Last week was crazy: On Sunday night, April 15, I was in charge of our weekly SIL meeting. I organized the music and the speakers. I reported on what we did during OE (Outdoor Education) with my students. During OE, we worked with a group of Indonesian students who are part of a program called TITIP. They are learning English and western culture, how to lead worship services, and things like that. So I asked some of my students as well as some TITIP students to speak about their OE experience. It turned out that we had a lot of extra time, so I opened the floor for other students to speak. Some of the most unexpected students came forward and really shared their heart - it was amazing. I'm sure that if I had asked them to prepare, they would have said no, but because we had extra time, they volunteered. God was really working. I got a lot of compliments on the meeting, but I know it was all God's planning that made it happen. Well, that was just the beginning of the week. On Wednesday, we had portfolio projects due for all the teachers so I spent many hours on that. Then, progress reports were due. On top of that, we had two 2-hour seminars on Child Safety and Abuse on Tuesday and Wednesday night (6:30-8:30). Well-well, I go to bed at 8:30 so it was really hard to focus, but I made it through. On Thursday, we had a half day so the students went home after lunch, but the teachers met with the seminar leaders for 3 more hours. Then, there's more . . . On Friday, my roommates and I invited two TITIP students home with us for "Home-Stay," which is pretty straight forward. The students come and stay at your home for the weekend and they learn about western culture. We had two wonderful girls and we taught them how to make bread and omelets and pizza and they taught me how to fry fish and make a green bean dish with garlic and onions and eggs. It was delicious. But then, there's more . . . On Saturday, we had the Classical Concert. I played a duet with the elementary principal, who plays the cello. It went really well - the concert was very professional and we had a variety of music - piano, voices, clarinet, trumpet, and cello. One group consisted of 4 piano players on 2 pianos and they played Babes in Toyland - it was great. One of the singers was actually on her way to becoming a professional singer before she came here and the others are just about as good as her. They sang some opera (in Italian) and some other songs - WOW.

Wow. He is risen - He is risen indeed. What a great Easter weekend. I was able to participate in a new tradition. We woke up at 3 am Easter morning and then joined hundreds of other Christians walking down the main road carrying torches and singing praises to God before attending the sunrise service. It was amazing (even in the rain). Since my last posting, many things have happened. I am living at a new location and I have made some new friends in the community. A few weeks ago, we had a huge rain storm which caused massive flooding and damaged several bridges. There were also landslides on the mountain which caused hundreds of houses to be filled with several feet of mud. In response, the HS students I work with spent two weeks digging out houses, ditches, and roads. We also held kids clubs in each work area in which we sang songs about Jesus and performed a Bible skit for the children. We are still hearing reports about how much we impacted our town. What a blessing to have this opportunity. Most of the mud has been removed and the flooding has gone down, but some low-lying areas are still suffering because they are in the flood zone and could easily flood again with a big rain. Some of these people have built make-shift homes on higher ground. As for the bridges, temporary bridges have been built either around or over the original bridges to allow traffic to flow. However, some of them are one-way so we usually go one direction to school and then take the back-roads home. As for fresh fruit and vegetables, it has been a huge blessing because we thought that with the destruction of hundreds of gardens, fresh food would be in short supply, but God has provided and we can still buy what we need. Praise God for all the wonderful things He is doing.