Goodbye seems to be the hardest word

This is my last report from LWV, as we will be leaving here tomorrow at 5.30am.

It will be nice to be back home, but I will miss a lot of things: the beautiful country, the meetings, the songs, the guitars at breakfast and at other times (when you come in the Training Center, where all the meals and the meetings take place, there are always a few kids strumming an acoustic guitar), the staff and of course the children!

I will especially miss our sponsor children. Beno has 4 older brothers, who are all here, and I’ve met 3 of them now and they are all lovely, so saying goodbye will be very hard.

In a previous report, I told you about Tina, the “wild” little girl. She’s really sweet in her own way and is very affectionate – I still don’t know her story or how she came here, but I think she needs a lot of love. She always comes to me when she sees me, and I always give her a big cuddle. I feel so sorry because not many children seemed to like her, so I asked Di if I could take her home with me, but she answered that one of her jobs is to check the suitcases of the people who go back home – I think she was joking, but I’m not sure… - she probably thinks I was joking, but I’m not sure either…

Anyway, I’ve asked to sponsor her now, instead of Dandi, who has been taken back to his village by his dad. 

Ruth, Ingrid and I have tried to keep an eye on Tina the last few days, so that the other children don’t bully her as much anymore.  Di has now spoken to all the small children and told them that they should be nice to her and take care of her.

It’s hard to imagine what some of the children have experienced in their young lives. Di told Ruth a story of a little girl who came here after having been abused and how she’s happy now, but it took quite some time, wisdom and effort.  Several children have scars in their neck, maybe from certain rituals they have gone through.

 A few nights ago, a DVD was shown about telling other people, who are in darkness, about Jesus, and according to Di, many young people were moved by it and want to go back to their villages to bring the gospel to their people.  There’s such a need for Jesus in Borneo!  Some time ago, a few young people from LWV went off to evangelise to one of the villages, without telling anyone that they would do it.  They walked for 4 hours and whilst they were in the village, they witnessed a baby being sacrificed.  They were in tears when they came back to LWV.

We had our last working day yesterday (although Jaap, Bernard and I finished the wire fence this morning), because Di said we needed today to wind down and have a look around where we haven’t been yet or take the pictures that we still haven’t taken.  

Yesterday evening we had our last church meeting from 7pm until 8pm and it was so special!  First there were a few worship songs, then a choir with the smallest children sang and did the actions to the song “Rainbow” which we know from Ark – the actions were not that easy, but they did so well, including Tina!

Then our team was introduced again, just like last Sunday.  As soon as Kalis said the word “muppet” (which probably is the Indonesian word for puppet), all the children got very excited.  

Before the meeting, Gisella had given us a fast course in puppet playing (“eye contact!” – “don’t bite! talk!”) and some hilarious pictures will be the eternal proof of how serious we all were… 

We had put two tables on top of each other in the Training Center, behind which Jaap, Ingrid, Tom, Bernard, Ruth and I were hiding.  We each had a hand puppet, Tom did a short introduction from behind the table with a silly puppet voice and then we, sorry, our puppets, all sang “Hallelujah, Jesus lives” (that is, if you can call it singing, because it seemed more like a competition who would have the silliest voice) – I don’t think you have ever seen/heard a bunch of adults being so ridiculous, but the children loved it and sang along after the first time.

Then we appeared from behind the tables and we sang a lovely Sunday School song, together with Bethany, who had taught us the song and the actions: “My God is so mighty”.  After one go, we made all the children stand and do it together with us, and they had a great time, even the older ones.  We hadn’t planned on doing a second song, but somehow we couldn’t just stop, so we did “If you’re happy and you know it” and had them participate as well.  The part which says “stamp your feet” didn’t work so well though, because you don’t hear much stamping when everyone is barefoot (inside all the buildings, everyone has to walk barefoot, for hygienic reasons and for cultural reasons), but they shouted ‘Amen’ as loud as they could…

Then Jaap preached very short, but it was great.  Following up from the song, he said what a happy time we had had here, but that everything has to end and in a few days’ time we would have to go home.  Keri sat on the front row and you should have seen how he looked at me – he seemed quite shocked.  Beno sat on the front row as well in front of me, but he didn’t get the message.  Then Jaap preached from John about how Jesus had to leave his disciples, but told them to love one another, so Jaap said that he would come back again and hoped to see the fruit of their love for one another.  It was just perfect!

The youngest children then stood up and went forward to pray and be prayed for, before going to bed (which they always do during the evening meetings), but then, when they wanted to run off to bed, they were called back.  Much to our surprise, we had to stand up with our group and those small children all came up to us, put their little hands on us and prayed for us, together with everyone else! I must have looked like Daddy Long Legs with all those little ones around me… Beno (who by now clearly understood that I would be leaving, because I could tell from his face) and his brother Mondan prayed for me, together with Keri and a few others, and I couldn’t stop the tears coming up – it was just so special!  I gave them a big hug afterwards and tried to make them understand that we would still be there one more day.  

After the meeting, several of the older boys and girls came up to me (and to the others in our group) to give us a hug, some of whom I hadn’t even spoken to during our stay.  

What a precious time!  I tell you, if you come here, you have to have a big heart, because you will leave a part of it behind!...

And you need to bring a camera with a big memory, because you will easily take more than 1,000 pictures.

This morning, when I came out of my room at 5.20am to go to the prayer meeting, Beno and Keri were standing right by my door, which really moved me – they may have thought that we would be leaving today or they didn’t want to miss any moment of the last day, it’s hard to tell when you don’t speak the language.  Whichever it was, they were hanging on to me, and so was Mondan a bit later.  Especially Keri didn’t go an inch from my side the whole day, apart from when I had to go to work or he had to go for his afternoon sleep!  He was very suspicious - even when we were playing a game and I stood up to get some water, he got up from the game to follow me…

Di is so good with the children! I told her it would be hard to say goodbye and she said it usually takes the children a few days to get over it, but she explains to them that friendship is in your heart and that it doesn’t matter how far you are, you can still be friends.

She took us around the school today, which is not open, because the children have holidays.  There are 105 children (junior primary school) from LWV and 5 from the villages around, but Ronny wants to build another building for the older children, who are taken to a village 2 miles further each morning by truck, but sometimes the teacher just doesn’t turn up and since there are no phones, they have to walk back all the way to LWV.  Someone from Holland has already donated the money for the other building.

Neil and Di had a bakery in Australia and sold it to build a bakery here at LWV, with the sole aim of training people up to also be professional bakers. It is really big and spotless. Neil had spent months researching prices in Australia before they left, but nowhere came in at less than $300,000, so he got quite disheartened as they just could not afford that sort of money.  One day Ronny told him that he could take him to a contact he had in Kuching – a Chinese lady with perfect English, who sold bakery equipment. So off they went and after telling her exactly what they needed, she came up with the price of $28,000. Neil said that couldn’t be right, so she apologised and said she could discount it a little more!!! So Neil got his bakery and proved that if God is in it, it will happen!

Di also told us that when Ronny first saw the land, God told him that this was where he had to build, so he bought it, although he had no money at all.  However, when you make an agreement with someone here and you don’t fulfill your commitment, they can kill you, so by the time Ronny had to pay, he said to God: “This is not funny, this is serious!” Of course the money came in time: a young university student sent the complete amount (apart from 17 cent), because God had told him to give it to this man in Borneo, whom he had heard of!

Ronny was going to come back from Kuching tonight, but when he crossed the border on the way there in the weekend, they told him that the medical stuff which is in the container that had been confiscated was going to be burnt, unless he came and collected it – he was even allowed to pick it up in a truck instead of cars, so that’s quite a miracle suddenly!  That’s why he has to stay a few more days to organize all of that.  We will meet him in Kuching and his wife Kay has just come and said goodbye to us here.

So we are packing our suitcases for the long journey back to Kuching.

It has been a wonderful trip and we had a great group – everyone really has contributed what they could, we all got along very well and we have all been mightily blessed.

We’re not all coming back though: 11 puppets have decided that they are staying here, because they feel really appreciated by the children!... 

I may send another report about our trip back home and some more thoughts and stories which the other members of our party may have, but if we have no Internet in Kuching, that will have to wait until next week.

One last time (for this time at least), greetings from LWV.

See you soon (we may appear barefoot in church on Sunday!).