Mission Blog of Rich and Deronda Lallatin

 Last week we visited a project up in the mountains of Eastern Java.  To get there we got on a plane and flew an hour and a half.  We grabbed a car and driver at the airport and drove south for another hour and a half before leaving the main road and heading up into the hills.  The road we were on kept getting smaller and smaller (see Pic #1) until we came to a car parked alongside the road, which completely blocked us from getting past.  Fortunately this was right in front of the school.  Pic #2 shows the view from the school - the city in the distance is where we turned off the main road.  This school is on the side of a mountain so that every time it rained water and mud would flow through the classrooms making a mess and moving the school a little further downhill.  We helped them to build a retaining wall to keep their fields in place (Pic #3), a diversion ditch and barrier to protect the classrooms (#4),  and some new bathrooms for the ...

 I'm not sure if Indonesia has electric power companies.   I mean, they must because we get a bill from one every month.   But as we travel around we see things like this everywhere: To me that does not suggest an overall authority in charge.   I wasn't fast enough to get a picture (I was stunned into inactivity),  but I have seen people working on the electrical lines by leaning an aluminum ladder up against the wires (not the pole) with one guy standing on the street with his hand on the ladder (presumably to act as a ground) and another guy standing on the top rung, his leg thrown over the bundle of wires, pulling any wires he can reach closer together with a rope.  I don't think this is a survival trait.   And yet, when I wake up in the morning, my air conditioner is still running. Indonesia - Unity in Diversity

 I had never heard of the fruit called durian until a few months ago.  After we got our mission call, Dave Archibald told us about this legendary fruit famed for its' stench.  He tried to share some with his family, but didn't have much success (the words 'gagging' and 'retching' were used) and mentioned that we would have a chance to eat some in Indonesia.  "Fat chance" I thought to myself. Yesterday we were visiting a project on the island of Sumatra and we saw this sign at the bottom of the elevators.   It made me laugh and I took a picture to send to Dave.  Durian really must smell bad.  The couple that were with us asked about the photograph and I explained.   "What?!" they said.  "You haven't tried durian?!  You HAVE to try some!  It's so good." So we went to The Durian Hut. We are holding durian seeds that are ping pong ball sized, covered in a slimy, smelly 1/4 inch of "edible" goo.  I had 4, Deronda had 3....

 We are at a humanitarian missionary training conference in Bangkok Thailand this week.  On Wed night we were able to attend a temple session at the just-opened Bangkok temple.  It is beautiful.  That is the moon in the sky.  It brings to mind the scripture about the glory of the moon differing from the glory of the sun.   Or the glory of the temple. Here we are in front of the temple.  All those curlicues say 'Holiness to the Lord' in Thai. I like that the Christus figure is surrounded by greenery.  It's very appropriate for SE Asia. Our session had every chair filled, for a total of 29 senior missionaries and church staff.  The session was in English, but when I got to the veil all the questions were asked in Thai.  I winged it pretty well.  Afterward I couldn't find anyone else that had their questions in Thai.  I don't know if it was a mark of respect, or if they were yanking my chain.  Either way it was pretty co...

If you were to lay a map of Indonesia over a map of the US, and line it up so that the most northwest part of Indonesia was right around Portland, you would see that: The island of Sumatra stretches from Portland to Denver; Jakarta and the island of Java stretches from New Mexico to Arkansas; The island of Kalimantan (Borneo) goes to Wisconsin's border with Canada; The island of Sulawesi stretches from Missouri to Canada north of Detroit; And the island of Papua is out in the Atlantic Ocean. This is a very big country. There is a branch in Medan.  There is one in Manado (go to Chicago and follow the pink up until it gets into Canada).   All the rest of the wards and branches are on the islands of Java and Bali.   Missionary transfers involve 3 hour plane rides. This is a very big country. And when the Hastriters go home next month, it will all be our area. How cool is that?!

  This is one of the elevators in our building.  It is about the same as other elevators I've ridden in (except for the attractive young lady riding in it):  the doors open and close, it goes up and down.  There are a couple of idiosyncrasies that I haven't encountered  before. You will notice that there are no 4s anywhere on the control panel - no 4th floor, 14th floor, ..., or any floors in the 40s.  In Chinese the word for 4 and the word for death are very similar.  4 is bad luck.  In western culture 13 is also bad luck.  I don't know why they skipped the 3rd floor.  Maybe they were just in a groove.  Our apartment is on floor #19, but it's really only 15 stories in the air. The elevator also has a pretty cool security feature.  You can get on at any floor and go down to the lobby or the basements without a problem.  But it won't go up without your apartment key, which is attached to a card with a chip in it. When you p...