The Trapani's in Timor Leste

Four times during the last few months Domingas and her family have treated us to a dinner at their house. It was always a fancier dinner than the family usually has. For one of the dinners they even cooked one of their own chickens. To pay them back for their kindness we took them out to dinner at a restaurant. Only one of the children had ever been out to eat at a restaurant in their lives. They seem to really enjoy it. None of them drank there drinks. We thought they didn't like them.  They all wanted to take them home and save them and have them later. June 22nd was the big day. The three oldest girls traveled with us to Indonesia to go to a youth conference. It was a big event for the family. It is the first time that any of them, including the parents, has ever been on an airplane. The whole family came to the airport to see them off. Of course it was their first time inside of an airport. They were nervous. The one on the left, Azeni let out a scream when the pl

We finished our third set of English classes. Because we had so many graduates this time we had to split the graduation into two so they would all fit in the church. In the morning we had the basic and intermediate classes. That was four classes and we had about a hundred people attend. In the afternoon we had our two advanced classes graduate. There was about 35 in attendance. In total we had about a hundred and sixty student graduate. In order to graduate you needed to take the midterm and final exam and attend 50% of the classes. We had about 32 class sessions. Each of the graduations had two masters of ceremonies chosen from the students. Cheryl spoke at the first graduation and I spoke at the second graduation. Each student had their name read and came forward and received a diploma. A neighborhood dance group came and performed a traditional dances. Some of the classes got together and sang. After the speeches, presentation of certificates, and then the singi

Somehow all of the classes found out that it was Cheryl's birthday. Some of the classes gave her cakes and donuts and some sang to her. 6 days a week we get up at 5:15 in the morning. It's not that hard to do because we go to bed at 9:15. We get up that early so we can go out running while it's still relatively cool. 4 days a week Cheryl runs 7 miles each day and then the remaining two days she runs 4 miles. On her four mile days she then goes and lifts weights in the apartment complex weight room. Here is a cow that's just meandering along a busy highway. Our morning runs are filled with unusual animals. Yesterday we saw a monkey. Here is our apartment complex weight room. For the last four months I've been lifting weights 4 days a week. On my lifting days I run 4 miles. On the other two days I will run 10 miles. Our mission has been a blessing for working out. On most missions where there are humanitarian couples the air pollution is terrible and

This project was started about eight months ago. All this Village had was an empty field, a few pigs and a couple goats. Now with their new Farm they feed the village of 14 families with a variety of nutritious vegetables. They sell the extra to the market and to customers who come directly to the field. With the extra they are able to pay for their children's School, buy extra livestock and even buy a motorcycle so that they could deliver their crops to Market. This has all happened in only eight months. Here's just a portion of the farm. It is well kept and organized. 12 of the 14 families in the village work in the farm. This was a very successful project. It's likelihood of lasting long-term is very high because it is so economically viable. It is the only farm in the area that can grow vegetables in the dry season because of its well. In the hour we were there five customers came by to purchase the vegetables. Sometimes some of the area grocery stores will come a