SHE'LL BE COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN.....

Hi all
First chance to update blog as no power since we came back from Loksado on Sunday evening.
Loksado was a 4 hour drive up into the mountains. Spectacular scenery (and roads!) threaded through with rivers which are the main transport routes. The air was pure (pretty polluted in Banjarmasin) and it was much cooler as very high up, which we all enjoyed very much. We stayed at the home of someones cousins friend (or something like that).The house was a long wooden one, with boarded-off areas with curtains which were the bedrooms. The family (5 of them) all moved out to sleep in the living room and insisted we had the bedroom. Stan and I had the master suite (a padded quilt on the floor). The windows were just holes, so we needed our mosquito nets. Hadn't used them at Biddy's house as she has net over the windows which is very effective). Despite the fact that we were sleeping on the floor we all slept like logs, due to a combination of the cool, fresh air and the fact that the power in the village is only on until 8pm, so not much else to do when it's dark but sleep!
Loksado seems as if it hasn't changed for many years. The main crops are rubber (from rubber trees - we were shown by one of the village elders how to cut the tree and catch the rubber), nutmeg (the family work together sitting on the porch - Dad hits the shell with a hammer, Mum removes it and the children lay them out on a cloth to dry in the sun, and cinammon - again the family work together to strip the bark, cut it into strips and lay it out to dry. As it dries it curls up into the cinammon sticks we buy - except these are about 3 feet long. We bought a batch of about 30 sticks for the equivalent of about 48p - and he said that was a very high price and was delighted. If it makes the journey home we can show you. One thing is changing, however, according to the elders. At present most families have a small patch of land on which they grow their rice, vegetables, a few rubber trees and some fruit trees (jack fruit, papaya, oranges, which are actually green here, mango) so, coupled with the chicken they keep and the wild pigs they trap in the jungle they are pretty self-sufficient, buying what little they need from the money they get from selling the rubber. Some big businesses have been approaching some families and offering them high prices (certainly more money than they can imagine) to sell them their fields so they can be cleared and palm trees planted - a lot of money to be made in palm oil production. Some of them have agreed, and of course are wealthy for a year, and then realize they now have to start buying their rice, vegetables and fruit.
Loksado is interesting in another way. A few years ago a couple of families of our faith felt God telling them to build a place of worship in the village, which they did with what little money they have and everyone helping. It is a few hundred yards from the other place of worship in the village. At the time the other faith represented 95% of the people in the village, but now it is 70% our faith and 30% of the other. Also, everyone in the village is now one of these faiths with a small group of people still practising animism living outside the village.
They regularly have 150 people attending their place of worship, we went on Sunday and it was amazing to see.
They have home group Bible study in people's homes twice a week (they take it in turns), and we were invited on Friday evening. Everyone sits around the walls (Indonesians don't have furniture,other than a few cupboards, everything is done on the floor). We had amazing worship, a talk (translated) by one of Biddy's ex-students who is now doing her 2 year curacy in the village and then we were fed (all 78 of us- the only people in the village who didn't come were those working in some way). We had roast wild boar (killed fresh that morning), chicken (ditto), and stacks and stacks of vegetable dishes, rice and fruit. All done on one little fire which looked like a disposable BBQ but had wood instead of charcoal - incredible!
The hospitality of the whole village was amazing - we were fed like kings three times a day (meat, vegetables and rice is breakfast as well as the other two meals). They are also very industrious -they need to get their bamboo down river, so they arrange raft rides for anyone who wants to ride the rapids on the river - a 3 hour trip. (Many people of the other faith go to Loksado for a day out because of the clean mountain air). They charge 20,000 rupiah each person (about 2 pounds) and make the rafts from about 6 large bamboo trunks tied together with a few more stacked on the top for a seat. Sure enough at the end of the ride there is the drivers wife and daughter splitting bamboo and putting it in bundles ready to go away to the furniture shop - and no transport costs for them! By the way I declined the ride on the rapids - I get scared on the log flume at Alton Towers!

PLEASE PRAY FOR -
The people of Loksado that they are able to continue the way of life they have chosen and the faith they have chosen, and that they will continue to encourage others to want to be like them.
For Biddy - still waiting for an exit and re-entry visa to go to Singapore on the 24th July for her hospital check up - there are difficulties at the moment.
For us and our students - this is our final week of teaching - next week all tests and exams. We are spending a lot of time with our students helping them with their English for their presentations on Mark's Gospel (telling the story) and a written presentation they are preparing on places Paul visited (our group are working on Phillipi and Iconium. We are learning so much!
With our love and blessings
Sue and Stan