A village called Railuli

Finally, after 8 months of waiting, a large shipment of Bibles has arrived in Timor-Leste!  Both publishers, the Catholics and Wycliffe Bible Translators, have brought scriptures into the country so distribution can recommence.  About 150 scriptures have gone out in the last week to young people, teachers and distributors.  Many, many Timorese love to get their hands on a Bible as they believe in God but don't have access to any scriptures. 

On Saturday, we went out to the mountains to visit a village.  Its about 20km as the crow flies but took us about 3 hours to get there, mainly because some shorter roads were washed out in the wet season.  The main task was to inspect an area to extend a water system.  My ability to survey systems has been radically improved by using a smart phone with GPS.  This allows pretty accurate calculation of the location, distance between important points and change in altitude.  The information can be mapped in Google Earth where we can show the layout of the houses and where joins, taps and tanks will be. 

Standing at the spring where water flows along split bamboo into an old drum.

I also go armed with prices of standard items such as the cost and length of a roll of polypipe and the associated fittings.  We measure the water at different locations using a stopwatch and a bottle measured to 1 litre.  This system will serve about 16 homes with about 120 people.  A minimum requirement from Government is that each household gets 30 litres per day for their drinking, cooking, washing and bathing needs (do you think your household of 8 could handle that?)  The current source supplies around 3 litres of water per minute which should amply provide these needs as well as extra water for vegetable gardens.  I am encouraging the community to come up with half the cost of the supplies as well as provide the labour to dig trenches.  Each household will need to contribute $25 for the 400m long system.  I believe its very important to get them to contribute because not only does it demonstrate that they are serious about doing this but they also learn the importance of setting aside some of their money for water.  In the past, the main function of money was to settle wedding and funeral arrangements.  Thousands of dollars go into these ceremonies every year while Timor-Leste is reported to have the highest rate of stunting in the world.

While we were in the village we also got to hand out some Bibles and encourage them to read it each day and pray.  At the risk of sounding cliché, its my firm belief that a simple walk with Jesus is the first and most fundamental step in solving the problems that these people face.  I shared this message with them in the house of a man who was murdered with a machete a couple of months back over a money lending issue.  There are some very beautiful things about village life but also many difficulties.   A very sick man had been suffering from a high fever and some sort of kidney infection (blood in the urine).  Its a long walk out of this village so they asked if I could take him to hospital in Dili.  The track to his house was a bit washed out but we were able to get down to him and back out again with a prayer and a troop carrier (toughest car in the world – thanks to Seeds of Life for the lend).
I hope you have a great week, that fresh water flows freely for you at a place not too far away and that you have a Bible to read, should you want to do so.

A land of milk and honey

A family is well and looking forward to a visit to Australia in April.  We think about baked things – anything that comes out of an oven because we don’t have one.  We also think about fresh milk.  Here we still have a traditional breakfast of cereal like muesli, corn flakes or weetbix and for milk we have UHT Milk.  Fresh milk is difficult to get and may cost around $6/L.  Right now Timor Leste has also run out of UHT milk so we are rationing our last box.  We like a bit of honey on our breakfast too.  The local honey is usually too fermented so Serenity and Israel tease dad about his “no drinking alcohol” promise to The Salvation Army.  We think we’ve got a good supply now.  It doesn’t taste so bad even though it comes packaged in a stubby.

We’ve been working hard to try to do the paperwork to take Xakira to Australia.  This includes applying for her to become an Australian citizen.  You might be pleased to know she officially became an Australian Citizen on the 8th of March.  They must be lowering the standard in Oz because she still doesn’t know how to play cricket, she can’t speak a word of English and she doesn’t have a fancy education.  It must’ve been her good looks.  Unfortunately I dont have too many pictures of Xakira but we’ll try to remedy that soon.  Until then, here’s a few random events over the past week:

The girls in the sewing room got a task of sewing 500 special bags for drying corn for research in Seeds of Life.

Samuel desk – a bit cluttered as he tries to wire up a special system for measuring weather in a remote location.  It worked in the office but success in the field still proves ellusive.

The sunset is swinging back up north again which means we see some sensational artwork as the sun sets into the ocean.

Tobias, Israel (being shy) and Samuel in the boat assisting with a preliminary bathymetric survey (sea depth) off the end of the runway.  We’re using a GPS, depth sounder, lap top and some mapping software.  Its an effort to demonstrate that the runway could feasibly be extended into the sea rather than cut off access to our village.  (We must leave the outcome in God’s hands)

We see plenty of strange and what you might call dangerous activities here.  Its an OH&S nightmare from an Australian perspective.  One topic is towing vehicles.  Timorese are never really big on using rope so they tend to tow a vehicle with whatever they can find.  You even find motorbikes towing motorbikes!  You wonder what the police are doing and if they allow it?  Well the pic here shows a police motorbike that has stopped working.  The policeman is getting towed by another policeman using a piece of string that looks a lot like a lace out of their boots!

We are always thankful to God for his provision and keeping us safe and so healthy lately.  Pray that Bibles or scriptures of any sort could come into the country because, unlike UHT milk, we haven’t been able to get decent amounts of scriptures since August last year.

Born to be Wild

Pastor Samuel with some of the boys and their corn field in the background.

Click play to begin the film.

 

We have had the pleasure of a visit from Nick, a helicopter pilot from Darwin.  While he was here he was also able to take a 3 wheeled motorbike to Los Palos to deliver to Pastor Samuel.  This was an epic 8 hour journey on rough roads.  The Nazarene Church in Los Palos will use this vehicle to assist them in their ministry taking teams to house churches, take youth out to the farm to work the fields and be available to move supplies such as the harvest, manure, building materials and groceries (not all at the same time though).  This 3 wheeler has a tray on the back which is about 1m wide by 1.4m long, all the sides drop down and the whole thing can tilt up to tip out a load.  It can take about 6-8 Timorese on the back.  We hope that it will be very useful for them.  Our sincere thanks to God and The Salvation Army in Parramatta Corps.

Nick testing the beast before the journey to Los Palos

Helping the boys clear around the fence at the corn field in Los Palos

 

Hera Disability Centre opens

After many months of hard work, the disability centre is open – well, it had its inauguration ceremony last Friday.  It is called, “Liman Hamutuk” which is literally translated as “Hands Together”.  It has the capacity to house 6 disabled people but also has a large activity room for running activities and training sessions.  The centre will be managed by the Brazilian nurse, Branca. 

Many thanks to John and Allison who worked on building the centre for over 8 months and also thanks for the strong support provided by Yooralla and others in Australia and New Zealand.  It is built very much to Australian quality standards with block outside and steel frame lined with plasterboard and ply inside.

 

 

There are many traumatic cases in this country of people with a disability being left in a dark and dirty hut in the mountains with no one to regularly feed and clean them.  We hope that this centre will help to alleviate this issue and also to advocate the value of human life and that a person with a disability needs to be valued and properly cared for.

On the medical theme, I gave blood the other week.  I think I was only brave enough because my mate Rob went and did it.  I get a bit nervous in a country like this when someone shoves a needle in my arm.  I think it helped me get over a traumatic experience I had in the Dili hospital a few years back when an intravenous drip I was given went wrong (thats about all I want to say about that story).

The Wave Offering

Sometimes our family does “devotions” at night after dinner which consists of reading a part in the Bible and having some discussion.  We were reading from the Old Testament in a part that some might think is a little boring when we came across a passage about a certain tribe of Israel being appointed as priests.  This tribe, the Levites, would amount to tens of thousands of people and the Bible records that the rest of the people of Israel had to place their hands on this tribe.  We started to consider the logistics of about 500,000 men laying hands on another 50,000 men.  A simple explanation is that this must have been the first mass crowd surfing event.  Those Levites just launched themselves onto the people of Israel.  I can just imagine Aaron orchestrating a huge mexican wave  with Levites crowd surfing on top – very cool.  Of course,  this has biblical support when you go back and read the Bible as it says that the people of Israel offered the tribe of Levi as a “wave offering”.  (Numbers 8)

Xakira is going well –sleeping, sucking, burping, pooping.  Cynthia does most of the work in this department.  Xakira is just starting to smile – if you use your imagination.  Bethany is going great helping the kids with school.  We are very thankful for Lynelle (Cynthia’s mother) coming and not only assisting with the birth but just generally helping around the house and caring for the Xakira, gardening and even helping fix machines in the sewing room.

 

Last week we had a few Americans stay with us as the team helped build the walls of the Nazarene church hall.  This building has been in the planning stage for around 2 years so its great to finally see some real action.  The 10m x 20m floor space is ready for a roof now and the American team is discussing going home to raise the funds to help this become a reality.  This is very encouraging for the local church folks here.

Out at Hera, John has nearly finished the construction of a disability centre for Branca.  I had the pleasant opportunity to go and do some tiling with a couple of Timorese, Anen and Apoli.  It was great to teach them more of an Aussie technique for laying tiles in a bathroom.  Pray for John that God would help him get it all finished for the grand opening next week.

 

A salvo church in Australia has been inspired to raise funds for a 3 wheeled motor bike for the Nazarene church in Los Palos to use with their youth farm project and other ministries.  We hope to make the final payment on this tomorrow.  Of course, I’ll need to take this contraption for a few test runs.  More on this story later.

Jonny, the guy with the infection in his leg came back and he’s very happy with his treatment in Australia.  He was crippled during the crisis from a badly infected dog bite.  There is some discussion about him getting hip surgery to allow him to walk more easily and we are arranging x-rays to go back to oz for inspection by a specialist.

I feel like this and lots of other cool stuff we do here is only possible by the love, prayers and support we receive from folks in Australia (and other countries).  In some way its like you put your hands up to allow us to do the surfing – thanks for the wave.

A local fisherman on our beach making the most of the muddy water.

A Load to Los Palos

Last weekend Samuel went out to meet with Pastor Samuel at Los Palos and Lino who has the corn farm.  A few things that were done on this trip:

1. Hand out drums to pastors of various local churches for storing their corn – Pastor Samuel had no sealed drum for his corn so he lost about 150kg of corn which went mildewy and eaten by weevils.  Putting new corn into a sealed, new 44 gallon drum from MAF (aviation) will save the corn.

2. Deliver timber and construct the window and door frames and oversee the start of laying the block walls for the youth accommodation.  This is partly in preparation for an American team coming to assist in construction this week.  (Side note: they landed in Bali when the airline Batavia went bankrupt and ceased all flights … oops)  Tobias came with me and together we got the youth working on putting together the frames that I’d precut in Dili.  We also took flyscreen and roof insulation (the boys will sleep on a mezzanine floor and be close to the roof)

3. Deliver NPK fertiliser to Lino to try to correct some nutrient imbalance in his soil and also deliver 5 rolls of barbed wire.  This high tensile wire bought in Australia is much superior and much cheaper than the barb that we used last year which was bought from Indonesia.  Note the Indonesian barb is rusting after 3 months!

4. Inspect the corn field.  Lino is trying lots of cool new things like planting in rows which will help in the various steps of agriculture like weeding, fertilising, ensuring good crop density.  Currently he’s planting at one third of the recommended crop density rate which alone may mean his yield is greatly reduced – or in mushy terms, there’ll be less food on the table.  He’s also trying a local bean which will help to fix nitrogen in the soil and add organic matter again leading to improved yields.  Lino will then transfer this knowledge and experience to others in his group including the youth farm.

5. Collect weather data recorded electronically by a weather station at Lino’s farm.  With this data, soil test results and crop info we can do some crop modelling with computer software and explore other ways to improve yield.

6. Collect soil samples of a limestone soil to see if we can use it to correct Lino’s acidic soil.  The white soil usually has a high pH which may help make his soil more neutral.  Its a bit weird in that he has limestone rock scattered around his field but his soil is acidic.  Lino new just where to find some nice soft white limestone soil for us to test – under a tree that had fallen down.

7. Finalise the accounts for the last growing season including sales of corn seed, income from the corn mill and costs associated with these.  Lino grew his first crop with me in 2011.  We then sold it as seed during 2012.  On this trip we went through all the accounts – it took ages to do this.   His loan is about $2950.  He sold about $2120 worth of seed.  Including repayments from the corn mill, altogether he repaid around $1260.  

Lino is proving very faithful in his approach and the whole farm project is going well.  The big killer for him last year was just very low yields.  He’s getting about 1 tonne per hectare where as an Aussie farmer might get 5-6 tonnes per hectare.  Together we aim to get 4 tonnes off his 1.4 hectare block or essentially triple his yield.

Bright yellow corn still looking great after 8 months storage in the silos that Lino has got through this project – without the silo, this corn would be destroyed.

The above tasks were squeezed into the Saturday.  By the end I was pretty tired and was glad to get back home and sort of rest.  All is well on the home front, although Cynthia is tired with interrupted sleep feeding Xakira.  Xakira is a remarkably peaceful baby.

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