and shoes are gone.  I see evidences of granola gone in the kitchen.  Our “mission mobile” is gone. Today is the day that Darron and Pastor Alfian will drive to one of Pastor Alfian’s churches.  Only an anticipated 5 hours away.  At 9:45 a.m. I get a series of text’s: Darron:  This is quite the journey.  Stuck twice and had to back up and retry several times. Ruth:  Oh My!  Are you there yet? Darron:  Still on...

It seemed unjust, unfair.  Yet desire overruled what seemed right.  This was not a cultural misunderstanding.  Yet living in a foreign culture was allowing this activity to take place.  We watched more then curious spectators.  This event would impact our week,our lives, our home and perhaps more.  Were we up to this challenge?  Andrew removed the baby parrot from his parents a week ago.   To hand raise a parrot has been Andrews desire since he was a boy of about 7 or 8 years old.  Roll back time 6 or 7 years ago.  Jessica had an eclectic parrot.  She would bring it to church and tell stories with her bird.  This bird, Kiwi, would ride up to the front of the church on a remote control car.  Kiwi would hang upside down and would allow Jessica to spread his wings out and show us all the vibrant colors under the wings.  That is when Andrew started asking for a parrot.  This type of parrot in the States can ea...

If there is one thing we are known for in this community of Indonesians, expatriates, believers and non believers is that we keep the Sabbath. From Friday sundown until Saturday sundown we try to stop all our work and rest and focus on God and relationships and renewal. We LOVE this 24 hours of intentional set aside time to BE STILL.  People admire us for it and misunderstand it, are confused by it, hate it, love it, embrace it, and have a lot of questions and misconceptions about why we would continue this ancient practice.  It is known that at 5:30 p.m. (the sun sets approximately the same time year round here) the Boyd family will leave the Friday night games.  Even if our kids are playing in the games.  Even if our son’s class is selling a meal to 200 people.  We simply walk away….. I know to many of my readers this is very odd that we would do this.  It is something I rarely mention on my blog because I don’t want to focus on religious practices....