Days After Christmas

Exhausted.

That is the word to represent my condition.
I joined a choir and we sang three days in a row during Christmas services.
Tired, yet remarkable.

Yesterday, 26th December
Second Christmas
WHITE CHRISTMAS!! Snowing,....

Today, 27th December
I went to my part-time work, as cashier.
I saw all Christmas articles in the discount shelfs.
Ah, Christmas has gone.

I was wondering. Was it all?
Is that what people celebrated?
Two days of eating high-calorie meals,
drinking Gluhwein or bottles of beer,
shopping,
wrapping presents and taking them out again.
Is that all?

Ah, I wish they knew that it was actually about Baby Jesus was born on earth.
I recalled Christmas preach I heard last Saturday and Sunday.
Gerald Kelly, the pastor, read a poem; a very nice one.

When the night is deep

With the sense of Christmas

and expectancy hangs heavy

On every breath

Behold I stand at the door and knock.

When the floor is knee-deep

In discarded wrapping paper;

And the new books are open at page one;

And the new toys are already broken,

Behold I stand at the door and knock.

When the family is squashed

Elbow to elbow

Around the table,

And the furious rush for food is over

And the only word that can describe the feeling

Is "full",

Behold I stand at the door and knock.

When Christmas is over

And the television is silent

For the first time in two days

And who sent which card to whom

Is forgotten until next year

Behold I stand at the door.

And when the nation has finished celebrating

Christmas without Christ

A birthday without a birth

The coming of a kingdom

Without a king

When I am forgotten

Despised

rejected

Crucified,

Behold I stand.

New Christmas Song

One Child - Natalie Grant

The seed, it grows and somehow becomes a life
It moves, she knows that her baby has arrived,
She's so scared, but she's so blessed
She lays down her fear for the hope at her breast for she knows...

CHORUS:
One million chains could never hold back this moment in time 
One thousand dreams could never dream what this moment truly means 
Heaven and earth, they cradle the infinite Joy born on this night 
For it only takes one Child to forever change the world

He stands beside her, he'd share her pain if he only knew how
He whispers 'I love you' as he gently strokes her brow
He's so scared, but he's so blessed
There's a thundering pride pounding deep in his chest
For he knows...

BRIDGE
Christ is born, we are blessed 
Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess 
That we know..

This Baby cries and for the first time
The world hears the voice of God weep
Mary sings a lullaby
As the Hope of the nations gently falls asleep
She knows this is the one Child
To forever change the world.

p.s.  it is one of my christmas blessings this year.

Merry Christmas, Grinch!

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons.
It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store?
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?

Dr. Seuss 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas'

(taken from Gerald Kelly's Christmas e-mail)

Dear Friends,
Christmas is more than just a box of chocolate,
or a plate of stuffed turkey on the dining table
or probably nice black-white and red dress to attend Christmas service.
It is a Christmas; a moment when a Christ became flesh,..
... became one single cell and then multiplied, multiplied,...
and finally became a baby, baby Jesus.

Yes, Grinch, you were wrong
if you were about to steal Christmas again,
you would not able to
because it is in our heart.

Merry Christmas, Grinch!
Merry Christmas, frineds,..
and Happy Birthday, Jesus!

This Grace

This grace we have been given is enough.

When the mountains set before us

Won't move by faith

Until by faith we start to climb.

It is enough.

When our cry for Heaven's miracles

Rings hollow, like a doorbell Howling through an empty house.

It is enough.

When from the wheelchairs of our weakness

We say yes

To pressing on,

It is enough.

When we have reached the end of our energies,

And face the end of ourselves,

But can't yet see the end of our task,

It is enough

Enough

To know that you have loved us.

Enough.

That we are called before all time.

Enough.

That every fingerprint is valued.

Enough.

That you remember every name.

So we will embrace this grace.

And turn our hearts to face grace.

Loosening the locks

On our personal space,

We'll make each home a place of grace.

We'll drink from your wells

'til we're wasted on grace;

We'll speak out your words

'til our tongues taste of grace.

And we'll live to love your laws

Until our lives are laced with grace.

Down dark and dingy alleys

We will chase grace.

We will hold as something precious every trace of grace.

We will celebrate and consecrate this grace, because this grace we have been given, is enough.

By Gerard Kelly

source: http://www.bless.typepad.com/spoken_worship/

p.s. My God is very creative. All the answers I have been looking for are summed up in this poet. Thank's God!

Daniel, Andy and my birthday.

It might be a little bit too late to share about my birthday which has passed. It is not that I’ve been lazy to update my blog, neither because I was busy; yet I had other important things to do (sorry ulmie, I steal your words, tho I think it is realistic). I try to prioritize stuffs: better time-management.

Apart from my new method of managing time, this time I would like to share something about my birthday.A clue about my post, is that it is not going to be about my confession of secret boyfriends I have in the Netherlands, hehehe.

Probably you have noticed in my last couple posts, I had been moaning about being poor, not having money to treat, or to “celebrate” my birthday. I, kinda, didn’t want to admit that I was embarrassed not celebrating my birthday, although no one asked for it. Sad, huh?

My great housemates, they were very kind (thanks, guys!). They prepared dinner for my birthday. I didn’t expect that. I thought, I would spend my birthday doing nothing special. Thankfully, God, through my housemates, prepared something great.

Daniel, my cute, Tao Ming Tse-face, housemate, led the prayer before we ate our dinner (anyway, the dinner consisted of “typical Daniel” noodle, (tiny) fried fish, “pisang goreng, lodeh “pare”, sambal goreng tempe and “nasi uduk” with “kolak” as dessert). It was when Daniel prayed for me, for the opportunity to celebrate my birthday, to sit in the dining room eating dinner, yet there must be many people who couldn’t do that. There must be people who do not even bother with their birthdays. Birthday, for them, would just be like any other day. They think more on what they would eat tomorrow, or how they can feed the children, or where they are about to sleep that cold night.

I stopped.
I enjoyed my dinner; it was perfectly delicious.
Yet, when I chewed my fish, I reminded again, that I was wrong, very wrong.
(Thus, ardy, not because your smally, tiny, fish, heheheh).

The day after, I think, I felt like God really spoke to me, warned me about my stupid concept of celebrating my birthday.

Andy, a homeless guy who sells newspaper in front of my supermarket I work, had a quick chitchat with me before I went back home from work. I asked how he was, because he had been ill lately. Then, what I still remembered he said this “Yeah, it has been very cold lately and I don’t even know where I would sleep tonight.”

Oh Nia,.. how ungrateful you have been…!

You have a house, a nice SINGLE room to sleep. You eat three times a day, and if you are lucky you can buy snack to accompany you watch TV series – scrubs on your laptop. You study communication, doing final dissertation for European Union and your parents, who love you very much, are very proud of you. You have a boyfriend who will wait in Indonesia and your friends love you as much as your boyfriend (although in a bit different way,.. hehe).

Another lesson I learned, from God.

Thank you for that, Lord. It is now still an ongoing process. It is very difficult to be grateful to what I have now. I face difficulties, trials. All these stop me from seeing, perceiving how GREAT and BIG my God is.

Teach me more lessons, Lord.

My forefathers,...

Namanya kerja di negara orang ya jadi yg terbelakang. Apalagi perusahaannya perusahaan pribumi. Sayang aja ga ada perusahaan indonesia di belanda. Ada sih.. spt restoran indonesia, ato toko indonesia. Tapi anehnya sama aja kerja ama orang indonesia.. toh diinjek2 jg. Orang indo disini rasa kebersamaannya kurang... dah kebanyakan sih. Tapi orang susah semua.

Banyak orang2 indonesia yg didatangkan secara gelap ke sini utk kerja ilegal. Keuntungannya buat perusahaan jelas banyak. Yg jelas bayaran murah dan ga perlu bayar pajak. Tapi ya itu... dibikin susah.. Dipergunakan. Bisa sih ngirim uang ke indo, tapi tetep aja.. jadi babu...

Saya tau lagu "nenek moyang ku seorang pelaut", jangan ampe anak2 cucu kite nyanyi "nenek moyang ku seorang babu"

(source: Ajang Kita Forum - http://ajangkita.com/forum/viewtopic.php?
p=154433&sid=47b98c2a9bb280ac8a001a80cf3f95b3)

I was searching for an Indonesian company which is based in the Netherlands for my final dissertation. Until, I came across this forum. Oh my goodness,.. I was stunned!

The last sentence the person said made me stop for a while. Hm,…yeah,.. it is in Indonesian.

The translation is “I know (Indonesian) song “my forefathers were sailors”, yet I don’t want that our children and grand children will sing “my forefathers were servants””. The topic above is about how Indonesian people come to the Netherlands, sometimes as illegal visitors, to work. They normally work in Indonesian business, as “servants”. They are paid very well (comparing to what they will get in Indonesia), however they are treated unfairly.

The first thing I thought, hm,.. it is really true. Where is our pride as Indonesian?! Don’t come to other countries to be a servant! If you want to do that kind of work, why don’t you stay in Indonesia? I have seen many Indonesian people who live in the Netherlands, as illegal visitors, and work day and night to collect some money. I know some of them were treated harshly, yet they still work day and night. Some of them were paid unfairly, yet they work even harder.

I know some people who came to the Netherlands ONLY to work as helpers – working in the kitchen, cleaning, or serving in the restaurants. They were graduated from universities, others from college, yet they chose to come to the Netherlands to work, for instance, in a restaurant.

I don’t understand. Oh, no way, will the next generation modify the song as “my forefathers were servants in other countries” (nenek moyangku seorang babu/kacung di negeri orang)?

Then, I went to the bathroom to take out my soft-lenses. I was, then, thinking, “hm,.. if working in the Netherlands is the only solution to feed the babies, pay the bills and rents, would their work be counted as esteemed work?”

Realizing how difficult it is to find a job in Indonesia, it was, maybe, their choice to consider coming to the Netherlands. Dream to be rich, as Bill Gates, to unlimitedly shop in Kalvertoren, or to eat out in the weekend in Sea Palace, or simply the dream to feed the babies with proper milk, to feed the children three times a day with proper meals (4 sehat 5 sempurna) and to provide a proper shelter for the spouses. Ah yeah,.. all the dreams.

I know, everyone pursues his own dream, like I do.

If it has to be the choice, to work as helpers in the Netherlands, don’t be ashamed! Yes, it is probably the way God shows you, and he never makes mistakes. Thus, let our grandchildren sing the song, proudly, “my forefathers were servants, and they were proud of it. They paid the bills, fed the children and they were happy.”

Getting Older and Childish

For some people who know me quite well, they might know why I write this article. In the next couple days, I will celebrate my birthday.

I, personally, do not really care about it. Few weeks ago I even had a plan to flee from home, from everybody basically. Yet, I found it ridiculous. Then, I thought of something else, which is to keep myself busy in the office until late and do not come home at all until late.

Silly, huh?

Why am I doing this? What am I hiding from?

I don’t know, there are some reasons that might be THE reason:

1. Shame

I am ashamed of myself. I am broke; I don’t have money to spend to treat people for my birthday. In the Netherlands, if you are birthday, you have to bring a treat, for instance to your office. On Wednesday, I have to work, which means I have to bring a treat. I am, honestly, petrified. I was planning to sick (hehe,.. such a ridiculous plan) on Wednesday, yet I know it is a lie. The same thing happens at my home.

My roommates want to do something on Wednesday to celebrate my birthday. I can’t afford a party, thus they said that party is not important, yet togetherness (which I agreed). Anyway, I am very embarrassed, because I can’t do something to celebrate my party.

2. Pride

It is the trickiest thing. I realize that sometimes my self-esteem is too high. I’d love to help people, yet I, often, refuse if people help me. In this moment, people will offer help, give a hand, however, I feel that they are sorry for me, and I don’t like that.

3. Weirdo

I am just WEIRD! I think it makes sense. It is short, powerful and reasonable reason why I act like this. I am probably losing my mind.

4. Money

Or is it the reason? Instead of depending on God and trusting Him that He can do everything, in His own time, I lean on money as the solution.

Ah,.. maybe some people who read this will get tired, move their mouse to the top-right of the screen, and close the window. Probably you are right to get sick of my writing. I don’t even know why I write this.

Probably I am just feeling sorry of myself in this loneliness before my birthday, or is it because I miss my family back home? Yes, probably I do. I miss to celebrate my birthday with them.

p.s. for my roommates, I am so sorry for things I have done that annoy you. I truly do.