Building on a solid foundation

Sunday morning means a lie-in, because there’s no prayer meeting at 5.30am.  The morning church service is at 9.00am and breakfast (with the usual rice and noodles) in the Training Centre is at 7.00am with all the children, but the visitors can have it later in the Common Room (with bread) – I went for both (you need to try and experience everything while you’re here)…

I woke up around 6.00am anyway, because there were children playing and talking outside and dogs barking – the rooms in the guesthouse have no windows, only a mesh netting or wirework (I don’t know the correct English word).

There’s a 20 minute prayer meeting at 8.30am on Sundays, which is lovely – probably about 40 (mostly older) children attended, as well as a few leaders.

The church service was outside today, on the patio in front of the Training Centre and that was lovely too.  It started with a few songs, then prayer and a collection for the villages around LWV, holy communion, the small children singing before they went off to Sunday School, and a sermon.

I do regret I didn’t take the time to learn the language before we came. The sermon was from Matthew and Luke about building on a solid foundation, which I thought was very appropriate for this place: not only are the buildings built on very deep foundations, but what the ministry wants to sow into the lives of these children is a strong foundation in God’s word and a personal relationship with their heavenly Father.  And prayer is clearly an essential part in the life at LWV.

Until Jan-Willem and Marlinda come back from Kuching, Chris & Dil are house parents and they are taking care of 16 boys and 16 girls, all of mixed age so that the older ones can look after the younger ones.  The older girls also cook, but there has to be an adult couple in charge, because the older children don’t have enough leadership capacities.  Chris & Dil say it’s not hard work, because the children are very disciplined and they haven’t had any  problems (you wouldn’t want 32 children living in your house in England in most cases!) – you just have to be around, keep an eye on them and give them love (Chris & Dil don’t even speak the language). And when they’re gone to school in the mornings, you have some time of your own. 

This morning, Ruth and I had a lovely talk with Di – she’s such a sweet lady and a real mother for all the children.  One by one, she’s organising for us to meet the children who are sponsored by people at Trinity Church and in Belgium, so that we can take their pictures and give them their presents.

After lunch, a trip was planned for the visitors to the town nearby, Nanga Pinoh, but I missed the bus but didn’t miss the shopping at all (which afterwards appeared to be all they had done) – not my cup of tea!  Bernard didn’t go either – he went with the young people (including Tom) down to the river, where they had a jungle barbecue with chicken and fish, together with some Indonesian people from here – they really enjoyed themselves.

The evening service at 7pm was great.  The worship started off with a beautiful song – it sent chills down my spine when I heard all the children sing!  Yet again there were different young people than the other times who were leading the worship and preaching – I’m amazed at how many of those youngsters are involved in the ministry – it’s fantastic.

There was a small choir of young girls singing one song as well – very cute – and all the children prayed for the Taylors who are going back to their country on Tuesday for 2 months.  I’ve talked about prayer a bit earlier in this email and it struck me once more how natural it appears to be for even the small children here to pray earnestly.

After the service we met 2 ladies from New Zealand who have just arrived to do some dentistry for 2 weeks, and in the meantime it was time to finish this report and go to bed, because tomorrow is an early start again.

We miss you all, but we wouldn’t have wanted to miss this for anything!...

Love from the Borneo gang