Niewe Kerk

Today we went to the Niewe Kerk (New Church) in Dam Square. The church still holds regular religious services, but it also hosts multi-cultural exhibits.

The current exhibit is "Indonesia". The display included large statues, paintings, and artifacts detailing the history of Indonesia.

I was fascinated by the beautiful hand-woven tapestries (very intricate patterns on very old cloths). They had hand-carved wooden palace doors from the early 1800's and the detail was amazing! Journey enjoyed the gold and silver jewelry worn by the royal families of Indonesia. And we were all impressed by the Wonoboyo treasure. In 1980, a farmer in Indonesia was having his farm land dug up and cultivated. He found an enormous metal box encased in layers of old lava. Inside the box was 7000 pieces of precious metal, gems, etc. - all ancient pieces used by the Wonoboyo tribe!

Unfortunatley, I was only able to take 10 pictures inside the church before the security personnel told me that photos were NOT allowed! Most museums, and even the palace, have signs stating that photos are not allowed (in some places photos are allowed, but only without a flash) so I was surprised that this place didn't have such a sign. But I guess when you're dealing with such valuable items (TREASURE!), it makes sense that photos cannot be allowed for security reasons.

So here are the few photos I took while we were there - most of the architecture of the church. The two statues are part of the Indonesia exhibit, and not typically part of the church.














Jagger was quite fascinated by the stained glass windows. While Jeff, Justice and Journey looked at the Indonesia exhibits, Jagger asked me if we could sit on the bench and look at the windows! He is very fascinated by colors right now and any time we see a colorful sign or display, we have to stop to name all of the colors (even though he has known all of the color names for over a year!). So after we named the colors we saw in the stained glass windows, I asked him to describe what he saw on the windows. He thought for a long moment and then said...."Mommy, I think I see someone REALLY old! Yep, I see George Washington!!".