Earthquake

There have been several earthquakes in Indonesia during the last week. We are being flown to Sumatra early in the morning to inspect the damage and see what has to be done for the people. We won't be coming back until Sunday and we had to buy raisins, crackers, cookies, etc to keep us alive because we probably won't be able to find food. It will be interesting. We did not feel any of the earthquakes and did not know it had happened until the area authority contacted us and asked us to make sure all the members and elders in the area are okay and to find out if there has been any damage to any of the church buildings. We made a few phone calls and everyone and everything is okay.

(NOTES FROM DAD): One week to the day after we arrived in Jakarta the earthquake struck in Bengkulu on the West coast of Sumatra. Two days latter we found ourselves in Bengkulu with a team of volunteers with LDS Charities. The things that happened during the next two and a half weeks surely showed us that the Lord’s hand was in this work. We were met by leaders of a Christian Organization which were determined before hand and they drove us to their church board room and we met the leadership of their church and then to lunch at a Indonesian restaurant (the beginning of a new experience) and then to a motel, a nice motel with a great view of the Indian ocean. They were full and no room at the inn. A reference was made to a motel down the road, not quite as nice but ok. The hotel owner had a car that could be of use and his son would drive and we were on our way north to Lais this is about one and half hour drive. On our way seeing some earthquake damage here and there, but as we approached Lais the damage was great. Nearly every home was damage to some degree or other. Once we stopped at a home who was completely destroyed was living under a tiny tarp with not much protection. We gave them a large trap and told them that we would be back with some food the next day. Then just down the road a kilo another house was caved in and as we visited with the owner of the house he said pointing to the area of his bedroom,” this is where my family would have been sleeping if it had happened later at night and they would have been killed”. We saw home after home in the same situation, we gave out several tarps until we ran out. On one occasion there a dispute over who would get the tarps and the woman who ended up with the tarps came over to me and kissed my one cheek and then the other and then again, finally I put my arms around her and picked her off the ground and hugged her with her feet dangling from the ground. Everybody laughed. She was a short fat woman.

We traveled back to Bengkulu late at night, went right to a market place to buy food, had it shipped to the home of the Christian leader Mr. Hassn, We then met with Muhammadiyah and made arrangements to supply him food which he would take to Mukomuko which is further north. Then later that night we meet at the Hassn home where they had member of their Christian church prepared bags of food for 250 families.

The next morning we got up early went to the lobby of the hotel where we had been meeting and having our planning meetings, and we notice this lady there asking us question about what we were doing. Ummi and her husband quickly volunteered to help us. She lived in Bengkulu as a child, knew the area and could help us buy food at cheaper prices than we were getting, and sure enough she took us to a rice warehouse and to other food distributors where we found all our needs. She left the next day to return to Jakarta she helped to buy supplies that could not be purchased in Bengkkulu and arranged for a truck to deliver them to Bengkulu. And by 1:00 PM that day we had loaded a truck for Muhammadiyah and sent him of to Mukomuko and had rice and food packages for five hundred for another truck load to Lais.

The next two weeks were full of activity in preparing packets of food and delivering to the different villages in the North Bengkulu region. Greeting the people, shaking the hands, having pictures taken with bula’s in their pictures and singing a folk song in Indonesian which we learned, and seeing there strained faces turn to smiles and laughter. We often heard from the local residents “that nobody has ever done this for us”!!

Truly, the hand of the Lord was in the work that was done during that two and half weeks. We are not alone in this work. On one occasion as were meeting the people and shaking their hands, one Indonesian lady held up her arm and place next to Sister Walker’s arm and was saying something that we couldn’t understand and Bertha who interpreted for us, “she said even though our skin is different we are sisters.” I realized more at this time, more than any time that these are our brothers and sisters. They are children of our Father in Heaven; we are indeed brothers and sisters. As I pondered this I realized that those who have joined the church in Indonesia are strong in the faith and are like the Lamanites who were taught by the sons of Mosiah, they were strong in the faith. These Indonesians are like unto them, strong in the faith, and they are our brothers and sisters in the Gospel. Those whom we were meeting in these villages are our brother and sister whom I believe will join the church in due time. May be not in this life but in next life they will join, and we are setting the stage for that conversion. Now I have grown to love these people because they are the children of our Heavenly Father and I know this is true.