What life is like...

December 28, 2010

So many things to say, but so little time to type!  We have been having a great time with the kids here.  Because it is Christmas, they all are on break, which means they are around all the time, and don’t have homework!  Woot!  So we are really enjoying having time to hang out with them, play games, and get to know them as individuals more.  When there are 26 kids it can be hard to get time to figure out their personalities, but we definitely are getting there. But instead of trying to explain everything we have been doing, maybe I’ll give some highlights. 

Yesterday we played telephone with the kids (where you sit in a circle and whisper a message around the circle until it gets back to the start).  These kids have learned some English, and I’m beginning to see their confidence in it grow as we use it with them all the time.  So we played telephone with English words and it was hilarious. Not only do you have the issue of their limited knowledge of English, we also have to contend with Indonesian accents, Slovak accent, Dutch accent, actually only two of us were native English speakers.  And because we had 30% of our circle consisting of teenage boys, they delighted in changing the message on purpose.  Someone was a monkey by the end of one message.  Alex (affectionately called Mr. Bean by the kids) liked coffee instead of it saying that someone else is cute. And they all would yell over top of each other at the end of each round trying to figure out who had changed the message, where it had gotten messed up.   It really was great.

Not only do we have the bigger kids, but there are four little ones as well.  One baby, and three other girls six and under.  And they are precious.  The little English they know is adorable.  They are terrific mimics. I delight in being with any or all of them.  A few days ago, everyone went out for sports in a nearby field and all three of the little girls were with us.  But they needed to go home because their staff member had called for them.  So I had three little Indonesian girls with me as I walked down the street. One was on my hip, and one was holding my hand, and the other was holding her hand. Like that we walked maybe half a block down the street.  But halfway home an Indonesian woman stopped me and was touching their hair and smiling and speaking in Indonesian. I just smiled at her, said good day, and kept walking, but I realized that this lady probably thought they were all mine. Me. With three girls aged 3, 5, 6… yeah right!  And they don’t look like sisters either, so I donno how she accounted for that.  It was a weird experience, especially to have in a different culture and with a language barrier.  Not that you don’t want to take them home, they are that cute.  They just aren’t mine.

Lastly, today we visited a man who owns a church building. His father had built it with his own money, and pastored a church in it, but after his fathers death the church now no longer had a congregation and had fallen into disrepair.  But there is a permit for this building to actually be a church so he wants to make sure that the church is used in that way, because it is so hard to get a permit like that. However, there are major repairs that need to be done.  We asked God what he wants to do with the building, and I really believe that God does have a plan and a use for the building. The problem is that it is unusable in its state.  We asked the man how much it would cost to repair it, thinking how much God would need to provide in order to see the church restored.  We know that God can provide resources to repair it, because we have seen supporters give us huge amounts of money for DTS and we know that it was God’s provision then. I was thinking a couple thousand euro, Alex was thinking maybe 10 or 20 thousand US dollars.  But the true amount is 320 Euro.  That is it. To us that is a tiny amount of money. It is a lot of money in this country.  An iPhone costs more than that in Europe.  And here an entire building can be repaired for God’s use. It blew us away. 

I hate asking for money, but I really think that in this case, there is some legitimacy in asking.   I realize that it is just after Christmas and everyone probably has a big master card bill to pay. But talk to God about it.  See how he wants to use your finances.  See if he will show you something that you don’t need.  See if he wants to use you to repair a church at a fraction of the cost of a church in Canada.  Talk to people in your lives about it.  They know about things like Samaritans purse, but they don’t get to see the before and after pictures of what their money has done in those cases.  I’m so excited because here the money actually has a before and after picture to go with it.  We can hear the testimonies from people who will attend a bible study in this building. We can hear how this builds the ministry that is already happening in this city.  And the money required is so small.  Less than 450 CAD.  It is absolutely crazy to think that God doesn’t want to provide that money, that God wouldn’t want to see his church restored and used again. So I challenge you to pray, and to challenge those around you as well with the story. God can use you to make a huge difference here. (Wow I sound like a World Vision commercial…)

So as you can tell, things are going great here. There are probably 100 more stories I could have written on, but those will have to wait.  Have a great holiday season and Happy New Year!