This is our house looking southeast. The shadow on the road is the three story dormitory behind me.

The house looking southwest. It is a duplex.

Mt. Merapi is 20 km north of us. It is one of the world's most active volcanoes. Last eruption of note Spring 1998, but it steams all the time.

Our househelpers Pak Kris and Ibu Tari with their daughter Siti (13 years old). He does the gardening, errands and car while she does the laundry, cleaning, and cooks one meal a day. They live north of town in a kampung with Tari's family. Siti starts the Indonesian equivalent of Jr. High School soon. A photo of Kris mowing the lawn is below.

Clare Ann working in the home office shortly after we arrived, and both of us one year later (photo by Steve Kemna).

One of many papaya trees in our yard. The largest fruit is the size of an American football.

Clare Ann and Ibu Tari harvest the first papayas since we arrived.

Clare Ann baking a papaya coffeecake in our original hi-tech oven, since replaced by a stove with an oven for our oven-dependent cooking style.

Eggplant, tomato and pepper plants as we found them on arrival. The birds and bugs get more than we do, but there's still way more eggplant than we can eat. Tari and Kris take a lot home.

April 2000, Pak Kris planting two new banana trees of the Ambon variety, known in the US as Cavendish, the usual banana in stores.

Here is the result in October 2000. The tree self-harvested two days later by breaking.

One of our house geckos. This one is about 7 inches long. It is a bit weird getting used to sharing the house with critters. Some would say the geckos make more sense than Sasha, our 90 pound Akita in Fresno.

A typical lunch by Ibu Tari. This one includes pineapple, tempeh, rice, and stir-fried vegetables with quail eggs in a sweet soy sauce.

The yard has lots of flowers. The white one is named Kembodja in Indonesian, and we have had others suggest it is named Frangipani elsewhere. It was planted by David and Hannah Neufeld, our MCC predecessor family in this house, in May 1997 in memory of their nephew Trevor Frederick Caldwell Neufeld who died following a difficult birth. The pink one is Bougainvillea, of which we also have a bush with peach-colored blossoms, visible in the picture.

Clare Ann doing the usual October activity of wrapping Christmas presents. We had visitors from Goshen College who agreed to carry them to the U.S. for mailing. Goshen College is using Yogyakarta as an SST site in 2001. Notice the furniture, bought by the last MCCers here. It is giant bamboo.

When you live on a tropical island you get visitors. The white areas on the wings are transparent.

When the electricity goes out for over 24 hours what do you do? Email and sermon writing.

Damaijanti Teguh and Henry Sitohang help Duane prepare for the Salatiga training event in November 1999.

Clare Ann plans worship for the Yogyakarta International Congregation with Christine Zahnd. This is our English-speaking church in Yogyakarta. Clare Ann was the preacher for the week. She also plays piano for the congregation.

If you want a kitchen cabinet (lemari dapur) you call the tukang. He arrived on a motorcycle with a hand saw, hammer, 2 chisels and a square. A truck brought the wood. He worked on the cabinet for nine days. The finish came in two baggies, one with oil and one with pigment. All the joints are dadoed or beveled, with the chisel and saw.

Our Advent decoration. The angel candle holders made of Sumatran pewter were a gift from the people trained at Salatiga.

Another new thing for us is taking fabric to a tailor and having custom clothes made. The fabric for this shirt was given to Duane by Sinode GKI Irian Jaya. It is a traditional Irianese print. The tailor charged $3 to make the shirt. The shirt he is wearing in the office picture above is from some more gift cloth.