Posted on by graceutomo12

A Passage to Indo Part 1: Of Visas and Vaccines

“Better late than never,” was one reaction we got to booking our honeymoon nine years after our wedding. To recap, we got married in 2015 right after I graduated undergrad and while Ivan was a full-time grad student. This meant we scheduled the wedding between Christmas and New Years to accommodate his classes and my work, and needed to delay our honeymoon until we had more financial means. Since my accident occurred less than a year later, our plans for a romantic getaway were put on an indefinite hold. God graciously provided an almost entirely free trip to Paris using travel points that coincided with our ninth anniversary at the end of 2024. Until that point, we’d wondered if the “delayed honeymoon” was an unfulfilled dream we needed to surrender to God.

Another piece of newlywed life that got put on an indefinite hold by my accident was meeting Ivan’s extended family. Although his parents and brothers live here, the rest of his family lives in Indonesia. When we were planning our wedding, we’d imagined that our “delayed honeymoon” might look like combining a romantic getaway with crossing the Pacific to meet everyone. However, when our lives turned upside down and I developed severe health problems, we crossed that possibility off our lists. But as my health improved over the years and I made successful trips to Europe and Japan, we realized that traveling to Indonesia was no longer an issue of ability or safety, but rather of finding the time and means to plan our own international trip.

In God’s providence, Ivan is not leading a summer trip for Valley Christian for the first time in three years, which allowed us to schedule our own trip to Indonesia this June. Since this has been a personal desire for both of us for many years, we’ve also been saving and planning for everything that it takes to coordinate our own trip (and realizing more and more how blessed we’ve been to enjoy travel as part of his job in previous years!)

Two parts of planning that have been new to me thus far are visa applications and travel vaccines. We are stopping in Australia for a weekend on the way to Surabaya, our first stop in Indonesia. Australia is the first country we’re visiting together that is not visa-on-arrival. We also applied for an Indonesian visa ahead of time to enter the country faster, which felt a bit strange for Ivan since he was originally an Indonesian citizen!

Conversely, getting travel vaccines felt much more concerning for me than it did for Ivan. About 5 years ago, I had somewhere between 15-19 seizures (we both lost track!) after getting my Tdap booster at Kaiser. We firmly believe I’ve been healed of the seizure disorder itself. However, given my dad’s vaccine injury in 2021, there is a chance that as a blood relative I could be prone to vaccine injuries. If this is true, my reaction at that time was not due as much to my seizure disorder but to a genetic sensitivity to vaccines. Since there is no way to know for sure why I had such a severe reaction, I haven’t taken any vaccines since then. Even for my recent finger incident, I was grateful that the Tdap fiasco meant my tetanus shot was still technically up-to-date and I didn’t need another vaccine.

However, as we prayerfully weighed the potential risks of traveling to Indonesia without getting any vaccines versus the benefits of taking the most essential ones (like typhoid), we decided that it was wisest to take some preventative measures and trust God with the outcome. 

We got our travel vaccines on Friday, and by God’s grace, I did not experience anything more severe than feeling very “out-of-it” for about a day. Although I definitely felt worse than Ivan did, that’s relatively explainable by the fact that, my body is generally weaker and more sensitive than the average person’s. 

We’ll probably never know the exact cause of my severe reaction to the Tdap booster five years ago. What we do know is that God has consistently showed Himself faithful and gracious in protecting me at that time, restoring my health beyond what we could have imagined since then, and in continuing to guide and protect us as we try to make wise decisions when we do not have all the information we’d like. We are so grateful for His goodness and mercy, and look forward to sharing more about this trip with you in the coming months!

P.S. For those of you who are more literary-minded, Ivan and his family refer to Indonesia as “Indo” for short. The title for this series combines that nickname with the title of the famous E. M. Forster novel, A Passage to India. I highly recommend checking it out if you’ve never read it. 🙂

Posted on by ivanutomo · 1 Comment

Spring into Music & Poetry

Hello Blogging Family! Spring is upon us, and I’ve also been enjoying my spring break from Valley Christian. This week, Grace and I got to share about violin and piano to our local Classical Conversations homeschool community at Hillside Church. This was our second visit; we were very blessed to visit CC last year too. I was never homeschooled, but Grace was, from kindergarten all the way until she graduated high school!

This year, our topic was “How to listen to music.” Grace and I talked about how composers structure their pieces, how they create colors and moods using different scales, and how you can enhance your enjoyment of classical music by creating a narrative while listening. The kids were very attentive and asked great questions. Grace played Mendelssohn’s “Auf Flügeln des Gesanges (On Wings of Song),” and I played Bach’s Invention No. 4 in D minor and Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G# minor, Op. 32 No. 12.

In addition to visiting the CC community, Grace also recently received an invitation from San Jose Public Library (SJPL) to host a poetry workshop at the main branch downtown! The librarian had seen Grace in the SJPL database from a fiction workshop Grace taught last year, and thought she would be a good fit for their “Spring into Poetry” initiative. So Grace got to work preparing a presentation suitable for kids and adults, and this past Monday we made our way to the MLK Jr. Library for the workshop (my role was moral support).

We’re so thankful for the chance to connect with the attendees over poetry, enjoying the God-given gift of creativity expressed through language. Fun fact: one poet Grace and I both love is W. S. Merwin – if you’ve never read him before, check him out!

So, so far it’s been a very arts-filled week! It’s amazing how much beauty and meaning can be captured and expressed through the arts; all this is ultimately a reflection of God’s beauty, since He is the one who created all things (including us, in His image!). As the Psalmist said:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Psalm 19:1

May we see glimpses of God’s beauty and goodness in the world around us today, even by reading a good poem or listening to a piece of music!

Posted on by graceutomo12

ICYMI: Life!Line Podcast is up!

Good Afternoon, Blogging Family! I’m excited to share that the podcast from Tuesday’s radio interview with Life!Line’s Craig Roberts is now available. In case you missed it or are not in the Bay Area, you can access it here.

This interview was particularly special for us because, in addition to being TBI Awareness month, it also focused more on Ivan’s perspective as the caregiver and how God has used our trials to challenge him and strengthen his faith over the years. Hope you enjoy!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 3 Comments

Live on Life!Line today at 5 pm!

Good morning, blogging family! We’re so excited to announce that we’ll be sharing our testimony and more of what we’re currently doing with ministry and music on Life!Line this afternoon as part of TBI awareness month! If you’re in the Bay Area, you can catch it live at 5 pm on KFAX AM 1100, or you can stream using this link. We’ll also post the episode here after the show.

It’s such a privilege for us to be part of this show and we’re so grateful for the wise, Christ-centered discussions that the host, Craig Roberts, is so skilled at leading. If you’re curious, you can also check out past episodes here (2023 and 2025). We hope you’ll be able to join us!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 1 Comment

Turning 33 + TBI Awareness Month

Last week I turned 33. One of the most obvious lessons from my accident that I remember every year was that we cannot take life for granted and only God knows what a day may hold. But this birthday was particularly significant because I was 23 when I was hit by the car. So it was even more impactful to consider both how much we’ve been through in the past ten years and how much God has restored. Psalm 103 is one of my favorite psalms:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

I think it’s significant that in addition to being my birth month, March is also TBI Awareness Month. Although God has done amazing healing in my life, He’s also allowed the brain injury to remain. As a counselor, I describe it as the “context” for many practical and relational issues we navigate in daily life. The good news is that there are now long stretches of time when we’re not acutely aware of the presence of TBI. However, when I increase my activity or encounter certain complex relational challenges, we hit seasons that require a lot of wisdom and skill to navigate in a way that is healthy for both of us. Re-learning to drive, periodically planning events for writing and music, and increasing my ministry capacity at church are examples of relatively recent situations that have reminded us of my underlying TBI and are still challenging us to grow toward God and each other.

I’d like to close with an excerpt from a joint blog post we wrote for my publisher, Shepherd Press, in honor of TBI Awareness Month:

Ivan: God has grown me in many ways over the last nine years. Just as He sovereignly introduced TBI into Grace’s life, He also added the role of caregiver into mine. I’ve seen how conflating the roles of “husband” and “caregiver” can cause confusion and even hurt. Through experience, Grace and I have  grown in seeking God’s wisdom to discern which aspects of our interactions have been affected by TBI, and which have not. Through this process, our desire has been to view each other more and more as God does, because He looks not at outward appearances but at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). TBI can distort certain daily interactions depending on the location and severity of the injury, but it cannot change that a person’s heart has already been filled with God’s Holy Spirit. Even in the middle of a TBI storm, God always holds His children’s hands securely in His. May He find childlike faith in each of our hearts as we walk with Him through TBI and beyond! 

Grace: Before my accident, I was incredibly performance-driven. On the positive side, this helped me to excel at music, academics, and work, but it also deeply affected the way I related to God and people. While I wish I could say this is no longer a struggle for me, I am very grateful for how the Lord has used TBI to strip away many worldly achievements on which I used to build my identity. My years of recovery taught me to cry out to Him in prayer and also depend on Him in daily life in a deeper way than I believe would have occurred if I had continued on my former trajectory. He has also used it to reveal the motivations of my heart, and is continuing to reveal people and pursuits that I am worshiping before Him. While He graciously blessed me with a much fuller recovery than was initially expected, my residual TBI deficits remind me that He is the only One Who is truly unlimited. He is jealous for the Spirit He has placed within me, and He is always faithful to draw near when I cry out to Him. He draws near based on His character and promises, not my performance (James 4:5-8).

Thank you for taking this brief journey with us! Whether or not you have been impacted by TBI, we pray our story will strengthen your faith and help you grow in your walk with the Lord!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 4 Comments

Spring 2026: Writing and Ministry Update

Throwback to working on our first book 🙂

Good morning, Blogging Family! Thanks again so much for all your prayers over the past few weeks! It was also super encouraging for us to read the comments on my last post and learn ways that God has used Psalm 46 in your lives over the years. He truly is faithful!

Now that my hand is recovered, I wanted to give an update on what we’ve been up to this winter since the recital, as well as what we’re looking forward to the rest of the spring. It’s crazy to think that this time last year we were preparing to release our second book, Hello, God: Seeking the Lord When Words Fall Short, which drew on my personal experience of re-learning to pray after the brain injury. We’re both so grateful that God has opened the door for us to write two books about lessons He’s taught us from my accident, and continue to pray that He would use them for His purposes. Remembering what we were up to this time last year also explains what we’re currently pursuing!

First, based on my experiences sharing my faith in various hospital settings, as well as the journey we have shared with you all, I felt led to explore biblical counseling a few years ago. Due to a variety of factors, including writing two books in relatively short succession, counseling certification has not been something I mentioned here. Since January, I’ve been devoting the bulk of my energy to this ministry and have been blessed to see the Lord at work in people’s lives. I’ve also been very convicted about areas in which I need to personally grow as I spend time praying and preparing for sessions each week.

Although counseling is a major theme of my life right now, God is also being faithful in continuing to provide writing opportunities. Last summer, I got approved as a vendor for the San Jose Public Library, and loved teaching a fiction workshop last September. This April, I’ll be back to lead a poetry workshop. Although my published books have been nonfiction, I’m grateful to both SCAD and CalBaptist for challenging me to write in many genres while I was in school. So this is a huge blessing from the Lord because it challenges me to keep my writing skills sharp and allows me to continue teaching. I also see it as an indirect opportunity to witness because, although it’s a secular workshop, I can mention my own published work. 🙂

Finally, Ivan and I are grateful to have a couple of chances to share music and our testimony on the horizon. We loved sharing the history of violin with the Classical Conversations homeschool community last year, and are blessed to be returning in April, this time to talk about both violin and piano. We’re also excited to be partnering with a local small group to lead worship and share our testimony.

I’ll be posting more as we participate in some of these events. Thanks as always for your prayers and for walking with us!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 6 Comments

A Helping Hand

Hello Blogging Family! Thank you all so much for your prayers and concern! I’m finally back to normal typing, and wanted to share a personal “thank you” as well as my own thoughts on the past couple of weeks.

Although we continue to be extremely grateful for just how faithful and powerful the Lord has been to restore so much of my life, this incident has reminded me that I’ve started to take certain parts of recovery for granted. On the bright side, it’s also been a sweet demonstration of all the love and support we continue to receive from our online community whenever there is a health-related update! ❤

As I consider the progress that I may have begun to take for granted – or push a little too far – working in the kitchen is one of the first things that comes to mind. Every time I’ve told my version of this latest incident and started with, “Well, I was opening a can one-handed…” I’m struck by how unwise this sounds. Although I’ve been opening cans for several years now, I’m realizing that it’s God’s mercy and protection that I made it this long without an accident.

While Ivan does most of the truly dangerous kitchen work at our house, I admit that my limitations with my left hand tempt me to feel insecure when I consider what other wives do for their husbands. This often prompts me to test my limits to see if I could be doing more. Hence my one-handed can-opening career. But the past couple of weeks have reminded us that when my experiments go south, I need significantly more help from him than if I focused on doing what we know I can do safely and well.

On the subject of help. the past couple of weeks have been a sweet reminder of how much Ivan is willing to help and how much my guilt for asking him is self-imposed. On the drive home from the hospital he began peppering me with questions about everything I would need help with now that I was down my right hand – including getting dressed. While I nixed that particular suggestion, the heart behind it was truly precious, and continued to remind me of how Ivan has always been willing to do whatever needs to be done to care for me.

And I did find myself humbled the following morning when we embarked on our two weeks of wound care. Although I knew I would need some help given that I had relatively incapacitated my dominant hand, after everything I’ve been through I pride myself on being rather tough and low maintenance. I laid everything out and read all the instructions, only to be hit by a wave of nausea when we removed the bandage. Maybe it’s been too many years since our last significant incident, or maybe there was something different about this cut (Ivan spared the gory details in his post), but I found myself unable to do anything except look away and pray while he did all the wound care. So this too was a poignant reminder, not just of Ivan’s willingness to help, but also of the Lord’s faithfulness and enabling power in all the trials we’ve been through in the past. I am more aware than ever that the grit I used to think was part of my personality is really an enabling grace God can give and remove as He sees fit. I’m very grateful for when He does choose to give it. When He does not, this causes me to depend on Him more closely and also be more grateful for the help I receive from others.

I’d like to close with Psalm 46, which my discipleship group recently memorized. The application question the week before my can-opener incident was “How are you going to apply this psalm to daily life?” At the time I’d talked about using it as a framework to pray for others and also praise God’s sovereignty over all our lives. I couldn’t imagine this application would get VERY real just a week later. In the ER, I was desperately looking for something to which I could fix my attention when it was time to get the stitches put in. Reciting the psalm in my mind and rehearsing the Lord’s presence and power transformed what would have been an otherwise extremely disconcerting few minutes for me. Hopefully this can also be an encouragement to all of you who have a practice of memorizing Scripture, or are considering starting this journey!

God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.
 Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way,
    though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
 though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy habitation of the Most High.
 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
    God will help her when morning dawns.
 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice, the earth melts.
 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

 Come, behold the works of the Lord,
    how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the chariots with fire.
 “Be still, and know that I am God.
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!”
 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Posted on by ivanutomo · 5 Comments

Thumbs Up from the ER

Hello Blogging Family! Greetings from a teacher who is enjoying Ski Week 😊 For those unfamiliar with this tradition, schools in the San Jose area take the third week of February off for students to [presumably] enjoy going to the nearby mountains to ski. I myself am not a skier, but won’t say no to a week off!

Two weeks ago, Grace and I found ourselves once more at the ER. Thankfully, it’s been more than a year since we’ve had to go in, so while this trip was unnerving, it was also a great reminder of how far she’s come and how graciously and powerfully God has worked in our lives. She’s asked me to write this update for you all since typing is still a bit challenging for her while she recovers!

Two Wednesdays ago it was a little past 2 pm and I was in a meeting at work, when Grace called me. This was unusual since she knew I was working, so I took it.

“Hello?”

“I’ve hurt my hand really badly and need to go to the ER, so I need you to come home right now.”

“Did you cut it?”

“Just come home.”

With that, I made a hasty exit from my meeting and hurried to my car. I was once again very thankful that Grace and I live close to the school where I work. I made it home and saw Grace sitting on the floor, propped up against the kitchen cabinets, and, sure enough, her hand was badly cut (I will spare all the graphic details).

En route to the ER, I learned that Grace had been opening up a can and the lid had sliced deeply through the pad of her thumb. Due to her strokes from her initial accident almost 10 years ago, Grace has no sensation in her left hand and has to do all her kitchen tasks one-handed with sensory input from only her right hand, which, as you can imagine, makes things more difficult and, in this case, also more dangerous.

We got to the ER, and a nurse sat Grace down in the intake chair, asking the customary questions. When she got to the “Pain from 1 to 10?” question, Grace said “Seven,” and then passed out. We’re still not sure why this happened, but possible causes were that Grace never ate lunch (she was making it when she cut her hand) and/or loss of blood. A team of nurses surged to her and they took her in to a room right away. I noted she had a history of strokes and a TBI, and they let me in too.

By the time I got to the room, Grace was coming to. She was still a bit groggy, when when they asked her what happened, she said she didn’t remember. (Later she told me that when she was regaining consciousness, all she could see was white light, and she heard people’s voices speaking near her (the nurses) but it didn’t sound like they were speaking English).

To fast forward through the next four hours or so: we were very blessed to be attended by kind medical staff, who cleaned Grace’s wound and ran various tests. The ER doctor was also friendly, and although at first he thought Grace’s wound could be fixed using glue, but once all the blood was gone and he was able to assess the injury he concluded, “This needs stitches.”

So five stitches were put in her thumb pad, and they discharged us home. Grace was a trooper through all this; she has a remarkably high pain tolerance, which at times has actually prevented medical staff from accurately assessing her real pain level or the severity of what needs to be treated.

The following week brought with it a steady regimen of wound care, which for both of us was reminiscent of the first year post-accident. Thankfully, stitches were taken out this past weekend after the first 10 days, and the cut is healing well, although it was still open when he stitches came out, so she does still need to wear a splint and continue some care until it closes. All in all, we are grateful that there was no nerve damage, and no infection during initial healing.

This latest ER trip was not part of Grace’s or my plans two Wednesdays ago, but in His providence God had Grace go through this too. We trust that every event of our lives is under His wise and loving care, even the painful and unexpected things. I pray that whatever you may be facing right now, you will know God’s tender care for you, wise purposes for you, and power indwelling you through His Spirit. Thanks as always for walking with us!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 12 Comments

ICYMI: Recital Recording!

Good afternoon, Blogging Family! Thank you again so much to all of you who prayed for, attended, or expressed interest in our recital last Saturday! It was a sweet time of celebrating the Lord’s faithfulness over the years, and we were so humbled and blessed by everyone’s support, both in person and online! We would not be here today without the prayers, and love of far more people than we are even aware of, and Saturday was a vivid reminder of this reality.

We wanted to share this recording with those of you who were unable to attend in person but asked about a recording. If you tried to livestream, you’re aware that we ran into some unexpected network issues. Because of this, the version posted above is missing a few songs. However, I’m very grateful that Ivan could reconstruct the large majority of the recital and we hope you will enjoy the overall feel of the event! 🙂

***

Update on 1/30/26: We’re continuing to get comments that some of you are having trouble viewing the embedded video. We’re working to figure it out! In the meantime, please follow this direct link to the performance. Thanks so much for your patience!

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 4 Comments

Countdown to Saturday!

Good morning, Blogging Family! We can’t believe that it’s less than a week to our recital. We’ll be performing works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Massenet, and Rachmaninoff, as well as some original arrangements of our favorite worship songs.

If you’d like to attend in person, you can find out more details on our Facebook event page. We will also be live-streaming from our Facebook page if you can’t make it but would like to watch virtually. You don’t need a Facebook account to watch the livestream. 🙂

We pray it will be an encouraging time of worship and celebrating what God has done. Hope you can join us!