Team Breuls: May 2012

Aerial view along the coast west of Dili

Hello family and friends!! Cher and I are back online! We’re back in Dili from an AWESOME time in Weberek, the little village in the heart of East-Timor! Wow, what an amazing last month and a half it has been! God has definitely been good to us! I will pick up the thread of our narrative from when Cher left with Lucinda to go back to Dili. They took with them the friendly nun from the Catholic boarding house next door to us, as well as a few other Timorese men and women who jumped at the opportunity for a free ride to Dili. They went to Dili to get new supplies and also to pick up Ben and Melanie, friends of Lucinda, who wanted to come visit and check out the work in Weberek to see if they felt called to join on a more long term basis. While Cher and Lucinda were away I remained in the house at Weberek with Doris, an elderly lady from Australia, the fourth member of our team.

The day Cher and Lucinda left, the two goats we had bought were desexed. The people we had bought the goats from had organized for a man from another village to come and do the deed. He arrived not long after Cher and Lucinda left in the 4wd. I will spare you most of the details but I will tell you that it did go quite quick, except not quite quick enough as they needed me to help hold the goats down!! It was a little traumatizing and fairly disturbing, to see and hear those two little goats go through so much pain and anguish! It seemed like a rough ‘backyard-Timor’ type job, but one that is probably just part of the regular working life of most Timorese goat owners. The two poor little goats barely moved or ate for the rest of the day after that .. my mind seemed permanently scarred by what I witnessed and participated in that day. However this was only the beginning of the ‘great goat drama’ ..

The house was a little more empty and quiet without my wife and Lucinda .. I was able to get some reading done and to catch up on studying some Tetum. Learning and practising Tetum here, the local language of East-Timor, has been lots of fun. Our friend Vasco got us started with a few lessons, since then it’s been Tetum manuals, dictionaries, some help from Lucinda (who is fluent), some help from friendly Timorese and the grace of God and lots of practise! It’s great once you start breaking though that language barrier that so often hinders. Doris kept busy at the house with making Christian tracts and visual teaching aids for her English lessons, amongst doing other things. We both had to spend a lot of time looking after and nursing the goats back to health. The younger black goat started eating again quite quickly but the older brown one didn’t eat much for a couple days or so after the ‘snip’.

When market day came round again I went down and got some more fresh veges and fruit with Raymundo, a young Weberek local who had studied with ywam in the past. We’d done this trip before, but this time I used an old ywam bike for the long trek. After getting the tyres pumped up at the ‘bomba’ (the bicycle pump man), I doubled Raymundo most of the way there and back. Some locals appeared thoroughly amused by this ..

Later on that day I helped Doris out with the children’s ministry. We sang some songs and then Doris read to the children some of Christian’s story from ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’. We had prepared some pretend armour so that we could act out one of the scenes from the book, when Christian in all his armour fights Apollyon, the evil dragon or demon. We made a breastplate of righteousness out of cardboard and string, a metal pot lid for the shield of faith, a stick threaded through a bit of cardboard for a sword of the Spirit, one of my belts for the belt of truth, a padded metal pot for a helmet of salvation and I got out my big heavy labouring boots (they’re actually proper welder’s boots and very heavy!) for the shoes of the gospel! And we fitted one of the little children out in all of it and it was a hoot!. I pretended to be the big ugly demon/dragon and ran off whimpering after the little one struck me with his mighty sword! We all had a good laugh, it was lots of fun ..

After a couple days the older goat’s appetite seemed to have returned and he was moving around again more, which was a relief. But the grass was getting higher. The grass here in Timor grows ridiculously high (with very sharp edges!) and sadly, the goats weren’t quite the grass eating machines we expected them to be, much less now after their traumatic experience. Even at the best of times they can be quite choosy about what they eat. So anyway, I got to work cutting some of the grass on the property, Timor style, squatting down low with a kind of half machete type sickle and some good gloves! It was actually a fun work out with my ipod going ..

While Cher and Lucinda were away we decided that the meetings with the believers in Weberek would continue. Lucinda was our translator (interpreter) when we shared with the believers, but Raymundo offered to help with the translating this time, while she was away. We’d been having some good meetings sharing God’s Word with the eager Christians of Weberek and we didn’t want to lose that momentum. These meetings were a precious time of fellowship, prayer and teaching. One message I enjoyed sharing was on love and on how love is the gospel preached without words. And another on how Christianity is firstly and primarily about a real relationship with God and after that about our relationship with our fellow ‘Man’ (ie. other people). God is our first love and always comes first. We can only love Him (and anyone else) because He loved (and loves) us first. The gospel is an invitation in to that relationship ..

At the house we got used to cooking a lot and usually for 5 or 6 people. We also got used to hand washing and hand wringing out all our clothes. Also villagers would often drop in and we’d do the Timorese thing and stop what we were doing to show them some hospitality with tea, coffee and biscuits. One time we had all the believers over and we were having tea, coffee and snacks like we often do when we have our house church meetings or discipleship nights .. and in Timor, Timorese people call coffee, ‘kafe’. It sounds not too disimilar from the word for ‘cafe’ in english but with a shorter ‘e’ vowel sound at the end, instead of the big ‘ay’ sound at the end of the english ‘cafe’. And so when someone asked me in Tetum if I like coffee ( ‘Lorenzo, ita agosta kafe?’), I assumed that their word for tea was something similar too .. So I answered, ‘lai, hau agosta tee’. (I pronounced it, ‘tay’) Actually as I write this, I remember that that is actually the Dutch word and pronunciation for tea! But anyway, so I thought I was saying, ‘no, I like tea’. But unfortunately for me the word ‘tee’ (‘tay’) in Tetum means pooh!! Languages! Some words are the same, but some words are very VERY different!

One day Raymundo took Doris and I around the vast community vege and fruit garden of Weberek. They also have a small fish farm in two artificial ponds. It was amazing to see the amount of work, thought and design that had gone into it all. (We will take more pictures next time!) Unfortunately there wasn’t much ready for harvesting at the time but I did get to take some bright red little chilis home. We stopped by some of the fields on the way back where they often grow maize or cassava. Some of the believers we knew were planting a new harvest of maize. We stopped and chatted for a while. I remembered and shared about a doco I had watched with Cher, about a Christian organic farmer in the US who got secrets from God on how to grow things God’s way and got amazing results. (It’s called ‘Back To Eden’) I promised to bring the doco back with me to Weberek on our next visit ..

Raymundo came over for dinner that night and we had fried noodles. It was funny because we bought this super strong chili sauce in Dili and I warned Raymundo three times that it was super strong. But he was like, ‘no problem, no problem, I like chili’ .. he took too much, mixed it in with all his food and as he ate, his mouth was filled with fire! It was hard not to laugh! Actually it was hard to stop!! Now strangely, whenever Raymundo comes over for any meal he’s gone completely off chili ..

One day I had a go at making some flat bread out of some nice wholemeal flour we bought in Dili. I had a good old time mixing it up and working the dough and then making little portions and pinning them out flat with a big candle, as we didn’t have a rolling pin. I worked in a bakery once, but I had seldom made use of the skills I picked up. I deep fried the bread in coconut oil (like I saw once done in India to make ‘puri’s’) and they came out great, though a little salty and oily. In the end there was so much bread we gave some to the boarding house next door and brought some to church to share with the believers that day.

One night I found a scorpion in my room. I’d never seen one that big before! I caught it with a glass and small thin mirror. I studied it for a while .. then decided I had to kill it. Better to be safe than a hippy as I didn’t want it to sting the goats either. I wondered if I would tell Cher about it, when she came back ..

Back to our goat drama: Our brown goat that was once eating healthily was now not looking so great again. He wasn’t eating much less and he was acting strange, like swinging his head back and forth, like he was constantly looking for someone or something. Doris and I were worried for him. Soon Doris discovered that his ‘snip’ wounds were - okay now if you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip the next few sentences - his wounds were infected and infested with maggots! Yuck and gross .. yes I know!! But we had to try and help him, so I contacted the people we bought him from and they suggested some insect spray! At the time, with few options and little experience in this area, I had to do whatever would help. I had prayed for the little one a few times but now other action needed to be taken. So we went ahead and used a can of insect spray from the house. We used some on the little black goat too because I at one point I noticed him suddenly bucking frenetically like a mad little black bronco. I checked him out and sadly he had the same problem. The insect spray helped, we saw some little creatures evacuate from the goat’s wounds! Yuck and gross .. yes, I know ..

After this the brown goat slowly deteriorated but the black goat got stronger and stronger, so go figure! We had to listen to his constant bleating though, as the brown goat got weaker and weaker. Soon he ate very little again and started walking around in a daze, he’d then stop and do his head swinging thing again, back and forth .. I finally got the people we bought the goats from to come check the goats out. They just applied more insect spray, but then they tied the goats up so that they couldn’t lick the poisonous chemicals off. They said they would check up on the goats again in two days time. We left the goats tied up on the grass near the house, near the patio. It was nearing dusk and we decided to have a sit-down. We sat out on the patio not too far from the goats and chatted over some coffee and tea. The dusk turned slowly into night .. I got up at some point to do something and all of a sudden I noticed that the black goat had disappeared!! I told the others and we suddenly started searching for it, looking everywhere on and next to the property with our torches and flashlights, but we couldn’t see it anywhere!! One local with us, Marcus, and also a fellow believer, reckoned that it had been stolen. I was like, ‘of course!’ .. I realized that it must’ve been so easy for whoever it was, because the goat was already tied up. I felt annoyed and crestfallen. Doris was sad too, having grown fond of both goats. Shortly thereafter, I went to the small generator shed because the generator was playing up a bit and who did I suddenly find there but that naughty little black goat! Somehow he had loosened himself and wandered in there all by himself! Of all places to look for a runaway goat! That shed is usually closed unless the generator is on and when the generator is on, which it was, it’s usually very loud, smelly and often quite smoggy! But there he was, a little bewildered and stubborn as always - he put on a fight as I tried to pull him out! As I presented him back to the others, they all laughed in astonishment. It was a delightful moment of welcome relief and amusement throughout this whole goat drama. I nicknamed the little black goat lil’ Houdini after that ..

The next day, the brown goat was very very weak but once again the little black one was full of beans, chomping away at the grass, weeds and leaves etc. The poor brown older goat was walking around in circles and bleating weakly. It was sad to see him deteriorate so. He lay on the ground, hardly moved and his neck grew stiff and bent to one side .. We really didn’t think he was going to make it now ..

In the afternoon, Cher arrived with Lucinda from Dili, with Ben and Melanie. The brown goat was lying barely alive on the ground. I greeted my wife and the new couple and then told them about the whole goat drama. We encircled the sick little goat in empathy and we prayed for his healing .. but it was too late, he soon died. It was a bit discouraging for our reunion, but that’s how it goes sometimes. We decided to burn him as we didn’t want to give any worm infested goat to anybody to eat. Ben and I quickly got to work, gathering sticks, logs and burnable materials for the fire as the evening was fast approaching. In Timor rubbish isn’t collected and taken away it is burned. So at the back of our property there was a deep and wide square pit with a few weeks of our dumped rubbish, ready for burning. You definitely get all the details on our blog, don’t you! Ben, a country boy, who had a little more experience making fires, stacked the logs, sticks and dry palm branches etc., and then we laid the goat down on top of it all. We decided to use a little help to get the fire going - some petrol from the cans in the generator shed. We filled a 1.5L plastic bottle, then doused the dead goat, sticks, logs, rubbish and all.

We tried to light the fire by lighting some cardboard pieces and then throwing them onto the pile. We stood about 2 metres away as we lit the first piece and threw it on the pile. It just landed on the pile but nothing happened, so we tried again .. and as we were trying to light the second piece of cardboard, immediately the whole pile went KABOOM and up in flames!! It was like a bomb or volcano erupting, the pit spewed out flames several metres high. Sticks and stones landed on the house twenty metres away! And the sound carried throughout the whole village! Although Ben and I were quite close to the explosion we were not harmed! After we confirmed we were both okay, we rushed to get some buckets of water as the explosion had set fire to some grass near to the pit. Thankfully, we quickly contained the fire in the pit which was now a fierce bonfire! Suddenly dozens of locals, mainly children with a few adults, came streaming onto our property. They all heard the loud explosion and all came running to see what had caused it. I’m sure some came to help but most came to witness some excitement. But by then, there wasn’t really anything to see except for a healthy fire. After giving them assurance that all was well, they slowly left.

I remember trying to light that little bit of cardboard and then just suddenly seeing all this yellow and red all around me. The light and colour came before the heat and loud sound of the explosion .. I remember turning away and shielding my face from the explosion of light and feeling all this warm air rush past me! To this day I still wonder if the 2 metres Ben and I were from that pit was actually a safe enough distance for us OR if in fact the hand of God had shielded us from those flames .. ?? Some blackened bananas still hang on a palm over that pit as a reminder of that eventful day ..

I tell ya, with this kind of excitement we don’t need television or movies out here! We were all a little rattled after the explosion as we sat down and tried to relax and calm our nerves .. Soon we had put it all behind us as we begun sharing stories and experiences of our time apart.

I eventually did tell Cher about the scorpion, she wasn’t too thrilled. We’ve also seen all kinds of creatures from snakes, to spiders to ‘crocodile’ lizards! I’ve captured and released a few ‘crocodile’ lizards that I’ve found in the house - apparently they have a poisonous bite! One night I caught a pretty big one, I kept him in a plastic tub for the night. By the morning he had changed colour from green with orange spots to black! I let him go in the fields near our house and he changed back to green in front of my eyes. Some kids later came and and started toying with him with sticks and stones. They put him on a wooden post and again it changed it’s colour to that of the wood! Smart little creatures, but sadly this one, the kids put an end to ..

One day sunny day, Marcus came ‘round and brought some very good news! Graciana, an elderly lady who I had the opportunity of praying for one night at church, had been healed!! I remember that night and them telling me about her bad tooth and all the pain she was in, in fact you could see it all in her expression. Apparently she had been on medication but it had failed to take any of the pain away. I prayed for her but then also suggested for her to see a dentist if she could .. unfortunately though, there aren’t many nearby! But God was nearby .. and He blessed her! Hallelujah!! After miracles like these more people became convinced that God was indeed in their midst and trying to speak to them! Rosalina who had witnessed the miraculous healing of her son Milton, started coming to church meetings along with her grandmother! As did many native birthing attendants who had witnessed God perform miracles time and time again in the births of many babies under very difficult to impossible circumstances with Lucinda. All glory to God!

Weberek does have a medical clinic, but it’s in a terrible state. Some nurses are apparently employed by the government to run the clinic and look after the sick and injured of Weberek but instead they’re hardly ever there and when they are, it’s usually at night throwing a party! When Lucinda checked it out she found it in disarray, a filthy mess and tragically neglected! She prayed about it and then decided to offer the village her services in the clinic a few afternoons a week. The chief was delighted as were all the sick and injured people who came to receive her help the following weeks .. Since we had been in Weberek Lucinda had assisted in five successful births. She had also visited a mother and baby in a nearby village, Sarin, after the mother had already given birth to a 29 week old baby (when they should be close to 40 weeks!). They had also cut the umbilical cord with dirty scissors and the baby had gotten infected. When Lucinda arrived, the baby wasn’t feeding well either, which was apparently their main concern. Lucinda prayed for the baby, did what she could and advised them to get to a hospital .. advice they apparently rejected!

In early May the heavy monsoonal rains began. This made drying our washed clothes difficult as well as any outdoor activities or work. I managed, one day, to get one last jog in before the rains came .. well actually, I got caught in the thick of it, but I was fine with my raincoat on. I found jogging in the rain was fun, especially as the weather is still so warm in the tropics, even when it rains! Though some of the days and nights did get a lot cooler than the hot humid weather we had been getting used to ..

Here in East-Timor my name has been slightly altered from Laurence to Lorenzo! I found it was easier for the Timorese to pronounce and remember, as many people are already called Lorenzo here, the name having been also of Portuguese origin and use (East-Timor being once a Portuguese colony). The front cover of the Tetum Catholic bible, very common here in East-Timor, has on it an artist’s rendering of the classic image of Jesus, with beard and long hair .. A lot of the kids of Weberek know our names now but as I go around Weberek most kids yell at me, “Jezoos! Jezoos!” .. It might be time for a hair cut ..

We had been eating considerably well our whole time in East-Timor as we had been able to cook most of our meals. One of my favourite snacks was fried green banana chips! We had this small banana tree with a large green clump of bananas on it and I had been waiting forever for them to ripen. (Cher mentioned them in the last blog) Then one day the tree just snapped under the heavy load of the bananas! We found out that most Timorese fry or cook these particular kind of bananas, maybe coz they couldn’t be bothered waiting for them either? We fried them up similar to ones we had eaten with our Timorese friends and they came out really good, especially with a nice chill, lime and papaya marmalade sauce! Mmm .. I gave making the flat bread another go when Cher and Lucinda were back. This time I didn’t deep fry them, just a drop or two of oil on a hot pan and they came out brilliant! It was nice to have some wholemeal bread again .. I wasn’t the only one working some dough though. Ben and Mel got the old cast iron oven in the backyard fired up and also made some bread and cookies. Even Lucinda had a go. Cher also made some of her yummy healthy muffins. I also made my signature crepes occasionally, which seemed to go down well. A few times, when we had too many bananas (just normal ones) we froze them in the freezer and made some delicious smoothies. One night I made some banana & papaya smoothie, but Doris had retired early and gone to bed missing out. I left her some in the freezer though, in a plastic bottle. The next day someone told Doris that there was some left over smoothie for her in the fridge. The only problem was, Ben and Mel had made some pancakes that morning and had left the leftover pancake batter in the blender in the fridge as well! Poor Doris didn’t notice the difference in flavour or texture as she drank all of the leftover pancake batter from the blender! Everyone else was too busy doing other things at the time to notice! I overheard the conversation between Lucinda and Doris, Lucinda was asking if Doris had drunk her smoothie we had left for her. And Doris said, “Oh, yes thank you it was lovely.” But when I noticed the smoothie was still in the freezer, I mentioned it to the others and slowly we put one and one together!! Good ol’ Doris, she took it all in her stride though and didn’t get at all sick!

While in Weberek my 33rd birthday rolled around! Unfortunately I wasn’t in contact with my family back in Australia for it but my wife and our family of believers in Weberek got together and put on a little night of celebration with some snacky treats and music. I had already opened a lot of my birthday presents earlier (at my wife’s insistence) because most of the gifts were edible .. foods that Cher had got while in Dili, that were hard to obtain in the middle of East-Timor!

But of course it wasn’t all smoothies and smooth sailing in Weberek .. During most of our time in East-Timor Cher has been struggling with different kinds or ‘waves’ of sickness, tiredness, pains and fever. She’s been a real trooper though and hasn’t let any of it dampen her enthusiasm. We’ve prayed for her heaps and she took the opportunity to see a doctor, while in Dili. Some of this was just regular sickness that anyone can pick up easily in a tropical country. But we suspected earlier on that some of it might also be due to something else ..

We also have a major rat problem here. You can hear them at night galloping across the ceilings! It’s a real rat race! We had some rat poison, but we decided to hold off for fear if we killed some rats with poison, they would then rot and stink the house out! We finally decided to put some poison out. Unfortunately for Cher and I, an ungodly smell started to slowly develop near our room! We weren’t sure exactly where the smell was coming from but we tolerated it’s gradual growth until the stench got so strong I couldn’t bear it any longer! After a little search I finally found it and removed it - I had to hold my breath for most of it though! Man, can those dead rats stink!! I think next time I’ll try to find and remove any dead rats, at first sniff!

But after all is said and done, through all of the joy and all of the sadness and all of the pain and all of the madness, God has a plan .. and He brought us here for a reason. And Cher and I feel totally blessed and privileged to serve God and the people of Weberek. It’s been so encouraging to be around new believers who are so hungry for fellowship and to learn about God and His Word. Also their faith and resilience against opposition and persecution has been truly inspiring! These are not wealthy or powerful Christians like you might find in the US .. they are not in the majority here in Timor, Catholics are. And those that think Christians and Catholics are the same need to study their history (and read their Bible). No,these are humble believers in Jesus, but they are not afraid to speak their mind. However some of them do feel intimidated from time to time, that is why we decided to share with them the contents of Timor-Leste’s Constitution. We found out about it in Dili and downloaded two copies from the internet, one in English and one in Portuguese. Timor has a great constitution with awesome laws protecting and insuring rights and freedoms for it’s citizens, but making the constitution widely known throughout East-Timor and implementing it is another issue. Most ordinary Timorese people don’t really know about these laws and so aren’t able to really enjoy them or benefit from them. We shared some of the constitution with the believers in Weberek. We looked at their rights that related to their freedom of religion, their freedom to gather and meet, the freedom of association and freedom of speech etc. I find it a little sad that East-Timor is supposedly free and independent now, but minority Christians, like the ones we serve in Weberek, are often intimidated and their freedoms violated by tradition-minded villagers, fundamentalist Catholics and just plain old busybodies that don’t have any idea about human rights and freedoms as they are contained in the Constitution of East-Timor. And as we told the people of Weberek, East-Timor is blessed to have such a good set of laws. A lot of countries are expressly anti-Christian, look at North Korea and China (with it’s false state controlled church and history of Christian persecution), Vietnam, Myanmar, Iran, Syria, the list goes on. So things could definitely be worse in Timor, God be thanked they’re not ..

We weren’t quite able to this time, but next time we go to Weberek we will bring copies of the Timorese Constitution with us to Weberek. Maybe the believers will then be able to go to other villages sharing the Timorese Constitution with their fellow Timorese .. while also bringing the story of our just Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ who was the substitutionary offering and payment for mankind’s transgressions of God’s laws.

Okay enough preaching for now, I need to wind up this never-ending blog!! Speaking of preaching, there was a Timorese word that got stuck in my head while in Weberek and I just couldn’t get it out! ‘Haklaken’ was the word. Maybe because it sounded more like German than Tetum. I was stunned when I finally found out what it was .. it meant ‘to PREACH!’. Ha!! (God is in the details .. ; ) By the way, my beautiful wife gave a really good message on communion towards the end of our stay to the church at Weberek. We all as one ate and drank the communion bread and wine (grape juice), symbolic of Jesus’ body and blood .. to remember His stripes, His sacrifice and all He has provided for us. May the name of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, be praised forever ..

The day after my birthday party, Ben, Mel and Doris were driven to nearby Same to travel to Dili, the next day, with an Aussie lady (who was in our area once, dropping in on us unannounced). We found she was going back to Dili and she offered us some seats in her car for the journey, which was perfect because we had one too many for Lucinda’s ute! Our Lord provides! With the extra room in Lucinda’s ute we were able to leave for Dili the following day with two sick Timorese men who needed to go to Dili hospital. In the monsoonal month of May when incessant rains can cause severe flooding, God blessed us! God opened the way for us again, holding off the rain for both days of driving! Hallelujah! He is so good ..

Before we left we dropped off two boxes of bibles with Marcus’ family for the believers to hand out to people as they share their faith in Jesus Christ. We also dropped by Lorentino’s house, a vet and male widow with six young children. I had met Lorentino on one of the market trips. I was waiting to be picked up by our ute, after the market, and Lorentino noticed me. He invited me to sit and talk and wait with him out the front of his house. Doris later came and gave him a tract and soon he showed interest in hearing more. He actually asked us to come back the next day to pray for him and speak to him about Jesus. This we did and we brought Marcus along as Lucinda couldn’t come (to translate). Marcus doesn’t know much English but we got through alright. Ben lent me his laptop with an English/Tetum dictionary on it and I was able to string a few sentences together! We ended up praying for his little son who had been suffering with a fever. I was meaning to come back and check up on Lorentio and see if his son needed any medication, but I didn’t get round to it. So on our drive out of Weberek we stopped by Lorentino’s to check in with him and his son .. His little children spilled out of his house and we noticed his son (the one that was sick) came running to us healthily! We were overjoyed when Lorentino confirmed that his son was indeed feeling fine now! Hallelujah, Jesus did it again!! After a quick chat and praying with him we said goodbye and hit the road for Dili!!

Our long drive to Dili was blessed with great weather and no hiccups! In Dili, Cher and I stayed with Natalie again who had just returned from Switzerland! And she shared some lovely Swiss chocolates with us! Cher was very happy .. While back in Dili we caught up on e-mails and I started writing this blog!! This has got to be one of our longest! Anyway, Cher and I caught up with Vasco in Dili, with Lucinda, Doris, Mel, Ben and Olimpia. We saw his humble little home near the beach and met his adorable little puppy! Also while in Dili Cher and I were blessed with a free MAF plane flight from Dili to Oecussi!! (An enclave district/province of East-Timor in Indonesia) The flight was chartered by The Leprosy Mission of East-Timor which Natalie works for and they happened to have some empty seats on the flight!! There was even enough room for Ben and Mel to join us. We got some beautiful pics of Timor from the air ..

Another day we dropped by YWAM for lunch and shared with them the wonderful things God was doing in Weberek. Annabel the leader of Jocum (YWAM Timor-Leste) who pioneered a lot of work in Weberek was happy to hear our stories and about our vision and ideas for future work in Weberek.

The end is nigh! .. It’s amazing how 3 months can go so quick! Cher and I have been busy organizing our trip to Darwin in order to renew our visas for the next phase of our Timor adventure! After Lucinda left with Doris for Australia, we were fortunate to be able to use the 4wd ute. We did a day trip to an old Dutch fort, which had a Portuguese restaurant in it - which was started by an ex-ywammer! We also had a chance for a quick dip in the water - you just have to keep an eye out for those crocs! We were also able to catch up with people, like the Bacon family (other Aussie missionaries) who live in a hard to access area on the outskirts of Dili.

On Sunday we had our ‘church marathon’ with Natalie. The big Victory Family Church was first up (We listened to a very loud and energetic Sri Lankan preacher!), followed by a more quiet, intimate and contemplative house church gathering in Palm Springs and then in the evening the other house church meeting with dinner, discussion and prayer. We enjoyed catching up with some familiar faces from when we first arrived in Dili back in March. One morning I was finally able to get up and out of bed for Natalie’s early morning ‘steps’ walk (which she does almost everyday!), climbing the odd couple hundred steps up to the Jesus statue in Dili before dawn!

Not long before we’ll be in Darwin now. We’ve organized to stay with YWAM there. It’s hard to imagine it’s been a whole year since Cher and I left our jobs to pursue God’s plans for us (which involved working with Darwin YWAM for a season). It’s amazing all that’s come out of that one obedient step .. My prayer is that we all learn to surrender our lives more fully to Jesus, so that we can know Him and His loving presence more fully and that our yielded lives may produce lasting fruit unto eternity, to the glory of God and His eternal kingdom!

Thanks for joining us in our adventures! And thank you all for your constant love, prayers and support! May you prosper and be in good health!

Blessings,

L & C

p.s. We didn’t take many pics in Weberek this time because we were trying to focus on building relationships first. Most of the following pics were when we returned to Dili and were doing a few ‘touristy’ things:)