Batam

Selamat Pagi! Yesus baik. (That means: Good morning! Jesus is good! in Bahasa Indonesian). I just got back from my second trip to Indonesia. This one was with a group of my coworkers, along with some other people from their church. We left Thursday evening on a ferry to Batam (a different island than I went to two weeks ago.) When we got there, we settled into the Holiday Inn, and went to sleep. Friday morning we had breakfast together and received a lesson in "Indonesian 101." A couple of the girls on our trip are from Indonesia (now living in Singapore) and they made up a sheet of helpful phrases. It was so nice! We soon headed to the orphanage where painting awaited. We moved a lot of furniture, and got to work. They have recently built a new room, which will serve as their church building and multi-purpose living room. We started by painting the walls yellow. We only had a certain number of rollers, two sticks, and one ladder. Things got a little interesting. I spent most of Friday painting standing on a chair that was sitting on a table. It was great! (We made sure they were sturdy first.) When we finished the inside walls, we headed outside, but again, only so many poles, and once the lower walls were finished, there wasn't a lot we could do. So, I decided to join the clean-up crew and start cleaning brushes. Now, this may not seem like a huge task, but imagine doing with without running water! We had two large buckets of water to rinse the brushes and rollers in. It was quite a task. First, we soaked them in the "dirty" water. Then, wrung them out and did it again. When the water coming out of them was the same color as the water in the dirty bucket, we moved to the next somewhat cleaner bucket (although it didn't stay cleaner for very long.) After we rinsed them in there a few times, we took a plastic cup and poured clean water over them, wrung them out, and repeated the process until the water came out the same color as the "clean" water (which was by this time no so clean either.) I was a long process which made me VERY thankful for running water! Right before we left, some of the kids were burning the newspapers we had used, and grabbed most of the brushes and added them to the fire! All of that work up in flames. Today we went back and painted the ceiling and the trim outside. We stopped at a hardware store on our way and bought more and better supplies. I spent most of the day on the table (no chair this time) painting the ceiling. It was a lot of fun. Eventually we got to a point where only a few people could paint because the tables just weren't high enough. Ibu was sitting with the Indonesian girls on our team singing hymns. I joined in, singing the English right along with the Bahasa. It was great! Then I realized that they had an Indonesian hymn book with English titles. It was so much fun to sing with Ibu in Bahasa. I copied down the words to "God is so Good," and "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus." When the painting was finished, we spent some time playing with the kids. They were also a lot of fun. One little boy, Thadeus, used my camera both days. He took LOTS of pictures for me, (although I haven't had a chance to actually look at them yet.) Even though we had only been there two days, and most of our time was spent painting, not interacting with the kids, it was still hard to say good bye, not knowing if we'd ever see them again. But, we had to head back to the ferry terminal, and back to Singapore. On our way, we stopped at a local restaurant, and had some really yummy chicken and rice. Then it was back to the ferry terminal and finally, back to Singapore. God continues to amaze me as He brings people from different cultures and backgrounds together to serve and worship Him. I love being able to sit in a van with people from Ecuador, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia, and the US sharing what God is doing, and marvelling in His goodness. I love seeing the smile on a women's face when I thank her for a glass of water in her language. I love knowing that the same God who created the Heavens and the Earth is the God who is watching over the kids we left in Batam, and is the same God who is watching over me.