Presentation for BAS April 13-14, 2007  Who would ever believe that anyone would pay an old man to travel halfway around the world just to reminisce? I know back in Canada besides getting adjusted to sub-zero temperatures by wearing five or six layers of clothes, I had to learn to constantly place a clamp on my overwhelming tendency to tell everyone what the latest topic of Canadian conversation reminded of back in Indonesia . Now here I am today with this tremendous opportunity to share with you at least for a few moments in this my walk down memory lane highlighting some unforgettable people and special events from my 20 years in Bandung 1967-1987.
In his book Walking from East to West , Ravi Zacharias tells the story of an older man asking him in his youth: Do you know what you are doing right now? To which Ravi thinking it was a trick question demurred and responded: No tell me. And the old man replied: You are building your memories. So make them good ones. I want to reassure you that my memories of Bandung are good ones, fantastic ones in fact.  I arrived in Indonesia on September 24, 1967, Canada 's centennial year. I was appointed to replace an MK teacher, Pat Groph, for whom the Pat Groph Memorial Library in this city is named. She had been tragically murdered in her home by an intruder, and the CMA was willing to take a chance on a single man to replace her. In other circumstances they assured me that my marital status would have been a more significant impediment to appointment.
Jakarta at haj time and walking across the old airport tarmac in my smart new London Fog trench coat signified to everyone that I had a lot to learn. A trench coat in Jakarta ? The heat was oppressive and the smell from hundreds of rotting corn cobs everywhere as people lay sprawled around waiting for an airplane to take them to Mecca practically convinced me that this was no where for a true blue Canadian northerner. How grateful I was to finally arrive in Bandung and revel in the cool mountain air. In those days, traffic jams did not typify the city, but rather horse drawn dokars and a few oplets were more the order of the day. A huge paddied rice field luxuriantly sprawled across the roadway from Dago Hill to Ciumbuleiut. One could even wear a sweater in this city in the evening. I felt right at home. My first home –the first of many I was to babysit throughout my two decades- was the huge apartment which is now the upper classroom section of IMLAC. A gate in the fence allowed easy access to the school which was then a two room wooden slatted tile roofed building that allowed also ease of access to breezes and outside noises. One of the most memorable of these outside distractions were the dorm pets. We had a pair of pet cockatoos which used to shriek raucously at the most awkward moments. At one point one of these birds died, and the other worked frantically every evening to also gain its liberty . I remember Uncle Bill having to hoist the dead cockatoo's wings on several occasions on his arms and run around the yard in order to tempt the widowed bird back into its cage. The darn thing always came back, more for its food I suspect than for the Bill's coaxing. Two other pets deserve mention. Both were of dubious royal lineage. One was named Prince and the other Duke. Duke was a chocolate colored wiener dog who had a serious eye disease causing severe and quite repulsive pus drainage, a fact that never deterred Aunt Bernie from giving Duke her expert nursing care every afternoon. And Prince was a golden haired mutt a gift from a Chinese toko owner who always visited the classrooms for afternoon story telling time. He also had a serious case of claustrophobia which caused him to go crazy if anyone made the mistake of leaving him alone in the dorm behind closed doors when he woke up from his nap which would be taken under the coolest bed in the place. One New Year's Eve I recall being left to guard the premises while the dorm parents, Bill and Clarabelle Kissell, were celebrating elsewhere. Anyway I also had the opportunity to take a young lady out to a New Year's dinner at the Holman Hotel, and in my excitement I forgot to ensure that Prince had be appropriately cared for before I locked up the entire dorm and reminded the night guard to stay awake. That particular New Year I returned in the wee hours of the morning to find that this prince of a dog had shredded the bottoms of all the new drapes in the front living rooms. PTL for Betty Johnson, a visiting missionary from Irian who took pity on us and spent New Year's Day re-hemming and drastically shortening all the drapes before the Kissells' return the next day. Those very early days in my classroom are among my most treasured memories as well. Krisy's parents had substituted in the school prior to my arrival, and they had ordered some wonderful new texts. One which I especially enjoyed was called Man's Past and our upper grades plowed through these pages with unparalleled determination to excel. The tests were usually a mixture of 75 objective questions about persons, places and events followed by some sort of paragraph essay. And all these tests at the end of each chapter were teacher-created on a wonderful new portable typewriter that I had brought with me from Singapore . This typewriter seemed the height of modern technology. We worked with four carbon copies for all test production, a system which worked wonderfully because those initial classes were always quite small. At least they were small until the Baptists arrived. In the early days the whole school had only eleven students and two teachers. From the first day of my arrival on the scene there were whispers of amalgamation with the Baptists and thus upgrading that educational caliber of the school, its resources, and instructional personnel. Some of the early CMA patriarchs were uncertain that RAJaffray would sleep comfortably in his grave if we went this route. I distinctly recall my colleague, Miss Lorna, teaching me in my early language learning experiences the cogent warning: Awas dinding bertelinga or Wall have ears.. So when discussing future amalgamations it was always best to do so in whispers. But what a treat it was to have the Baptists join our group. Numbers shot up overnight to have more than forty children in those first combined classes. Expert specialized instructional help was immediately available. Mrs. Carol Jacks provided absolutely top notch musical lessons. Who can forget Tommy Bolser as King Nebuchanezzar in It's Cool in the Furnace. I recall Carol once really being surprised when I heard that she had forcefully corrected the students about appropriate diction and absolutely couldn't understand how anyone could mispronounce the word “shone” as in the sun shone brightly. Afterwards she and I had a good laugh when she retold the story to me and I had to admit that both Lorna and I had some unique Canadian pronunciations for things which even our Baptist southerners had picked up. Music was such a big part of BAS. Those early angklung choirs got better and better every year. The cantatas that Carol had the kids perform were pricelss. We even struggled with some recorder ensembles and then when Miss Susan Mealhow came, the school had its first uniformed full-fledged band. Piano lessons were a part of most kids' days especially during the years when Miss Mary Bower worked as third and fourth grade teacher. I recall the year she left and I zealously took over all twenty of her students. Playing the piano was always a big part of life. Opening exercises at school always included learning new choruses as well as both the American and Canadian national anthems. Other Baptists who added their expertise to the early days of academia at BAS included Mr and MRs. MacElrath who tauht creative writing, Ernie Beevers who taught upper level science and various “projects” one never to be forgotten being Tim MacElrath's wind tunnel. Sports at BAS took on a new life with the arrival of Mr. Krikorian from Boston .
He was an avid Red Sox fan . One of his former students recalls that one year when the World Series was between the Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds, that his education got slightly shortchanged for several days as the teacher routinely left the room every 15 minutes to check on the scores on short wave radio. One year I recall a CMA parent seriously counseling Lorna and me that we needed to do something to ensure that his son, then a first grader, learned the fundamentals of American football. He was all fired up to even donate uniforms for all the boys if we could get our act together. Sorry, Scott, it never did happen. To this day I know less than nothing about this game, and Miss Lorna was definitely in the same category. Miss Lorna. Now there's a lady who left her mark on myriads of students throughout the years. Listen to what Lisa North Bridges has written: I still tell my kids “Hay is what horses eat” whenever they address me as Hey there..And also whenever they make pouting faces.. What if a cold wind blows through and freezes your face that way? … although I must admit often wondering how a freezing wind would ever blow through anywhere near a Bandung classroom. And personally the one classic I remember is that whenever Miss Lorna checked lines after recess before sweaty kids regained the decorum of the classroom, that she would always focus on whether or not the boys had their shirt buttons all appropriately in place. I often marveled at how quickly Danny Allen translated her admonition: “Some things are meant for the privacy of your boudoir” into the action of “ Button up you shirt, buddy.” About Miss Lorna, one student writes: I remember the way she would cross her legs as she read stories and then wrap her foot around her ankle to keep them crossed. Academically our kids excelled. As I look back over the years I realize that many of the things were of questionable merit such as diagramming sentences, avoiding lazy h's during penmanship practice, and knowing the names of all the provinces and capitals of Indonesia as well as the 50 states and the then 10 Canadian provinces. But we had an international outlook. We enjoyed drawing and painting the huge map of Indonesia at the back of the rec room. The Iowa tests of Basic Skills were something that our kids aced. Julie Ingouf writes that even to this day she still never confuses it's and its, an accomplishment that many newspaper editors would envy. And of course lots of memory work in the King James Version. Former students at BAS wrote about some of their special memories. Let me share some of them: Julie Ingouf : I remember the rain coming over the soccer field. You could actually hear it as it moved across the grass and closer to the school itself. I remember we were all more than a little in awe of the teachers and especially you as the principal. I remember the joy of being asked to clap erasers after school and reveling in the smell of chalk dust. Today Julie is a missionary in a creative access country in northern Asia . Bill Kissell. Jr : Teaching grades 1-7 with limited resources must have been quite a challenge, however the teachers' instruction prepared me well for high school at Dalat. More importantly was their genuine concern and attention to the students' spiritual needs. Today Bid is a teacher in the USA . Greg Grunau : learning to fly kites with tremendous battles in the air, pitting ourselves against big kites on nylon string with our little 15 rupiah kites with Jakara glass and then running pell mell after the bigger kites once we had cut them down….so many memories… soccer on the upper field.. I continue to play in a soccer league today.. so many things shaped and formed me in Bandung .. most of all teachers who believed in us, encouraged us, and loved us into being more of who God created us to be.” Today Greg is a pastor in a church in Saskatchewan . Tom Bolser : As first graders we couldn't go off the campus by ourselves, but we could if escorted by a second grader. Many times we walked past Windy Hill out towards Lembang hours away by foot. … Fridays were wonderful. We had tests every week, no real school We had swimming lessons every Friday before lunch followed by PE, art and music after lunch. Fridays were like a day off school…There were lots of rules at the dinner table. No elbows on the table, sit properly, pass bowls, take some of everything that was served, clean your plate. If you did anything wrong, you had to stand in the corner. Yes, I got quite a bit of corner time. Today Tom is an MAF pilot in Merauke, Papua. Jason Drummond : I remember spending hours and hours digging a tunnel city for our matchbox cars complete with a grub zoo. I remember popping tar bubbles on the black-top driveway on hot days and yet being so cold at night that once we tried sleeping under the mattress. I remember hydrogen peroxide and betadine treatments for skinned knees in a dark and cavernous room that served as Aunt Bernie's pantry and clinic. I remember homemade blow guns from straws, needles and cotton. Today Jason is preparing for work in Aceh. Rob Douglas ,: One of the things I enjoyed the most was windy days when kite flying was at its peak. Chasing these things often found us in new unexplored territory and racing through the kampungs. It was great fun. I also remember the days as a third grader that I was overly zealously talking during choir on a Friday and I was made to stay after school while everyone else went swimming. I also later got a couple of swats with a bamboo, an awakening moment indeed.” Today, Rob is a CMA pastor in the USA . Sharon Huling : I can remember playing down between the bushes and the fence by the fireplace. We loved to pick the seed pods off Aunt Bernie's plants and pretend they were food for us poor orphaned wanderers. Today Sharon is a teacher in the MK school in Sentani, Papua. Becky Lay : A fun memory that popped into my head immediately.. on Saturday we would occasionally be sent on a mission to collect as many snails as possible out of the flower beds in the yard. I remember one day we collected a 1000 snails. We would pour kerosene over them to kill them. We thought it was great fun. Yuk. Becky works with her husband Steve in a large Christian school in Texas , Where do you stop when asked to take a trip down memory lane? It has been a true delight to prepare and enjoy my own memory lane experience. If some of my memories are found wanting in accuracy and sharpness of detail, none lack in my thankfulness to the Lord for His allowing me these precious years of ministry. IT has truly been quite a trip. Alex A. Valley |
We have so many memories and probably will wish we had mentioned others. All but one of the 15 children coming down with the flu during our first week in the Hostel 
We were dorm parents from 1968 to 1983 at BAS and began with 14 boarding school students and gradually increased to 23. We really enjoyed caring for these M.K.s and found it a very busy and interesting life. We took care of all of the children's physical and medical needs which involved many trips to the doctor or dentist or ophthalmologist, and Ivan kept busy with all of the hostel and school maintenance. 
We taught at BAS first semester of 1966. We were just coming back from our first furlough, arrived in Jakarta , got bumped on our 1x a week flight to Pontianak by the "Congress" (forget the Indo name) West Kalimantan . Delegates heading back home after "Parliament" was over. As we were heading back to the guest house to wait for the flight next week, Ivan Lay stopped at the Immigration office to pick up Pat Groff's visa only to find that it wasn't granted. "Well, I guess you two will be our teachers. That's why you didn't get on the plane today." Strange but Bill had insight soon before we left the States that we would end up teaching. We started in August, I taught 1-3 grades with Danny Allen and Tim VanKurin in 3rd grade, Debbie Rudes, Joyce Lay and Rob Lewis in 2 nd grade and Cindy Rudes, Ivy Kamp and Kenny jensen in 1st grade. There were no 4th graders so dad had 5th grade - Tim Chapman and 6th grade - Dick Lewis and Becky Lay. Fortunately the texts had teachers books so we were all scrambling to be good teachers. Pat Groff's visa came early 1967 so we only taught 1 semester. Kissells were dorm parents. Before them had been the Neigenfinds. The BAS teachers had been Olga Donnell and Lorna. They were on furlough because of anticipating Pat Groff to take their place. I'm not sure the month Pat was murdered but I know we came back to Bdg early May to await Connie's birth and Pat had been killed. In fact, I was the first to slept in the bed where she had been stabbed. Carmen Kamphausen, I, and Baptist missy were "pinch hitting" doing the teaching for the rest of that semester. I'm, not sure who else was trying to cover. It was a very difficult time. Olga Donnell didn't come back but Lorna came after that year and I forget who the other teachers were. Alex Valley came not too long after. 
Mom and Dad were the first house parents at the Bandung School . We were home in the States for furlough in 1955 and the school was supposed to start the fall when we returned but was delayed for 6 months. My folks went to Indonesia in 1949. My first three grades were taught by my mom at home (Sumbawa and then Bali) through the Calvert's course material from Baltimore . I was home in the States for 4th and returned for 5th grade. I think all the MKs at the time were using that material because when the school started mid year, we used that curriculum. Mom and Dad were appointed by Field Conference (in those days the field decided who would be in the home) and served for two years and then went back to Bali . Vernon and Margaret Neigenfind replaced them in 1958. The school went to 8th grade, and then the 7th and 8th graders were sent to Dalat (we were the first group to go).