This is how I feel about my little cousin Mikha:
Mikha is cute and funny. Sometimes, when he poops he is a bit stinky.I don’t like it when he cries at night because I can’t sleep. Mikha is a bit annoying when he steals the ball that I am playing with.
My journal for my Ambon holiday:
31/12/16
Today we watched lots of fireworks at night. Some of them were big and some of them were very colourful. We were going to light some firecrackers, but we couldn’t because they got wet from the rain.
1/1/17
Today is the first day of 2017! We stayed home because it was a public holiday. I got to play a lot ! 😀 There was a lot of guest coming to our house to celebrate the new year with us. They were all of Guakong’s friends and family.
2/1/17
Today it is still a public holiday in Indonesia. After lunch, we went to look at a beach, but I was very tired! At dinner, we went to Mum’s cousin’s house to eat dinner. The food was very yummy! When we got home , we played with “Magic Onions”. They are fireworks which you throw to the ground and then they make a popping noise and shoot sparks.
3/1/17
Today we went to the beach to swim. The beach was very dirty and rocky. After I swam, I ate fried white potato (kasbi goreng)and pineapple jam cookies (nastar) at my cousin’s house. It was very yummy (the food, not the house).
4/1/17
Today, Uncle San and his family went back to Singapore. I think I will miss them because they were all very kind to me and fun to play with.After we went to the airport to farewell them, we went to a big mall called ACC (Ambon City Center). My mum thought it wasn’t far from the airport, but actually it was 50 minutes away! We ate dinner there, in a restaurant called “Solaria”.
5/1/17
Today, I played basketball with my dad and little brother. I sat down most of the time because my finger hurted a lot. Dad met and played basketball with a guy who wanted to be a pastor! For dinner, we went to Mum’s friend’s restaurant called “Bakso FB”. The bakso (meatballs) were delicious!
 6/1/17
Today, we went to a cafe called “Kopi Joas”. We were going to order some coffee, but to many people were smoking, so we went out. After that, we went to Mum’s cousin’s seafood restaurant. We ordered some prawns and squid. It was yummy!
7/1/17
Today, we went to a small village. There was a pond
Things that I thank God for in 2016:
Things that I need to work on:
Jet is turning five today!
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.
Jet has settled in in the new school now, and he started to experimenting a little bit with his drawing and colouring. Before he doesn’t like use different colours, he usually just use 1 colour for everything.
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.
Jet and Matt were baptized last Sunday, 13/02/2011, among with other 3 other GFI children.
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:
- They will be brought up as faithful followers of Jesus Christ, and that
- 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 🙂 ).
If you know Jet, you’d know that he has a skin condition called Ezcema – I think he’s quite severe (having not known any child worse than him).
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:
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 finished his last day with Wind in the Willows childcare on Wednesday. He’ll go to SOS pre-school next year. I can’t believe it’s already one year with this centre. I can still remember the first few weeks were quite hard, Lina had to come and pick him up early a couple of times as he was crying and was asking to go home. But over the time he settles in very well and made a few good friends, his first best friend was Trinity (not sure whether they are still best friend now) and his current best friend is Jaiden (our family get to know Jaiden’s family in the process too).
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.
Today Jet is turning four. We went holidaying to Gold Coast (sort of) to celebrate his birthday.
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..
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???