Busy

Attending wedding tomorrow (Sunday) as photographer.  On duty about 7am (when the bride starts getting ready).  Service could be 3 or 4 hours long, so it will be a long morning, with lots of standing for me.  I'm resting today - making sure my own batteries are charged, as well as the camera and laptop's!

I've been working in the sewing room again this week.  Last week I cut out fabric for uniforms.  This week I was mending and sorting a bird's nest of tangled embroidery threads and designing patterns for cross-stitch bookmarks.  I'll be teaching some girls to cross-stitch.  Back to the sewing room next week also.

Effective Prayer 2

Another prayer answered!  Actually, this was more than a simple prayer.  This was some serious fighting on someone else's behalf.  Earlier this year I began learning more about spiritual warfare, reading a really good book about our spiritual armour (I can't remember what it was called) and another on spiritual warfare ("The Adversary").  The Lord gave me opportunities to use what I was learning, and I was greatly encouraged by the results.
After I arrived here at Living Waters, I noticed a boy who had some violent tendencies.  I wanted to pray for him, but it took me a while to find out his name (whenever I thought of asking, there was nobody around to ask), and I also found out that he has a violent family background.  One evening nearly two weeks after my arrival I retired to my room to spend time with the Lord, and immediately the Holy Spirit led me into praying for this boy - fighting for him, actually.
Over the next couple of days, I tried to see if there had been any change, but though I wasn't seeing him pushing and shoving, that could be just me not seeing it happening.  It wasn't until last night as I was sitting with one of the other girls, Miriam (nurse from Holland), that I had confirmation.  The boy came up to give her something, and after he'd gone, Miriam said, "I don't know what's happened to him.  He's so sweet now!"  I beamed in delight but asked her to clarify, just to be sure, then told her what had made the difference.  Yay, oh yay!  Oh, the power and authority we have in Jesus' name!

Effective Prayer

Earlier this year I was challenged to pray with faith for healing.  I have heaps of faith, but two things I did not have faith to pray for were healing and money.  Well, we've certainly sorted the issue of praying for money, though it never works quite the way I expect.  Praying for healing was much harder.  Not just praying for myself, but praying for others (in person) - and expecting a quick result.  The first four times I don't know if anything changed or not.  I prayed for two different people on four separate occasions, each time because I felt an urging in my spirit to do so.  It didn't really matter to me whether anything happened or not - what I was learning was to obey the prompting and pray for them.  Each time it was easier.  I began to realize that my first source of help for any injury or sickness should be the Great Physician, Jesus Christ.  When someone complains of an ache or pain, my response should be, "May I pray for you?" and then pray for it there on the spot.  However, I am still training my reactions, so I can still be slow off the mark, or it can take me a while to get up the courage to say something.  I missed an opportunity when I noticed one of the missionaries here had a sore neck, but more opportunities arose.  First was when I myself got sick.  As I sat shivering with fever in the car in Nanga Pinoh, I kept thinking, "I should ask them to pray for me," but I never quite managed it, until I we had returned.  When Mary came to check on me after dinner, I suggested that she bring a couple of others and that they pray for me.  To my delight, she had been just about to suggest the same thing.  I ended up going to the Clinic to have the nurses check my temperature, etc, and they prayed for me before sending me back to bed.  Along with the prayers of folk back home (Mary let my church family know that night that I wasn't well), I improved rapidly.
The next opportunity was when Mary complained of a sore hip.  She couldn't lie on that side because it hurt too much, and it was affecting her whole leg.  I promptly offered to pray for it, and did so right there and then.  I thought no more about it, but the next morning, Mary said the leg was not only better, but she had slept on that side and had a really good sleep!  Yay!  I prayed for healing and she was healed!  It gave my faith in that area quite a boost.  The important thing, though, was that I knew I should pray, and I obeyed.  The rest was up to God.  Even if nothing had happened, I would still continue to obey and pray as I am prompted, because that's really all that's required of me.  God can't act on a prayer of faith if we don't pray!
I'm still training my brain to immediately respond (aloud), "Let's pray for/about it...!" but progress is being made.  It's wonderful to see the "effectual fervent prayer" in action, particularly from one's own lips!

Evening Meetings

Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights we have meetings from 7:30pm till about 9pm.  Thursday night is cell group night, so there are little meetings being held all over the village.  The other nights we have everybody together in the Training Centre.  At 8pm, the little kids all go off to bed.  They gather at the foot of the stairs (which is basically the platform area for songleaders, preachers, etc), the songleader prays for them, then they scamper or drag themselves up the stairs to bed, girls to the left, boys to the right.  We can then watch them trotting back and forth with toothbrushes...  One night a small boy's voice shouted from a bedroom and there was a ripple of laughter from below.  Someone translated for me: "You never brush your teeth!"

Watching them go up the stairs during the meeting always reminds me of a scene out of "The Sound of Music", as the von Trapp children said goodnight and left the adults' party.

As the meeting continues, the adults who are room leaders gradually return from checking on their young charges, quietly stepping around the preacher and joining the 200 or so people sitting on the floor.  The only meeting for which we have chairs is the Sunday morning service, and sometimes the rows are so close together there's hardly any room for my legs!

Sitting on the floor certainly saves set-up time.  The Westerners, particularly the older ones, often grab a chair at the back.  I switch, depending on how my limbs are coping.  If a child particularly wants to sit with me, then I sit about halfway up the room with my back against a wall.  Any closer to the front (and to the speakers) is too loud for my ears.  The volume does vary a bit, depending on who is songleading, but it's always very loud up the front.

Acclimatizing

Sunday last week (9th), while on a trip to Nanga Pinoh, I developed a fever.  By the time we returned about 6pm, my temperature was 39.5degC.  I had the added discomfort of VERY sore, somewhat swollen feet from too much wandering barefoot on hard surfaces (mostly tiles, some concrete).  The fever was gone by the next morning, but I was still unwell, I could hardly walk, and my appetite had disappeared completely.

While in Nanga Pinoh, I had bought stationery so that I could work on my Indonesian language skills.  By Wednesday I was able to get my head around that, so I borrowed Emily Johnston's notebook (the Johnston family are from Australia and will be here until mid-December), in which she had written her own bi-lingual dictionary.  I finished copying that last night.

By Wednesday afternoon, I had had enough of resting and was ready to get into some work, but Thursday was a public holiday.  I still find it odd that a Muslim country would have a public holiday for Ascension Day (the day Jesus returned to Heaven).  I tend to get my days muddled anyway (I thought that Wednesday was still Tuesday), but having a Thursday turn into a Sunday really screwed up my timetable!  We had a sleep-in and a 9am-11am church service just like a Sunday.  And then instead of cell group night we had another everybody-together service in the evening, with a visiting ministry team from Jakarta.  That was interesting to watch, because the preacher was from Beijing, China, so he spoke Chinese, and one of the men from Jakarta translated into Indonesian, which meant that the English speakers still missed out!  But it was entertaining to watch, and he had a series of pictures to show on the projector, which made it more interesting.

After all that inactivity, I was really keen to work on Friday.  Malcolm Taylor needed soil shifted from where the truck dumped it, down to the newly-terraced garden, so I shoveled soil into a wheelbarrow, trundled the barrow half way (15meters), where Malcolm (later Samuel, the doctor) had an empty barrow ready for me.  He took the full one, and I returned with the empty and started again.  I was enjoying the work and the teamwork and the sunshine (this time with sunscreen as well as hat), stopping for a drink every so often.  Nearly two hours later I began to run out of energy, so I stopped.  But by then I think I'd already done too much.  As I headed back to the TC, my head began to spin, my stomach added its own twists and turns, and I had to sit down under a tree quite suddenly, drinking water and waiting for my system to catch up.  That was about 9:30am.  I did some cleaning of tiles in the bakery during the afternoon, but that was pretty much my week's work, as far as physical labour went.  I spent a lot of Saturday sleeping.  Now I have people saying, 'give it time, give it time'.   After all, I do have over 7 months still to be useful here.  That's not to say that I'm not being useful now!  It's just the physical labour for me is patchy at best.

So, I would say that the hardest part about acclimatizing is making the mind realize that there is an adjustment being made.

High Temperatures and Other Challenges

I'm told it's common for new-comers to get sick in some way in the first couple of weeks.  In that case, I'm par for the course.  Along with rather sore, slightly swollen feet as they try to adjust to the hard-surfaced mostly-barefoot life, and wrists that have been a bit jarred from working with a crowbar, yesterday I ran a high temperature.  I went to Nanga Pinoh with Malcolm (Mary's son-in-law), Mary, and Douglas.  On the way we stopped at the hospital to pick up some medicine for a couple of children.  That was an incredible amount of waiting!  Malcolm finally decided to go on to Nanga Pinoh and come back for the medicines.  But in the meantime, I was beginning to feel cold (it was raining, which brought a cool breeze with it), and my headache of the day before was returning, not to mention that my feet (well-supported in socks and sneakers with orthotic insoles) were complaining severely.

In Nanga Pinoh, I wandered up and down the street while Malcolm and Mary bought a TV and speakers (to go with the DVD player Mary had brought from NZ) and looked at fridges.  I found and bought a pair of sunglasses for about NZ$4.60.  I attract quite a bit of attention as I wander, being so tall and obviously foreign - and according to the nurse at the hospital, beautiful.  Hehe.

By the time we had finished at the electrical shop, I was beginning to shiver.  I wished I had a jacket (not something generally needed here) and I thought I was probably running a fever, since my head was quite hot.  I stayed in the vehicle after that, while the other three went to a few other shops.  When Douglas came back with a new shirt, I promptly asked if I could borrow it because I was cold.  Lol, naturally he thought I was joking, but when I explained, he let me wear it.  I knew for sure now that I had a high temperature.  At the small supermarket, Malcolm purchased the writing pad and notebook that I need, so that I could stay in the car.  By now, all sorts of ideas about what could be wrong with me were running through my head - as they do - and I just wanted to get back to my bed.

I couldn't be too bad, though, because my brain and my sense of humour were still working.  When we arrived back at Living Waters, via the hospital to pick up the medicines, driving over half an hour on awful road, 5 minutes on wonderfully smooth tarseal, and about ten minutes of graded gravel road (the logging road - it's kept in much better condition than other roads), I went straight to bed while the others went in to dinner.  After dinner, I went to see the nurses at the clinic, where I found that my temperature was 39.5degC, and that my sore feet probably just needed a good rest.  They and Mary prayed for me, gave me paracetimol and instructions for cooling off and staying cool, and sent me to bed.

Before I drifted off to sleep, I listened to the singing coming from the Sunday evening meeting.  How I love to hear them sing!  I want to learn the songs.  That's why I needed writing paper - so that I can write things down and get them translated, thereby learning more of the language at the same time as being able to understand what I'm singing, which is always a good thing.

This morning I am much better.  My temperature has dropped, the headache is absent, and I have had breakfast.  My feet are still sore, but I'm taking the day off the hard labour, hehe.  I may take tomorrow off as well, but we shall see.  I'm praying for speedy recovery.
I definitely felt prayed for yesterday morning, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit wrapped me in a group hug, and in spite of my discomfort yesterday afternoon, I was able to face the enemy and say, "You shall not discourage me.  I am a daughter of the King, and though I am weak and barely able to stand at this moment, He will fight for me, and He will have others fighting for me.  He has brought me here for a purpose.  You shall not discourage me, and I shall rise to fight again."  When Mary prayed for me, she said (I can't remember her exact words), that the Lord would heal and strengthen me, not because of my love for Him, but because of His love for me, which fact brings tears to my eyes.  I am so glad I'm not doing this alone.

At present I'm sitting in the computer room, with children's voices and a tape or CD of children's music coming from the preschool next door.  This is very pleasant.  Later today, between rests and drinks of water, I intend to do some language study - at least write down all the words I've already learned to help stick them in my head.

School

School in Indonesia can be rather hit-and-miss.  The children may go to school from, say, 7am-9am, then the teacher will say, "Come back at 1pm", when they'll have another couple of hours, or maybe only half hour before being sent home for the rest of the day.  And that's if the teacher turns up at all.
Here at Living Waters, the primary school that has been built accommodates just under 100 students, and currently caters for grades 1-3.  Next year grade 4 will be added.  The teachers have been sponsored by Rivers of Life Ministries to do their four years of teacher training, with the arrangement that they will repay that by six years of teaching here at Living Waters.  That's a year and a half for each year of training.  They get food and board here, plus some pay.  The pay is less than a teaching job elsewhere, but having their living expenses covered more than makes up for it.  Unfortunately, they don't always recognize that, and because of a shortage of leaders, many are also house parents (so they have the kids practically 24/7), so it is not uncommon for a teacher to up and leave, in spite of the training 'deal'.  We need more leaders/house parents, and faithful teachers.

There will eventually be four schools at Living Waters.  An upper primary school, and intermediate, and a high school.  The high schoolers currently travel into Nanga Pinoh by bus (50 minutes to cover 17kms), leaving at 6:30am (they have their breakfast at 5am, before prayer meeting).  I think their school beings at 7:30am.  They return for lunch, then join the afternoon work force here.  They seem to have several different uniforms, for different days of the week.  I've seen them in blue and white, and brown and orange.  I'll be watching more carefully next week.  The rest of the students travel into Manggala, which is only a couple of kilometers away.  They leave on buses about 7am, but I'm not sure if they get back for lunch or if they are the ones who get back at 3pm.  It's still a bit confusing for me.
There is space cleared for the upper primary school.  It will take about two years to complete, and it will be needed in two years' time, so it's high priority - along with several other buildings... but so far it has not been begun.  I don't know if there is even a floor plan for it yet.  I do know that it will cater for 200 students.

Lots of the children who come here haven't had any, or very little, education.  Quite a few have to go into a catch-up class.  That is a very challenging class to teach, because they are all different ages and at slightly different stages.  They spend a year in that class, and the aim is simply to teach them as much as possible to get them reasonably close to their age-related grade.  However, many work a grade or two behind that.  It doesn't seem to worry the children, though.  They highly value education, and generally count it a privilege, especially as many families cannot afford it.  Part of the mission here is to provide free, reliable education.

Water and Ants

Life with a headache isn't so much fun...  Just for today, I hope!   Due most likely to several hours of painting walls above my head (with a roller on a pole/stick), lots of bright daylight (without sunglasses), and possibly not quite enough water.  "Minum air" [meenoom ah-eer]... I can't remember the word for 'lots of', but that means "drink water".  We sweat a lot (and I mean a LOT), so drinking water is vital.  The right water, though.  We have river water coming to the outside taps, the showers, the washing machines, etc.  Put river water in your mouth and you're likely to get a lot more than you bargained for.  The rivers here flow upside down, with the mud on top... and everything else that people upstream dump into it.  It's a wonder that clothing comes out of the wash clean, because the water going into the machine varies from grey to brown.  The sinks have rain water, which is collected off the roof.  This is okay to drink as long as it is boiled first.  For drinking water, there is a stainless steel drum in the kitchen which is filled with filtered rain water.  The common room has a jug and several bottles filled from this, and I also have a jug in my room that I fill from this source.  I use this water when brushing my teeth.  Awkward, but essential.  Most people carry a bottle of water to work with them.  I like to leave mine in the fridge overnight, then it doubles as a face-cooler for a while.  Some people even freeze theirs.


When filling a cup from a jug that has been sitting on a shelf or bench for a few hours, it is important to check your drink for ants.  Some of the ants here are so small they're really hard to see, especially when walking over my brown arm...  Anything spilt?  The ants will quickly find it and clean it up in a few hours.  When the grey speckled tiles on the bench look like they're moving, it's probably ants scurrying about, and somebody has neglected to clean up properly after mixing a drink. =)

Bits and Pieces

I share a room with an English girl  - who is leaving on Wednesday, so soon I shall have a bathroom to myself, and the bottom bunk to sleep on.  I may try turning off the fan at night, too, for less noise.  Our room is on the corner of the building, so we have plenty of windows, which means airflow.  The next room along, which has a connecting door to ours (so does the room behind), only has the window next to their outside door, and not much breeze comes from that way.  There often isn't a breeze, anyway.  I don't know what the temperatures have been, but I certainly can't complain of the cold!
I feel right at home with the western girls that are here - nearly all of us are over 5'7".  We stand out in this country of short people.  When I came through customs in Kuching Airport, I looked around and thought I was probably the only woman there who could comfortably lean her elbow on the counter.  Some of them couldn't even see over it!  When we stepped out of the airport, I said to Douglas and Mary (my travel companions), "Well, I should be easy to find around here."  I haven't changed that opinion yet.  I'm taller than most, if not all, of the Indonesian men here, too.  Thankfully, the missionary men are all reasonably tall, or I might get a complex, hehe.
Dogs are common in Indonesia.  In fact, the two roadkill I saw in Malaysia were dogs.  Most of the dogs are of the same type, a medium-sized dog with a foxy head and slender build.  We have quite a number here at Living Waters, including 8 puppies that are about 3 weeks old.  They are very cute, especially when they're all sleeping in a drain among the wheels of a couple of parked bicycles...
The scenery is fantastic.  If some of the buildings here were in New Zealand, they would be worth millions just because of their views.

Food

When I'm not at the computer I think of all sorts of things to blog, but now that I'm here, I can't remember what they were! =\
...

The food is really good.  Once somebody has said grace, we turn our plates over and start filling them (the food is put out on the tables – the rice is in 10L chilly-bin containers - plus one or two dishes of veges), then wait until everybody has their food.  At night, before grace, somebody reads a Scripture passage and shares some thoughts from it, sometimes with one of the westerners reading the English translation, then after we have our food, they make announcements (in Indonesian), but eventually they finish with “Selamat makan,” which means much the same as “bon appétit” and is the signal to start eating.   It doesn’t matter that the food is cold, because in this climate cold food is better than hot food.

Wednesdays and Saturdays are chicken night.  Tonight (Monday) we had fish.  A whole fish, including head and tail, but minus eyes and innards - about 6 inches long.  Now that I'm working I'm hungrier, so I eat the Indonesian breakfast of hot rice and whatever else they put with it; this morning was noodles with a green vegetable and a little scrambled egg.  It was very tasty.  Sometimes we have papaya, sometimes finger bananas.  At lunch today we had steamed cake/bread instead of fruit, which is heavy, nice, and rather indescribable.  Last night we had potato chips, which are rare.

Usually the vegetable dish the Indonesians eat is slightly different from what we foreigners get, and the rice is the only food item that goes out on their tables.  The rest is taken around and dished out to them by the cooks, because most of the diners are children.

The children who have moved into the Asramas (children's houses) eat in their Asrama with their house parents.  The Indonesian paid labourers feed themselves in their accommodation.  Everybody else, including all the missionaries who have their own houses, eat at the Training Centre.

Arrived!

Greetings from Living Waters, Kalimantan!  I arrived here just before 9pm on Friday night, after a looong day of bus travel over roads that were sometimes good, but mostly bad.  When they were good we reached speeds of 80-85km/h.  When they weren't so good, we averaged 40km/h.  When they were really bad, 10km/h was enough to bounce or rock you in your seat.  But it was fun - apart from the cigarette smoke in the second bus.  The first bus, from Kuching, Malaysia to the junction in Indonesia, was a big, comfortable, air-conditioned coach; the second bus was small, crowded, carried the luggage on the roof, and travelled with windows and doors all open - with the luggage man/second driver usually leaning out the back door.  We were constantly passing people on motorbikes, which is the common form of travel in this country.  There were a few cars and utes, a number of other buses (also with the luggage man leaning out the back door), and quite a lot of small trucks, usually carrying fruit or dirt/sand/rocks, but nothing like the numbers of motorbikes.  It was rare to see one with a mere single rider.  If there wasn't a passenger, there would be some kind of load on the back, sometimes so big that the rider couldn't be seen from behind.  Motorbikes are also used to transport the whole family - Mum, Dad, and child.  I did once see three young adults on one bike, too.

At the border, my suitcase was the only one that they wanted to open, I think because of the large packet of pens, and various bottles of shampoo, etc.  They were then fascinated by my Muckboots, which they fed through the x-ray machine again because I had stuffed them with things and then slotted one inside the other. (I probably won't wear them very often, but somebody will make good use of them when I leave them behind.)  I was very glad to have Imel along (Indonesian for Email and said almost the same way - her real name is Emilia).  She goes through there so often, she knows the customs officers – and the bus drivers - really well.  Imel's job is escorting foreigners from Kuching to Living Waters and vice versa.  She renewed her passport last year, but it is well over half full already.

When the bags were reloaded into the bus, Imel’s back-pack was in the next compartment – right next to ours, but not quite with.  When we reached the junction where we changed buses, we all, including Imel, forgot about her extra bag (which she doesn’t usually have with her), and the bus left with it still on board.  She ran after the bus, trying to attract the driver’s attention, but he didn’t see her.  Thinking quickly, Imel stopped a car and got a lift with them to catch the bus.  The bus goes very quickly, and the car driver wasn’t able to catch up.  Praise God, the bus stopped for a passenger, so Imel did manage to get to it and retrieve her bag.  She paid the car driver for his trouble and he brought her back.  She was only gone for 15 minutes.  Praise the Lord!  I knew He would sort it out okay.  The next adventure was mild in comparison, but added interest and a leg-stretch to the trip.  The bus got a flat tyre – not surprising on those roads!  It was quickly replaced, more or less in the dark; I think maybe they have a lot of practice at that task…

We left Kuching, Malaysia at 7:30am, and reached Nanga Pinoh, Indonesia at 7:50pm.  That's over 13 hours, because Indonesia is an hour behind Malaysia.  I haven't figured out why, yet.  We were met, had dinner at a restaurant, then began the even rougher ride to Living Waters in a 4wd.  By the time I got out again, my head was spinning and all I wanted was sleep.  I was awake enough to appreciate the handwritten welcome sign attached to my bed, recognize the music of "Notting Hill" as the girls began a movie in the next room, and ... zzz.  =)