Indonesia Trip

1st day in Indonesia
Everyone here wake up as early as 7am(Indonesia time) it's so much easier to wake up early to do QT as my relatives already started to chat in the morning. I sleep no longer and woke up, bath, brush teeth and do my QT and prayers. There is no warm water here and water is precious. In the past, my relatives would go out early to the water source and fetch water. That explains those big water tanks I see in the kitchen. Because of those little cold water, yup, I definitely awake. My QT today was about Jesus turning water into wine, the first miracle that Jesus did to show His Power and Glory. And how obedient would the servants follow His instructions without doubts and questions. It reflects my life, when I has my own problems and troubles, how much faith i have in the Lord, my Saviour who will help me to solve the problems? Do I doubt Him? Do i believe that in Him, miracles do happen?? Another thing i get from the parable, that the Lord solve their problems with His miraculous signs. He did not solve them by helping the maids to get away from the situation. I  ask myself, when troubles arise, i normally will try to get out of the situation. Will it solve the problems? No. It just prevent myself to be involved in the situation. And this is the thing. How would i being able to glorifies the Lord, allowing Him to do His miracles if i am not even in the situation that requires a miracle? There will be no miracle if i am not there, working hand in hand with Him. Our Lord is able to turn a situation to good as long as we have faith in Him and not running away from it. 

Now i am on my way to Bintan, it is just a few hours journey from Tanjung Pinang on car. 11.30am

1pm, we reached Bintan resorts. There is a long stretch of road in there before we reached our destinations. 

We have reached our destination. There is a beach where we enjoy the scenery awhile. Then we walk down the road and found a small animals and birds zoo along the walkway. There are mouse deer, snakes, birds of prey, very big fishes and an enclosure with many deer(i get to feed the deer as there is a feeding box full of grass). It is so awesome! While i enjoying the time feeding the deer, there is a huge downpour that we have to flee to the car. And there we go to get something to eat. 2.35pm

3.05, we arrived at Restaurant Kampoeng Nelayan, opened by a cousin' girlfriend' family. 

The "tea break" was marvellous. Chilli crab, kan gong, omelette, soup and beancurd. We ate our fills and take a look at the lobsters and crabs and prawns they are keeping. They are so huge!! They are actually king crabs, pearl lobsters, bamboo lobsters and mantis prawns. The mantis prawns are huge! It is so huge that they have to cut off their feelers and pinchers. As we are eating halfway, the restaurant power being cut off. Not only the restaurant itself but the whole street. This is very normal here in Indonesia, especially at night. We always get torches and candles ready for this kind of events. And this is the root cause that started a fire that burned down my old wooden home in Indonesia 5 years ago. It is so terrible. 

4.09pm, we left Bintan Resorts to home. In Indonesia, you can see the sky so clearly as through they are so close to you. There is no HDB, here, it is like a terrace home stretch throughout the streets. The max levels of a house is 3~4 floors. In some parts, there is so much forests, trees around. Open land. However, the road is narrow(a one-lane road that is shared to both direction of vehicles) and less traffic. Because of that, there are more motorbikes than cars. There is no arrows on the road indicating which direction a vehicle should go. There is no guardrails or guardlines too. There is no much walkway either. Hence it is important that we, predestrians, able to cooperate with the drivers, to give ways. Unlike Singapore' rush culture, even the cars/motorbikes are much slow pace. 

There is rain now. And there is no much drainage system here compared to Singapore. Most rainwater often flows to the sea as our homes are build on wooden planks above a part of the sea(like a fishing village). It must be great to have a town built like a fishing village yea? But the "sea" is not really a sea anymore. If you want to see water pollution, welcome to my hometown. Our "seas", the place where we built our houses, has become a dump as residents in the past, and maybe now, threw their waste into the sea. One doesn't seems much but a whole town is enough to see the impact of water pollution. What is worst is that the Indonesia government didn't do anything about it. So my relatives has been living with the dump for as long as i remembered. The last time i see water below my house is far before the fire incident. When i was 7~8 years old, i still can see water during high tide, and dump, when it is low tide.

5.08pm we reached at a popular temple, a tourist attraction. Maitri Graha. I didn't go inside as i know i would be worshipping idols so i stayed outside. I walked around the temple and it is filled with bunches of dragonfruit plants. Interestingly, those plants are cactus like. And me and my family keep a lookout for ripe dragonfruits so we can pick them to take home. Sadly, there is none. We pay our respects to my decreased youngest uncle whose ashes lies in this temple. And we are back on the road home. 5.39pm

10.00pm i had my dinner and watching getai from CDs. Getais are super popular here in Tanjung Pinang. In fact, some of my uncles are part of the famous getai band in Tanjung Pinang, Ocean Blue. They once represent Tanjung Pinang to go to Taiwan and play for the getai hosting there. 
I was prompted to pray for my Dad' long illness of leg injury. It is kinda common for elderly. I was prompted to pray for him as i learnt that my fengshui uncle told my Dad to worship a snake god. I was like, ridiculous!!! You need to go to a snake to get your leg healed? I have a real God that heal any sicknesses, any illnesses!! I recalled that my QT is about faith, how much faith do i have that my God will heal my Dad? Like how my God healed me of my diarrhea problems. I going to take this step of faith to pray for my Dad later on.  

Notice that there is a balcony on 3rd floor! I can see the stars clearly!!! It is so beautiful! 

11pm pray with my Dad for healing. had a small yet touching chat with him too (something that i has never did so) We talked about his leg, learnt abit more about him. He didn't really believe that God will heal him. i shared to him my testimony on how God heal me of my diarrhea. He has no comments. We talked about our faith too. And asked why do he worships idols. But he been beating around the bush all the time. My Dad once go church too. But stopped going because he didn't feel anything from there. And from his eyes, i can see that he is worried that no one will send him off if he pass away, as I believe in God now. I am kind of worried too. But God assures me to have faith in Him. We talked about my own problems too. We went to sleep after that.

2nd day
i woke up at 7am do my QT. Today parable is "Jesus clear the temple". The people sell their belongings, livestocks in the temple. Jesus is furious and chased the people and livestock away. The people demand Jesus that if He could do miraculous signs. He told them: destroy the temple and i will rebuild it 3 days later.  What i learnt from this is that the Lord see a bigger picture than us. The temple he meant is actually himself. And He keep His promises. If He said He will do it, He definitely will. Even if we carry doubts about Him, He will still do His miracles to show His Glory and Authority. 

I dreamed that God is healing my Dad. In the dream, God has telling me to have faith, faith that my Dad will be healed. Non stop till I woke up. Dad tells me that night, he only felt a small pain on his knees. I don't know if God is healing him. But I do believe that God is healing him.

Day 2 is the day we buy our jumbo mumbo to bring to Singapore. I did my first shopping using my own money now too. Indonesia currency is hard to read. Because the people mostly speak Hokkien. It is hard to associate their understanding of "wan"(which they meant 10000) with mine, which I thought its 1000000. Moreover, I am fully using 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 in Hokkien to buy things. I bought indomie, crackers for NC and a hp for NS use. On our way home now. 10.41am

Took notice of some crabs crawling around the "sea" nearby my house. My Mum is with me, looking out for crabs. She told me, last time the water used to be very clear, so clear that you  can see crabs underneath the water. There were horseshoe crabs and fishes too. And they used to swim there and catch crabs using strings to lure them up. Now, there is no more horseshoe crabs nor fishes. I only get to see some species of crabs scrambling around. There is small dull sea snake (look like worm but too intelligent to be a worm), sea cockroaches and some shelled creatures.

12noon on our way to Bintan area to find a popular seafood restaurant. Fell asleep as im too tired. 12.40 woke up and realised that we are stopping by a street at Bintan for a break. The soya milk here is pretty different than in Singapore. It is so much sweeter and they use coconut milk in them too. 

1pm we reach our destination. It is so unique. A something we never get to see in Singapore. There are huts built along the seaside, for us to have our meals there. A seaside restaurant. We had sauced chicken, black peppered sotong, fried prawns and some vegetables for lunch. My cousin got stung by a bee because he is holding onto a stick pole which is a "hideout" for the bees. Got medicated oiled and we stuffed some tissue papers inside the holes so they wont come out stinging people. And we are off to Ramayana for some shopping. 2.22pm

4.30pm just return home from Ramayana. They sell mostly clothes, have an Indonesian bookshop(really mostly in Melayu) and a supermarket like Singapore' Giant, only cheaper. As we get home, we have a second round of durian session. 

6.18pm i am now at Riau holiday inn, there is a small boat port here. Waiting for the sunset as i watch the eagles catching the fishermen catch of the day.

The sunset is covered by clouds but it is uniquely beautiful. It so different to see a sunset from a fishing village. 

7.15pm walking home for dinner and saw a family store opened by my relative' neighbour. Family stores are pretty popular here. For each stretch of housing, there will always be a family store. My relatives opened a cafe below where they are living. Bought a few snacks for NC and return home. 

10.13pm bedtime. The ferry ride is 9am tomorrow(Indonesian Time). 

This parable talks about how Nicoduemus have doubts about Jesus as He continues His miraculous signs. And this is where John 3:16, For God so loved the world, He send His One and Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perished, but shall have eternal life. But what caught by attention is how Jesus reply to Nicodemus with the truth even He was doubted. I asked myself that when I was doubted, even when I didn't do anything wrong, how did I reply to the "doubter"? I reflected that I will have these thoughts of "why did you not trust me?" I will reply them with a "pekcek" tone and sometimes i would ignore them, thinking, they believe what they want, i can't control their thoughts. But Jesus speak to them, with the truth, even He is doubted, one time, second time and even the third time. Without fail, He would reply them calmly. Another thing that caught my attention is,  19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been seen through God. To me, it is kind of interesting of how Jesus spoke this. It spoke of two contrasts. Men that love darkness and men who live with the truth. I pictured this: once the world is darkness, we can't see in the dark. So whatever we do is unseen. We love the darkness because it covers our doings, good or bad, just like how a thief would steal at night as the darkness masks his actions. We love the darkness and its empty promise of "don't worry, we will cover you. No one would notice what you just did," when God, who is all-knowing, already know what you just did. But the light comes into the world, exposing all the works we are doing, every secrets we are keeping. As light comes, all of the darkness fades away. The darkness hate the light as the light would destroy them. Just as if someone would shine a torch   at the thief, he would cry out in fear, fear that his deed has been found out. Fear of being thrown to prison. Just like the people who lives in darkness, once they are found of the sins they committed, hell awaits them. There is one thing of people who love the darkness, they often cover up their tracks so the light would find them. Just like a careful thief would wear gloves and cover their footprints. But they have the chance to go into the light, to live with truth. Just as the thief who is caught by the torch being handed to the police. He admitted that he steal because that he is poor and has no food. With this truth, he will be given food, and a job opportunity. However, he have to serve in prison as there is consequences in freewill. But he would have avoid that prison statement if he live with the truth and talk to the town council about it. He might not know about them, and that is where people around him should tell him about it. If only someone told him that he can help from the council, chances that he would not risk stealing. If only, we, citizens of the Kingdom tell the people living in the darkness that there is a Provider who provide our every needs. A Saviour who can save them from the verge of hell. How then they will continue living in the darkness? 

930am, going to the port, returning home. 

11.45 the ferry move out. I am seated separately from my parents.

1.14, the ferry almost capsize.

1.25 i see Singapore land. We have reach tanah merah ferry terminal.