Christal's Trip - Aug 2007 - Part I (Bali)

A little background about Christal and this trip:
I recently graduated from university, and before starting work in September I decided to make a trip to Indonesia. I had heard about Mustard Seed from a friend in Toronto. After reading more and meeting with Lucie I decided that I wanted to find out more about their work on the ground. That’s what this trip was for me. A chance to find out more; to see if it was something I wanted to get involved in perhaps?

It was two weeks in July/August 2007. I won’t tell you everything since that would be too much but here’s a summary with pictures…

Some things I saw and did

For more photos of Bali click here

Bali

We visited Seeds of Hope – an orphanage supported by MSI. Even though we only spent half a day there it was as if it had been much longer. The kids were great. They were so full of life.

Ibu Sandra and Pak Tommy are really wonderful. They look after around 75 kids at the orphanage. They just calmly watch the children. They don’t have to shout at them or chase them around. At the end of the day Pak Tommy was making announcements. He was telling the kids not to fly kites on the rooftops, and it is the older kids who are responsible for stopping the younger ones if they see them.

You can tell that the kids know that they’re loved and taken care of, and that’s why they’re so free to laugh and have a good time.

The kids prepared dinner – they all know what their responsibilities are. It was really nice to see the older ones looking after the younger ones.

When we first arrived some of the kids were randomly banging on the xylophones (I’m not sure what exactly they were, but something like xylophones) and it sounded like a lot of noise. So I wasn’t prepared for it when they did a performance for us before dinner. They were really good.

After dinner we stayed for their ‘service’ - a worship and bible study time. A young man who used to live there led the bible study. He graduated from school and is now working as an engineer. The kids are taken care of right up until college and they’re able to find work.

They really appreciate school. Some of them are waiting to receive sponsorship to go to college, and when they find out that they can they’re so excited.

It really was one big family.