Chugging Along

Click on the movie to download while you read if you want to.  Its 8Mb, a walk through our new home nearlyish complete.

We are all fairly well.  Israel is a bit sick.  It probably doesn’t help that he tears around outside most of the day in the dust and poo from various different living organisms.  Samuel has been away for another 4 days trying to run some semblance of a building program.  His latest pull-your-hair-out drama is the windows and doors.  It was eventually agreed that all the windows and doors need replacing.  He arranged a subcontract through the building contractor to get them professionally made.  Both the contractor who is a Timorese architect trained in London and the head carpenter came on site to measure up the doors and windows.  Now they are being delivered on site only to find that many of them are 10-15cm out in width and length.  This turns a window installation job of 2 hours into 8 hours in this country.  Its just a major hassle that wouldn’t have to happen if only they could use a tape measure.  I will learn my lesson one day I suppose.
Friday, 20th, May, was the 9th anniversary of “The Restoration of Independence of Timor Leste”.  They put in ‘restoration’ to make the point that they got independence for a few months back in ‘75 only to lose it again to the Indonesians.
The Mission Base (which is about to undergo a name change) is chugging along without much involvement from Samuel.  We just check it out once a week, suck in our breath at the interesting building techniques, and go “cant wait to move in”.  Check out the movie if you can wait for the download. 




We still distribute some Bibles.  We are waiting for a big wig in the Nazarene Church to come and talk about the design of their complex.   There’s a bit of a design here.  Its Samuel’s first go at using a real CAD program. 
Sese, the evangelist, got a motorbike and is able to get around and visit different places and villages.  He also has connections to the Catholic Bible publishing group which can give me a way in to get Bibles.
We gave Mateus a small loan to buy materials to help build a school in the mountains and this is moving along.
We are involved in other odd jobs whenever people can nail us like advice for a microfinance org on solar and battery backup power systems so remote workers can crunch numbers using excel on a laptop and print forms for village applicants.

Murderers and Thieves

We are happy to report that we are all well.  We have an announcement to make about an increase in the size of our family.  I might as well make it official – much to my chagrin – we have a cat.  Not that I dont like cats and all.  Its just that I think they belong in Egypt with all those mummies.  But one must have a positive attitude on things so I will admit that it does do the cute thing … sometimes.  It has pooed on me though which I will count against it and the verdict is still pending as to whether it will prove a worthy member of the family and knock off a few rats.  Not that I dont like rats and all.  Its just that I think that they belong … well somewhere else.  We humans are a nasty lot.  But the cat does keep Cynthia and the kids very happy so I will be content with that.
Much of my time through the week has been spent in a place called Baucau putting a new roof on an agricultural station in a village called Triloka.  Baucau itself is the second biggest ‘city’ in the country and has some beautiful old buildings built in Portuguese times.  Many of the Portuguese used to live here as the climate was milder.  It is built on the side of limestone cliffs and is oozing with spring water everywhere.  There is so much water in this place it bubbles up out of potholes in the streets.  The roof replacement has been difficult.  Some of the men I work with have killed more men with machetes than I care to think about.  We were up on the roof the other day waiting for something to be passed up and one of the men tells me about the torturing he went through in the past – during the times of Indonesian occupation.  Indonesian rule spread from the west to the east as they tried to stamp out the resistance and catch the rebels.  Some of the Timorese sided with the Indonesians and would turn in their brothers and kill them for a fee - $200 a month.  It doesn’t seem much, but it would have been a pretty good wage back in the 80’s and 90’s.  Anyway, that survival spirit still lives on and I find myself in a bit of a diplomatic challenge as they nicely explain that there’s going to be trouble if I don’t give work to so and so.  Add to that the thieves who seemed to be able to steal building materials before they touched the ground.  Roofing never seemed so hard.  Throw in a flat tyre, landslips, barely standing bridges, more rats and a broken fan belt out in woop woop and you’ve probably got a pretty good picture of the last couple of weeks.  Its work though so I cant complain I suppose.
The mission base/our home is still coming along and roof timbers have been half installed.  We are designing a complex for the Dili Nazarene church which is pretty exciting.  We are giving some support to Mateus to build a school in the mountains.  We are also being there for a young man called Sese who has a vision for discipleship groups across the country.  
The Sewing room is still chugging along.  Sinta has another order of 18 cloth books for the library in Gleno.  Mending jobs keep flowing in so she has been a bit busy.  A week ago we tried to employ a second trained woman (Sintas friend) however our neighbour kindly suggested it would not be a wise idea to employ someone from another area.  Apparently it has to be family, or someone from this small village/suburb.  Sinta could train someone but it means she cant be working at the same time. And at the moment we have just been too busy to spare her to train.  Still trying to work out how to move forward.  We are waiting with bated breath for the arrival of a crate of vintage machines and fabric etc.

Darwin Team

Last week we had a small team from Darwin visiting the Nazarene Church in Los Palos.  There are a lot of benefits to to having people over from Darwin.  They know about living in the tropics, they are used of long trips on rough roads and they have seen buffalo before (thats gotta count for something).  Samuel went with them to Los Palos after having a bit of difficulty getting a suitable car.  Its great to see Pastor Samuel and Uli using the new training and accommodation building.  The team got a bit of a reality check I think with how poor the local pastors are when we found that they didn’t have the $40 to finish tiling in the meeting area.  But the place looks great and they even have a gas stove to cook on!  This means a lot to Pastor Samuel who suffered terribly from TB and constantly coughed with the smoke from the fire going through the old house.   We got involved in  English lessons  where we presented them with Bibles.  On Saturday night we went to a bible study where Samuel shared a message in Tetun and got to hand out more Bibles and then on Sunday morning we shared in the church service where Pastor Bruce was able to preach.  The road back is getting pretty washed out now and unknown to the team, but very soon after they got back to Dili the road was washed out and has been rendered impassible.  Now the road to the west and east are both washed out and it looks like the road over the mountains is about to go as well.  Add to this, the only ferry service to Oecussi being out of service its getting pretty hard to get around to large parts of the country.  Once roads are down this has a big impact on the economy and other services such as medical runs and aid and development work. 
We are getting enough work to get by on, hallelujah, and Samuel will be away all next week trying to fix a roof for an agricultural research station.  The mission base down by the beach is still getting built.  Hopefully this week they will have walls finished and ready for the roof.
I’m pretty sure this is an Indonesian style roof but I wonder if it has  a Portuguese influence?  In any case, I am really not sure why the roofing iron doesn’t go over the wall.  This leads to lots of leaking where the old iron meets the wall.  Then the roof timbers rot.  Mix in a heap of white ants, rat chewed electrical work and alfoil thin roofing iron and there’s only one white fella stupid enough to get up on it …. yours truly.

Just some pics to fill the gap

While Samuel is off gallavanting around the island, I thought id do a little of my style of blog update...

Feregrina - pointing up to Serenity who was taking the photo from her upstairs bedroom.

Israel surrounded by beauties - Naomi and Feregrina

the missionary kids science lesson - building a flashing lighthouse! The 4 of us mums take turns every week.  Sometimes its a little daunting, but they are all such sweet kids!

Serenity took this lovely picture of Cynthia holding Israel, the corner of Atauro on the far right.

"Our" beach :) there were about 50 small outrigger canoes fishing where the river flowed into the sea.

Serenity the model! well she was looking at Israel.... This is what our front yard will look like when the new building is finished.

This is the view from the side of the new building - a little swampy from all the heavy rain, and lots of coconuts to fall in heavy winds :)

Asika the bright eyed beauty - we cant resist taking photos of her!

Serenity and Asika standing on the upper floor of the new building with the beach in the background

The freshwater creek altered course a little after some large waves, and ran parallel with the beach for 50m or so. Very Picturesque.

Israel and Asika making a fishing line - the blue boat in the background is ours.

Well i thought i better stick up a photo of me too, just so you know im still alive :)

The back of the new building - a small verandah leads to the office, with a storage room to the right for all Samuel's annoying tools :0

Hope you enjoyed the images.  I am sure Samuel will have a story or two to add when he returns from Los Palos!  Stand by for more exciting news.....

A Turning Tide

When we lived on the Clarence River the tide would go out and come back in each day.  At the very lowest point, the mighty river came to a stop.  If you saw it for the first time you might be tempted to think, “What’s going to happen now?!” It is a moment in time that may not last long but its a powerful moment when it happens.  And then, the tide turns, slowly at first, it begins to flow back.  Thats what it feels like for us.  A very dark and low moment in our lives has happened.  We did not know what would follow but it seems like little by little things are looking up.  We have lots of opportunities to help folks out here and encourage them.  Things are still simple, difficult and tight but Samuel has had work all week and has even put together a business card to pass around (very professional!)
Bellekria (The sewing project) has had an exciting order of 50 bags from a lady in Darwin. Sinta and Cynthia were discussing how much fabric to buy to make up the remaining bags, and realised they had enough already in store to make all but 10, which means less outlay.  Cynthia also received an exciting offer from the lovely specialist fabric shop in Brisbane.  They have offered her a bulk amount of odds and ends (perfect for small projects like cloth pads) at a greatly reduced price.  Its all stored in New Zealand, and will save them hours of measuring and listing each small piece on their internet shop if she buys it all.  So far she has $240 donated to purchase this fabric. Very exciting.

East Timor and the results of the job interview

We have finally walked away from the work in Lismore.  Of Course Samuel worked right up to the last moment before hopping in the car to go to Brisbane.  One of the more notable accomplishments in the last week (in Samuel’s mind) was the construction of a composting toilet complete with solar powered exhaust fan.  I hope it works.  The most notable accomplishment was really Cynthia holding things together, organising final appointments and getting supplies ready to leave Australia for an indefinite period.  We are really going out on a limb here.  We do not have enough money to do any more than just arrive in Dili and hope we get this job.  And we certainly don’t have enough money to come back again if this fails.  Still Samuel is adamant that you only live once and every once in a while you should take a little risk.
Stephen from CRC Churches graciously picked us up in Darwin in the middle of the night so we could sleep in a bed for a few hours.  The kids loved their dogs.  Thanks for everything guys. 
We arrived in Dili Wednesday morning  and were very happy to see old friends and East Timor.  We were welcomed back to the little family cluster and are able to stay in the original shared house arrangement from last year.  We spent the day relaxing, swimming, sleeping and Samuel studying documents and acronyms for the job interview.  Serenity and Israel got a little sick with fever possibly due to all the changes in aeroplane aircon and tropical humidity but seem to be ok now.




We checked out the new mission base and its looking great.  The boys are doing a good job and laying the blocks for the upper floor.  It even comes with a jump ramp out the front (which the builders are using to barrow up concrete for now).




 
Thursday morning I sat for the interview with a panel of 4 men – 1 Australian from the University of Western Australia and 3 Timorese.  The Australian didn’t know much Tetun and the 2 key Timorese didn’t know much English so I answered a set of English questions briefly in English, then translated the questions into Tetun and then answered them extensively in Tetun.  Interesting way of doing things.  You might be happy to know I shaved, bought an opshop paisley tie and Cynthia even ironed my pants (quite a feat in Timor).

…

Dumb job, who wants a job like that anyway.  Grmbl *;;###’^^  grr, grmmf.

When Cynthia realised I was not succesful in getting the job she went inside and broke out in tears.  What a disaster.  Samuel is ever the optimist and figures God probably has some other plan in mind.  Cynthia is not sure if heaven exists.  It was probably the paisley tie that did it.
So now what? Go for a swim.  Its a nice beach here.

A Wing and a Prayer

It seems as though the time has come for us to return to East Timor.  It has been 4 months now since we came back to Australia - 4 grueling months.  I could possibly say that this has been one of the most difficult times in our life.  We have gone from one demanding struggle to another.  Samuel works stupidly long hours yet has not been in a full time paid job for over a year.  Our financial planning has gone unbelievably pear shaped and we are desperately poor.  We now have no car (since Samuel rolled it) and have not had our own house to live in (been bunking in with the in-laws.  Because of all this we feel we must get a job and try to get out of the hole we (or more appropriately - Samuel) have created.  So we plan to return with barely enough money on a credit card to buy 1 one way tickets to East Timor.  We are not really sure if we'll have enough money to get
through the next lot of bills coming our way but we do have something to look forward to  - a job interview!  I know its not much, but they say Samuel is on the short list and the interview is in East Timor.  To say we are going out on a limb is a bit of an understatement - the limb has already broken and we are plummeting into the abyss.  What we need is some wings and a prayer.  Its a nice image when you think of our little family rising out of the darkness in the safe hands of a God who catches us - if He does.  You know what He's like though, a little on the mysterious side and He is prone to teaching lessons.  So I don't know how its going to go but I do think we should go.  Its a destiny thing.

Please note that the above whining is definitely not intended to make anyone feel sorry for us and donate some money.  What it is about is telling a story so that if God rescues us in some incredible way you can go, "Wow, thats so cool!"  Alternatively, if God doesn't exist, doesn't care or is busy doing more important things and we go splat on the abyss floor then you can say, "The idiots, I hope Samuel will finally learn his lesson!"  So this is just for your entertainment, but feel free to pray for us.

What's this?  A bush you say?  No!  This was our home - an igloo made from straw bales.  We used to live here with our little 12V power system and bucket loo.  Now its overgrown with vines.  Sniff, sniff.