Rivers Baptist Church - Christ alone - and Him crucified

Hello again,

Thank you for the emails you have sent. I just wanted to say that because of the slow net connection I probably won't be able to personally answer many email, but we do love getting them and really appreciate it! And we do want to know how you are all going and what has been happening in oz and beyond I will try to send an update at least weekly to let you know what has been happening over here in Bau Bau.

Well it's one week down and 7 to go - no we are not counting or anything.

There has been so much to take in this week, but we are really starting to settle in now. It has been great to have this week just to get our heads around different things.

One of the main things that we have learnt this week is not to depend too much on planning. We have discovered that Margaret's teaching has been pulled back another week and won't start until October 9th (if we are lucky). Originally it was meant to start at the beginning of September. Because of the fasting month many things are fairly unpredictable. I feel for poor Margaret. The other day we were meant to have water dropped off at 9am and it didn't turn up until 12pm. The power also quite frequently turns itself off. I'm so glad we have a generator! The other day we braved eating out and the power switched off at the place we were eating. it was good though coz it came back on soon after. Tegan and I have actually found the mystery of it all quite amusing most of the time its kinda fun not knowing what will happen next.

We still haven't started language learning, but the lonely planet book has been fantastic (thanks Trace). Actually we kind of had our first lesson today but it was with some children from the street we live in. They were at our front gate and we gave them some clip on koalas and wristbands and went and sat with them for a while. They are all smiles. and love to practice their English as well as teach us Indonesian. They also stole Tegan's camera and went snap happy. they took some really great photos. So we learnt a few words like "friend" and "banana" and also "heads, shoulders, knees and toes' in Indonesian. I love these children and hopefully we will get to help with teaching English in the primary school.

So this week has been spent going around to different places. Last night we went to a friends place for real pizza (I thought I wasn't getting any until I got back to oz). They are an American family and are in the same line of work as Margaret. We played with there 3 beautiful children (5,3,8
months) and will probably spend a bit of time there babysitting next week and over the next 8 weeks. The father is away very sick (father point) and the mum (super mum) is doing it tough. Kev, you would be happy to know that the dad is a diver as well and he loves to dive around this island, if he was well Margaret said he would probably teach and take us diving. There is supposedly some beautiful dive sites around here.

I feel that I'm adjusting more to the heat and humidity, so when we return to Townsville we will be all set for the hot summer. One thing that I'm still getting used to is waking up every morning at 4am and hearing the call to prayer from the mosques. We live near quite a few, and because of the holy month this will happen for another 3 weeks at least. It amazes me that these cousins are able to fast from 4am in morning to 6pm at night no food or water, and many of them are still working in tiresome jobs. I really respect that they are able to do it. I find it hard to last half an hour without water.

Anyways that is enough for now, I hope that you are all well.
Please take care, will be in touch soon.
Salamat
Simoane