Recent comings and goings...

Hello all!
Over the past week we've had some more fun adventures, including: a surfing trip to west Java (apparently the waves were a bit small for some, but perfect for Ali and friends!), purchasing a new motorbike for our time here and attending another Indonesian church service. We've noticed that many Indonesian christians have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome and keep us informed of various things. Even our wonderful Indonesian contact in Australia!

We're currently preparing to come home for Steve and Laura's wedding, which is pretty exciting! In many ways, 6 weeks has flown by, but it also feels like a long time since we've seen our Aussie family and friends. We're looking forward to catching up, eating some good dairy, not being stared at and having a running shower! (Well Ben thinks its actually much more efficient to throw a tub of freezing cold water over you.) I beg to differ.

Nonetheless, we feel very blessed here. Yogya is a great place to live in, and we're not really 'doing it tough' as is expected with the connotations of living in Indonesia. We have the pleasure of eating out (really good food) for a very reasonable price - this seems to be what most indonesians do as it is cheaper to eat out than to cook. We take our washing to the laundry (what a dream!) and we get to spent a fair bit of time together. Our small luxury was buying a toaster, and although we have run out of vegemite, we are enjoying some creamy/chunky peanut butter.

We are looking forward to being regularly involved in an international church service (YIC) and hope to sacrifice our time and energy in service there. I (ali) also hope to attend an indonesian service regularly in the mornings, to improve my bahasa and continue being immersed in Indonesian life.

That's all for now, take care and we'll see some of you soon!

Ben & Ali

Some pics of us at our wedding

For those who are interested here is a link to some of the pictures taken by the photographer at our wedding. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fartoolittleattention/sets/72157613357574453/show/

A taste of Yogyakarta traffic

This video is a taste of the regular everyday traffic that we zip in and out of to go to town and back.



No accidents yet. We are thankful to God for our safety thus far.

Krakal Beach

It's Sunday evening, and we have recently returned from a weekend trip to the beach!!
All of the Australian students here (19 of us) came on this adventure. We had a 2hour long bus ride to the south coast of Java to a beautiful little beach 'Krakal'. Apart from a very bumpy, hot and stinky bus ride we were all bubbling with excitement to jump in the ocean and be rid of the constant state of sweating that we have all become used to.
It's an amazing beach, beautiful clear water and just beyond the sand is green hills and massive rocks. Ben had been told that there was no surf along the coast of central java, but to his surprise and amazement - there is actually great surf here!
We had heaps of fun playing in the waves (very very strong current!) and exploring along the beach, with a big feed of rice, vegies and fresh fish to sustain us. We did suffer a big afternoon of rain yesterday but that didn't deter us from playing beach volleyball and further walking.
After another big feed for breakfast and another fun swim, we sadly got back on the dreaded bus and the jogja smog loomed closer and closer.
All in all, lots of fun and a great treat for all of us. We even got to wear singlets and thongs - no collars in sight. Back to the reality of conservative Indonesian culture so the singlets will have to wait for the next beach adventure.
sampai nanti xx