Hopefully one more big water project

We are attempting to get one more projet approved before we leave.  The challenge is that it exceeds our budget by about $20,000. The project will bring water to a village of 300, a Catholic Church and a school.  The project is of added value because it is desired and it will be visible to the national government. We always place a higher priority on projects that align themselves with the government's desires.

I received preliminary approval to write up the project and submit it. It will be interesting to see if I get it through the final committee which includes a member of the area presidency.

 Because our congregation is so small and has very little of the typical congregation organizations it is sometimes difficult to find meaningful responsibilities for all of the members. We try and be creative and resourceful. We discovered that some of the new converts like to sing. This is the first Sunday where we had Januaro sing. He sang the hymn God be with you till we meet again. This picture is of him practicing before our sacrament meeting.

It ended up being a good experience. He sang well. We then discovered that the older daughter's all like to sing. They will have their turn in 3 weeks.

Every Friday we go over to Januaro's house and have the missionaries from Indonesia teach the family the after baptism lessons. For this lesson Domingas invited her sister and father. The sister is in the green t-shirt.

We work with an international NGO called Water Aid. We've been out to several of the projects they have done for us. We discovered that their director, Edmond, lives in our apartment complex. Several months ago he invited us over for dinner with his family. We finally were able to reciprocate.

They are from Indonesia. He graduated College as an engineer but didn't find the work fulfilling. He then went to work for Water Aid and has been using his skills to design and now direct water projects. They have been living in timor-leste for about five years. For three of those years they were living in one of the rural districts. Working for most International Aid organizations requires that you spend your career living in remote 3rd World areas.

While I was writing this blog we got a knock on our door and it was Saul.   He is the man who recently started helping us in our English classes. He's the one that's missing an arm. He has some sort of stomach or bladder problem and is going to go to Indonesia to see if he can get it diagnosed and corrected. It sounds like it may be pretty serious. He needed 50 more dollars for his transportation tomorrow.

We are repeatedly cautioned by our humanitarian leaders not to start lending and giving money away. It's hard not to. They are so needy and so poor. We occasionally do lend money. Usually it's in the 20 or $30 range. And usually we get paid back. I don't think we'll get paid back by Saul. We probably only have done it about seven or eight times on our mission. it doesn't seem right to just always say no. I think the best we can do is just keep it manageable. We don't want to set expectations on the next couple that follows us.