Check out the following article from the Church News for week ending October 6.
Church aids victims of Indonesia earthquake The Church has been providing assistance to victims of a 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck this area the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 12. (You have to have a subscription to view it online)
A backyard shack
On Thursday Dad had called to one of the members of the LDS Charities team, Bertha. He had gone over the accounting with a fine tooth comb. (an accountant!!) Anyway he had a few questions for her. She came to answer his questions. They kept records of every single thing right down to the last toothpick. She was able to account to him for everything. When we were working together she had offered to take me shopping sometime. I wanted to get a bedspread for this bed. We left home about 12:00. She took us to a place that you would not believe. I can not even explain it. She said this is where Indonesian shop and she told me not to go there with out an Indonesian. There were thousand of purses, shoes, clothes, jewelry, clothing of all kinds. You name it. But since it is Ramadan which I have explained to you and it is about to end. It is like Christmas. They were a million shoppers. It was worse than any shopping at Christmas time. We found what we wanted. We got a good price and would have had to paid more than double at any mall here. She said it was cheaper there too, because of the sales for Ramadan. The traffic was so bad that it took us over 2 hours to get home. We got here at 4:45 and we had to leave at 5:00 to go to our English Class at the church, which starts at 6:30. We got there at 6:20. If the traffic is ever good like it is on Sunday Morning we can get to the church in about 20 min. that is the only time.
John said there will be no traffic next week because everyone will be gone. They all go back to where they were born to celebrate if they can afford it. Even those who are not Muslins because it is a family together time. However there are a lot of people that can't afford it, but they don't have cars. School is out all week too. We are giving our driver most of the week off, because this is tradition. So we will be close around again.
John, our driver, with his wife and son
However we braved it today, Saturday, We took a taxi. We gave the driver the name of The Outback Steak house. He couldn't understand. So we had to call John and he told him where to go. We went and ate the best food since we left home and it wasn't as expensive as it would have been at home. Getting home was the next problem. We were on the wrong side of the road, but there was no way to cross the road. So we took a taxi, but Dad could see it was going to take him hours to get us home, because of the traffic and the direction we were headed so he had him let us out at a place that had a walk over the road and we walked over and were headed the other direction and we were home in no time. So we made it.
One thing I have noticed here is it is so hot all the time, but everbody is dressed very modestly, especially the muslins and the women who have their heads covered, No one wear tank tops and I hardly ever see someone with shorts on. Another thing that is really strange is women take their babysitter or Nanny to the mall with them and they carry the baby around in one of those slings while the mother shops. Today at dinner there was a couple there that had a baby and a little girl that looked about 2 or 2 1/2. They had 2 Nanny's and they were tending the children while the parents ate their dinner. The nanny's were not eating. They just entertained the children. The mother paid absolutely no attention to her children. The father played a little bit with the little girl.
Church aids victims of Indonesia earthquake The Church has been providing assistance to victims of a 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck this area the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 12. (You have to have a subscription to view it online)
A backyard shackOn Tuesday we had an appt with a man that is a member of the Indonesian Parliament. He had set up for a project in Maden which is at the top of Sumatra. That is about a 2 1/2 hour flight. They have missionaries up there. The wheel chairs are ready for delivery. Anyway we made an appointment with this man at 12:00. We met him at the Parliament building and he welcomed us into his office. He spoke English. We talked to him about the wheelchairs and he said that he didn't want them to be delivered until Dec 15th and then there will be a big ceremony with the press and everything. He said, You will be there.... Then we asked him if we could help him in other ways and he started naming the areas that he was in charge of. We told him about the surgeries that had been done for cleft palates and hare lip and he was very interested. He said that he would do some investigating and see if there was a way that we could do that with them too. He talked about an island that he was going to be on at the end of Oct and he got on the phone with Elder Subandriyo and they talked in Indonesian and when he got off the phone he said, you will be there too. We couldn't figure what that was all about. He then called in his asst and said, I want a picture of you with me. I was glad that I had my camera too. Then when we were getting ready to leave he asked Ralph to say a prayer for him. He was so nice to us. We went to leave his office and he walked us out to the front door which was a long ways. We started to shake his hand at the front door and he said No. I am going to walk you to your car. We were both amazed. We are looking forward to going to Maden in Dec.
On Thursday Dad had called to one of the members of the LDS Charities team, Bertha. He had gone over the accounting with a fine tooth comb. (an accountant!!) Anyway he had a few questions for her. She came to answer his questions. They kept records of every single thing right down to the last toothpick. She was able to account to him for everything. When we were working together she had offered to take me shopping sometime. I wanted to get a bedspread for this bed. We left home about 12:00. She took us to a place that you would not believe. I can not even explain it. She said this is where Indonesian shop and she told me not to go there with out an Indonesian. There were thousand of purses, shoes, clothes, jewelry, clothing of all kinds. You name it. But since it is Ramadan which I have explained to you and it is about to end. It is like Christmas. They were a million shoppers. It was worse than any shopping at Christmas time. We found what we wanted. We got a good price and would have had to paid more than double at any mall here. She said it was cheaper there too, because of the sales for Ramadan. The traffic was so bad that it took us over 2 hours to get home. We got here at 4:45 and we had to leave at 5:00 to go to our English Class at the church, which starts at 6:30. We got there at 6:20. If the traffic is ever good like it is on Sunday Morning we can get to the church in about 20 min. that is the only time.
John said there will be no traffic next week because everyone will be gone. They all go back to where they were born to celebrate if they can afford it. Even those who are not Muslins because it is a family together time. However there are a lot of people that can't afford it, but they don't have cars. School is out all week too. We are giving our driver most of the week off, because this is tradition. So we will be close around again.
John, our driver, with his wife and sonHowever we braved it today, Saturday, We took a taxi. We gave the driver the name of The Outback Steak house. He couldn't understand. So we had to call John and he told him where to go. We went and ate the best food since we left home and it wasn't as expensive as it would have been at home. Getting home was the next problem. We were on the wrong side of the road, but there was no way to cross the road. So we took a taxi, but Dad could see it was going to take him hours to get us home, because of the traffic and the direction we were headed so he had him let us out at a place that had a walk over the road and we walked over and were headed the other direction and we were home in no time. So we made it.
One thing I have noticed here is it is so hot all the time, but everbody is dressed very modestly, especially the muslins and the women who have their heads covered, No one wear tank tops and I hardly ever see someone with shorts on. Another thing that is really strange is women take their babysitter or Nanny to the mall with them and they carry the baby around in one of those slings while the mother shops. Today at dinner there was a couple there that had a baby and a little girl that looked about 2 or 2 1/2. They had 2 Nanny's and they were tending the children while the parents ate their dinner. The nanny's were not eating. They just entertained the children. The mother paid absolutely no attention to her children. The father played a little bit with the little girl.
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