JUNE

The month of June was spent mainly in preparation for the Family Enrichment Seminar which was held on July 4 & 5. It took a lot of time and kept us very busy, yet we still had to keep up with the water projects and cleft palate surgeries.

The seminar was incredible. This is what we have been working on for the last nine months and it turned out very good. We anticipated having 300 in attendance and there were 377 who attended. The following day was to train the participants to train other people how to have a Family Home Evening. We were expecting 100 to come and there were 150. We have received very good reviews especially from the Minister of Social Affairs who would be equivalent to Mike Leavitt in the USA. He was very pleased with the seminar. Now we can say it is like dropping a big boulder in a lake and watching the ripples go out from there. We are now feeling the ripples and many people are asking to have a seminar in their Regions. The first will be in Solo in Central Java where the Minister of Education wants to include this family evening program in packets that will be sent out to millions of Indonesians. We can hardly believe this ripple. Another ripple came from Medan where our friend Palin Purba (a legislator and President of the Lions Club) is setting up a seminar for the Medan Region. He had four ladies here to learn the program so that they could present it in Medan. A ripple is coming from Bengkulu where we helped in the earthquake emergency relief last September right after we arrived in the mission field, and there are others.

This evening as we were evaluating the seminar and the success and areas that could be improved with the Professors and Author who were visiting from BYU, Soeryo who is the chairperson of the Seminar an advocate of the Family Enrichment Program told us about his experience in holding family home evening. He said that in order for him to recommend this to the Minister of Social Affairs he needed to try it out for himself. He said that it was hard at first, but as time went on each week it got easier. By the 3rd week his boys were asking when they were going to have FHE. He has three boys who are 11, 7, and 3 years. His family was enjoying the experience and have felt some very positive effects, but the real effect was when the teacher of one of the boys called to say that their son had changed completely. He had been shy and reserved and now he will stand up in class will sing and answer questions. She wanted to know what had changed in their home to cause such a change in this boy. Their experience in home evening has given their son confidence and self esteem. This family just happens to be Muslim. What a testimony that becomes in such a short time from some one who is leading out in this program.


We could not believe the excitement after the seminar was over with the maneuvering with different groups wanting pictures take with different ones wanting to stand next to us. Many we didn't even know. We think that they have seen us in their offices as we went from one Minister's office to other to promote the program. We have made a lot of friends in high places within the government through this program. We have visited with Ministers of Education, Christian Affairs, Islamic Affairs, and Director of Family Planning, Woman Empowerment and on and on. We also visited with several NGO's who have great interest in the program. Out of this, Latter-day Saint Charities and the Church has gained great respect from many places. Alwi Schihab who is one of our friends made two different references to the Church in his presentation before the audience. President Marchant spoke in Bahasa Indonesian and made reference to Brigham Young University being own and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all before television cameras and news media. We have seen the Lord's hand in all of this with one stumbling block after another overcome which is testimony in of itself that the Lord wanted this program for Indonesia.

Then on Friday we left here at 7:00 am. Registration was to begin at 8:00 am, but there were a lot of people there already to go in. It was just amazing they just kept coming. The program was good and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. The next morning we left early again they were taking the participants by bus to the other location. When we got to the hotel they had to call for another bus, plus they were all the mission cars and many people drove there themselves. I talked to one man there and he had got up at 3:30 to get there in time to ride the bus. We had over 150 there. We thought maybe we would get 100 to come. They all enjoyed the less formal situation and also the group was divided into 3 groups so they were able to have more participation from the groups. It went from 10 to 3:30 and it was hard to get people to leave they wanted more. I would have to say it was a huge success and worth all of the work we have put into it. We had an evaluation meeting after with Subandriyo, Soreyo, the Palmers and the people from BYU. Everyone felt it was great. Sister Sheffield who wrote the book was so helpful and is going to aid us in getting the story about Indonesia into the booklet. She is an incredible lady and her story about how the book came to be is also incredible. This is truly the work of Heavenly Father. We told her about some of the hurdles we have had to go over and she made the statement that you know it is the Lord's work then, because if you don't have any stumbling blocks (which is Satan) in your path you know that he was in there working to stop the program. We saw so many stumbling block especially in the last weeks. The President would not let any of us wear our missionary badges either day. I wished so many times I had it on because people wonder who we were.