Academik

Sunday morning I woke up and worked out and then went for my first
experience at the breakfast buffet at the hotel next door. You know
how sometimes mom made breakfast for dinner (hooray scrambled eggs and
toast mom!), well the Indonesians do the opposite - dinner for
breakfast! There was rice, fried bean curd, chicken dishes, something
with noodles, something with fried rice, green beans and ground beef
with peppers, etc. it’s all an adventure. Fortunately for the “boo-
lays” (white skins) there are also cereals, fruits, breads,
croissants, eggs, and omelettes. They even have sausage and fried
tomatoes for Scots like me (I’m traveling on my UK passport since my
very well traveled US passport expires in July). There’s also a
killer selection of juices - Guava, Kiwi, Orange, Apple, Papaya, and
my favorite Pineapple.

So on Sunday we gathered as a full group for the first time to go over
our agenda, pray for the venture and our clients, and do a little
praise and worship. Our little laptop sang its heart out and we sang
along. We gathered in the lobby at 3 and all headed to one of the
local leader’s houses, Dr. Soparno. A former client of Rep’s who has
become very involved in supporting its missions here in Indonesia, Dr.
Soparno owns many different businesses and is well respected here in
Jakarta so his involvement with Rep has added a lot of credibility to
our venture. We arrived at his beautiful house and met the local
consultants with whom we’ll be working.

To be completely honest I had no idea what to expect of the local
consultants - old, young, experienced, heartfelt, intelligent…?
What would they be. I was overjoyed to meet them and find out that
they are all of these things. There are several younger consultants
in their late 20’s and early 30’s as well as several more seasoned
consultants in their 40’s and 50’s. All of them have so much to offer
our clients here (sometimes I wonder why we’re needed : ), and they
were overjoyed to have us there. I spoke with many of them talking
about what they do there, and what I do in the states. I now have an
appointment with Harjano, our translator, to explain how businesses
can use Facebook to build their user base : )

Several of the clients joined us for dinner as well (although we
didn’t know which clients would be ours). I didn’t get a chance to
speak with many of them, but I’m interested to see who I get paired
with because all of them seem very interesting. client run-down to
follow tomorrow

I’m hoping to put up a few pictures of the dinner and the house when I
get a chance because both were spectacular. Dr. Soparno’s wife, See
Mun, is an amazing painter and the house is filled with her work.
Tomorrow is the first day of work and I’m headed to bed early to make
sure that I’m ready. Wish me luck!