A week in heaven


We were in Bali for 8 days. A lot of it was spent just like this. Sometimes missions can be pretty easy.
On one of the days we visited the Bali Zoo.
There were a lot of animals that weren't in cages. Things are different in countries that don't have very strict liability laws.
We also visited the valley bird park. It was well done. They have lots of birds in this part of the world.
We went for a walk along a ridge. Farmers were harvesting hay probably the same way all their ancestors did.

Bali is an interesting place because labor is so inexpensive. It's remarkable the number of people they had working at the medium sized hotel we stayed at. The average worker in an unskilled position makes the country minimum wage, which is $220 a month for working full-time. At that price you could employ a lot of workers.


On Sunday while at church the Branch President invited us over to his home for dinner during the week. He is the one with the baby on his shoulders. He's from France. He married the Indonesian lady next to him in the brownish yellow top. The rest of the people are members of the branch that live in the general area. The branch encompasses the entire Island so it's a pretty big area. The lady in the black is from New Zealand. The man in the white T-shirt is from Australia. The man in the purple shirt is from Beaumont Texas. The man standing is from Indonesian. The lady in the brown top is his wife from America.

Most of them are here because Indonesia is an inexpensive place to live. The only problem is foreigners cannot work here. So you have to have income from somewhere else. The guy from Australian in the white T-shirt has an internet business. The guy in the purple shirt owns a business and some properties in Texas. The branch president and his wife have built some apartments and they rent out to Airbnb. They all seem to be very adventuresome people.

The family from Beaumont Texas has four children.
In the bird park they had a show. One of the acts was they asked someone to come from the audience and hold a tray on their head. They then put some meat on the tray and had an eagle come by and grasp it off. This is the video of the act that followed.

The three girls who went to youth conference seem to like it very much. They cried when it was over and they had to leave. It was quite a treat for them. The first time in an airplane and the first time staying at a hotel. The people were very nice to them. The day they flew in and then the day they flew out they stayed at a hotel in Bali with the branch president and his family, (the Amot family). They were very generous. They bought them some clothes. He even gave them an old electronic tablet he had so the family would be able to look at all the electronic resources the church has.

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