About Our Group

We are a group of 12 students and 2 professors from Calvin College venturing to Indonesia for three weeks. While in Indonesia, we will visit schools and businesses, along with seeing the sights! We fly out from GRR on January 2 and arrive back in Grand Rapids on January 23.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

January 8: A School in a High Rise

If you haven't caught on by the timing of our posts, we don't get much free time/time with wifi. At this hotel (Hotel Aryaduta in Lippo Village) there is only free wifi in the lobby and it's a fight for one of the fifteen spots. We've had a very busy schedule and have had some amazing opportunities.

Day 4: We left the hotel at 6:45 and headed to the 7 am chapel at UPH (the Christian Univeristy).  The message was delivered in both English and Bahasa, and thankfully they didn't have us sing any songs in Bahasa! The morning was spent together as a group visiting schools. We visited three different Christian schools. SPH costs $20,000 and has both national and expat teachers. SDH costs $10,000 and has national teachers.  SLH is the third kind of school and I heard different numbers on cost, but I think it's around $2,000 or $1,000. We were also told that a student's education can be sponsored for 5,000 rp a month, which is only $0.50! We visited SPH first and sat down the the headmaster Phillip Nash who explained how the three levels of schools differed and explained why the schools were built. These schools are Christian schools, but do not require that the students be Christian; most students are Christians but there are also Muslim students. They sign a waiver that says that they realize this is a Christian school and realize how the schools works (ie they pray in class and have chapel etc). We toured the building and then left to go to SDH. We toured this school and then left for SLH.


SPH

 SPH

SDH

We switched to a school minivan (not the kind of minivan you're used to) and headed to SLH. Our bus was too big to take the roads there. We arrived to SLH and toured the building. At all three schools we were allowed to look in the classrooms and say hello to the students; at SLH an English class invited us and asked us questions regarding where we were from and what we liked to do. We also sang One Direction with the class :)  

He played guitar while we sang One Direction



Then we went for lunch at Batawi and headed out to drop the education students at SPH in Karawaci (a different SPH than the one before) and then the business students were going to go on to visit a business. Once again traffic was crazy and the business students ended up staying at the mall near by. This SPH was amazing. It takes up 8 floors of a high rise building and is absolutely beautiful! They have an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, a food kitchen with stainless steel appliances, and even escalators on some floors, and that doesn't even explain how amazing it is. 

 Auditorium

 Gym

 Science Lab

 Cooking classroom

Lindsay Cooper's classroom (Calvin Alum)

 Little toilet

 Outdoor pool


Then we hurried back to the hotel to get ready to eat dinner at the Riady house. Pak James (Mr. Riady) and his wife Ibu Aileen have done amazing things for Indoesia. It was such an honor to get to spend time at his home, talking with him and other important people from the area including someone from the hospitals they've built and the headmaster we met with earlier. Pak James is a Christian and has made that clear through his impact in his businesses in Indonesia, as they all have missions that have a focus Christianity.  He has put a strong emphasis on sharing Christ's love in Indonesia.  We also had a western meal which I was very much a fan of!  We got back to the hotel around 9:30/10:00. 


Best tomato soup I've ever had

SO GOOD

ALSO SO GOOD

Good night from Lippo Village,
Kalee

No comments:

Post a Comment