Welcome to Indonesia!

The Dreamliner.

I gazed with keen interest at the sleek interior of the Japan Air Lines Boeing 787 that I had just climbed aboard. This was my first time to fly on the Dreamliner and I was pretty stoked that both international legs were going to be on the same type of plane. There was plenty of legroom, nice soft lighting, a cabin that apparently had more humidity than regular metal-body planes, and - oh yes! those huge passenger windows that didn't have pull-down shades, but instead a magical dimming function operated by the press of a button. I happily settled down into my seat and buckled up for the trip.

Umpteen hours, and a very sore posterior later we were finally descending through the night toward Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. I peered out the window, straining to catch a view of this new country, but there were only a few lights scattered in the murk and nothing much to see. A few moments later we were on the ground and the humidity immediately fogged the windows, blocking any more sightseeing of the airport.

It's always encouraging to see the rainbow, a reminder of God's care.

Our flight was early, but the length of the immigration line more than made up for gained time. As I inched closer to the front, I eyed the officers apprehensively, trying to guess if there would be any difficult questions to deal with. There were none. I stepped forward, gave my passport, the officer stamped it, and I was in Indonesia.

By the time I emerged from immigration, all the luggage from my flight had long been claimed, except for mine. An airport staff member was wandering around calling my name for me to get my pile of suitcases. Piling it all on a cart, I made my way through customs and then sent a message to Choqky, AAI’s operations manager who would be picking me up. Thank God for WiFi!

Grins all around. With Choqky, Operations Manager.

I stood awkwardly for a moment near the exit looking down  at my phone to see if he’d replied when I heard a friendly voice. “Are you Michael Lombart?” I looked up at the smiling face and grinned back. “You must be Choqky.” Choqky had been doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes with my paperwork and it was great to finally meet the guy who had helped get me to Indonesia.

Choqky helped me lug my suitcases over to a taxi and then got me to the hotel room where I’d be staying for my time in Jakarta. It had been an exhausting trip, it was after midnight, and I was so ready to drop into bed that night - after taking a few moments to write in my gratitude journal first. It had been such a smooth trip, no hiccups in immigration, and...all my suitcases had made it!

With nothing on the schedule in the morning - Choqky had planned a day off for me to rest and adjust - I could sleep as much as I wanted. Turned out to be a grand 5 hours thanks to jet lag, but it was nonetheless wonderful to sleep lying down again!

My stopover in Jakarta was for paperwork purposes. I needed to take a written on Indonesian aviation regulations and get a medical checkup done by the Indonesian aviation authority. After that was all done I could head on to my final destination of Papua. I’d arrived on Monday night and the plan was to get the appointments done in time for me to head to Papua by the weekend. But do things ever go quite accordingly to plan? I think you’re getting the idea now! 

If there’s one thing I’m finding you learn and relearn and relearn as a missionary, it’s patience. Sometimes things move exceedingly quickly and you have to be able to ride the wave, but more often than not it’s one delay after another. In my case, I found out I would need to extend my stay a bit beyond the weekend due to some snags that were still getting resolved. Ah well, no great hardship. At least I could take it easy.

A classic Indonesian dish called capcay.

Over the next few days I got a good initiation into life in Jakarta, starting with the cuisine. I quickly discovered what it was like to eat rice - white rice - for every meal. The vegetarian dishes I tried were pretty good and I particularly enjoyed the tempeh, a taste for which got me in trouble over the weekend. At church potluck I think I overloaded on the different kinds of tempeh and got a bad case of indigestion. I’d been so careful too, trying to avoid fresh vegetables, fruits with skins, and anything remotely suspect, and yet there I was on the metro back from church growing increasingly nauseous.

Rush hour at the train station.

The smells that wafted in me each time the metro doors opened, followed by the swaying motion of the train was almost too much for me and my churning stomach threatened to rebel. Somehow I made it back to the hotel without upchucking, though I  lwondered in retrospect if it would have been better to get rid of the problem once and for all. It took me a couple days to get completely back to normal.

After three days of waiting with nothing in particular to do except study and find a way to amuse myself, were finally able to take care of one important piece of business, namely my flight physical. The DGCA requires foreign pilots to get a one-time aviation medical checkup prior to letting them use their original country’s medical certificate for flight privileges. So it was off to the medical center to find out what they wanted to do to me.

Trying to see which station I need to go to next.

The whole process was fairly involved compared to the FAA medical. I checked in, got my checklist and began the two hour of process, after which I had been poked, x-rayed, wired up to an EKG, had my hearing tested, and...my teeth inspected?! It was all rather amusing actually, as I made my way through the various stations, feeling like I was being put through an extended NEWSTART Health Expo. I was eventually deemed “Fit” and left the place with my Indonesian First Class medical certificate and a poster sized x-ray of my thorax.

One more task remained and that was the enigmatic Indonesian validation written test. While I struggled with knowing quite how to prepare for the test that seemed to be taken from multiple sources, known and unknown, Choqky was having quite the time trying to get me scheduled for it. Friday ended with no answer from the DGCA on a test date, which meant Monday was out and I would spend another day in Jakarta. Immediately after breakfast on Monday Choqky got back to work checking to see if I’d been scheduled. I didn’t hear from him until lunchtime when my phone buzzed and I saw a text from him: “I got your exam schedule. Tomorrow at 9:30.” I would be leaving for Papua the next day. Praise God! Time to for some final studying and then on to the test and Papua!