We celebrated it with family and friends from Pelita last Saturday at Tea Inn. We had a good time – most importantly good company.

We are so blessed to be part of God’s family. Thank you for your presence on Saturday – and mostly thank you for bringing Jet in your prayers.

And the yummy taro ice cream cake! It didn’t last for long.

Yesterday night, Lina and the kids were busy decorating cup cakes for Jet’s teachers and friends at school.

And here is the result – beautifully decorated yummy cupcakes:

And Jet had a blast sharing his birthday with people at SOS Pre-school today.

The left and the centre were our family drawing. But we are a family of four, who is the other one? Could it be Jet is prophesying? The fifth member is apparently Jimmy Giggle from the TV show Giggle and Hoot. The right drawing is a monster cat.

From left: Jet at the park, Daddy and Jet, the toy that he got from Oma (kinda like potato head)

Above is actually Matt’s colouring. We are quite surprised that he is a multi colour kind of boy from the start, unlike his brother.

It was a humbling and a moving experience for us, we are now making our commitment to bring up our children as God’s children publicly. It was also a good reminder for me on what baptism really (in this case children baptism) means.

I’ve taken an excerpt from Baptism Service which I think does the explaining of children baptism really well (note: I’ve reformatted them slightly – emphasis are mine, I’ve also listed Jet and Matt not the other children):

Baptism: An explanation

Jesus said:

"Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.(Mark 10:14-16)

Children are baptised on the understanding that:

1. They will be brought up as faithful followers of Jesus Christ, and that
2. When they are old enough they will take upon themselves the promises that are made on their behalf.

Therefore, let us pray that God will grant to Jeremiah and Matthew that which by nature they do not have, that by the work of God’s Holy Spirit they may grow up to know the forgiveness of their sins, and to put their trust in the Saviour who laid down his life for them.

The meaning of the children baptism is simply summarized by the 2 points above, for us the parents to bring up as followers of Christ (our promises), with the hope that they themselves one day confess that Jesus is their Lord and Saviour.

Oh, how we long for that day to come.

The godparents were also making a promise, their promise is to pray and seek to encourage both Jet and Matt in the name of Jesus Christ. Kuku San is Jet’s godfather and I i Chen is Matt’s godmother.

And then the congregation prayed together.

We receive Jeremiah and Matthew into the congregation of Christ’s flock and pray that they will not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, but will bravely fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and continue as Christ’s faithful soldiers and servants until the end of their lives.

Amen.

Amen indeed.

Matt got wet first.

Jet went next, Kuku San was supposed to hold him but he was so scared – so I had to hold him instead.

  See Jet, it wasn’t scary at all – it’s just water (from the rest room ).

And so we have taken this holiday opportunity in Surabaya to consult different people and try different approaches.

First we went to a Shinshe (Chinese medicine man?) whom apparently also a doctor. He attributed Jet’s condition to his weak maag (can’t remember the English word). He advised against any kind of milk especially formula milk.

We then went to a skin doctor. She gave us skin lotion that needs to be applied 3 times daily and a medicine called Celastamine (from what I read, it seems to be an anti histamine).  She also advised against eating chicken, egg, fish.

Lina also wants me to try the traditional Javanese plant called Putrowali (which she called wrongly as Brotowali). Traditionally the plant will be boiled and the water will be drank, since Jet is still a child, we didn’t give the water for him to drink but we are using the water for his bath.

To summarize here are the things that we are trying:

• Minimize the use of air-con especially when he’s sleeping – thankfully it has been cloudy for most part of the week so it is actually not very hot at all
• Jet has not been drinking any kind of milk for few days now
• He takes a bath twice a day (doctor suggested 3 times – but I just couldn’t fit in the time). We don’t use any soap/shampoo for the bath – only water. At the end of the bath, I use a little towel dipped on Putrowali’s water and wipe it on Jet’s body for few mins. After bath, we apply doctor’s lotion. As usual sorbolene on the parts of the body that don’t get the lotion applied.
• We try to limit Jet’s consumption of chicken, egg and fish – it’s impossible to avoid them completely.

At the moment, the intensity of the Ezcema seems to be decreasing (less redness) compared to the first few days here. However it seems to be spreading little bit to other area of the body, noticeably on his face (although I am not 100% sure whether it’s Eczema or not).

It’s time consuming to look after him, and I do pray that his skin condition will get better over the time. At the same time looking after him, somehow makes me love him even more.

Jet has made farewell cards for his teachers. He managed to give out the cards personally to his teachers, except for one teacher, Todd – and he was quite disappointed that Todd wasn’t in on his last day (and few other teachers too like Nat). Anyway, yeah I am thankful for this one year – Jet has certainly learned quite a handful of things from this centre and most importantly he has developed relationships with the people there. I am sure he will remember the time in this centre as a happy one.

Another person in the household has also achieved a milestone last week, Lina got her P driver’s licence last Saturday. I am so proud of her, she managed to pass the driving test in one sitting. For someone who has know driving experience at all to where she is at now, in just a couple of months, is really something. And yeah, I hope and pray that she’ll be a good and safe driver. Driving is still making her very nervous, hopefully with more driving hours under her belt, the nervousness will cease.

The holiday was very nice – Surfer Paradise on July was perfect. Jet most certainly enjoyed his time there.

Prayed that you will be Jesus’ follower one day (if not already) and tell people about him too..

not super hero

Ci Chen: So Jet are you going to take picture with Batman?
Jet: NOO! I don’t want to take picture with a bad man.
Ci Chen: No, Koko, Batman is not bad man – he’s super hero, you know super heroes like Batman, Superman..
Jet: Ok, how about Ginger Bread man??

Mama: You need to eat your veggie so that you can grow tall like your papa.
Jet: No, I don’t want to grow tall like a tree. I don’t want to be a monster.

Papa: Let’s pray for Guakong supaya sehat.
Jet: Dear God, pray for Guakong’s haircut.

WARNING – adult content
Jet: What’s this mama?
Mama: It’s a pineapple cake.
Jet: A nipple cake???

Jet likes to talk and to share his stories and his feelings. Today he told me that on Thursday he was sad because he was left out by some his friends that he usually play with. He also loves telling me about his friends too. I am a bit concerned that he has best friends, which seems to imply he prefers some friends than the others – I encourage him to be a good friend to everyone – not sure how realistic is that in the real life. I mean even us adults to get along with everyone and we ourselves prefer some people better than the other.

I really treasure this time with Jet – maybe when Matt is older – I would have this kind of conversation with him too. And I hope I can keep conversing and relating with my children and they too can be open and comfortable talking to me.

Tapi setelah liat air dianya jadi cold feet – ga mau masuk – mau duduk2 doang di pinggir kolam renang – setelah dibujuk2 akhirnya mau masuk tapi gw mesti gendong-in.

Setelah 1/2 jam-an, dengan agak dipaksa2 dan Jetnya teriak2 akhirnya dia mau juga agak dilepasin cuman pegang tangan doang dan dianya splashing around freestyle – mission accomplished!

So as a consequence I have been spending time quite a lot with Jet. On Monday – we went to the new Randwick Library, Tuesday – we went to Unigym Pool – trying to get him comfortable with water as he’s still afraid at the moment and then today we went to play basketball/soccer together.

One thing that me and Lina noticed is – Jet’s behaviour has improved dramatically this week. So it seems me being around more has a positive impact on him.

I also get to know him better, I noticed his conversational skills have gone up to another level, I noticed how good he is looking after Matt, there’s a soft side of him that I never really pay attention before. There’s just a lot of things that I would never know about him if I’m not having this break.

Lina is also less tired and less tense, so she can relate better to me and the boys as well.

Furthermore today we started to read the bible together again, hopefully we can keep the rhythm going. We used to read the bible every day before, but then busyness of life kind of kill the good habit.