On to Papua

1-31
(wasn’t able to post this before but I will anyways)
I am heading to Papua tonight! Yay! I am very excited (if you can’t tell)!! I can’t say thank you enough to Jessy and her family for helping me with all the little things during my time in Jakarta. Yesterday they helped me enjoy my last day for a while in the luxury of city life – we ate at pizza hut and watched a movie at the movie theater.

I have plenty of reading for the travels – a manual on Care Groups – WR’s model for volunteer based maternal child health programs and guides for Umoja – a method to engage the church in transforming the community. Nerd that I am – I am looking forward to these reading materials….plus it is different from my bahasa Indonesia book! Still need to learn that somehow….hmmm

Yesterday I was led to Isaiah 61:1-3, a verse that often reminds me of the direction and passions I have in life. My prayer for the Papuan church is the end of verse 3, that they will be called mighty oaks , a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

Please pray for safe travels and no troubles with arrival, checking in, and settling in.

2-3
I made it safely to Wamena! After being in big, new cities for the last few weeks it was like a breath of fresh air when I first got here. Wamena is a small city/town in a valley in the middle of the mountains. It is very beautiful all around. And the weather is very nice! Hot during the days and cool at night, much cooler than where I have been.

Day 1 I pretty much just rested – didn’t get much sleep on the overnight flight. John met me at the airport and showed me where everything was. He is the media trainer/staff with WR in Wamena. I am living at the office – the room is nice, I have my own space and am unpacked. The office is in a family’s house and I will be getting my meals from them. So far so good with the food – the only thing that has been hard to get used to is having the same thing for breakfast as any other meal…rice with whatever else – meatballs, soups, veggies. It will be nice not having to worry about my food, but I do enjoy cooking at home, I might miss that.

Day 2 –
Was the first day at the office. Mostly just orienting and figuring things out, I read some of the manuals and documents. The adventure of the day was distributing invitations for the capacity building training for the partners. Ibu Jo Ann, the country director, will be coming next week to do some capacity building training for the local NGO partners and the church partners. I say it was an adventure because it is not just sticking invites in envelopes and mailing them, it requires going to every partner to hand deliver and speak personally with them. Though time consuming, it is actually nice because it builds relationships with the partners. I mentioned this to Heidy and she said that is also why she personally delivers them rather than having one of the other staff members do it.

Day 3 –
Today is a holiday in Indonesia so no work. I went on a little trip with John and the media volunteers a little outside of Wamena, up into the hills by a river. They had cooked chicken and rice and we had a little picnic there and hung around for a while. It was fun meeting the media volunteers – at first we were both a little shy, but I got started talking to one of the girls while the food was cooking then a few more of the girls came in. Definitely got to practice my bahasa Indonesia, and learn more. Teens are great for that – it was similar in Malawi and Uganda. I have found that it is easier to muddle through with them than adults where it feels more formal and I feel my inadequacy at the language more. Of course I make plenty of mistakes and there are laughs, but they are patient!

Hopefully I can post some pics soon – the internet is usually faster in the morning so I will try and upload some morning.