Bibles, slaves and smelly things

Here’s a little catch up on our recent frivolities in East Timor. 

• There’s been  a Youth Conference in the Catholic Church where young people from all over the country came to Dili for three days.  The exciting thing for us was that we have been coordinating with a group to sell Bibles at the conference.  We’ll let you know what the interest was like.
  
• We also helped move the last of the MAF gear (Mission Aviation Fellowship) including a heavy generator requiring 9 guys straining to lift it.  We also assisted with a bit of plumbing.
  
• We’ve got ourselves a slave! … er … servant girl  … er … young lady staying with us who helps out with the cooking and cleaning.  Her name is Emmy, and its great having her help with the chores which frees up Cynthia to teach and run the sewing room.  She gets a small income and gets to learn English and foreign culture plus she gets food and her own room which is more than where she came from sharing two small rooms with six young men, a 12 year old girl and a baby – eek.  She is very happy to be here.  She is from Atauro and attends a business college here in Dili.  Youth accommodation is a big problem in this city and can lead to unfortunate situations like prostitution in order to survive.
  
•    We’ve had some church meetings in our hew house.  I gave a talk on Nahum in the Bible – its the sequel to Jonah if you’re interested.  A nice piece of wartime poetry.
  
• We also had a baptism and a wedding at our place so Cynthia reckons I should just go and get some minister’s licence.
  
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• We tried to go on a holiday which didn’t really work out as I got stuck renovating someone’s kitchen and bathroom in the mountains. 

 
We did manage a visit to some incredible hot springs tucked away in a remote location amongst old Portuguese ruins.  It was very hot water and a bit smelly with that sulphur (Shrek fart) smell.
 
 
Leaving the hot springs we planned to continue on down the road to Zumalai but decided, pretty much off the cuff, that we’d had enough and decided to turn right instead of left and head home.  Quite convenient really as that night and the following day several people were murdered in Zumalai and over 100 houses were burnt down.  I am tempted to use this outcome to justify my workaholic tendencies (had I not spent too much time working we may have ended up in a the middle of a little bloodbath) but I should really just say it was God and his angels doing their thing yet again and keeping us from a rather nasty event.  We’ll try to go on holidays again some time but I dare say it wont quite be the same as your average aussie venture.