Weekly Update for Jan 13, 2006

Originally Posted Jan 13th 2006

To our friends and family,

We hope you enjoy reading these messages half as much as we enjoy experiencing them.

Another Saturday is upon us and what a great week it has been. The weather has been perfect all week long and there has been no trace of rain and few clouds. Bogor, the rainy city, has been showered with brilliant sunshine and a cooling breeze that makes everything pleasant.

Our gardener and his family have come over for the morning. They come intermittently to keep the yard in good shape and his wife ( Ester ) cleans the house. They are members of the church and they have 8 children. The previous mission couple paid them handsomely and we will for this time as well and them research it out a bit more. Ester speaks reasonable English as she was a missionary in the past. One of the interesting rules of the mission is that they are supposed to speak English if one of the companionship speaks English. This is intended to assist the Indonesians in learning English as it enhances their capacity to get a better job. Ester and her family arrived just after we received our first shipment of 24 wheelchairs. We will receive the rest of the shipment of 50 in total later in the morning.

Last Saturday was nothing short of a real thriller. We went out looking at two of the completed water projects. We were very impressed. The technology is simple but effective. They uses concrete, plastic pipe and gravity to deliver clean water to the campons ( villages ). The engineer finds springs of water high up in the hills and test them for water production and water quality. They then build a tiny dam at the source and put in a 3 - 4 inch pipe to direct that water towards the villages. There will be primary, secondary and tertiary collection points that are concrete tubs that hold the water and distribute it through other smaller pipes. The church is only responsible for the water distribution up to these collection points. The villages then us a variety of small plastic tubes to distribute the water to the actual homes or to common troughs. It is a crude but effective method of getting them clean water. They would otherwise be taking water from polluted sources.

The country side is spellbinding. It is rice production country and every hillside is transformed into rice paddies by backbreaking labor. The net result is a breathtaking mosaic of paddies contoured to the shape of the land. The paddies are actual dams that hold about a foot of water to plant the rice in. There is a system of overflow outlets so that the water goes from one paddy to the next, filling the entire patchwork. It is quite amazing to see how carefully each dam in constructed from the mud. The entire system can be drained quite simply by controlling the depth of the outlets in the mud walls.

The problem used to be that the villages depended on the same water that they used to irrigate their paddies. They would bath in it and cook with it, even after it was fertilized and walked through by both man and beast.
Another problem is the destabilization of the steep hillsides by the elimination of the large trees and their critical root systems in order to create the paddies. In the absence of these roots the water seeps into the earth and increases the likelihood of land slides.

My Tilley hat was a real godsend to protect me from the tropical sun. We are only a few degrees off the equator here and the sun is strong. Sister Kane forgot her hat and ended up having to use one of the umbrellas that we brought in case of rain. The sky was atypically clear and we could see all the way to Jakarta from the highest point of the day.

We traveled around with a convoy of vehicles, one of which was a 1982 Land Rover whose odometer quit working several hundred thousand kilometers ago. The climate is very kind to automobiles here. They actually still have three wheeled taxis in Bogor that came with the Japanese in 1942. They are held together by weld upon weld upon weld but it is amazing that a vehicle that is more than 60 years old can still be in used as an income earning taxi. I want to ride in one before they all disappear. We drove through Indiana Jones territory high in the mountains all day. It was spectacular.

The saddest part of the day was when we visited a refugee area filled with 185 families all living in large tents made of plastic tarps. A small part of their village has disappeared in a landslide and the rest has been condemned by the impending threat created by a large crack in the earth just above their village on the hillside. There are 6 families living in each tent and their situation is very heart-wrenching. They still have all of their clothing and household effects but they have been displaced by misfortune. They have been working like Trojans to carve out terraces to put their tents on. The only donations that they have received thus far have been the water piping to get then a clean water supply and one large tent from the army. The water engineer that we work with had the good sense to donate some of the church's water pipes and hook them up to an existing church water system so that they could have clean water. They have no toilets, bathing area or laundry area. Its time for Elder and Sister Kane to step up and do something to help them. It will be one of our first projects. It was a very full but rewarding day.

On the long drive back to Bogor we saw a man with no legs moving around remarkably well in wheel chair on the outskirts of Bogor. Leaany recognized the wheelchair as one of the ones that were distributed through the church. It was a reaffirming indicator that there are small things that can make big differences in the lives of people.

Frank and Leanny run one of the NGOS that the church has had association with for may years and they have been really kind to us. They came with us on our outing on Saturday. On Friday evening they took us out to a fancy restaurant recently opened by a friend of theirs who was looking for westerners to come and give them feedback on their operation. We got an unbelievable meal of bar-b-qued ribs with chicken and cheese casadias for free. It was a dream meal and great fun as we spoke to the chef who was trained in California. It was a real surprise.

Sunday was spent at church and with the missionaries. Sister Kane cooked butter chicken and it was a huge hit with the missionaries, who left soon thereafter. Sister Kane and I watched a video and then we had a long discussion about what we should be doing as missionaries and what our priorities and goals should be. Somehow I felt that we weren't sufficiently productive. As an antidote to the problem we discussed it as a companionship and put a list of issues and priorities together. Perhaps it is still a little early to be expecting that we should be fully effective but it is our desire.

On Monday we studied Indonesian and the scriptures in the morning and had a productive planning meeting with Sudin when he arrived for work. We got word from the school that we visited that hey want us to teach English to the teachers and that they could accommodate us on Fridays at 1:30 PM. We went and picked up our gong at the gong factory and went and visited with two of our NGO partners, Rika and Faisal. Rika's husband is an ex-pat who works on another island and is only home one week a month. He was admitted to the hospital yesterday and it was clearly an issue of concern to her. We had a great visit and stayed for almost two hours before we took Sudin out to the soup making restaurant where you cook your soup meal right on your own table. After diner we came home and then went for a long walk together.

On Tuesday we drove over to the missionaries apartments early to complete our monthly inspection. Sister Kane did a great job of it. While we were there we got a call from another set of missionaries, who asked us to go to an area near Bogor, to give a blessing to a Sister who is ill. We drove over there and administered to her and enjoyed a brief visit with the family. She appears to be suffering from either Typhus or typhoid fever and was grateful for the blessing. Happily we have been vaccinated for both. We drove around the area where the sick sister lived, about an hour away, to get a sense of what was around there. We spent most of the rest of the day studying. It was the first day for Sister Kane to deal with an upset digestive system but she seemed to handle it well.

When we came home I checked on the canary, only to find him sitting on the ground under the cage outside, where I hung it. He was easy to catch as he had no apparent interest in flying away. He must have gotten out of the bottom of the cage as I left the tray out after I cleaned it and apparently the gap between the wicker bars is bigger there.

Wednesday was a slow day. We used it to study Indonesian and we asked Sudin to help Elder Kane write out his testimony so that he could begin studying it and could bear testimony in Indonesian a-on the next Fast Sunday. Sudin couldn't have been more helpful despite the very slow going. The words are all so different and strange sounding. The only thing that keeps us going in this exercise is faith. We worked at it unitl we just couldn't take it any more and sent Sudin home early to enjoy time with his family and we went for a long walk. The evening air here is incredible to walk in.

We were supposed to tour another water project on Thursday but Tauffic ( the engineer ) was ill with Typhoid fever and was not up to the climbing around. We used the morning to study Indonesian and to open another bank account to handle all of the church business matters. The process went much faster the second time. In the afternoon we went to visit a truly impressive residential project near Bogor. It was the first place in Indonesia that I have seen where I could be happy living here, if ever we decided to spend a lot of time here. It is a really beautiful project built around a huge and very impressive golf course. We also went to visit the home of some members and enjoyed a last visit with Sister Bytheway, whose parents had come to pick her up and take her home. We had a farewell in the very humble but relevant environment of the home of people that she loved. It was fun to visit with her parents. They are doing a driving tour of Java and heading off to Bali before going back to Jakarta and flying home.

We spent the evening preparing for the English class were would teach on Friday and we went for a long walk and had a good meal at Pizza Hut. You can eat so cheaply here in restaurants that it is silly to cook at home.
On Friday we toured the manufacturing plant that produces the plastic pipe that we use in our water projects. We had been given a special invitation and it was great fun. We went through the whole process and the quality control testing. They treated us as though we were visiting dignitaries and it was really an enjoyable morning. We went for lunch and bought some fruits and vegetables when we left the manufacturing plant. Sister Kane loves going to the grocery stores here. They are spotlessly clean and have an unbelievable variety of fruits and vegetables that are very inexpensive. After the brief shopping experience we just went to a local A & W for a great meal. They still freeze the mugs before they put the root beer in them here and it makes for a great treat. Here a Moza burger with curly fries and a root beer cost about $ 2.25, so the three of us eat for about $ 7.00 per meal.

We then headed off to the school a short distance outside of Bogor. We got there in record time today. The last time we went took us two hours and today we made it in about 15 minutes as the traffic was light. The last trip was made on the last day of the Christmas long weekend and we were told that it was unusual for traffic to be heavy. The traffic was so light because it was Friday and we were traveling just after noon, when all the faithful are at Friday prayers at the mosque. The weather was perfect and the walk in to the school is not long but it could not possibly be more breathtaking. It is such a pity that I haven't figured out how to send pictures attached to our email or the people at home would be green with envy. We were welcomed in the school like dignitaries and we went to the classroom that was large and spotless. The Indonesians are very clean and orderly and it was well organized but everything was a little worn. The blackboard, which had no chalk, was in very poor condition. It looked like it may have been used in elementary school during the era in which I went to grade 3.
We were introduced to our class of 6 teachers and one ex-teacher. There were 6 women and Supraman, the son of the founder of the school. We call him Maman. The women teachers are all from Munchkin-land. They are all about as tiny as tiny can be. The climate here is very humid and it makes for flawless complexions on almost everyone. Sister Kane and I would not have been surprised if we has heard that they were all around 15. They were all Muslim and all wore the headscarf. They all had brilliant smiles and couldn't have been more fun to be around. We did our introductions and were amazed to discover that they averaged about 24 years old and several were married with children. We did an assessment of their skill levels and commitment to learn. Everyone but Maman \was at a beginners level and it makes it easy for us to structure the lessons for the group. It was an introductory lesson and the purpose was just that. We did teach them to sing " Give Said The Little Stream " which was a big hit with them. They are enthusiastic singers and were complimentary to Sister Kane and I about our singing. We went through it with them several times and Maman had us record it on his cell phone so he could remember the music and melody. We had them all get up and tell us about themselves and 90 minutes blew by in an instant. We ended the lesson by having each of them get up and tell us about something they learned that day and we helped them with their vocabulary and pronunciation. It was such fun to be with them that we hated to leave. They all seemed disappointed that we didn't leave them with home work assignments so we told them all that we expected them to teach the song to their class and they all agreed. We promised to have lots of homework for them the next time we go out there, which will be in two weeks. It was just a great afternoon and then we got to walk back down through their little valley of paradise. Who is luckier than we are ? No-one ! It all had the feel of a dream coming true. What a day it was ! What an experience it all is ! Thank you for taking the time to share it with us. Keep us in your prayers as we will keep you in ours

Elder and Sister Kane