Teaching at the rubbish dump of Sumompo has begun! I am teaching around 25 primary school kids and several high school students each Tuesday, a group of adults on Thursdays, and the local council on Fridays. The building of the Community Education Resource Centre has been delayed due to confusions in boundaries between districts. This means a few more weeks teaching outdoors with only a whiteboard. Progress is slow, but my joy is building as many creative ideas are springing amidst an atmosphere among the local people which is very inspiring. Everyone is so eager to attend classes.

Life at home is great, we have had many patients come through, around 20 people living together at the moment, and so I made my first sticky date pudding. It was a funny experience as the whole city has run out of dates (after checking 3 major stores) so I settled for sticky raisin pudding which was still a surprising success considering the oven was a smoking tin box on top of a small stove top!

The challenges of language and culture continue to surround me. These challenges have surfaced many weaknesses in my character. I have become aware of how shallow my love for others is. My task is not to teach English, to serve the poor, or any more self-serving clichés. Just to love, and I am finding this a tough road to walk. I am only now beginning to realize that if I perceive each person as a brother or sister, then that fundamentally changes the way I act towards them, regardless of how I look at issues of structural injustice and poverty.

Check out more articles through http://www.manly-manado.org.au/. This is an exciting long term community partnership that seeks to alleviate poverty in its various forms both in Manado and in Manly.

If you’re a person who believes in the value of prayer, please pray through any of the things I am involved in. Rather than write specific points for prayer and dictate what I think would be good to pray for, I would rather you simply pray for what your heart has connected with. I appreciate all prayers, especially from those of you who don’t usually warm to praying!

Our football team had a first non-loss recently, a 1-1 draw. We are ecstatic!

Blood that Saves Life

I am really enjoying the experience of living at a half house half medical clinic. We often have patients from Maluku come over by ship for urgent operations that cannot be performed over there. At the moment we have nine people. They have darker skin, wide feet and wide smiles. I am constantly amazed at their lack of contact with technology, yesterday I had to show how to access water from a water dispenser!

My roommate and close friend Meldy who is responsible for caring for these patients between our house and the hospital sent me an urgent text requesting anyone from my office with blood type O to come straight to the Red Cross clinic [Indonesian equivalent]. Laohin, a 27 year old with cancer has been living with us for a few weeks and needed four people to donate blood immediately. Thus I began to inquire staff members if this was possible. I was overjoyed at the immediate response by staff members with blood O. Several had given blood recently and were unable to give blood. One came straight from work over 30 minutes away to give blood. Because we were still short we rung up Compassion (other partner organization in Manado) who quickly arranged for 2 people to come and give blood. Meldy was overwhelmed by the response by so many professional looking people. He feared that he would not be able to find enough people to donate since he is from Maluku and doesn’t have many friends.

As I reflected on this experience I smiled at the thought that Laohin (pictured right) will never know who gave him life saving blood, just that it was three people willing to sacrifice their time and blood to help another. As a Muslim who reveres Nabi Isa it is fitting that it was another person’s blood that gave Laohin life!