Mary, John the Baptist and Chris

Ok, I am struggling to find time to write on this blog thing.  I am getting a little exhausted.  I’ve got to find a better way to approach life.  There’s just so many cool things to do in Timor Leste.  One of the highlights was having some great friends visit us from Australia.  We got to climb the highest mountain in Timor – Mt Ramelau.

Driving up I saw some strange hollow logs on farms.  The lid on this one is made from an old wheel barrow.  What is it?  Its a Timorese version of a grain silo, painstakingly hollowed in a special way for storing corn.  The idea is to stop rats eating the corn. 

The town of Hatobuilico – base camp at the foot of the mountain.

On the way up – great views of rugged country although a photo doesn’t do it justice.

This is what hiking up a mountain with a family really looks like.  “Do we have to go any further?”

Lunch on top with Mary and Mary’s keeper (centre back) and his little girl (far right).   They live on this desolate mountain top.  He’s not quite your Ghandi with pearls of wisdom but he’s a lot of fun for a chat.  Mary has a metal strap around her so she doesn’t fall over which is a good thing because it gets very windy up there.  Funny how a mountain top makes you feel a little bit closer to God.

 

Keeping with the mountain top theme, my mate Rob decided to take a group on motor bikes up into the mountains.  The track got very narrow and the mountains got very steep.  Unfortunately, Chris went off the track.  Due to the steepness, he travelled downwards about 10m before making contact with the ground again, or rather with a log which caught him on his downward flight (one of those classic cartoon scenes might help you to picture it, although nothing about it was very funny).  It also happened that the motorbike got caught on the same log which was helpful.  Due to the remoteness, God sent along a horse owned by a man named John the Baptist which was very helpful.
It took a couple of hours on horse back to get to where we could pick him up with a car.  I’ll try to put in a little video in memory of the occasion.

Chris is a great bloke who has done a lot of cool things during his 5 years or so in Timor Leste like improving the rocket stove, making our pizza oven and teaching Serenity how to play the song “Hallelujah” on the guitar.  Thanks Chris, I hope you come good and find your way back to Timor one day.

Sonrei House

Well, The place has a name, and even a sign!
    So first, of course, some details about the name… (pronounced sun-ray)
We have combined English and Tetun to make our own new word :) The obvious meaning is sunray!  Then the word rei in Tetun can mean kiss, so it also means sun kissed.  Rei also means king. On the other side of Dili is a large statue of Jesus and the place is called Christo Rei (Christ the King).  So Sonrei also can mean son of God the King.
           
We really hit the ground running, welcoming our first visitors on Friday morning after moving in Thursday afternoon.  The house felt full and happy, and coped really well.  (Mind you there are still a few little things that need work!  Are buildings ever really finished?) They felt very privileged to be the first visitors, and we were blessed with their friendliness, generosity and awesome humour!  For Madagascar fans, one guest entertained everyone with a perfect king Julian impersonation.  Serenity was a real sweety and translated for the group on a few occasions. And israel and 5 yr old Josiah had great times together! 
 
Our outdoor dining room is just lovely.  We all love hanging out there with the cool sea breezes and ocean view.  We plan to get Bellekria to sew some cushions for the concrete seats running around the sides.  And of course one day we hope to have some hammocks swinging!!  With 14 people our little six person table wasn't enough, so at 6am the morning the group were to arrive, Samuel was building an extra 8-10 person table. 
       This is the door from upstairs out to the verandah.  In the sea just north of East Timor, lies a very deep channel (3km).  Apparently blue whales swim through here, amongst other whales, dolphins and the odd American submarine.  Samuel designed a blue whale tail cutout in the door to let some light through.  As they installed the door, Serenity and I were enjoying the view, and guess what?  We were sure we saw a whale swimming past!!  Honest!  (It may have been shadows on the waves….)
Storage!! Storage everywhere!!  In the days before moving Samuel stayed up late building a large desk/book shelf for the office, and a set of shelves for our clothes.  Which meant that as we moved in things could go straight into place rather than fill the floor with boxes!!  The only lack was Samuels store room, which meant that all his tools and pipes and electrical gear was spread over the office floor.  So yesterday the guys all pitched in for a quick build shelf.  I was hovering ready to throw boxes onto the shelves as soon as they were screwed in place!  Ta Da!!!  

Just wanted to share a new website

Well, while I am back in Australia, I have been spending a bit of time "researching" on the internet - ok well some playing as well.  Anyway i stumbled across a great website that makes East timor look more like it really is, as opposed to how we portray it!

Awesome website about East Timor!!

It really is beautiful, and there are nice places to stay!
Check it out a bit and see how beautiful God made the place.

Maybe your next overseas holiday you could visit East timor?  You can even earn flybuys now that Quantas is selling tickets for flying on the Airnorth planes!

Mayhem and Tranquility

1 sleep to go!

My brain is in overload... take this, do that, go there, see them, pay this, ring him, don't forget to.... ah...  um...what was it again?

These are some of the more positive things i can look forward to...

Peaceful sunsets admiring Gods gorgeous exterior colour schemes, sifting through pastel coloured pebbles, making small piles of white ones, finding the odd shell, watching the hand dug outrigger canoes land after a days fishing, chatting with fellow foreigners who may be visiting the beach, watching Serenity and Israel play for hours with the kids from next door.   

Also have to mention the lovely neighbours, the constant supply of fresh tropical fruits available (including yummy coconuts picked by the young boys next door whenever we request one).

Hmmm sounds nice hey.. 

I might just keep these thoughts forefront at the moment. ;)

A piece of tranquility.

Packing!

OK, so we have now officially packed 1 bag.  Its our largest one, and so far it weighs 22kgs, full of Samuels clothing, medical supplies and 1 set of flippers/snorkel.  We were able to purchase a large metal boxed first aid kit from ALDI (Gotta love their prices!).  So we have added to that to make it an awesome first aid kit, and then we have two other plastic shopping bags full of other stuff - like vitamins and mozzie repellents and sunscreen and all my homeopathic remedy's etc.  Im sure we will use a lot of it on our neighbours, and when we do mountain visits (sometimes while we deliver bibles or on water project trips we get asked to help ease a bad toothache or infected wound).  You may be interested to know that i use isocol (rubbing alcohol) on Serenity and Israels skin as a mozzie repellent.  I also use a bit of Vicks or the cheaper Indonesian versions.  they seem to work really well, and are nicer on their skin then RID etc.  We will arrive after the end of the wet season, so i am hoping the mozzies wont be too bad.

We are generally reluctant to use anti malarial tablets, however  Samuel has bought some Doxycylcin and i am going to firmly "encourage" him to take them daily.  I think his body needs a break from malaria.  Although of course Dengue has no preventative medicine, except perhaps regular doses of paw paw leaf and flowers.

So that is where prayer is really important.  Please pray for protection from serious illnes, and strength of body to resist and heal quickly.

I thought you may like to see this cool rainbow leaf smiley face.  On our recent trip south, we camped by a creek in a state forest, and the kids and me collected lots of different coloured leaves - From a pure deep green, right through to red/purple.  Serenity was inspired to create a face with some seed pod eyes :)

Gods creation is pretty awesome hey?