All~in in INDIA! : Should We Stay or Should We Go Now?

The days of long walks on the shore, of morning workouts in our makeshift gym, and Rob's swims in the community pool have suddenly ended. We shifted into turbo gear this week and gratefully, we were spiritually fueled for the rigors. The plan for the next 2 week's branch meetings is to listen to General Conference but we decided we wanted to hear the talks and announcements first-hand rather than in trickles from memes on social media all week. So we set our alarms to wake up to listen to it live. Our Timorese time put the sessions at 1:00 AM and 5:00 AM Sunday and Monday mornings to listen to Saturday and Sunday sessions. How utterly untimely. We knew we'd be listening to them again in church with notebooks ready to record impressions, but this time we decided to just lie in bed in the dark and only listen to them, not watch. It was a very ethereal experience to hear the words of Apostles and Seventys of God pierce the darkness and enter into our minds and hearts, just like we often hear the words of the Spirit in our heads after a bedtime prayer. Amazingly, neither of us fell asleep while listening which we always seem to do when we listen in the daytime! We were in a pretty alert state yet very relaxed too, like one gets in when meditating. It was very unique for us. We would totally recommend this! Try it sometime yourself and perhaps you'll experience what we did with hearing the word of God without any visual distraction. (Caveat: Get just enough sleep beforehand so you're not drowsy or all bets are off!)

Shaking off our sluggishness the following days, we plunged right into teaching English Classes between us and the Snows. The Snows teach 3 classes on Tuesdays-Thursdays and we teach 2 classes on Wednesdays-Fridays but each couple helps the other because of the sheer sizes of the classes. We come home pretty drained on the days we don't teach because it's the longest stretch from 8am-5pm with only a little peanut butter and banana sandwich to fuel us. Add into this schedule a daily Mission Prayer Meeting (Doa Pagi) at noon our time, (10:00 for Indonesia). Additionally, the Snows have been tasked to teach Bahasa and English to the missionaries 4 times a week in that mid-day time. Honestly, I don't know how they are holding up doing it all but they are Super-Troopers! Their organizational skills and technology know-how keep us all running smoothly. With our teaching and curriculum development backgrounds, this kind of work suits our strengths well. A little experience in theatrics has proven helpful too. The 2 days we teach, we come home very hoarse but completely floating on air like we did after our evening English classes in India. These young people are so absolutely wonderful! They are humble and happy, without guile, so sweet and eager to learn and participate. Could you ever ask for better students? It's every teacher's dream! They are the hope of the future of Timor-Leste. Our hearts and arms are expanding to love them all, I think we're about to burst with joy!

Balbina and a cheerful photo bomber

Young people everywhere want peace

Breaking into Partner Practice

The Timorese love to sing with gusto whether it's "If You're Happy and You Know it" or crooning Brenda Lee's soulful hit "I'm Sorry". They are also eager to pray with us before and after each class, almost like it's the norm not the exception. Our last class topic was all about learning to give apologies and ask for forgiveness. Many times we can weave our beliefs of the Godhead and gospel teachings right into the curriculum. And we're living in a place where that isn't taboo to do. (If only, America) We love living among these people, we haven't met a grumpy or impatient one yet. It's breaking our hearts to think our time here is limited. Is there really no way we can stay?

Unfortunately the holiday is over. Ramadan is Rama-done! There is one mosque in Dili and we just happened to drive by it after a morning at the cemetery and see all the people spilling out of their worship service. We weren't even aware of the Muslim population in Dili until then.

Dili Mosque

All the lovely ladies in their finery

We don't see the long black dresses here like we saw in India. These look so much cooler for a humid climate. Have we mentioned before that it rains at least once in the day or night here? As Rob says incredulously every time- "wow, it's really chucking it down!"

Right across the way from our apartment enclave is an open area. Our own local Muslim families had gathered for a meal to break their fasting. There was feasting and chanting for many hours.

But you know what this means don't you? It means the Indonesian government is back to work and our visas may now get processed. Noooooooo! We're not ready!

My work at the cemetery has been progressing but I bet I've maybe only done 1/6th of the entire place. Gee, if only I had 6 more months here.

I never know what surprise visitors I'll run into. Hello Kitty!

A friendly family paying their respects

Still, I'm always a little nervous when approached by someone, wondering if they're going to be angry with me for intruding in their sacred space. As if. Like I said, we haven't met an angry one yet. This man approached me but he spoke no English, I spoke no Tetum except "Bon Dia". I showed him the Billiongraves app and he seemed to understand what I was up to but then he gestured to me to take his picture as if to say, "I am a living monument. Make a record of me." So I did and he seemed quite pleased. I shook his hand and he went on his way. Our encounter struck me with the thought that every person on this earth wants to be remembered by others, to know that their life mattered to someone else. All Lives Matter. I am astounded when I try to comprehend that God loves us all as individuals, as his precious children. But there are just so darn many of us! How is it possible, Lord? I need not wonder, He's got the whole world in his hands! And he only asks us to love all we come in contact with, the you and me brothers and the you and me sisters.

Help us Lord to love them all as you do.

(This photo is from India, the only teeming masses photo I could find)

So we know it's improbable we could stay on here but still, we hope for more time. Praying for red tape, for once. Another senior couple- the Lallitans arrived on Thursday because of their 6 month restriction in Jakarta. So now there are 3 senior couples here in Timor-Leste and they are staying temporarily in a hotel room until we vacate our apartment. That's hardly ideal for them. They are called as Humanitarian missionaries and will work on water and medical projects during their stay, some that are already in the works with Brother Janu and they will help with the English classes when their time permits. Here's another dilemma that Elder Snow pointed out. As a medical missionary, he's met with some local doctors to discuss the level of healthcare available and found it is completely sub-par. How can we possibly send our young missionaries here if there are no adequate medical services? But what about seniors then? Hint: We subsist on prayers!

Metaphorically speaking, it's like putting 50 Band-Aids on a gaping wound.

So there are still things that need working on for the gospel to grow here exponentially. The obvious solution? What if there could be young local missionaries? They've lived their whole lives with their medical system. What's the big dealio? Well, someday, it will happen. In the meantime, we couples will keep prepping the fields so the harvesters can come. There's been many before us and many will likely come after us. We are all mere mortals and old ones at that and can only do so much. I'd like to wave a magic wand to make it all work but we have to leave the details of our lives to our Author who weaves all our stories together. Personally, we can't imagine doing anything more suited to us back in Indonesia than what we're doing now, as a few of the students are starting to ask when our church services are and if they could attend. We'd like to put down some roots in one place and make some lasting friendships with them like we did in India. Alas...

The way we see it, we haven't really lived among Muslims as the predominant religion as yet, and that may be something the Lord would have us do to round out our mission experience. Another missionary couple leaving at the end of April, who we assume we'll pick up their duties, helps out the small outlying branches on many different islands and are constantly traveling from place to place. That suitcase life would also make it hard to establish deep roots in any one place. You just get going and it's time to move on. Kinda like what we'll experience here. So maybe we are only called to be seed planters and dung-ers for now. Just work the soil and plant a few seeds. The Lord surely knows all our strengths and is VERY aware of our weaknesses and limitations too so we'll leave our destiny in His very capable hands.

Until then, we'll continue to love and laugh our way through this season of our mission. More funny microlet trips. More cemetery work. Even grocery shopping can be an amusing multi-store challenge. There is no one store that has it all. The Portuguese store has the best bread. The Super Mercado has pretty decent produce but no mangos or avocados. MeiMart, the Chinese chain has the most affordable groceries and meat. There are tons of Australian products on the shelf and some from Singapore too. Everything but their produce is imported from somewhere else.

Yep, mostly air

???

The closest market in walking distance from our apartment right on the edge of the pier has very little to offer except a small tender mercy. Bulk ice cream that they scoop for us. We can buy a cup of chocolate ice cream for 50 cents. This is our Bengalore Juicy equivalent! Yea for cheap ice cream treats!