Mary’s English Class at Tangerang. My English Class. Agus and Cathern’s family with the Afgan Mary made and gave them.
Lukito, Agus and us after our last ERSC meeting. Agus and his family – good friends who we will miss. Us up close and still smiling.
15 May 2008 – Thursday
Made it to the gym today and put in a good 40 minutes of exercise and weight training. The gym was really busy today. More people than I ever remember being there that early in the morning. Either a lot of new folks have moved in or have been bitten by the fitness bug.
We read from the A&P – the elders are leaving Missouri and are told to preach along the way. Some are warned about them not opening their mouths to proclaim the gospel as they had been instructed. I wonder what the Lord would say about us as we travel. Are we doing what we should to proclaim the gospel to others at all times. Sometimes this could be just from living it well but we need to pray for opportunities to speak up about the gospel and what it means in our lives. We should not fear man more than God.
We load the car with boxes of things that are either going to the office or to be shipped. At the office I work on my vocabulary exercises and tests. I also make an agenda for today’s ERSC meeting. Mary works on her English lessons. No one comes or calls about employment. We send Sam to the mall to pay the phone bill and get all the printer cartridges filled. We will leave the Rebers a good supply of cartridges so they will not need to worry about that for a while.
At the mission office Mary teaches her class and I talk to the elders. We want copies of a number of videos and slide shows that we have seen over the last couple of months. I also gave the translation section copies of the vocabulary workbooks and my vocabulary exercises. I wish I had started this a year ago. While Mary taught the others, I could have worked with them. I might have also learned some Indonesian vocabulary this way.
After the mission home we go the Wiser’s to drop off our latest box. I attempt to pay but Sister Wiser would have none of it so I did not push. We will get them a nice gift from Jogya to remember us by. They are leaving on July 9th – but the government will pack and ship their things. They have a golden retriever that has been everywhere with them. It cost $2000 to ship him from Japan and another $2000 to ship him to the US. More than the cost of a economy ticket.
The missionaries call and say that they would be there for District Meeting after all. But since we had changed our ERS meeting to 5:00 because we thought there was not going to be one, we had to tell them we would not be to their’s. We would be there for English class. Before going to the chapel we stop at the mall. We wander around looking at things – the book store does not have a single book in English except ones for learning English.
Talk about bad timing. I find that there is a BCA ATM at the mall and one of the machines gives R 100,000 ($11 US). I have looked everywhere for an ATM like that but had to always settle for R 50,000 max machines. I may get to use it one more time.
Speaking of money we are going to end up just about right. I probably have to put another R 5 Juta in the bank to cover last minute expenses. But we came very close to gauging the amount we would need. I will not be bringing many rupiahs home.
The ERSC meeting went really well. It is hard to believe it will be the last time we will meet togther. I gave Agus and Lukito a challenge to come up with a program that lets us know who needs jobs and what jobs are available each week. I think it is something we really need and can get done if people are committed to it.
If Agus can get a hand phone list made and we can set up a program where the Rebers can send SMS to all the branch specialists each Saturday reminding them that they need to send in a report on Sunday. This might give the specialists more respect for their calling and get them more involved in getting people who need jobs and those who have them together.
After the meeting we took pictures. As we were doing that the Elder arrived. It turned out they did not have District Meeting after all. After getting the T2 elders moved to their new house, they were too tired and needed to clean up before coming to the chapel for English class.
We had a good English class. Mary had two young men plus Sam and Anny. I had the two Indonesian elders, Agus’s family and two young friends they brought. We did a number of games and exercises. I am not sure they are learning any English but at least they are using it some. After class Mary gave Cathern the afgan she made. They were really surprised that we only have 2 weeks left before we leave. We will miss them and their family. Hopefully they will get to the US some day or we will come back here.
The trip home went quickly – some small traffic jams but nothing big. We started packing. We will take more than we need to but even then we only have one big bag and carry-ons. I read from the PH manual in Indonesian before turning off the lights.
It has been a good day with lots of sharing of love and warm thoughts with some of the people we have become close to. Serving a mission brings lots of experiences but it is meeting, getting to know and love, and helping people that are the most important and long lasting.