Today was our first full day in Indonesia. After a long day of travel on Saturday, some of us woke up early to go to the University Chapel to help lead the 7:30 AM Bahasa Indonesia service. The eight of us who went to the first worship service were the members of a trio, a quartet, and Sylvia who sang a solo! At the end of the 7:30 service the rest of the group met us to sing the closing song in the service. In the first service the pastor got up to preach and paused to let us know in English that he wasn’t speaking in tongues, just Indonesian. It was a fitting joke since it was Pentecost Sunday.
After a quick turnaround between the end of the first and the beginning of the second service the entire choir led most of the worship for the second service. When the pastor spoke in this service we were given headphones to listen to a translator who translated the sermon.
Most of the songs we sang in all of the services today were composed by Antonius Priyanto, a DMA student on our trip, as his final doctoral recital. We enjoyed singing his music, and he told us he was proud of us, and would finally sleep well tonight!
After the second service we went to lunch at the school that is adjacent to the University campus we were staying at and leading worship at. We were able to eat with students who are from the inner areas in Papua which is in Indonesia that shares an island with Papua New Guinea. Two members of our group, Alyssa and Zoe, asked the students what they like to do for fun and they said they like to dance and sing. They offered to teach them their dance, which ended up with most of the kids and many of our group all dancing together!
After lunch and dancing, we ran through the rain back to the hotel (About a 2 minute walk) in order to get ready to go to the next church we were to sing at that evening. We traveled across Jakarta to Christ Jesus Church Green Ville. We arrived at the church and led the evening service in song and Dr. Bradley preached the sermon. After worship the church served us a large fancy meal and gave us all a gift of a towel with the churches logo monogramed on it as a token of appreciation.
After mingling with the Indonesian choir and church leaders over our meal we traveled back across Jakarta to the University to get ready for a big day tomorrow!
- By Logan Moore
