Adventures in Papua - Day 3 - Dedication #1

After being in Indonesia for a very short amount of time, one will quickly discover a phenomenon known as "jam karat" ("rubber time"). Just as it sounds, this means that there are no deadlines or schedules. Thus, when our group leader told us the festivities today would start at 7 am, we were all a little skeptical. However, being the great traveling companions we are, we all woke up bright and early, had our complimentary continental breakfast of bread and butter (thankfully the moms of the group planned ahead and also had fruit, peanut butter, and chocolate sprinkles (an Indonesian classic!) for us!), and were ready to go by 7 am! It's a good thing we had gotten up so early, because 3 hours later (after a family and jumping photo shoot, hanging out, and half a game of Skip Bo), the bus arrived to take us all to the church for the first ceremony. (There actually was one van there "on time" (at 8:30) which took 5 members of the group, including Sally, over early and they got to witness some tribal dancing and music. Everyone else piled on the bus around 10!)

Us Waceks know how to keep ourselves entertained!!

Upon arriving at the church, we were greeted by a huge crowd of people all wanting to shake our hands... little did we know this was only a foreshadowing of things to come! We were finally corralled inside the church and the service started soon thereafter. This service was pretty brief and included singing some Indonesian hymns, prayer, a quick sermon, more hymns, more prayer and then the announcement that the Jones kids were about to be inducted into the tribe. With this announcement, everyone headed out of the church to watch. Caleb, Charis, and Nathan were at the head of the group when 15 men dressed in tribal outfits danced up with drums and chanting. They headed straight to the Joneses and put a homemade bead skirt on Nathan (the eldest child) and a necklace on Charis and Caleb.
Then, they ushered the kids into the middle of the group of dancing men and led them away to become the start of the parade. Now, this was not your average American parade with floats and Santa Claus. When a Papuan says "parade" he or she means walking/dancing en mass for 3+ miles, rain or shine (in our case rain!!). Dad later referred to it as an "all inclusive parade" where everyone participates and no one watches. :) As I (Steph) was leaving the church with mom and dad, I got stopped by some Papuans wanting to take a picture with me (again, foreshadowing!). This put me near the end of the parade until, as I turned the corner, I was ushered onto the bus that was supposed to drive all of the American guests along to the next location. Well, most of our group didn't get that memo, and just continued dancing along. Ben and Sally danced the farthest, making it almost 2 miles before they were ushered into the back of flat bed. Molly, Leah, and some of the others didn't quite make it that far, but were also put in the back of a truck... at one point they counted how many people were crammed in the truck with them and it was a whopping 53!
Eventually, we made it to the location of the next ceremony and were ushered/danced our way through huge mobs of people to the front of the tents where there were couches awaiting us as the guests of honor. (Nobody was really sure what was going on, and at one point, Steph, just trying to follow directions, sat down on a couch that was motioned to. A Papuan quickly ushered her to a different seat before the head military officer found his way to said couch!! Oops!) Once everyone was seated, the service began, and for 2 1/2 hours we were engulfed with singing, preaching, speeches, the physical dedication from Linda Jones to the government and Yawa officials, and dancing. One of the coolest parts of the ceremony (according to just about everyone in our group!) was when a Bible verse was read by three different people, once in Yawa (before which, the reader announced, "This is the first time this verse is ever being read aloud in this language!"), once in Bahasa Indonesia, and finally in English. It was incredible to witness and be a part of. As we sat there listening to the entire service in Indonesian, Yawa, and choppy translated English, it really hit each of us just how amazing and monumental this event was. Just as we were unable to understand a majority of what was happening, that's how the Yawas have been living their lives until now. With this New Testament, they are now able to hear and read the Word of God in their own language, just as we've been able to for a long time.
When the service had finally come to an end (one and a half hours after the last event that was written on the schedule of events in the bulletin!), we were served food and given a whole 5 minutes to eat it before Celebrity Status 101 started! As we were shoveling rice down our mouth, a line started forming of people waiting to shake our hands. Not thinking much of it, I graciously shook the first few hands while sitting down and in between bites. Before I could even get my box of food back on the table, I looked up to see that this was not going to be a quick "shake a few hands" type thing. Forming to my right was a line of about 75 Papuans all waiting to shake our hands. Now, 75 may not sound like many, and it really wasn't... but added to that 75 were 2,000 more Papuans who had been in multiple other lines to shake hands with the rest of our group before making their way over to our line. As if this was not enough to make us feel popular, about 15 people in to the receiving line, a hand-shaker asked me if they could take a picture with me. That was the end of it all, and for the next 2 and 1/2 hours, our smiles got faker, our mouths got twitchier, and we saw more than 500 cameras and cell phones (many of which were used MULTIPLE times) as Papuan after Papuan asked to take a picture with us. Now, no one has any idea what these pictures will be used for or where they will end up, but we do now know what it feels like to be Justin Bieber in a room of 3,000 teenage girls.
About an hour after we reached the point where we couldn't smile anymore, we were able to pull ourselves away and eventually find our way onto the bus. It was a quick trip back to the hotel where we all got showered and changed (day 1 experience with mud and rain!... and it was only the tip of the iceberg!). Then we headed back to the restaurant next door to devour 110 servings of sate ayam (chicken on a stick) and other yummy delicacies. After dinner, the youngins of the group had a cut-throat game of Skip Bo and then we all parted our separate ways for bed to rest up for the big hike the next day!