Education

Many Timorese want to improve their education.  They are hungry to learn and eager to gain tertiary education qualifications to improve their employment opportunities.  After 4 years of study at the Institute of Business, Emi has graduated with a degree in Information Technology.  We hope to be able to give her an opportunity to start up a small business on Atauro where she comes from managing simple accommodation for tourists.  

Lynelle, Cynthia’s mother came over to help Cynthia in the first few weeks of looking after the baby.  She brought over three laptops to be provided for young people to assist them in the education.  She was able to give a laptop to Michael.  He is an intelligent young man who is studying to be a doctor.  His family is very poor and he did not have enough money for a computer.  He will use this laptop for his own studies as well as training other young people in how to use a computer.  These laptops are refurbished ex-University laptops from Australia and cost around $150.  If you are interested in supporting this sort of thing, let us know.  We would like to hand out about 10 this year.

 

 

 

Xakira Pearl Bacon – new student for Institute of Business

A new year, a new life

Samuel has asked me (Cynthia) to put up some news.

Obviously the most forefront headline is the fact that we have a new baby girl!  We thank God for such a miraculously smooth birth process – no complications what so ever!

She arrived on Saturday afternoon 19th Jan, at approximately 6:00pm.  I,  in midst of labouring, felt that it must have been going for  so many hours and would continue for many more, however obviously for those in the know i was in “transition” and she rushed into the world after only 3 hrs of intense labour.  She has been very peaceful, sleeping and feeding perfectly.  I am hoping that after a “textbook” birth, she may turn out to be a “textbook” baby! :) We can hope.

One of the many miracles is that my mum and Serenity and Israel arrive the day before.  So mum was able to talk through my birth plan and prepare herself to become a midwife.  This is probably a good time to explain why we ended up giving birth, at home, in a third world country and without any professional input.  Needless to say it wasn't the most obvious first choice.

Throughout the pregnancy it was assumed that we would return to Australia for Christmas and stay on for the birth  in late Jan.  However, God had other plans.  Towards the end of the year Samuel and I were discussing dates for holidays etc so he could arrange it with work.  It started to become a little stressing for me as i realised that Samuel actually didn't have a lot of holidays to take, and how could we guarantee that he would be in Australia for the birth.  Anyway, when I’m stressed, I generally pray about it, and did so that night asking God to direct our plans for travel dates to Australia. It was quite a shock to wake up the next morning with the new idea of giving birth at home here in Timor, and what was even more surprising was i felt peaceful about the idea.  So I discussed it with Samuel, and quickly sent off an email to  2-3 people to ask their feelings about this possibility and to pray for us about it.  Reply's generally came back saying that if I felt God was leading this, they were comfortable with it.  So i took it to the next level and began to really consider al the implications of this new idea.

To cut a long story short, I was able to fly until mid Dec, so we had a short trip home to Oz.  Serenity and Israel were very brave and decided that their year long desire to have Christmas and birthdays in Australia outweighed any qualms about being separated from mum and dad for 5 weeks.  So they stayed in Oz with my parents and enjoyed many first world delights.  Samuel and I had a 5 week empty nest trial.  I was able to rest a lot and spend time preparing for the new school year and “nesting”.

All this time I had been trying to find a Western midwife who could assist at the birth here in Timor.  I put word out around the expat scene here, as well as contacting various missionaries looking for a lead.  Nothing eventuated.  I still felt an unexplainable peace, and knew that if God had a plan for me to have a midwife, he would provide one, even if it was at the ninth hour.  Also in case He didn't have plans for me to have a midwife, I began to really research birth and how to deal with possible complications. 

Mum had offered to accompany Serenity and Israel back here in late Jan and then stay on for 3 weeks to help out around the time of the birth and after.  So I let her know that it was possible that it would just be Samuel and herself assisting with the birth.  She also began to research and prepare herself for any eventuality.  So there you go.  I do feel a bit guilty as lots of AID organisations here are pushing locals to go to hospital for a birth, and here I am defying their ideals.  However I feel that for some unknown reason, God really wanted it to happen this way.  And hey, Im not convinced that Eve had a midwife….

And that is that! Praise be to God for pulling off such an unusual experience in such a perfect way.

 

Other news which is also quite significant is that we have also had a lovely young woman arrive with mum and the kids.  Her name is Bethany and she will be helping Serenity and Israel with their schoolwork each day, to allow me to focus on baby needs and not feel worried about their education missing out during this time.  She seems to be settling in well, and the kids really like her.  I am sure she would appreciate prayer, as this is her first third world experience, not to mention living in a new family with all our weirdness….

Anyway Samuel is still balancing many roles.  We are still trying to chase up more supplies of bibles, Oh, I nearly forgot, our little Suzuki (the bible distribution car) is back on the road with a new motor installed.  It arrived tooting last night :)  It will be nice to have a running vehicle again.  

I will try to arrange some more pics soon.

Weather Station on the Island

Yesterday, I went to the island of Atauro to install an Automatic Weather Station.  Its been a bit stormy lately so launching the boat was particularly dicey with a decent shore dump.  The trip over was best described as “wet” or “adventurous” or, depending on your perspective, “prayer-worthy”.  But don’t worry, we wore life jackets and I even chucked in a couple of flares.  The boat is technically unsinkable but I’m not sure what that means if its loaded with cement, steel poles and mesh.  It conjures images of an underwater off-loading attempt as the boat sinks into the 3km deep ocean ravine that separates the island from the mainland.  Did you know that once the human body goes deeper than around 15m it becomes negatively buoyant and you just keep sinking?  Those thoughts aside, we happily made it to the lee of the island absolutely soaked including my phone which I fear has gone the way of numerous phones and cameras that stay by my side till they reach an untimely salty end. 

The main job was to install a new automatic weather station that uploads data to a satellite system so we can access it via the internet.  This is a pilot project to test the application of the system to the government meteorological unit.  Its just a small but essential piece of the puzzle to assisting the nation in improving the people’s living conditions.  For us in agriculture, its about collecting data for research to improve crop yields and help us to prepare for droughts.

   

We also got to make some connections regarding the local school on the island which an Australian school wants to help.

Unfortunately, the ocean was too rough to get around to Atekru to discuss a new small business project making tourist cabins to improve the village economy.

Cynthia’s got a couple of weeks to go before giving birth so I hope to not go into the mountains for a while now.

Our annual report for 2012 should soon be available.

Heaps and heaps of dolphins on the way back (much calmer seas).  Atauro is in the background

Getting closer

Cynthia is due to give birth in late January.  All is going well so far and she is feeling confident.  Pray that we find a suitable midwife to help with delivery in Timor Leste.

The bravest girl I know.

Signing up to The Salvation Army

A momentous occasion for which I only have a fuzzy photo. 

Samuel signed up officially to The Salvation Army and is now ranked as “Soldier” otherwise known as cannon fodder.  He is dedicated to serving God whole heartedly as a true soldier of Jesus Christ.  We have been “attending” the Grafton Salvation Army for about 10 years.  For about 4 years of that time, in fits and bursts, we’ve living in Timor Leste but have still felt connected to this church.

To Oz and Back

Last week we went to Australia for I think what will be our annual Christmas visit, except that it lasted only 12 days.  We got to see some of our rellies and experience the amazingly peaceful, ordered and safe life of Australia.  I still find myself very happy to turn on a tap, put a cup under it and get some water to drink.  It must be a symbol of the developed world.  Cynthia is very pregnant now and I had planned to stick up a photo here of her big belly but a technical hitch stopped me so you’ll just have to imagine a beautiful lady who usually weighs in at 45kg with a big bump sticking out where her tummy is.  Now she weighs 59kg – a 30% increase in weight.  To the great concern of foreign folk, Cynthia has decided she wants to give birth in Timor Leste.  The Timorese are very excited about this.  The way they are talking, it seems like the bub might come out with a chocolate skin colour as its basically going to be Timorese!   The other event is that Serenity and Israel have stayed back in Australia to spend Christmas and new years with the family.  Meal times are very quiet now and we miss them very much. 

Ajina, one of the Timorese girls that lived with us, has left to go back home to Liquica.  She came from the districts to live with us while attending an English course in Dili.  She is a part of Fini Transformasaun and will hopefully assist the group with English lessons in the future.

The Timorese are starting to plant their corn.  The rains have come a little late.  Some crops were planted several weeks ago and have failed.  Most of the seed from the Los Palos project has been sold and distributed and we need to sit down and work out how funds have gone.  People are bustling around getting ready for Christmas.  They make nativity scenes here on street corners as a community effort so thatching is happening and cans of paint are applied to brighten things up.  There is also a shopping spree here just like in Oz.  The women like to go to “Myers” for clothes.  This is tough for women on the island so our girl, Emmy, is taking “Myers” to them.  We’ve given her a $500 loan to buy selected 2nd hand clothes from the markets.  These were bundled onto the boat and taken to a couple of villages on the island.  The boat pulls up on the beach and she lays out a tarp on the sand in the shade and lays out the clothes in a big pile that the women (and men) rummage through.  In a village with no shops except for small home ‘kiosks’ and no roads this becomes a big day out for them.  While this is going on Tobias is negotiating short credit arrangements for farmers to get seed and pay later with cash, chickens or fish.  With this well researched seed we hope they can grow more food this year.  This is Christmas in East Timor.

 

Note: we are discussing how to build simple tourist cabins on the island to help improve their income base.  The long pic shows the land set aside for this.  It really is an idyllic beach.

On the Farm

I’ve always thought that a place like East Timor would benefit from regular country Australians showing the Timorese how they do farming next door.  This week we had a visit from Nick (Darwin Helicopter Pilot) and his brother Chris (Western Australian, Tug Boat Captain).  Great blokes who have their own farms back home.  Among the many adventures they had here in their short stay was building a fence out at Los Palos.  This is part of a farming project to provide work, accommodation and training opportunities for young people who come into town to go to senior high school.  They have been given a piece of land to work and this has been ploughed.  It needed a fence before the rains come.  Nick, with funds from the Palmerston Baptists, bought 8 rolls of barbed wire, pliers and some other gear for the fence.  Then we made the journey out to Los Palos to show them a few tricks.  An important part of a barbed wire fence is the strainer post set up in the corners.  Chris really took the lead here – showing the boys how it was done using sign language.  They set up the two posts, put in a top rail and then wrap thick plain wire diagonally around this – the diagonal has to go the right way for it to work.  Then a stick is poked in the middle of the diagonal and spun around to twist up the wire and make it really tight.  I really wanted to do the job with tools that Timorese had so the challenge was to tension the wire just using a steel bar as a lever.  It worked very well and got the wire very tight.  The Timorese boys were very impressed and I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to do it again by themselves.  They still have a couple more sides to do so we’ll see how they go.  It will be interesting to see if the quality of fencing improves out there as farmers share these skills with others.  What we learnt from the Timorese was to use fresh cut poles from the bush so that when you stuck your post in the ground it would come to life, grow bigger and never rot.  The tree that grows from this would then produce more poles for another fence in a couple of years.