Happy Birthday Grandma!

A Birthday Song for Grandma!

April

Wheelchair Deliveries
Our good friend Jemmy Mongan who has helped us so much with the family enrichment program mentioned that he had a good friend who belonged to a Christian Church that needed three wheelchairs for members of his church. After we got the wheelchairs shipped to various destinations like Surabaya, Central Java, Semarang, and Jogjakarta, where our couple missionaries were to distribute these chairs, we took three wheelchairs to his church one Sunday. That was quite the experience. There was a lady there who was 87 years old, who needed a wheelchair. We had taken one for her. Then we took some wheelchairs to a couple of older men who lived close by. As we went to the house of the one man we entered it and there was no furniture in the place that he lived, but in a small dark bedroom there a wooden bed with nothing else on it except a little man. He had a small rag, which looked like a small towel. The men lifted him into the wheelchair and wheeled it out into the sunshine. The preacher of the Christian Church told us that he had not been out of the bed for about 6 months. His little granddaughter jumped right up into his lap. It was so cute. We then took one to another man. Jemmy's friend was there also. We invited us to his place. He owns a little grocery store and he took us to his office and we talked to him about our church and the English classes. He was interested in both. Later Jemmy called and invited him to church next week. He said he would be there, but he wanted us to be there also. We went to church today and he was there and had a lot of questions about the church. He is going to attend District conference next week in Jakarta and bring his family.

We had a wheelchair ceremony on top of a mountain and was quite the sight. These are really poor people. Three people were brought and carried in. One woman who had brought her husband in was sitting there just sobbing. I went over to comfort her and she just hugged and hugged and hugged me. She spoke through an interpreter and said she just couldn't believe that anybody would care about them like that and just give them something that they needed so bad. Now her husband was crying. She showed me the bones that had been taken out of his hip of course that is all they did so he was not able to walk. So this was a gift to her as much as it was to him because now she could help him get around. It was very touching and brought tears to the eyes of us all. Before the ceremony was over there were about 20 men and woman who had a new wheel chair. Their faces were as bright as the sunshine that was all around us.

We went to another wheel chair ceremony. It is gratifying to be apart of being able to give something to someone in need. A family brought a picture of a teenager who had a tumor below her knee. Her leg was as big as a large cantaloupe. Then they showed a picture of her where they had amputated her leg below the knee. We gave them a wheelchair.

Family Enrichment

We now have a partner in the Family Enrichment Program (FEP) who is National Movement of the Social Interest. They will be implementing the FEP. This Non Government Organization (NOG) manages the Indonesian Social Affairs. Their government's mandate is to expand n1. National Health Care, 2. Education 3. Strengthening Families. They where looking for some way to strengthen families and we happened to be at the right place and the right time. We were about ready to give up when Elder Sugandriyo suggested that we talk to your good friend Parlin Purba is the Legislator for the Medan Region. He has handled 500 wheelchairs for LDSC in that Region for us and has been very much a friend. They made an appointment with Parlin Purba and that's all it took. He was able to direct us to National Movement of the Social Interest.

We have a couple here Bertha and Hendro (they are on the LDSC team) who are professional in the recording industries here. They are going to make a family home evening video to go with the Family Enrichment booklet. We spent the morning with them discussing what needed to be on the DVD. The DVD will have government leader's support and financial sponsor's statements. Offering a segment on how to organize family night, a family planning chart, and helpful hints for a "Weekly Family Night", ideas for lessons, and for activities, and clips of several families expressing how "Weekly Family Night" has strengthened their family. Events of this seminar will be televised and special attention will be given to the DVD clip on an Indonesian family ma family home evening which is anticipated to be repeated several times during the week. At the end of each DVD presentation of the family night, explanation will be made as to where a Family Enrichment Program manual can be obtained. It is intended that a copy of the DVD will be distributed with each family enrichment Program manual. The NGO is prepared to obtain sponsors enough to finance 100,000's of these manuals.

Then we went to another meeting and met with a group that are going to sponsor the whole seminar. The Lord really provided a way for his work to be done, because these people are amazing and they are going to pay for the whole thing and make all the arrangments for it. We are just going to have to support them. We are having some people come out from the BYU to speak and be involved in the seminar including the author of the FE booklet. They are impressed I think that we can come up with professional people who will come and be involved like this. Elder Palmer is helping them to also speak in 2 other countries here nearby. It is going to be on the 4th and 5th of July.

Water Projects

We have the clean water project started for Central Java which will carry over to North Sumatra in about four months. We went last week to Central Java for the opening ceremony. It seems that the Indonesian people like to have ceremonies for everything. Opening, then closing and next week we go to Bogor for ceremony for a clean water project which is in process, but just a different stage. At each of these ceremonies they have to have their Indonesian food, now that is something we could do without, especially in the rural areas of Indonesia where we question the way the food has been prepared and cooked. Most of the Indonesia food is cold when you eat it. Sometimes we think it has been around for days before it is eaten.

We just got word yesterday that another clean water project will be approved which will bring the total water project to four projects in process. These water projects are in different Regions of Indonesia whereas in the past they have mainly be in the Bogor Region. With these projects there will be nearly 200,000 people who will have clean water that have never had clean water before at an average cost of about $5.50 per person.

Medical Care

We had an appt with Dr Risma. We had taken some of the little beanie hats to her and she asked if we would come to her hospital and meet again. She took us into the nurseries where all the preemie babies and the babies who were in ICU. They had 4 full nurseries with babies. 1. Very critical care babies 2. Critical care babies 3. Serious care 4. Good. We saw a baby who was born with no skin covering over the stomach area. They had all of the little organs in a plastic bag (just like the way it was with Preston. They were working to increase the cavity so they could put them back into the area where they belonged. They have a lot of good equipment, but they told us they have to improvise a lot. Like the plastic bag they were using in this case. They had a baby that had just been born the day before and he weighed 2 ½ pounds, so tiny, but he was doing Ok. However they said they didn't have any more room there so his twin could not be brought there. So he would problem just die. This is a very poor hospital, however they said that parents can't afford the care that these babies need so they usually just abandon them. So most of these children if they make it are just sent to an orphanage. They said sometimes when the babies are better the parents will show up. There were 3 Drs we met there and they were all women. Very good Drs, but they have a lot of work there. They were caring for about 50 babies. They said that sometime they put 2 babies in one incubator, but they can't do that if they are critical care, but there is such a need and not enough equipment for everybody. They asked if we would be able to buy some baby scales for them. We are going to try and help them with this.

We got approval for 100 more Cleft Lip and Palate surgeries. Dad was really elated and almost jumped for joy. We have worked so hard to convince them that we needed to do these things. We had to prove to them that Smile Foundation were not doing any work here in Indonesia.

Missionary Work

Jemmy's friend who is Brother Weten asked us to come to his house. We drove quite a ways to his house when we got there is a grocery store which the family operates. Brother Weten has another job and his family manages the store. As we visited I explained that in our church we handle the Sacrament Service much different and he needed to come to our church. He said "I will do that".
He has a lovely wife and two daughters; I would guess about 14 and 16. Brother Weten came to church the next Sunday which was General Conference for us and he was overwhelmed with the feeling of the spirit as he entered the chapel. He brought a friend with him who works with Catholic Humanitarian Service. I offered some wheelchairs for him if he had some recipients who were in need. We haven't heard from him yet, but we feel we will hear from him. After Brother Weten and his friend heard about three speakers at General Conference Jemmy took them on a tour of the building telling them about the programs of the church and then we sat in the foyer of the church and told the Joseph Smith story. After we visit and answer many questions, Brother Weten asks, "How does one become a member of your church". The missionaries are now meeting with them; they seem to be very receptive to the message of the restored gospel. He said that he wants to bring his family back to church, he wants them to feel the feeling he felt when he walked into the chapel. Last Sunday he came and brought his family and his father. His mother would have been there but she had a small accident and stayed home. He is intrigued with the idea that the church is organized the same way the church was organized at the time of Christ and continuing revelation with a Prophet and apostles. His wife seems to be very interested as well as the daughters. We believe they will become members of the Church. They each have their own copy of the Book of Mormon.

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We went to Bandung on Thursday afternoon. That evening we went to a movie with the Davis. We went to Rin Tin Tin. It was a really fun movie. When we came out there was a couple behind us and they said we were sitting right behind us guys and notice how much you were laughing and enjoying the movie. They asked if we were Christian and we said yes. They were too. We talked to them for a while and told them about the English class at the church. They said they might come. They wanted to take our picture and got our email address. They have sent a copy of the picture already and said they hope to meet us again. You just never know when you are planting seeds for someone else to come along and convert them.

We spent a couple of days this week trying to find a new place for the Elders in Beksaki to move too. They have been living in a real rattrap and that is no exaggeration. We went one afternoon and looked with four elders at several different places then we took them for pizza. Those guys acted like they were staved too death. I don't think we could have brought enough pizzas to fill them up, but we didn't even try. They were so grateful. We went back the next day with Pres Marchant and the elders to see the places we thought would be OK. They all decided on one it is not real great, but it is 10 times better than what they have been living in.

We went to Zone Conference on Thursday. We had a good conference. It is mostly just instructions for the elders. When we came out of the conference at 3:30 our driver, John was asleep in the car we had a really hard time waking him up. He said he was sick and asked Ralph to give him a blessing. Elder Davis and Ralph gave him a blessing. Another driver said that he had thrown up about 10 times. President Marchant told us to get him right to a dr. He sent his driver with us and he drove his car home. They run a lot of tests on him and finally about 7:00 they came out and said, he had acute appendicitis and we needed to get him right to the hospital. We called Elder Subandriyo to find out where we needed to take him. We picked his wife up on the way to the hospital. We got to this "hospital" not real high tech and they could not read the ultra sound that had been done at the clinic so they had to do X-rays. Finally they came and said after all of this that they didn't have any beds. Boy!!! So we went to find another hospital meanwhile after having the IV that he had been given at the clinic he started to really perk up and he begged us not to take him to the hospital. His wife doesn't speak English and she couldn't understand the danger that he was in. When we got to the hospital he would not sign the paper to give them permission to treat them. We tried to talk to them and we not getting anywhere. Finally Ralph just got mad at him and said he was no longer our driver and that we were just leaving. We went out and Ari the other driver followed us. John grabbed all of the papers of the tests and he followed us out. Ralph turned around and told him that he would just have to find another way home and tried to tell him again that if he went home there was a good possibility that he would die. He finally turned around and went back into the hospital. Wow!!! He had the surgery the next morning. We got home at 12:30 am. He is doing OK now, but we may end up paying for the whole experience because he is our employee. I hope not, but we will have to do whatever. We are without a driver now for a while so I don't know what we will do. The President said that maybe Elder Walker would have to start driving. I believe that is when I will stay home for sure. This traffic is not fun.
On Friday a zone activity to the beach had been planned. They always use the mission couples cars to drive. They assigned one of the Indonesian Elders to drive our car. I was a little nervous at first, but he did a good job.

Anyway, We do have a lot of things to do and we are keeping busy with the humanitarian work, but we have had some distractions. We are trying to still get the wheelchairs off the dock. Which is proving to be quite the thing. The government here really know how to work things in order to get more money. We also have 2 water projects that we are working on getting approval and that is becoming a challenge also. But Dad just keeps plugging away at it. I have been working on this scrapbook this week. I just put 4 pictures on the page with a short paragraph about the project and the amount of money spent. It is not that hard. It is just finding the right pictures and information.

We just learned that the Welfare Service Missionaries in Bogor, who will be going home and end of May, will not be replaced. There are several projects they are currently managing which will fall upon our shoulders to do. This will increase our time traveling by car to clean water projects and to manage other projects as well. They will expect us to keep up with all our other work as well. I don't know how we are going to do it. We are going to be very busy.

The work of the Family Enrichment Program is going forward, we have an organization to finance the seminar in July and the booklet is translated and printed in Bahasa Indonesia. We are preparing to film the family home evening presentation, using a local Indonesian family. We have had some road blocks but the Lord opens another road and we just keep going. We see the hand of the Lord is his work everyday.

Last week we had the opportunity to visit a new place in Central Java. We live in West Java, then there is Central Java and then East Java. We went to Jojakarta. The mission couple the Taylor's met us at the airport they took us right to the church where they were teaching an English class. It is like the one that we help teach only it is for the Jr and Senior High school students there in Jojakarta. They have class 3 times a week, but on Fri night they have American night and Sister Taylor fixes them an American dinner. She had fixed spaghetti with meatballs and they sang On Top of Spaghetti all covered with cheese. It was really fun. We stayed with them at their house.


We got up early on Sat so we could go see Kaliuran a working volcano, but you couldn't see the top of the mountain because it was cloudy and rainy. We hiked up to a waterfall there and there were monkeys everywhere. We had brought bananas and fed the monkeys on the way up and then we brought some peanuts to feed them again. I had a package in my hand. I had thought I need to keep these secure so I had them cupped tightly in my hands up against my chest. Well a monkey jumped up at me grabbed the bag and was gone before I could even blink my eyes. He spilled them all over in the process though so they all came running to get the peanuts. I think I will give up on monkeys. They are just too sneaky.

We then went to the Pramabanan Temple. It had about 30 little temples all around it, which were destroyed when there was an earthquake in 2006. They are trying to put some of them back together, but it seems like an endless task to me. We were able to see the Volcano though in the distance. It was very interesting. Wish they could visit some of our temples and see what a real temple looks like. We then went and did a little shopping, and we saw a lady actually making some batik fabric. What a process! It is really interesting. We went to church with the Taylor's the next morning. They have a really good branch that they are working with. These people in the church everywhere we go are really strong in the gospel. They treated us so good. After church we took them to the Golf course for another wheelchair ceremony. It makes me feel really out of place to be there on Sunday, but the Muslins big day for church is on Friday.

We had a lunch at the pres house, which was for all the employees of the service center this week before they all had some days off. It was an Indonesian Dinner and I quite enjoyed most of the food. I think my tongue has been fried so many times it doesn't taste or feel it anymore. The celebration this week was for the Accession of Christ. Don't ask me who makes up all these holidays.

The whole district had a 3-day camp out of all of the Youth. At first I thought it was a ward campout, because I saw some babies there, but it was just Mothers who went to help with the food preparation. It had been raining and it was wet and muddy, but they didn't seem to care. They would run around in their flip-flops and then they would run through a stream of water and clean them off and away they would go. The President talked to them. He had them read in their scriptures and the strength of youth booklet and they all had them. Even with it raining and wet and they were having a great time. It was a faith building experience for me to see how these youth were just having a great experience despite all the obstacles that they had in front of them.

So here we are to Easter. The President is gone to Central Java for a zone conference so I thought I better have the Elders over for an Easter Dinner. The AP to the Pres both were leaving in the afternoon, but they said they would delay their flight as late as possible so they could have dinner with us. Sat I fixed yummy potatoes, Jell-O, carrots and made a cake for some strawberry short cake. We also had some ham so it was a nice Easter Dinner. We had Elder and Sister Pier come for dinner too. We really don't have a lot of room to feed everybody, but they don't seem to mind as long as there is enough to eat. Elder Bastain the other day said I don't care what we have for dinner as long as you cook it. I love the food that you fix. That was quite the compliment. I don't have them over to eat that often either. Elder Teng asked the other day when we were coming to inspect the apt. And I said maybe it will be a surprise inspection. He said, I don't care, but I hope it is soon we need some cookies.

We went to these places in Jojakarta. This is a temple built by the hindu. It had several smaller temples around it which were destroyed two years ago in an earth quake. In the background you can see an active valcano. We went up to a waterfall there by the valcano. It was all very interesting. It was raining most of the time we were there, but it is always warm so you don't pay to much attention to the rain unless it really rains like it does sometimes.

We have had a busy week. The time goes fast when it is busy, but it seems like we have had two weeks in one because we have had to do so much. The Baldwins who are the missionary couple that we report from Hong Kong came in last Saturday. We went to church up in Bogor where he met with the Branch Pres. We met with Brother and Sister Kane

They spent Monday with us and went through things in our office and asked lots of questions. We spent all day with them until 8 pm. We had to be in Bogor at 8 am so it was an early morning. We visited the toilet project on the way. Then we went up into the mountains to a water project which is two miles away. All of the men hiked up into the mountain to see the head of the spring. Sister Baldwin did not have hiking shoes so the women stayed back, but we went into the village which was a good mile up into there. We had fun visiting some of the village people. I forgot my candy and the kids were very scared of us. Dad slipped off the trail and fell into a rice field. He was all muddy when he came back.

We left early again the next day and went to Chimpanek where there is another toilet project planned to begin really soon. Then we went to the Safari. We all had a good time there. The Kanes met us there. The Baldwins really enjoyed the time there and there was so much more to see and they would have liked to spend more time, but we had so much planned. We had to leave to go see a pathway that LDSC is putting together for some school children. It was a long hike and it had been raining so the pathway was really slick. I was really uncomfortable and was glad when we were all back safe. We went to see another project. We had to hurry home because Elder Baldwin had a meeting scheduled with a district president here in Jakarta at 6:30. I had asked it I needed to be to the meeting and he said no, but Elder Walker has to be there. When we pulled into the driveway Elder and Sister Davis were standing there and the said they were going to Amigo's and asked us to come along. I decided to go with them and left them all standing there in the driveway.
I got very brave this time!

A very pregnant chimp

We met Pres and Sister Marchant, Elder and Sister Taylor and Pier and the restaurant. Sister Marchant and I were sitting together and the server went to put fruit drink on the table and I don't know what happened, but he poured it on both of us. We were all laughing and we told him it was Ok. The owner came over and her apologized and felt so bad. He didn't realize that he had spilled it on me too, which I was glad because they went and brought a blouse for Sister Marchant, which she flatly refused to take, and I was glad I didn't have to deal with that. I told the owner that it was just an accident and to not worry about it. He said, I saw you up in Bandung and I remember your badge and I know that you are good people. We have eaten at Amigos in Bandung. They gave us all chips and salsa, which they charge extra for here and also big fruit plates for dessert. So it was great, but I hope the server didn't lose his job.

The next day we flew to Solo to see another water project. The men again climbed up into the mountain. After we went and saw the area where they had the floods in Dec. These people don't have anything and now they really don't have anything. It really makes me sad, but yet they are so happy. They just take life in their stride and they go on. We flew back and the flight last one hour, but it took us over one and half hours to get back to Senopati.

We had a nice trip up to Medan. We took some time to go and visited a church that someone told us was really nice. It was very interesting. It was built and is run by a Catholic Father, but it has Hindu architect.

Our friend Purba picked us up after our church on Sunday to take us to the wheelchair ceremony. He had a lunch for us. One of those famous Indonesian lunches where they bring all kinds of things in little bowls and put them on the table. After he said to us do you want some tea or coffee? Elder Subandriyo, Pres and Sister Marchant and the two of us were all there. We said, "We don't drink coffee or tea." He said, "That is interesting, because you all have a light in your face and in your eyes. Is it because you don't drink these things?" We all thought that was interesting that he was seeing that. He is not Muslim. He is Christian and before we ate he said a prayer and when we were through eating he had Ralph offer a prayer. The wheelchair ceremony was really special. I watched as different people came in carrying someone in their arms that needed a wheelchair and it was so exciting to see as they placed them in a wheelchair and to watch the look on their faces. One lady came in crawling on her knees. There were several little children also. It is truly a blessing for them. We don't know how blessed we are until we see things like this. We are grateful for the opportunity we have to be apart of this great work. We watched them as they loaded the wheelchair up on a motorcycle that has a cart on the side of it. They would put the person in the cart and the wheelchair on back of the cart and then they would take off. Friday, they had a district Relief Society meeting and also a training meeting for the Branch Presidencies. It was the Hindu New Year so everyone had the day off. I don't know how many more New Years there are going to be. We have had the regular NY and the Chinese NY, the Muslin New Year and now Hindu. I am wondering what is next. Anyway they all spent the whole day at the church. This happens every time they have a holiday they like to spend it together so they have something always going on at the church. I worked with the District RS Pres and got her to help get the yarn and she made some instructions in Indonesian so the ladies can crochet these little preemie beanie hats. There were about 20 ladies and some of them did OK, but it was hard to help them because they could not understand me. But I hope that they catch the spirit and they are able to make a bunch of them. My idea is to teach these Indonesian sisters how to make them so when we leave they can carry on this project. The district Relief Society Pres was helping too, but there were too many too help.