Swimming with my peeps

Swimming at the lower falls

Alethea was in rare form.

Two great mountain pics

Eating with friends, and another beautiful sunset

Checking out a fish-pond on the coast

Fish-ponds are often a good micro-enterprise by which local people can earn a living and by which one can aid in community development. I know of several started in West J, one with funds from my supporters. There might be occasion here as well to start one.

p.s. a friend snapped this awesome sunset.

Harun Treido

Two years ago Harun was saved.

Before that he attended church and trusted in his church attendance and church membership to save him, even though he never personally owned his faith.

Yulianus, a friend of mine, was so incensed that someone could so long attend a church and not clearly hear the Gospel that he, that very night after talking to Harun, rushed over to the pastor's house. Yulianus then explained the Gospel clearly that Sunday and following Sundays to the congregation there, making sure that others did not also sit in church and trust in their cultural Christianity or a mere external identity.

Now Harun is in Bible school, being supported by Yulianus' scholarship fund. He has received a laptop, has finished his first year well, is president of his class, and promises to return to the area where he grew up and serve there, in the interior, after graduation. The "brain drain" is huge in interior villages and once young people get an education, few return, but Harun speaks of a calling to return and help those who are interior and lack access.

Yamis Ta-il

Yamis Ta-il, a 5 year old orphan from Ujung Batu is now being cared for by Jimi and Perin in my village.

The Ujung Batu people thought he was a witch. Two other children have died, probably due to malaria last month, and one of them (another 6 year old)explained how he saw Yamis in a dream that he had shortly before he died. This, apparently, was proof enough for the majority of the villagers and even his older brother disowned him.

The Ujung Batu people were discussing how best to get rid of him (drown him or go downriver and leave him in another village).

He was tied up and barely fed for two weeks when Ainus, a GIDI... evangelist, brought him back to Danowage.

Yamis is now living and being cared for in Danowage by Jimi and Perin.

Him and Alethea are good little playmates now.


PICTURED: Jimi giving Yamis a haircut. Doses of malaria and worm medicine are to follow, plus some new clothes and a hearty meal.
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For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in (Psalm 27:10)