The Catch

 
Geoff and his Timorese fishing buddies came back! Now that’s a good thing. The boat came back as well which is a bonus. Now we’ve got to look on the bright side of things because, well, they didn’t catch a staggering amount of fish. The 3 day voyage cost $115 in fuel, bait, tackle and ice and they came back and sold the fish on the beach for $65. Hmmm...the maths doesn’t quite work in our favour. We got one free fish out of it too. I suppose that's something. Geoff had a great time experiencing island culture but it was very tiring trying to sleep out on the boat in the water. So what should we do? The Timorese man, Gomez, has asked to keep the $65 to plough into the next trip – fuel, ice etc (He still has the tackle and he caught his own bait). The seas are good, probably the best they’ll get all year. If he comes back with $65 worth this time you’d think it was hardly worth it. But perhaps there’s a bigger catch – where Gomez sees the love and concern we have for his life to go to this extent to raise him out of poverty. Who knows? The big man upstairs. I can just hear him bellow now – “Throw your nets on the right side of the boat!!!” May God give us wisdom in this difficult case.
Other things that have been plugging along are the women’s sewing group bellekria. They have been going to the weekly markets in Dili. Our construction team got some Australian investor to put up money for another building. Bible distribution is rising up from a sleepy period and looking exciting. We are working with a small Catholic team and they sold around 150 scriptures at a recent youth conference.  I just bought another 180 New Testaments. We hope to go up into the mountains tomorrow to distribute Bibles in a school and help them in a few other ways.