Faith, my first grader who arrived in October.
My entire class: Carter-12, Grace-9, Faith-6.

Last week, I had several opportuniites to practice riding my scooter. Little by little I am gaining confidence. My only "worry" now is crossing over two lanes of traffic in order to make a right hand turn. Yes, I said right hand turn. In Indonesia they drive on the "wrong" side of the road. Left hand turns are a piece of cake - I only have to watch one lane of traffic. Right hand turns are the hard ones. I am learning all the back roads that keep me from having to cut across the dreaded two lanes. :o)

I have had three English club meetings so far. Unfortunately, the second one was poorly attended: only one girl came and she had to leave shortly after arriving because she had a terrible cough. Last week four girls came. I hope for a better turnout tomorrow. I will only have two more English clubs at my house before Kathy returns and takes over again. I will probably continue to attend; I am enjoying it. The girls are so sweet! Two of these girls come to my house on Fridays to tutor me in Indonesian. They don't laugh too hard at my mistakes. :o) The word for hair is rambut and rambutan is the name of a fruit. Also if you want to say "your hair" you say rambutnya. You can guess where I am going with this, right? Yes, I said that I really liked this lady's new style of fruit. I keep praying that God will give me the gift of tongues. :o)

The MAF team will gather on Thursday evening for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We will even have a turkey; not an easy item to find here in Kalimantan. As you gather for your Thanksgiving remember to thank God for the small things - things like electricity, being able to understand the people around you, driving your car in a sane environment, consistent internet etc. Don't take the small things for granted. :o)

Little Red Scooter

My new method of transportation while in Tarakan. I'm still not proficient in its use so have to depend on the goodwill of my fellow MAF team members.

The little school I teach at is called Peningki Hill School. Since I am the only staff member at the school, I get to decide how many days off we get. I decided to take off last Friday, October 30th. Teacher in-service day. :o) I actually got to do something fun. I went to Balikpapan. Due to the oil in Balikpapan, a lot of Westerners live there. So the town has a lot of amenities that Tarakan does not have. For starters a really nice hotel. I spent two nights in Balikpapan relaxing. It was great.

Tomorrow it is back to school again. It will also be my first day to be in charge of the English Club. It will be interesting to see how we cope - I don't speak Indonesian and their English is weak. It will be good for both parties.

Little Red Scooter

I bought a Suzuki scooter today. I will have transportation now and won’t have to be dependent on the goodness of the rest of the MAF team. It gets 120 miles to the gallon!!!! I may have to consider getting one when I get back to the States. I didn’t get to bring it home with me today or I would include a picture. Maybe tomorrow. Now I have to learn how drive it. Hopefully, that won’t take long because it is fully automatic. No gear shifting.

Kathy Maynard, my neighbor just up the hill, is going to the U.S. this Friday and will be gone for five weeks. She hosts several English clubs at her house during the week. Everyone wants to learn or improve their English so she is constantly getting requests to be included in her clubs. I have agreed to take over her Monday afternoon club for the five weeks she is gone. I met three of the girls last Monday – all of them Muslim and all very nice young women. Pray for them and me as we get to know each other.

It is humiliating to realize that one is ethnocentric. Today a men’s group sang at church and I was surprised at how very good they were. Why was I surprised? Did I think Indonesians couldn’t sing? I should have known better than that because the singing in church is always good. The instrumentalists are good and they all play by ear. I hope I learned a lesson.

The men’s group (choir really) will represent East Kalimantan in a competition in Samarinda sometime in the near future. Today they sang a sampling of their repertoire. They sang three songs and the last one was in English – “He is Jehovah”. They did pretty well with the English.

During church I take notes from the Indonesian Bible I use. At home I either ask other MAF team members to help me with unknown words or I compare the passage with my English Bible. It is very frustrating not to be able to speak the language. I have learned a few words but not enough to communicate with ease. I communicate through gestures and blank looks. Won’t it be great to understand and be understood by all language groups in heaven? Now that will be the gift of tongues!!!

My Classroom