Bali

Kalah, David, and I spent our Spring Break on the island of Bali in Indonesia. While there we saw many interesting aspects of the Indonesian culture. The pictures below show only a small portion of what we saw. I thought that it would be enough to give you a glimpse into the incredible week we had.

Our vacation was incredibly relaxing, which is suppose to be the goal of a vaca. The reason it was so relaxing was due to the hotel we stayed at. If you are ever in Bali stay at the Tropical Bali Hotel in Sanur. It's a small hotel but the rooms are great. Also, the owners are fantastic! They did everything they could to help us with....well...everything.

This was one of the temples we went to.

This is an offering placed before the ocean for the evil spirits. I saw one that had a cigarette in it and another with a drink beside it. Most of them have flowers inside and some incense. You find these inside as well as outside of almost every building or shop you come to.

It was incredibly cheap to eat in Bali. Their currency is Ruppiah and as you see here #22 is 22,000 which is essentially the equivalent of $2.20. However, that is not the reason I have this menu displayed. If you look at what #22 includes in their burger you will find a fork! It was amuzing to see all of the errors in menus. This was not the only one we saw.

I loved going to all of the markets. These three pictures are from the market in Ubud. The picture of the temple above also comes from Ubud. It was really amazing to see all of the various items they sold.

These are pictures of some of the rice fields we saw. They were beautiful!


This is the fantastic breakfast we received every morning at our hotel. This is one of the things I missed when I returned to Guam.


This meal looks a little interesting but tasted wonderful. One of the owners cooks the breakfast most every morning and also cooks for supper upon request. Our last three nights there we requested supper. This is a vegetarian dish with eggplant and stuffed tofu with some other veggies. I cannot even describe to you how wonderful this meal tasted!

Glad that I could share with you a little of the experience I had. If you ever want to go on vacation to an island, forget Hawaii, Bali is better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOOMA.COM

Nooma is a nonprofit organization that puts out DVDs which discuss topics that are important to us as Christians. Tonight I watched one entitled 'Rain'. In this episode Rob Bell, the speaker, talks about how one night he took his small son on a walk. It ended up raining on their walk and he had to hold his son against his chest to keep the rain from soaking him even more. It was also to comfort his son because of the loud thunder. On their way home he keeps whispering in his sons ear that everything will be alright because he knows the way home.

At that point I start to cry. How many times does God tell us that he knows the way home, and we don't listen to Him? We are too concerned with our lives to listen to everything He is trying to tell us. With every decision we make we are either moving towards God, or away from Him. How scary is that? Honestly, when I make a choice I don't always think, "Will this bring me closer to God?"

This is the third time I have watched this DVD and I seem to glean something different from it each time. Something else I think about in connection with this message is what a wonderful God we have. Take a look at your own life. WE MESS UP EVERYDAY and yet God still wants us. He still tells us that He loves us. We are still His children and He wants to hold us against His chest and tell us that everything is going to be alright because He knows the way home.