Week 6 – Wrapping up and preparing for Service
This week we went on our last two field trips, had our last group meeting and lunch at Rumah Goshen, had evaluation sessions with our SST leaders, Ron & Sally Jo, and with our language teachers, had a farewell celebration with our host families, said our goodbyes to them and to each other, and headed to new experiences at 8 different service locations.
The first field trip was to Ganjuran Catholic Church. This church is of special interest because of its use of traditional Javanese architecture, symbolism, and motifs throughout. This includes Javanese musical instruments such as the gamelon, a Javanese Madonna and child, a Hindu-style temple in the courtyard as a place of prayer, and Javanese figures in the twelve panels of the stations of the cross.
On our second field trip we were introduced to traditional medicine and herbs. Our host showed us a variety of herbs and plants growing around her house and demonstrated how different ingredients are prepared and mixed together to create drinks and other products for use in relieving various ailments. We were able to help in some of the preparation and also to sample the products.
Enjoyable times at Rumah Goshen
Our farewell and thank you for our host families was enjoyed by all. It included a lot of music of different styles – hymns, K-pop, dangdut (Indonesian pop music that combines traditional eastern genres with western rock), and also a short skit and some speeches. Taylor and Nasim were our MCs and Marris gave a formal thank you on behalf of the students. The time ended with shared food and socialization.
On Saturday we gathered at Duta Wacana Christian University, our home base for the past 6 weeks, to say our goodbyes, load vehicles and depart for service locations. Katie, Natannael, Corrie, Marris, Nathan, and Liz went in one vehicle to Boro Catholic Church, where they met host families who took them to 4 locations near and in a mountainous area about 1 1/2 hours drive from Yogyakarta. Taylor and Nasim went with Emma and Stuart to two locations on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. Emi and Sophia went to a location on the north side of Yogyakarta. Jace has been placed with an interfaith organization and met them that morning for a seminar being held on campus. Later in the day he went with them to his location.
