Annual Report 2015

I’ve completed an annual report for 2015.

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This report outlines our activities and the budget used to implement them. The report also includes some thoughts on how Timor-Leste is progressing and the interaction between faith and culture. The overall income for activities was $43, 695 and the expenditure $66, 542. The main reason for the negative balance is my headlong plunge into building the training centre. Hmmm … I hope its worth it.

Thank you, Amy!

Amy with 2 budding scientists: Israel and Xakira

Over the last three months we have had assistance from Amy. Amy came over to assist with Serenity and Israel’s schooling while Cynthia managed the house and cared for Kaiyil. We appreciated her joyful and peaceful approach. There are few like her who have the courage to come to a country like this in order to help. We encourage other young people not to forget that God sends us to love and care for others wherever people may be across this planet. Lift your eyes and look beyond the horizon of the world you know to other worlds that are not so far away.

Amy got to go on some cool trips to places like this waterfall in Ermera

Putting on the Roof

It was a big week for the Beto Training Centre. This week we received delivery of a high quality roof from East Timor Roofing.

Ian and crew unloading the roof.

We also had a visit from a couple of guys from Gold Coast & Kingscliff in Australia to help install the roof. I’d like to thank the person who made a major contribution for the purchase of the roof.

I’d also like to thank Rob who organised things in Australia (but took a fall and couldn’t make it). Also a big thanks to Ian, a talented man, who was brave enough to come and try his hand at roofing. And also thanks to Shaun from NewLine Creations who volunteered his time and expertise to guide us all on the job. Everyday I was thankful to God that there were no major accidents or falls through this stage of the work. In fact the biggest battle we had was with the heat and glare from the roof. We drank gallons of water spiked with a variety of salts, sugars and apple cider vinegar.

Shaun preparing the valley.

Roof taking shape

It is simply incredible the difference it makes to have a roof on this place. Somehow it makes the end look achievable and it means that we can all work in the shade and out of the rain. Next week, Anen and the crew will finish off the roof with the skills they learnt and then focus on getting the women’s sewing group into the training centre.

Drinking iced tea from a plastic bag!

Apoli really appreciated learning new skills

Roof nearly done.

Some of the crew - thanks guys!

Progress of the 2nd Floor

The guys here are doing a great job with laying block on the second floor. They continue to use the new skills they learnt from the Darwin crew that came up a few weeks ago and their block laying keeps improving. If fact, many of their skills are improving as they think ahead to the next stages of construction.

View of the front - how very dull.

All the blocks on the second floor are now laid and they have fitted in most of the window timber work. This week they’ll be setting up to pour a beam of concrete around the top. 

Upstairs the loo is keen to be installed. 

A couple of Solar HWS I picked up for $15 each are in the background. Will they work?

Apoli and Benito install window timbers

The challenge is to get it all done by March 14^th when another team of 3-4 Australians plan to come and put on the roof. This will be a metal kit roof from East Timor Roofing. With thanks to a kind donation we need only another $4000-$5000 AUD to complete the payment for the roof. If you have building skills and would like to join the team it would be greatly appreciated.

I also had “fun” putting up the curved ceiling in the main training centre. This is an experiment in curves which I like. Each curved sheet is 8m long and curved at 12m radius. 

It takes about 4 guys huffing and puffing to hold the sheet up to the ceiling and then I get around and screw it off as quickly and accurately as I can. The whole roof is feeling very strong and looking great. Next we put in holes for lights, fans and a data projector. Insulation will go on top and then another sheet of roofing. Very exciting and we like the cool echoes it makes from underneath. Anen would like to make his own curved roof when he gets a chance.

Anen worn out after putting up the ceiling.

A man and his cathedral.

The Next Level

The Training Centre has had an amazing boost with three great men coming from Darwin. Anen and his Timorese team worked hard to get the second floor slab laid. Then the Crossroads Church supported Huy to come and assist with laying blocks on the second level. He was eagerly joined by Mark and Graham. 

They all took a week out of their lives in Darwin to come and offer some sweat and skill to the building. Apart from laying blocks, the main objective was to increase the skill of the Timorese. They could lay the blocks fairly plumb but were struggling to consistently lay blocks level. The men came and showed them how to lay up the corner blocks and then set up the string line along the very top corner edge.

We were also blessed with a bunch of quality plumbing fittings – for 5 bathrooms! O dear, what are we building?!

The next challenge is to get the rest of the blocks laid and the top concrete beam on in preparation for another team coming in March to put the main roof on.

The roof is going to be quite expensive at $16000USD. If you’d like to contribute we could do with some help. 

Mountains of Liquica

The warm humid month of January is over and all is well here in Timor-Leste. Easter must be a romantic time of year because we have 3 birthdays to celebrate in this month – Serenity, sweet 16, Israel, the big double digits and Xakira, a cute 3 year old. Kaiyil is a happy little chap now at 4 months and just learning push ups. Cynthia is bravely holding the fort together with the invaluable assistance of Emmy and Amy who has come from Australia to assist in home schooling.

We went on a trip to Bazartete in the mountains of Liquica this week. The mountains are very beautiful in the wet season.

a cool waterfall on the way from Bazartete to Liquica

Along the way, we stopped at a school with an awesome veggie garden and I just had to go and ask how they did it. The secret ingredient I think was a very humble nun from Japan. Then they also had some other key features like seed, water, fence and security.

The school in Bazartete

awesome vegetables are hard to grow

having a good fence to keep out cows is an essential ingredient

We happened to have a large water filter set with us so I gave it to the school so they would not need to keep boiling water.

Then we came down into Liquica and met with Adina and Ajina operating a small local mission in their part of town. We were able to provide them with a roll of chicken wire for use in making either a fence for a vegetable garden or a chicken pen. Thank you very much to a kind church in Grafton who has provided funds for 5 rolls of chicken wire to go to local pastors to assist them in their livelihoods.

The training centre is moving along and we have been able to pour the rest of the slab on the second floor. I look forward to working with 3 great men from Darwin this week to help us raise the walls on the training centre.

building the walls around the front of the centre

Preparing for the slab to be poured

Timor Corn Husker

What these? a new fishing hook? No! Corn huskers ofcourse.

Have you ever needed to husk corn by hand? In the good old days, when farmers were heroes, they moved down the rows of corn, opened up the sheath (those leaves around the cob) and picked out the cob and threw it into a cart pulled along by a horse. There were a number of different tools to help farmers open the sheath and some of them were strapped to the wrist. The typical husker is made of a leather strap and tough sheet metal. We don't have that sort of raw material and skills here so I've fashioned a simple hook made of 5mm reo bar which is very common here. 

The trick is in the bending to get it to fit right. 

Then we made a simple cloth strap with velcro at the end (because we could, you could just tie it, buckle or whatever).

After a couple of turns the hook is placed on the wrist, the strap is wrapped around 3-4 times after this to hold it on well.

 

The fine women at Bele Kria cutting and sewing up 150 straps for corn huskers.

 Thanks to Seeds of Life, they bought 150 of these and yesterday we handed them out to lead farmers of commercial seed producing associations. We are hoping they can test them on farm and give us feedback if they work on not.
The idea for the hook came from testing last year with Lino, the corn farmer. He said that when they looked at my prototype last year (it didn't work) they decided they'd take the concept but just take a nail into the field. Then we tried bending a long nail but switched to reo for length and ease of bending. In fact coming up with new ideas takes about 3 years - 1st year to identify the problem, 2nd year testing prototypes, 3rd year delivering the final concept. Now I realise it probably takes another 3 years to scale up and get into the market place.

O, and farmers are still my heroes, its a tough game out there in the paddock especially during El Nino on the western side of the Pacific. Next time you eat, thank God for the farmers who grew your food.