The Trapani's in Timor Leste

We chartered an airplane and flew to nearby Atauro Island to check out our humanitarian project. It was only a 20-minute flight. If we took the ferry it would have taken two and a half hours each way. It only cost $290 for the round trip including about an hour and a half of waiting time for the pilot.  We took off from the Dili airport. We landed on a short dirt runway. The plane was in excellent condition and we had a very professional and experienced pilot. They are part of a NGO that provides discount charters to charitable organizations and they also do the Medevac flying for the country.  Upfront is our replacement sister Gruwell. Behind her is the head of the NGO who rebuilt the building for. Her name is Maria and the NGO is called Diak We were met at the runway with a modified golf cart that was used to transport us to our building. This is the building we financed to be constructed. It will be a dormitory for a mentoring program for young adults on th...

This is Sister Staples and sister Gruwell. They have arrived here for a 10-day transition as our replacements. They were transferred in from the mission office in Jakarta. They are here until the middle of November until Elder and sister Bitter arrive. They have a great attitude and are very capable. We already feel some of our load being lifted.  One of our English classes wrote us some thank you notes. More thank you notes. Things are starting to wrap up very nicely. We got all of our legal agreements approved for the three projects that we just got approved. We will able able start all three projects and get them funded before we leave. The projects are a village water system, teaching intermediate English classes in a neighboring rural Village and training farmers and helping them start a community garden.

 We had a field trip for our combined English classes. We went to a place called $1 Beach. There was a pavilion facility there that they let us use. Just like all of our field trips in the past each of the classes put on a skit or a presentation. It went well. It lasts a long time. Each class gets about 25 minutes. We had about a hundred and forty people attend. We use the normal mode of transportation for large groups which are pickup trucks. We had three this time. The third dump truck was from a town called Tibar which is just outside of Dili. It's a farming Community where we teach English to the town in one of their elementary schools on the weekends. The classes are taught by some of our advanced English class students. About 35 of them came. The beach here was beautiful. The weather was a little mild that day, so it went very well. After the presentations we had the traditional Timorese dance. It turned out to be a very successful activity. We are always su...

  I was able to get an appointment with the director general of the Ministry of Justice. His name is John DeCosta. I was able to take about 20 minutes and explain what we're doing in this country and answer questions. This all was done through an interpreter. He is very supportive. He said he was very happy with what we've accomplished so far and that if we needed anything in the future he would be glad to support us and help.  If you look closely about 1/2 way up the cell tower there is a worker there. What's amazing is that there is no ladder and he has no safety harness. He moved around like he was working at ground level. When life is cheap and liability laws are lax you get of workers doing some pretty dangerous stuff The city actually built a park. It's a nice park by the ocean. This was all done in conjunction with the country's 20th anniversary of their independence. The Independence Day celebration was on Friday. We did not attend any of the activit...

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 t...

 We start off by getting on the mekrolett about two blocks from our house. It cost $0.25 each. It's route takes us almost in front of our first grocery store.  This is our first stop for grocery shopping. We get most of our produce here. It has the largest selection. Overall the stores here have about one-fifth of the variety and selection then we have in America. Usually all we can buy these whole chickens. Occasionally we can buy chicken breasts. When we do find those we buy about 6 packages so we have a stock. All we've had for the last three months are these whole chickens. The problem is there is not so much meat and a lot of Bones and waste. They come Frozen from Brazil.  The challenges is the labeling. Usually you can tell what the product is from are the picture. If there's any mixing or ingredients involved it becomes very difficult.  We walk inside of the neighbouring mall and visit this grocery store. We pick up whatever produce we couldn't ...

 During the mission presidents visit here two months ago Januario  asked him if he knew how much guitars cost in Indonesia. He is interested in buying a new one. The prices in Indonesian are substantially less than in timor-leste. During this last visit president Mackay brought him a guitar as a gift. Of course Januario was very grateful and appreciative. It is difficult mixing the American culture and the Timorese culture together because of the vast differences in wealth. An American salary would be 10 to 20 times more than a Timorese salary with the same skills.  There is a natural tendency to want to buy them stuff because they have so little and you have so much.  This is my mission president, president Mackay. He is a marathon runner. He has run about 20 of them. Whenever he comes out we go for a run together. He usually is stuck running in Jakarta Indonesia with the air pollution in the traffic. He loves it here. This was an 11 mile run up the river b...

 Janu and Zelia are now married. It was difficult for them. Even though he is 30 and she is 23 they needed written permission from their parents and the endorsement of their home villages. Through skillful negotiation he was able to get Zelia's parents to wave the bride price which can be as large as one year's salary. The Catholic Church does almost all of the weddings here. There are not many organizations authorized to conduct weddings. Since they were both born Catholic, like 95% of all the citizens here, the Catholic wedding was easy to arrange. Cheryl and I are there godparents. We got to participate in the ceremony. Cheryl held the Rings for them.  This is the moment where the priest presented them as a married couple.  As part of the ceremony we signed the Catholic churches Parish record of the event  On her wedding day Zelia was scheduled to teach a village English class. Cheryl taught the class in her place. The Village knew we were coming an...

There is plenty of room to stay at the hotel California. A one-way flight from the nearest major airport, which is Bali, cost $300 for a flight that is only about 700 miles. For some reason the cost to fly to this impoverished nation is about double or triple what it is to other cities in the region. For that reason and the fact that there's no developed tourism infrastructure there are only a handful tourists at any time. Here is the Hotel California. It actually looks pretty nice and it is across the street from the beach. We run along this River a couple times a week. During the rainy season part of the retaining wall for the road collapsed. It's taken about five months to get this much work done. Fortunately at the top of the picture you can see a barrier. This is unusual. It's usually just driver beware. I post a lot of these videos of singing in our English classes because they are so interesting. We sing them so the students get practice saying English ...