God always provides

 Well, we’ve turned our mattress, as they said when I was in the army and our time was halfway through...  In a week’s time, we will be on the plane back home.  

It will be nice coming home, but at the same time I’m sure it will be very strange to leave all the friends we have made here and all the children.  As I said before, I think they will miss us, but what I’m definitely sure of is that we will miss them.

Some of them we may never see again, because you never know what happens.  Our second sponsor child, Dandi, has been taken back to his village some weeks ago by his father, without any explanation or goodbye or thank you, and yet his father was employed here as a worker on the buildings.  He could have told Ronny or the staff, because they would never keep any children here against the will of their parents. Another girl was picked up by her father, although she didn’t want to leave and was crying – he promised to bring her back after two months, so everyone (including all her friends) were waiting, but she never came back.  Di says she came from a village where the rumour was spread that Ronny was selling the children, but maybe that’s because they misunderstood the sponsor system, where people indeed “pay” for the children...

So not every story ends well, which must be very disappointing and heartbreaking for Ronny and his staff.

The staff are really nice and have become good friends indeed over such a short period of time.  I’ve come to know Di’s husband Neil a bit better the last few days, and Mark and his wife, who told me that she came here for the first time 4 years ago and when she went back home, she met Mark – within 6 months, he became a Christian, they got married and they moved here.  He’s in charge of the workshop, since he has been a mechanic all his life (working on trucks and race cars, etc.).

And then there’s Ronny & Karin from Belgium, who have been here for more than a year already but aren’t here now because they are following a language course somewhere else in Indonesia at the moment.  We’ve met them a few months ago in Belgium.  A few years ago, they both had the same dream and they knew that they needed to get involved in a project with children.  They even knew what the project would look like and when they met Ronny Heyboer, who showed them the drawings of the buildings and the plans how they would be situated, it was exactly what they had seen, so that was God’s confirmation for them to get involved with LWV.

God has been so faithful to the work here, in providing people and money.  I was talking to Ronny a few days ago about the cost of living here as house parents, which he explained to me - it’s much less than living in England of course (and you never need any winter clothing!), but you don’t have an income either - he added however: “God always provides!”  He says one day he will write a book of all the miracles God has done here (also medical miracles, some of which you can hear about on the DVD).

It’s amazing how 6 years ago, there was only 1 building here and now there are 32, especially if you know that most of the staff didn’t have any building skills, all the materials had to come from far away by car or truck (mostly from Malaysia) and the communication can be a problem here, not only because of the language but also because mobile phones don’t really work here, which means that if you’re working somewhere and you need something from the workshop, you need to go and get it, or if you need to talk to someone, you need to go and find him/her, and the site is huge.

Ronny was very pleased with the work Jaap, Ingrid and Ruth had done cleaning the kitchen so thoroughly, so yesterday morning he asked them to have a go at the storage room and laundry room.  Gisella showed a few ladies how to make puppets, which they picked up very quickly. Tom did some more electrical work and Bernard and I were asked to put up all the curtain rails in one of the new houses for house parents and children.  

When I went to do some more painting later, in the afternoon, Keri, the boy whom I told about the “lion’s bite” on my leg, walked with me to the Medical Center, holding my hand.  He asked: “Swimming?” I said yes. He said: “Four!” I said yes. He asked if I had a watch, because apparently he wanted to make sure we didn’t miss out!  He’s eleven, but he was so excited about going swimming again.  He watched me while I was painting and then, at 3pm, suddenly the weather changed completely in a few minutes and it was raining cats and dogs (but big ones!).  You should have seen Keri’s face!  He was so disappointed and said: “No good!”  

He knew that Chris was going back the next day, so this would have been the children’s last chance to go swimming, but it had to be cancelled.

Yesterday night, some local boys were chasing a giant cicada (about 10 cm long), which kept on flying under the roof of the big patio in front of the Training Center, probably because it was attracted by the lights.  Tom and I first thought it was a bat, until the boys caught it and showed it to us.  It made a very loud shrieking noise suddenly, which made one of the Belgian visitors jump, causing much hilarity amongst the children.

Some of the insects here are massive and so beautiful – fascinating!  The children play with them until they are dead – they are ruthless with animals, but they have been brought up like that – apparently, sometimes they make 2 different animals fight each other, cheering them on…

This morning, Ronny took Chris & Dil and the young couple who are doctors back to Kuching and he will only be back on Wednesday evening, since he will bring some Americans who will arrive in Kuching on Tuesday.  

We won’t see much of him anymore, because apparently we are going back to Kuching early Thursday morning already.  The reason is that our flight is early on Saturday morning, so if the bus would break down or be delayed on the dodgy roads on Friday and we wouldn’t be at the border before 6pm, we would be stuck there and the border only re-opens at 6am, so we would miss our plane.  It’s a shame we will have to spend a whole day in Kuching on Friday instead of here, but never mind.

The morning prayer meeting was led by an 11 year old girl – the children get thrown into the deep end very quickly here…

Chris had done a handover to Tom and the other guys in the team of electricians, Gisella and Ingrid had a bit of a rest today, because they were shattered after all those days of entertaining the children (I don’t know if pulling teeth can be classified as “entertaining” though), Ruth was playing with the children and Bernard, Jaap and I were putting up a wire fence around the patio of the new house parents’ house where we put up the curtains rails yesterday.  Keri came with us and helped us the whole day.  He didn’t get bored and noticed very quickly what we needed and when.  He’s a lovely boy.

We also met one of the full-time workers, who’s from Java and has been here since 2004.  He’s a Pentecostal Christian and very friendly.

The view from the place where we were working is absolutely magnificent – you can see for miles and it makes you really stand in awesome wonder for God’s creation when you look around.

As I write this report, I can hear the children laughing and cheering in the Training Center.  Saturday night is film night, so they all sit together and watch a DVD – tonight’s one seems to be a funny one…

I can’t wait for the 2 church services tomorrow – it will be our second and last Sunday here.

Have a blessed weekend everyone at home and in Belgium!