Painting Away.....

So today we started painting the mural on the front of the school. We have a surface area of about a three car garage. We started by washing it all down....which took a bit since it was quite dirty. Then we had some old murals to scrape off and then the primer. But today we actually got to start sketching. We prayed and got some ideas from God and felt to go with a theme of "creation." So we're doing a dark sky with stars that fades into a blue sky with a rainbow and cartoon animals and a beach scene and rolling hills and a very large elephant haha It will be very cute when it's done. We have been working with some youth team members from the city and it has been very cool to be abe to disciple them through our time together. They come with us to help translate or just do minis.try but we are very lucky to have had intensive training for three months previous to this and they have not. So being able to teach them that you can hear God's voice and how to follow God's call on their lives has been so uplifting. We have built many friendships here.
On a side note....please pray for oue team because as strange as it sounds, all 21 of us have been or are sick. The spiritual atmosphere here is very heavy and we feel that there is more at work than just the physical environment. My allergies are worse then they have ever been and I just got over losing my voice. We have rarely had our whole team with us during mini.try each day because of illness. SO your prayers are greatly appreciated! Shoot me an email and let me know how you are all doing as well! I love hearing from my friends back home! Love you!!

Emotional

Today was a difficult mini.stry day. The slum we visited was the worst one we have seen yet. The water conditions and amount of garbage was detestable like the other slums but here there were so many sick people and people without jobs or ways to feed their families. At one corner of the slum there is a Christian church run by an amazing pastor named Lydia. She tries to help her small congregation in the best ways she can but there is so much need. Our group from Perth joined with a group of youth from the city and after splitting into groups we went and prayed for some of Pastor Lydia's church members. At one home there was this poor man who developed epilepsy after his third child was born (he has 4 now) and then a month ago he had an accident in the kitchen and burned the side of his foot so horribly that it is still a HUGE gaping wound and is very infected. They were living in this tiny house in the slum and he cannot work so we prayed for him and his wife for healing and I even laid my hands around the wound but we didn't see anything miraculous right then. My faith is that when we go back in the next weeks we will hear that he was healed. We also prayed for this poor family that also helps with the church. They live right next to it and there side "yard" is a stagnant garbage filled waterway. They had 4 children as well but the mother was very sick with a high fever. As I was praying for her she was sweating through her clothing and we found out that even though she is sick she has to go to the bus station to sell food to make money for the family so the children can go to school and eat for a few days. I asked how much she would need so she could stay home and it only equaled 15 American dollars! FOR SCHOOLING and FOOD! She didn't ask but I felt to give her all I had in my wallet. It only equaled $3 but she was so overwhelmed that she started to weep. I can't imagine being that desperate. I was so saddened by their situation. Luckily we were able to pull together from our wallets all she needed so she could stay home for the night and rest.
This is a place where corruption and greed are taking people precious lives in their hands and squeezing them dry. The water is polluted because of large corporate factories dumping waste and a corrupt government that doesn't know how or care to support it's people. We are going to try and get petitions started to stop some of this waterway pollution but we will need your prayers. Please read this and take heart. Ask God how you can pray for these people and these situations. He made each of us and never desired any of us to live in such conditions. I know the kingdom of God can come in this place. No one can do it alone, but with Him, it is possible.

Amazing Free Day

This is Adam who came to stay with us for a few days before going on his outreach to Brazil! We all became very good friends with him in only 4 days!! He fit in with our crew right away and was a big help and joy to us. We were able to go to his house today and go swimming. We had no idea how much of a treat it was going to be!! God blessed us so much today! His house was incredible and his parents were so hospitable and interesting to speak with. We swam, ate amazing food, went in the sauna, drank coffee and ate Krispy Kreme Donuts!! AND his dad's personal hair stylist, who cuts celebrities hair, came and he asked if anyone needed a hair cut! I didn't get one but two of the girls did and he was amazing! Then we went to eat MEXICAN food! The restaurant had a live band and it was these really good Indonesian guys singing in spanish! haha We got to salsa dance and everything! I thought I was back home for a while haha Ohh oh oh and when the waiter brought out our food he set the plate down and said here is your quesadi-la not quesadilla but just like Napoleon Dynamite with the "L" sound hahaha it was sooooo funny. I had just a really wonderful day and I could not have asked for more! God gave a me a word before we left Perth that we would be receive blessing but I had no idea this is what he meant! God is such a loving and extravagant father! Amen!!

P.S. it turns out that Natalie and I will get to hang with Adam again for six months while he does a school in Kona Hawaii and we are there for PhotogenX! Small world!!

More Photo Fun.....

This is the church service we ran with one hour's notice.........
Miss Jungtina
The pastor and his wife and some church members...

This was the incredible movie theater with huge recliners and blankets!!
The movie sucked but we were so happy hahaha

Photos for the Stories....

Petrina is in the middle and it was her lovely parents who treated us to this amazing buffet!! We ate like kings!!!





















And NO those are not shots of alcohol.....it's yummy desserts haha

Mural

This is our planning drawing for the mural.....
The kids were very interested.......
It's really coming along!! (I'll post more when it's finished!

Workin in The Hot Hot Sun

Soooo We started our work this week and we really gave it our all so far! I have never sweat so much in my life! It's a very humid climate and although we are gradually getting used to it a bit, it's still a sweat factory of sorts haha One of the locals today asked me how I was liking the city. I said I loved it but that the heat was pretty rough. She laughed and said that even the locals have a hard time because o the heat! I was glad that I'm not the only one besides my team mates. But there are people who walk around in zip ups and long pants!! Gila! (sorry, that's Indonesian for CRAZY!-----Of course I would know that word, I have already been called that by the local kids haha) But all in all, we are having a great time. We have been going into the slums each day and continuing to build relationship. We are working in a water slum and another large slum that has a canal of very unclean water running through it. The people at the water slum asked us to come and teach English to the children so on Friday that's what we did. Another team had gone before us so the kids already knew some vocab which was neat. Then, at our other slum, we met with a woman who runs a kindergarten. She runs it at a cost to her and charges very little per month per child because the only other school close by is too expensive for any of her neighbors to afford. She charges one dollar per child per month!! And there are only about a hundred kids! Can you imagine running a school on $100 a month??! She is very sweet and we asked if we could paint a mural for them on the wall across form the school. She accepted and we prayed for ideas for the mural. Our entire group got the idea from God to paint clean water. So we plastered the wall and painted a waterfall, flowing into a golden jar that overflowed into a river. I will add pictures as soon as we finish it, but so far it looks really good- for beginners at least ;0) After seeing it, she asked us to repaint the murals on the school! We were excited and said we would love to. SO it looks like we have our work cut out for us for a week or more! Also, on one of the days we visited a house and told stories and made friends. There were about 35 people crowded in the see the Boolehs (white people- haha) They asked us if we would do Indian dances for them! My dutch friend Kim and I were thinking "Indian dances? We're not Indian! What do we say??" Then a very conservative looking Musli.m girl said she knew and would teach us. I whispered to Kim "Whatever you do, just watch your hips, we don't want to offend anyone..." The the Musli.m girl, who had changed into pants, put on the music and started using more hip than Shakira!!! We were following along and people were videotaping our humiliating excuse for dancing! haha The girl was really good and it was so funny to see her shake it like that! haha We couldn't stop laughing, or sweating---Holy Cow Indonesia is hot!! (Especially in a small house with 35+people!! haha It was definitely a very interesting day. Then on Saturday night we ran a youth group and I was able to help lead wor.ship and we gave test.imonies and shared a message of God's father heart for his children. It was very moving and we had a good time of fello.wship with the youth. Today we went to a church for an english service and happened to get there an hour early. We had been told that the pastor wanted us to share a few testimonies but when we got there he said, "so are you ready for your two hour time slot?" We thought, what in the world is he talking about! So long story short, we had an hour to pull together wor.ship and an hour and a half message! haha Even though worsh.ip was a bit shaky because of technical difficulties ( quite funny) we made it through and we were able to pray for people who had been thinking about going into miss.ion work! Puji Tuhan! (Praise God!)
After dinner, one of our team member's parents took us out and blessed us sooooo much with a buffet at the Grand Hyatt! Oh my-lanta the food was incredible!!!! We have been eating so much rice and noodles that we couldn't believe it when we got duck, steak, sushi, pasta, potatoes, and tons of dessert!! We were in heaven!!! It was awesome. Then we went to a movie theater that for $10 gave us a each our own recliner and blanket! It is definitely the nicest theater I have ever been to. Tomorrow for our day off we are going to a friends house that has a pool! Amen!! A pool! Can you believe it!! I get to enjoy the hot weather for a moment by swimming!! I am soooooo excited! And then we are visiting one of the only Mexican restaurants around! and this is huge because by the way, AUSTRALIA DOES NOT HAVE MEXICAN FOOD!! Can you believe it?? I cant! I miss my burritos! I never realized how much we ate Mexican back home until I have gone without it for four looooong months haha SO to close, I miss you all, I'm super busy, God is moving, Blessings are happening and I love you all!!

Our New Focus.....

Now that GYO is over we are going full force into our slum minis.try. We are visiting some of the roughest areas of the city and bringing along the Indonesian youth during our outreaches. We are meeting people where they are at and developing relationships with them. During our visit today we went to a water slum. It's an area built over water. It may sound picturesque until you realize that the water is stagnant and full of garbage. The bridges in and out and between homes are anything but safe. I included a few pictures here so you can see what I mean.

Unfortunately, the children are running around without shoes near this water all day and there is really no easy place for clean water. What is ironic is that no more than 5 minutes down the road is one of the nicest Malls and gated communites I have ever seen. It's a real shame because the children are extremely beautiful and the families are so hospitable. God's heart is really broken for the poverty in these places. These are some of the people there....

Please Pray for This Place and These People......