Birthday party for 100!

The team had our monthly birthday party on the 26th of Oct. That went well with 80 children and 20 adults! We had so many show up that we ran out of gifts for everyone.

Visit from Pak Max and Jueni

We had Pak Max, our newest addition to our Medan team, come up to Banda Aceh with our project manager Jueni for some training and refreshing. They got to see our operations in Banda Aceh and also learn the new computer program.

It was a great time of refreshing for them and a chance for all the team to finally meet up!

Plans for Future Office near Paenayaong

We are planning to start an office center for local businesses and an English school in Banda Aceh near Paenayong. This facility will provide a business to help with visas for foreign workers, provide space for our tutorials and provide computers for our sponsored children to learn and do their homework on.

Computer and English Classes in Jantho

We now have 41 Students at the computer lab in Jantho and Saut and Regan started to teach English classes in the public schools around town in addition to the classes and after school sessions that we have been doing.

We are planning to start charging a nominal fee for lessons and computer time.

Team Retreat - Sabang, 27 - 30 Sept

The team had a great time learning how to snorkel at the Marine Park out at Sabang Island as well as doing some sight seeing around the island.

The guns were donated by the Portuguese Navy and are to commemorate the events from WWII that took place at Sabang, which was occupied by the Japanese some 60 years ago.

We all felt recharged and ready to start the work again after Ramadan.

Teaching How to Teach English

We are thankful for Nance, who flew in from Kuwait, to train our staff in how to teach English to children.

Nance did a great job, teaching two sessions a day and more than helping everyone to understand the principles involved when teaching young learners the English language. Everyone had a great time and learned a lot of practical teaching methods that will be put into practice once the tutorials start again in October after Ramadan is over.

Thanks Nance for your diligence and hard work!

Building School Desks for Jantho

Thanks to Geoff from England who bought the wood we were able to construct 32 school desks for the facility at Jantho.

We are now able to better teach the children at Jantho as they learn English and other subjects.

Ramadan Begins

The fasting month of Ramadan commences today and will end on the night of 30th Sept.

We must stop most activities as the children will be out of school for five weeks.

Jantho Classes

Pedro is making good progress with the agricultural program with some vegetable plantings, fruit trees and fish ponds. This has been started after the compost project was started and used for fertilizer. Next we hope that he will get some chickens to place over the fish ponds to complete the cycle agricultural project. With a well this will be a complete reproducible project that will help the community.

Saut and Regan have also been busy. Besides helping Pedro and Eny in the house they have started teaching computer basic skills classes and basic English conversation classes.

We now have three computer class with five students per class learning basic word and typing programs. The English and tutorial classes have between 30 and 41 kids two to three times a week.

Visitors from England

Geoff and Sarah from St. John’s Church in England arrived in Medan on the 12th and we took them to stay in our Medan children’s home on Jalan Permai. We stayed in Medan for two days visiting the new children’s home that we will move into later this month and then boarded a flight to Banda Aceh. We spent the next two weeks taking them around to visit all of the children and experience local culture.

Geoff helped us by buying wood for children’s desks in Jantho and for the new computer cabinet at Punge.

We had a great visit and hope that they will come again next year!

Medan Children's Home - An update

Jun and the boys moved into the new boys home on Gong Cherry in Padang Bulan on 20th Aug. We also gained three new boys from two families, both of whom have financial hardships and cannot send the boys to school. By living in the home they will have that opportunity.

Thanks so much to SIB Seremban for providing the funds to rent the new home and for the refrigerator, cooking stove and rice cooker from CVI.

We also had a new couple join us at the Permai house to take care of the girls. Welcome to Pak Max and Ibu Dewi!

Our latest team member!

Christina Coleman, our latest addition to the team, arrived today in Banda Aceh!

She will be joining our Jantho team as a teacher for our children there, teaching them English as well as leading sports activities.

Christina plans to be here only until the Christmas vacation but we know that she will be a valuable addition for that time. Thanks for coming all the way to Banda Aceh Christina!

Earthquake Imogiri Project

Mena and Jim visited the village of Imogiri in July and met with village elder who welcomed us to the community.

Ibu Sri and Judias our Papuan teacher both agreed to expand the program for the children with help from the village elder.

We were able to visit all of our 10 children and address the current situation. They really need our help especially in the area of education assistance, as they cannot afford the tuition fees. One of our goals to see all of the children to be able to attend school.

We determined that we will continue to support the project and help Judias and Roy, another member of the team, to visit the area once a week and have tutorials and after-school activities not only with our 10 children but also with other children from the community.

A New Team Member!

We were blessed to have our newest team member Regen join us in early July.

Regen has been doing an internship in Jakarta after graduating from a college in Indonesia. Regen will be helping with the children’s classes in Jantho.

Medan Children's Home

We have found a wonderful house in Medan that suits our needs for a boys' home which we are able to rent at a reasonable price. We are very thankful that the owner is willing to leave most of the furniture for us so it is already 75% furnished!

With funds that came from SIB Seremban we are able to rent the house for three years and plan to move in next month. Now, all we need is a couple to take over the Permai home to care for the girls.

Thanks SIB Seremban!

Computer lab at Jantho

David and Su Fern arrived for a visit and helped us set up our computer lab at Jantho. They were able to setup six computer systems - five for Jantho and one ready to go into the Punge classroom. So we hope to have two computer labs operational by next month.

Birthday party at Jantho for 100!

We held a birthday celebration and green day Dunia Kasih Allah (God loves the Earth) retreat for the children at Jantho.

We had a lecture by Pedro and Saut about what is good for the earth that God gave us and promoted energy conservation.

After wards the kids went out to pick up plastic around the kampung (village) where the Jantho project building is located in the IOM and Care camps that are close to us. Then we came back and piled up all the plastic collected in a special place to be disposed of later. After that we had a great meal prepared by Mena and the team. Then the birthday celebration started with Mishbahudin and his sister acting as the m.c.’s.

Everyone had a lot of fun!

Dedication of the Riting and Jantho project centres

On 10th June 55 people attended the dedication at Riting. We had speeches by Jim and the secretary for the Desa Mamplom community (Riting).

The dedication for Jantho took place two days later on the 12th with over 70 people attending. Again we ate and had speeches and lots of pictures with the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Baking session at Riting

We had a training session at Riting and taught the 20 ladies how to make Indian Puri bread. Thanks to Barnabus from Malaysia who showed us how to make it.

Moving forward!

We have finished moving into and setting up the team house and office in Banda Aceh, and are very glad that Sarah and her two children have moved in to take over the administration! We are thankful for our friend from Malaysia who helped us upgrade our accounting system.

Today we moved in team members, furniture and equipment into the Jantho project site.

All our shipment has arrived!

All our shipment have arrived safely in Banda Aceh! We are now moved to and settled in Banda Aceh, staying in a rented house.

Visitors and Visitors

One of our new neighbors looking for something to eat in our backyard. He seems to think that this area belongs to him.

A team from Malaysia will be coming on 18 - 27th May to visit and help us set up the new place. More updates shortly!

Punge Playground Ready!

Thank you to all who helped in the building of this playground. The children are really enjoying it!

4 more sponsored!

After sharing ACRF with some churches in the States, we got news later that a family from Index wants to sponsor four children from the projects!

Playground's Progress

We are digging foundations and pouring cement for the equipment and should have it all done by the 10th of April.

2 more sponsored!

We have 2 more children sponsored. The sponsors are from USA, Portland, OR. and Bremerton, WA.

Also, funds are coming to outfit Jantho and the playground in Punge school is almost complete.

Updates from Aceh

The children here are doing well. They now have mandatory lessons at school. We will be having birthday celebrations and field trips in March for them. The baking classes have also gone very well in Jantho with plans for another session in March.

Our friends will be moving there soon in hope to set up some agriculture and fish ponds, and also starting some children and women's training classes in April.

Updates from Medan

The children in the home in Medan are doing very well. They all got some bumps on their skin for some unknown reason but it is cleared up with lots of prayer.

Juni, our house mother there takes care of the children for us. She really looks after the children and gets up early everyday to cook breakfast for them, which usually consists of rice and some fried eggs and fish. Then gets them off to school. After school time, they come home and have Bible lessons and school work. They are then free to play games and visit friends. All of the children are healthy and doing well.

Gratitude

We have secured a house for rent for two years in Banda Aceh, at an affordable price. Furthermore, our lost shipment has been found and is en route to our new rental house. Thank God!

More sponsored!

We have four more children sponsored by one couple from Index, WA.