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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Exciting December Visit

In Jantho the community leader and the ladies affirmed that we are doing what they would like to see in their communities. They want additional help with cooking, sewing & embroidery classes. They also indicated they want computer training, English language training not only for the children but also for themselves. The village leader is fully supportive of all this. This opportunity presents over 350 families that can be helped.

Mercy Teams International also came to visit and is interested in helping to fund fish ponds and various agriculture projects. This could happen in the spring of 2008. We also had some people stop and visit who might want to join us in the work by the summer and help in Riting and Jantho.

After that I was able to receive the major shipment that left Malaysia on the 26th from our home in Seremban.

Plans for 2008

• We hope to increase the number of sponsors for our children in Banda Aceh and Medan. There are 56 who have funding thus far of the approximately 190 we have registered. More are waiting to register with us.
• Outfitting of four buildings for widow and orphans ministry, three in Lhok Nga and one in Jantho. Connect Lhok Nga to water source.
• Start widow training in Jantho in January.
• Our team will move in February.

Some updates

• We have partial funding for the outfitting of Jantho, this will get us started in February 2008.
• We have 3 new sponsors from England and two from Malaysia. The new number is 44 for Lampulo, Punge and Paenayong. 12 in Medan. For a total of 56 sponsored.

ACRF celebrates 2nd Anniversary!

We will celebrate the second anniversary of Asian Children’s Relief Fund with the opening
of the new orphan home in Medan on October 17th.

Some other news to celebrate:-

1. We have 3 new sponsors from England
2. We have pledge for $10,000 for outfitting the orphanage in Medan and part of Jantho.
3. We have pledge for a new motorcycle for Banda Aceh.
4. Stephen raised 335 Pounds for ACRF

Trip with our sponsors from England

Rob and Sarah Page (sponsors from England) visited us first in Malaysia, and together we went to Medan and Banda Aceh to visit the projects and the team there. On our journey over we were able to transport the other 2 computers - one to our orphanage director in Medan, the other for Nelson and Ruth, our project managers for Punge. The computer will give us greater reporting and administrative capability. A big thank you goes out to John who supported us by providing the three computer systems that are now in place.

We also were able to rent a house in Medan for two years to start our first orphanage in Indonesia. We now are sponsoring 11 children in Medan and hope to have this first home set up soon.

We visited all of the orphans and children at risk that we are sponsoring in Banda Aceh. We have now 40 children sponsored in Banda Aceh (the city itself) with about 100 waiting sponsors. The monthly birthday party was a big success with all of the family members of the children coming and participating. Sarah helped out by playing the guitar and teaching a new song to the children.


Aside from the sightseeing and visits to the projects in Banda Aceh, we also visited the sites in Jantho and Riting for our future projects. Someone has pledged to provide a desalination system for the location in Riting. This is an answered prayer as there is no fresh water available at the location. If the system can produce enough fresh water, even the refugee settlement across the road from us can benefit.

The Jantho location has 367 families that can be helped in the areas of child development and transportation to school. Most have to walk about 3 kilometers for elementary school and 5 to 6 km for junior and senior high school into town. The people also need help with micro-enterprise development. The government has given some land for husbandry use and we think we can help them with the fishpond development.

Project visits with Mercy Indonesia

After meeting with the sponsors of the Lhok Nga project in Denpasar, we met with Mercy Indonesia and proceeded up to Banda Aceh to visit the ACRF projects. We discussed how to channel water to the site where 3 of the houses are and had a good time of sharing about the children in the ACRF programs.


We will need funds and staff for the outfitting of the buildings in Lhok Nga and Jontoh Aceh. We hope to move in new orphans and widows as soon as possible. We still need water and about $10,000 USD to outfit each building.