Road to Indonesia-----Haitian Missionary Release

 A fellow CMA missionary here has a personal contact with the missionaries kidnapped in Haiti.  Her daughter-in-law's aunt was one of the hostages. On Sunday the friend here was able to tell us the story which is now public.  On Sunday we were still asked to wait to tell the story, but we just listened to a newscast from Christian Aid Ministry.  The 12 missionaries who were left imprisoned waited on God and became convinced they were to try to escape.  At the point when there was a shift in guards and no one was present, they were able to open the door where they were being confined and walk 10 miles through the jungle to safety.  This involved a 10 month old that they had securely wrapped so the briers they traversed would not harm and a 3 year old.  The missionary here related it to Peter's escape from prison.  What an incredible story of faithfulness. The mission newscast was full of prayers that the kidnappers would find faith in Christ. They also reported that there were o

Road to Indonesia---Fear of Death and "Holy St. Francis"

 The assignment was to personalize quotes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar .  This response relates Shakespeare to Papua.  “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.  Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,  It seems to me most strange that men should fear,  Seeing that death, a necessary end,  Will come when it will come,” (Shakespeare.2.2.32-37).  In this excerpt, Caesar is replying to Calpurnia’s outbursts of worry for his fate. She is begging him not to go to the Senate that day as the omens are incredibly bad. But Caesar in his arrogance replied in a steadfast way. He believes that only cowards bow down to the fear of death, therefore dying even before the fight. The brave and honorable, however, proceed in the face of death and welcome death when it comes. He thinks that everyone will experience death in the end and that it is not worth fearing.  The thing that captures my attention is the last three lines. Death is a necess

Road to Indonesia---Staff Party

 Just had a lovely staff Christmas party.  The interim director's wife pretty much did the whole thing.  It was such a success with beautiful enchiladas.  Now, you might think that rather strange for a Christmas banquet, but there is no Mexican food here unless we make it ourselves, so it was just wonderful to have enchiladas with all the condiments.  And carrot raisin salad....raisons are not available often. Some people could not come or were late because it was raining and motor scooters are not the best transport in a downpour.  Again, what one does not think of when you are sitting in the US.  Of course it is rain not snow that we are contenting with.  It is 90's most of the day, and humid....have I mentioned that it is always hot? In the picture I am wearing a 3/4 length sleeve. I really questioned if I could walk the quarter mile from my house to the a/c in the school with this length sleeve?  I doubt I have had on long sleeves more than 3 times in 6 months. Did you know

Road to Indonesia---"So that He could be killed"

 Today in church we were given a quote by Tim Keller, "Jesus became human so that He could be killed."  That is a shocking statement to me, but completely true.  One cannot kill God.  The only way for God to be killed would be for Him to become human. That is what Christmas is all about, the beginng of the end.... of the beginning.   The peacher also gave a fun illustration that those of us who have lived in tropical countries understand. He said when he was a little first grade boy in the dorms here in Sentani,  he once saw a troop of ants trying to move a cicuk (geiko) from the floor to the hole in the wall that lead to their home.  The little tiny ants kept manfully (personification) carrying the huge cicuk up a wall, over some sort of window sill, down the wall, across the floor, and into the hole in the wall. Now all they really had to do was stick to the floor and they would get to the hole in the wall.  The preacher as a boy, kept licking his finger and disrupting the

Road to Indonesia---Hallelujah! Our Money from the Bank

 We are in  the final steps of getting the last of the money out of our bank account in China!!  For two (2) I repeat 2, years we have spent time and energy (and frustration) on trying to access our China bank account. During this time,  PKU has conitnued to pay our salaries into these accounts for 2 years.  Did I mention that this process has been pursued for 2 years? The convoluted process is too long  to outline, but it involved an overnight drive from SC to PA to deliver the paperwork to the PA Secretary of State, notary publics illegally trading our signatures on papers,  hiring someone to take paperwork to the China embassy in New York, bothering friends in Beijing to go strip our account after affidavids presenting our passports, signed notarized documents,  verification of who the  notary was who verfied our documents through state departments,  apostille kind of paperwork from embassies, etc. etc.  Then the money being wired from the friend's account to our stateside accou

Road to Indonesia----S.E.W.

  The high school students had their SEW overnight.  SEW means “spiritual emphasis week”, which is a common event in Christian schools. Only here for the high school it is an overnighter, not a week of meetings.  We feel too old to go and really stay with the kids, but we visited them on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. The kids had asked me if we were going to be there.  The game they were playing on Friday afternoon, was one of the more unpleasant and culturally dictated games that I can envision.  They taped eggs onto the top of their heads and then took fresh fish and beat each other over the head until the egg broke.  Where in the US would you be able to purchase 20 fresh fish to beat each other with? The kids were rather grossed out with the eggs splattering all over themselves. They weren’t thrilled with handling the fish either, but it was within their realm of possibility?  What youth group in the US would even imagine doing this???? The other meeting I went to Saturday

Road to Indonesia----"To the Ends of the Earth"

 https://maf.org/ Pull up the Mission Aviation Fellowship website. It can direct you to the closest theater showing of their video, "To the Ends of the Earth", featuring Indonesia.  I have not seen it but heard some of the stories on it....from the real live people. Go watch it!!

Road to Indonesia---Blood Donation

 I have asked around and may not have this story exactly right, but I will share what little I know. In one of the villages last Sunday, the church was attacked by people from another tribal group with bows and arrows and possibly machetes.  People were killed and at least 8 serious injuries.  MAF flew out 6 of the injured people here to Sentani for medical care.  Two of them were too seriously injured, on oxygen, and could not fly out.  We do not know what their condition is.  An emergency call for blood donations went out. A major need is AB+ blood.  I have AB+ blood and responded that I would gladly donate but I had hepatitis 40+ years ago and thought I could not.  They asked the doctor and he said if it was hep A, I could still donate.  There was also a question if I was too old, but the answer was if I was in good health.  So we went up to school today with a group of missionaries to wait for the Red Cross blood donation workers to arrive. They were delayed and delayed again, but

Road to Indonesia---PON Games

 What a tremendous privilege.  The PON National Sports Week Games are being hosted in Papua, which means things are very, very busy around here for the next 2 weeks. A huge gorgeous new stadium as well as numerous other locations around the area have been built. The games are played every 4 year and were to have been played in 2020, but like so much else was delayed by a year.  That our remote island was chosen to host these activities is really quite something. The airport that must accomodate all this activity is just a few miles down the road from us.  The main stadium is about 20 minutes away.  There has been much speculation about how this might effect we who live here, from internet shut down, to crippling traffic, but so far, so good.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Sports_Week_(Indonesia) https://en.tempo.co/read/1513102/jokowi-3-papuan-boys-play-soccer-at-national-games-opening

Road to Indonesia---Scarlet Letter

 Teaching Scarlet Letter.   I guess I might be assuming too much.  On about the third or fourth day of class, after much discussion even, the students were looking rather blank. I said, "You know that red emblem on her chest." A boy blurted out, "Nipple!"  The class wentRo downhill from there.

Road to Indonesia---Gospel II

 This Sunday in church there was an update on the Pulu tribe that was mentioned in my blog titled "Gospel".  A team had gone into the tribe in the midst of tribal warfare. Some of the people had come from 4 to 6 hours to live in the village as the team storied 6 days a week, telling them the Story from Genesis to Christ.  When the team members finally got to the Gospel message a few weeks ago, 73 people accepted Jesus.  What a wonderful answer to prayers.  We have completed a week of face to face classes.  No one has gotten sick. What a tremendous answer to prayer.  I cannot tell you how incredibly fulfilling this work is: to work daily to mentor these kids.  Yes, I am very, very busy, but the plusses greatly outweigh the hours of work and tiredness.  We also are fully back into our online classes for Peking University.  That adds another whole pile of essays.  Please pray for wisdom and strength. Our money from the bank in China also seems to be ready for the last step, but

Road to Indonesia---Beach Trip

 Hillcrest International School (HIS) has many long standing and important traditions. One of the fun ones is a two night beach trip early in the fall of every school year for the entire high school.  Because of covid no trip transpired last year and the trip this year was only one day.  Last Friday was our Beach Day.  Rick and I went. Just more as warm bodies than anything else.  I had only been at the beach once since coming to Indonesia, although it is an island and surrounded by the Pacific Ocean.  The kids, most of whom grew up here,  obviously were completely at home and in love with the water.  It was only a matter of minutes after we arrived that everyone was out in the waves.  The beach is darker sand and there were intricate lacy patterns built by small sand balls all over it.  I guess a certain type of crab builds tunnels and rolls these little balls of sand out of their holes and somehow place them in these remarkable patterns. (Isn't God just amazing?)  The water was t

Memory from moving into apartment in China

  Memory from moving into our apartment in China. Ann Morrison Marklund A t u g S u s e l o r t i p o n f l s   3 m 0 t o ,   m u o g r r e 2 0 1 7 h d g n    ·  Shared with Your friends So today is the washing machine saga. When we washed clothes yesterday with our tiny front loading washing machine located in my teeny tiny kitchen, we found that the clothes were really hot when we took them out. In other words, the clothes are being washed in hot water. The first thing I did was try to decipher the picture of the machine on the wall of the kitchen. Part of it is in English, words like "cold", "rinse", but it still does not make sense. So I wechatted (Chinese social media) to the previous resident of the apartment in Vancouver, BC. I asked her how she got cold into her washing machine. She wrote that the diagram was on the wall of the kitchen. That did not help. So while I was wondering what the next step was, the maids came to the apartment door to ask if they cou

Road to Indonesia---BATS

 I just got caught outside in the rain.  There is no church here now and I was up early, and my  lessons for next week were weighing on my mind, so I went to school at about 6.  I feel relieved now about things for next week, but as I walked home at 7:30, I heard the rain start to chase me. It was an uncomfortable feeling, because I could hear it and even see it sweeping in off the mountain, but knew that I could not outrun it. If it had been Panama I might have just stepped into a doorway somewhere and waited the 20 minutes that it took, but one is never sure here in Papua how long the rains are going to last. It also was not a Panamanian Embarrassing Rain, so called, because it rains so hard that one's clothes are completely soaked to the point of embarrassment. So I just walked as fast as I could the 1/4 of mile or so I had yet to get home and arrived soaked. It is always warm and it is easy to change clothes, so everything is fine. Why didn't I have an umbrella? (I am now r

Road to Indonesia----49th Anniversary.

 We forgot until about 3 p.m. this afternoon that today is our 49th weddng anniversary.  It is always in some way related to the busy time around the beginning of school. Tonight was the parent/teacher open house and we were busy teaching and then with the meeting.  I had remembered earlier in the week, but just not today.  Rick came into the classroom after school and reminded me. It does not mean that we do not love and appreciate each other. It just means that we are busy.  We also have no real place to go. No transport, and semi locked down.  So we ate the supper which the school had prepared for teachers for staying late.  We are home and soon will head to bed. I could write much about the many years together and how we basically work very well as a team. I could write how our outlook on life has made it possible for us to travel and support each other through  so many transitions.  I could write about our 4 lovely children and 5 grandchildren which are the result of our marriage.

Road to Indonesia---Banking

 After a year and a half of being locked out of our China bank account, we seemingly are on the last leg!!  This summer we finally were able to fulfill the directions sent out the beginning of December, 2020 as to how finally we could get our money without sending our actual passports to China (which was just impossible).  We wrote a letter assigning banking privileges to a friend in Beijing. We had the letter and photocopies of our passports notarized. Then the paperwork had to be verfied by the Pennsylvania Secretary of State.  (We did these steps 8 months ago before we went to Indonesia, but the notary had exchanged our paperwork and made Rick's mine, and mine Rick's. And so we repeated the process first thing in the US this summer.) Then these forms must be verfied by the Chinese embassy.  We had to hire an agent to do this step (expensive).  All of this paperwork has been sent to our friends/co-workers in China!.....But, as often happens with us, the old ATM cards which we

Road to Indonesia---School

 Three days of school done. One face-to-face and 2 online.  Truthfully, this is the first time I have taught online. Now, of course, I have spent a year teaching online for Peking University, but I have recorded my lectures and just sent that. Considering that I was in the States with a 12 hour difference for at least part of the time, I am glad that this was a possibility.  However,  here with high school students and teaching many hours a day, it has become necessary for me to be able to use Google Classroom. I could not be more proud of myself!!! I have even learned to use two monitors while I teach, so I can show the students my desktop documents and still keep an eye on them.  For someone my age and so technologically challenged, I am just bursting that I was able to learn this....and rather quickly. Of course, the school realizing Rick and my ineptitude assigned an aide to us for the first 3 days to help.  His time was well spent and we both now supposedly can do this ourselves. 

Road to Indonesia---Gospel

 Some prayer requests from the translators in church yesterday:  The Dem tribe which had come enmasse to acceptance of Christ a few months ago, just suffered the death of two 11 year old boys.  I assume they died of covid.  The missionaries reported that the parents, who had recently become Christians, are  staying strong.  But of course there are all the questions that come with deaths at any time, and within the culture their beliefs about what causes death reflect on their recent conversions.  \ Another missionary reported that the Pulu tribe is in the middle of intertribal war and political unrest.  A three person team flew in a few months ago to begin Bible storying, which will lead to the presentation of the claims of the gospel.  There are about 130 people who are attending the storying 6 days a week. Some have walked 4 hours to be able to attend.  There is a month or more of meetings left.  The missioanries were asking for prayer for the tribe. What exciting things God is doing

Road to Indonesia---We're Here

 We are safely to Papua.  Definite answer to prayer for our luggage.  Two big ones checked through just fine. The wonderful man pushing my wheelchair looked at our carry on luggage and just gave us a baggage claim ticket and had our very over weight carry-on's put as baggage, at no charge!! Best 100,000 rupiyah ($7 USD) tip I ever gave!  Easy sailing after that. Even anti-climatical after all the worry about not getting on flights.  No one questioned us.  In fact the flights were quite full.  We arrived in Papua to hear that the government has just announced that all flights will be canceled from Auguat 1-28 and then be re-evaluated. We were scheduled to fly to Papua on August 5.  I am so so so glad we made it here. The government is also not letting the school (or anyone presumably) issue even visitor's visas, so at this point about 4 of the teachers are feet on the ground to start the school year.  Did I mention how extremely glad I am that God prompted us to move our flights

Road to Indonesia---flight delay

 Well, yesterday evening we were sent articles stating that because of Eid al-Adha no flights will be allowed.  This is to curb traveling for family get togethers. What I find just a little strange is that we were given this directive 2 days after it was to have begun.  Theoretically, we should have been able to fly out today to Papua.  Our 8 days of quarantine are done (Wednesday), we have a negative covid test, etc. Now, it appears that we will need to stay through Sunday or Monday.  However, our organization is writing a letter requesting an exception.  Will it work? Regardless, we should be able to move around a bit more freely: take a walk, use the fitness equipment in the hotel, etc. However, Jakarta is locked down pretty firmly as far as we can tell, so I don't know that moving around is realistic or desirable.  Another factor that needs prayer is that they say our carryon's can only be 7 kg (about 15 pounds).  Well, we got our big check through bags down to 44 pounds (2

Road to Indonesia--Eid al-Adha

 Today is Tabaski as we call it in Senegal, or Eid al-Adha for the rest of the Muslim world.  It is the remembrance of when Abraham was to sacrifice Ishmael. (You might remember the story a little differently.)  Even after 7+ years in Muslim countries, I have so many, many questions, and sometimes not a good source to get the answers.  In Dakar, Senegal for this holiday there were literally thousands of sheep and goats in every median or spare space leading up to this holiday.  They were bought, taken home, fattened a bit, slaughtered, and roasted today.  Then the whole extended family and neighbors and friends came to share the feast.  Now, Indonesia overall is supposedly a much more observant Muslim country, but as I look out my 10th floor hotel room window, I have not seen one single animal.  How can they celebrate Eid al-Adha without a sacrifice....and how do they participate in high rise apartments?  Part of it might be that Jakarta is locked down pretty severely I think because o

Road to Indonesia---China zoom conference, meals

 Just had a Zoom conference with the teachers from our China mission.  There will only be 4 left in China this fall, although another 6 or 7 of us will be teaching online still.  ONE member of our group has successfully received a return visa!! and it took tremendous work and money.  The 3 sets of covid tests that he needed to get, then had to have jpg pictures of the whole process downloaded to China website. I mean pictures of the man with his viles of blood, and the nurse who accompanied him, etc. etc. It cost about $500 and about 1 and a half hours to do these tests. The real shocker, though, is that his return ticket is costing $6000 oneway.  Can you imagine?  (Our return tickets one way to Jakarta, a little bit further as to distance cost us $480....but it was an exceptionally good price.)  As much as we would love to be back in China, I am so glad that the Lord has sent us to Indonesia, and as much hassle as it was to get here, it pales in comparison to China regs.   We are star

Road to Indonesia---Online school and visas

 Just to keep you up on current circumstances so you can pray.  At this point Papua is on lock down until August 14.  Our director told us this morning that we should anticipate online teaching for at least the first 3 days of school (classes are to begin August 11), but realistically the end of August for online seems feasible. Some families are indicating that they will homeschool rather than do online teaching because of financial difficulties if online is the only option. We need full enrollment participation to meet budget, we are told, although everyone  empathisizes with parents' dilemma.   It changes every day whether the Sentani Airport which is our town will be closed or not. Please pray that it is open when we are done with 8 days quarantine. Many people are also caught in the States right now becasue of the new dictate that children over 12 must be fully vaccinated. The parents were done with their vaccination, but now the wait for the completion of their children. Many

Road to Indonesia---Jakarta

 Here we are....in Jakarta.  It was a long, long trip, with uncomfortable 12 hour layover mostly in the baggage area of O'Hare Airport in Chicago, but we survived.  We slept alot on the plane.  The airport agents and immigration officials all accepted our visas, vaccination cards, and negative covid tests without any questions!!! (That is a real miracle.)  The hotel that I had booked with Holiday Inn rewards points wanted to deny that reservation and make us pay the quarantine package price which would have cost us about $700.  But I convinced them to accept the reward room rates and just add on payments for 2 meals a day.  They wanted to add on laundry as well, but I can spend the next 8 days in my jammies if I want, so we do not need laundry.  The room is nice: sitting room and bedroom. I have to figure out how to get enough exercise in this space so that I can sleep at night, and to help overcome jetlag, even 2 tv's.  They decide the menu, which is going to not really be som

Road to Indonesia: Flying Tomorrow, Monday

  So we fly out tomorrow (Monday, July 12) at 5:00 a.m.   We were able to get pretty much everything done (China bank request,   a year’s worth of meds purchased,   tax records almost complete, rv usage verified, etc. etc.), and also even had enough time to go swimming with the fam, and visit dear, dear friends. ….not enough sleep though.   Our biggest prayer request as I lie here in the early morning is that the covid testing results work out.   The specific kind of test (PCR) needs to be done within 72 hours of departure, but sometimes it takes 72 hours to get the test back from the lab, which renders it useless.   We will wait today anxiously for the paperwork.   I also just received 2 notifications from mission groups in Indonesia that as of Monday (our departure date) they are restricting the labs that can be used to provide covid tests (742 Labs, and I do not even know what that means).   So besides prayers that we get the tests back, we also need prayers that it is from an accep

Road to Indonesia-- Here we go again!

  Back to being as flexible as we need to be. I got up Monday morning to the news that hotel quarantine in Jakarta has been extended from 5 days to 8 days.(Ugh----do you know how long 8 days confined to a hotel room is?)   Also, that covid cases in Jakarta are spiking drastically. Although no official word has been shared, they have the history of suddenly closing airports (January / February and May for Ramadan). We are concerned about that. Therefore I just changed our July 26 tickets to July 12.   The only thing besides hurried preparations that are being affected is the FL portion of our trip to be with Peace. We were with her for a week in PA and VA the end of June, so we have seen her. Sorry not to make that portion, but she is being very understanding. We just drove the two days necessary to get from MA to SC.   Now I am trying to prep all the paperwork necessary and will get up tomorrow morning early to start the foot work.   I want to be clear that this trip is not the neces

Father's Day Mechanic

 We were traveling from PA to VA on Sunday, Father's Day.  It was to meet with most of the rest of our family for our vacation together. I95 was hot and crowded with slow downs most of the way.  A motorcyclist drove up to the passenger side window and yelled, "Your brakes are on fire!"  And when we looked, yes, there was smoke pouring out of the wheel well.  I got it to the side of the road and let it cool down and then got off at an exit, pumping the brakes and trying not to go too fast. Finally we had to get off the road and pulled into the first available turn off. It was a Spanish church, and it was just letting out the service!  Paul, our eldest, was somewhere behind us on the road and I got on the phone to see if he could come rescue us, but I did not even know what town we were in.  I stopped a lady and she said we were in Fredericksburg, which led to a pastor who got a huge jug of water and started dousing our sizzling tires. He introduced us to a parishoner walki

Jet Lag

 Any of you who have travled long distances know one of the absolutely worst parts in jet lag.  I slept less than 2 hours last night....but had a 2 hour nap this afternoon.  The only good part was that I could plan my activities for today.  In the middle of the night, I knocked my glasses off from beside the bed.  Horrors: the ear piece broke!! We were all ready scheduled to try to solve Rick's glasses problem, because a lens popped out the last night in Indonesia and we could not find it. So just one more glasses issue.  I was surprised checking on my phone to see that Planet Fitness and Walmart are not open all Sunday night long, as I was used to.  If they had been I would have started on that part of my list. Instead I spent from 11:30 to 12:30 on the phone figuring out my United Airlines Mileage Plus account, but I had the time. We were up and away this morning by 6:30.  By 10 we had bought 2 new tires (we could see the metal threads on the front van tires),  solved our glasses

Traveling.....as usual

 We left our apartment at 7 this morning and it is now 14 hours later and we have only taken the first leg of our 4 stops.  It is a long, hot layover in Jakarta from Sentani.  Indonesia is as wide as the US, but it is mostly water. It means that our first leg is kind of like flying from the East Coast of the US to the West Coast. That is just the first short piece. It took close to 5 hours. And then an 8 hour layover. Now we will soon board the plane to go to Japan, a 7 hour trip with a 3 hour layover. After that it is a 12 hour trip to Houston with a 3 or so hour layover and then on to SC where Peter will meet us. We will be about 40+ hours from the time we leave our apartment until we are done.  It would be easier if it were not so hot, with very cold airplanes in between. For the first time in 6 months I put on blue jeans, socks, and regular shoes.  By the time I was in the airport half an hour later I was dripping sweat, but was cold on the airplane.  In Jarkarta for the long lay o

INTERNET

 After about 6 weeks without very available internet it is finally turned back on.  Although it was very difficult at first, having to get up in the middle of the night to find availalbe time slots,  walking the 1/3 or so mile to school every time I wanted to use internet, and finding one of about 4 computers that were connected to the ASAT line,  it did become routine after while.  Our lives definitely changed without internet being instantly available in our home.  Of particular difficulty, of course, was keeping up with our online Peking University courses, but ultimately we were able to conquor that mountain and keep up.  We missed times of being easily able to communicate with family probably the most.  Paying our credit cards and keeping track of finances was also confusing.  Now, as we are ready to fly out to the US in 3 days, we finally are back online.  God, as always, made a way for us to continue.  We will remember this time of inconvenience in the same vein as getting used

Road to Indonesia----Another snake story

 Just a follow up on the snake story: "A woman in Indonesia was swallowed whole by a python as she checked on her cornfields last week. According to  The Washington Post , citing the  Jakarta Post , the woman's name was Wa Tiba and lived on Muna Island off the coast of Sulawesi. She left her home Thursday night to visit her cornfield about a half mile from her home.  Reticulated pythons are common in the area, but it was actually wild boars that Wa had been worried about initially because they'd be destroying her crops, according to the Jakarta Post's report.  When Wa didn't return, her sister went out to find her and found Wa's footprints, flashlight, slippers, and machete. On Friday, 100 villagers from Persiapan Lawela searched the area and found a 23 foot-long snake with a very swollen belly. The villagers killed the snake, cut it open, and found Wa inside intact. She probably didn't die inside the snake: A reticulated python secures its prey with a bite

Road to Indonesia--- Two Things

 Two things: 1. You know there is some teaching necessary when....  I asked the grade 8 students if they had all ready read "Diary of Anne Frank".  One boy said, "Oh, yes.  So sad that poor little blind deaf girl."  Well, no. haha 2.  I was just at a student counsel sponsored movie night.  Anyone who wants to, gathers at the gym, sits or lies on the floor and watches a movie projected on the wall. Being a tropical country, this gym does not really have walls, More a roof and a floor, although there are stone bleachers, etc.  Towards the end of the movie, all of a sudden there was a commmotion in the middle of the audience. Then I heard the yell, "Snake!"  We all started to move, the ligths were put on, and sure enough there was a snake slithering through the middle of the us.  It was a small snake, but still a snake. A man came and captured it half under a cup and carried it away. And we went on with the movie.   P. S. Our virtual accreditation visit went

Road to Indonesia---Evangelizing

 Such a thrilling missionary story as relayed in church today that I just had to share it: The missionary who works with the Nagi tribe had an emergency that he had helped with. A boy had been shot in the eye with a pellet gun. (His comment was "Yes, you can 'shoot your eye out', but I feel badly saying it that way because it is so serious.")  The pellet is still lodged in one of the canals behind the eye and they are trying to get him to Jakarta for more advanced help. While the missionary was talking to the father, child, and one of the father's nephews this morning before the missionary came to church, they read about the rich young ruler's rejection of Christ. The father had previously expressed his concern about the salavation of the nephew to the missionary.  As they read the Bible this morning, the father said, "Yes, the rich young ruler rejected the Trail Blazer. He was following other things." The father then spent 45+ minutes starting in wi

Road to Indonesia----Accreditation Visit

Next week is our school's accreditation visit. This is conducted by international organizations about every 6 years.  It assures parents that we provide a good education for their children. It allows students to hold a report card and diploma that will be accepted by other schools and universities.  It drives teachers and admin to continue to improve and grow.  It provides a plan for future actions.  Any of you that have participated in these kinds of visits  know how important....and how agitating these visits are.  They represents literally years and years of preparation.  Soooo, our visit starts on Monday for 4 days.  Because of covid it will be virtual, which I am trying to wrap my brain around. I have been on the recieving end of these visits in MD, Senegal, etc.  I have also been part of the teams who visits other schools to accredit them in Cameron, Belgium, and Togo.  Always interesting.  Sooooo, next week is our turn. The staff have done a wonderful job preparing for this.

Road to Indonesia--- Spreading the Gospel

 As we sit in church each Sunday here there is always time for prayer and praise.  This often takes quite a while. The first few Sundays I felt it took too long and was a distraction from the rather already long service. But the longer I am here, it has become maybe the most important part of Sunday morning.  Today an elderly lady introduced her adult son and his fiance.  She is here because it is time to dedicate the New Testament that she and her husband have worked on for years and years. Her son was one of their five children raised in the village. His request was for the dedication but also for the meetings in their tribe on Monday when decisions will be made about progressing to the Old Testament translation. Another missionary gave testimony about three tribal gentlemen who had been given money by the government.  They had many plans for this money, but finally agreed that they were going to do a special printing of the stories of the Bible that had been translated and give them