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....