Selamat Hari Minggu! We’ve already been to church today. Today we had a good sermon about the importance of having only one God in your life.
Yesterday morning at 8:00 our doorbell rang. We were still relaxing in bed… It was our landlord with a couple of his buddies. They’d come to dig our well deeper. We had no idea they were coming. Turned out someone had SMS’ed us, but at 6:30 that morning… Typical Indonesian style. Anyways, our well is in the corner of our downstairs bathroom. There was some discussion as to the price etc… Pak Nadi, who is hired by MAF to arrange all this kind of stuff, came by and he called the head MAF guy in Jakarta. Originally the landlord wanted us to pay for the entire amount. This is not normal, he should be the one paying for it. So there was some more discussion and eventually they came to an agreement to split the cost 50/50. We need water. So the guys started digging and the bathroom slowly disappeared underneath a layer of black mud. (which the guys cleaned up at the end of the day!) I took the three oldest kids to the mall so they could play at the Jump’n Gymn and we could get the boys new backpacks. Hugo stayed home with the two youngest to “supervise” the operation. The guys dug the well 2 meters deeper. Now we have to let it sit for at least a day before we use the water. But the main thing is that there is water in the well!! Yippee!! Hot showers, here we come!!
Thought it was about time we gave you an update on the kids. Mikah is loving grade three and is doing well at it. She and her best friend Hannah visit each other a fair bit and are two peas in a pod. Hannah’s mom happens to be in my class as well. Mikah continues to read book after book after book. Christiaan is progressing nicely in grade one. He is learning sight words and is starting to read a little. It is more difficult for him because of his hearing loss, but he is coming along. They are starting up a grade 1-2 soccer program soon and he is eager to join. Aidan has gotten used to school and enjoys it. He has some good buddies in his class too. One lives near us so sometimes they play together after school. Marc likes to stay home with the Ibu’s. He’s quite a stinker and locked himself in our bedroom the other day. The Ibu’s were both having heart attacks that he was playing with electricity or something. He was just lying on our bed. Maybe he just missed us. Marc also has some little friends that he plays with regularly. But his favorite thing is to ride the motorbike with Daddy. Brynnie also loves the Ibu’s and they have lots of fun with her. Just is just about able to walk by herself. She’s just a bit scared to do it. She now has five teeth and a mass of red curls on her head. She’s also figured out that the Ibu’s don’t like it if she’s sad or mad and will do anything to make her happy….
Hugo and I are moving along in Unit 2. We are learning lots of verbs and how to conjugate them. Thankfully we don’t have to use different forms for different tenses, just passive and active. It’s definitely easier than English that way. However, there are times when there are different words for things that in English we have one word for. For example, in English there is one word for rice no matter what state it is in. In Bahasa Indonesia there are different words. Rice in the field (I forget the word), uncooked rice (beras) and cooked rice (nasi). We are also studying more of the culture and everyday language. Which is a good thing, as our neighbours definitely speak everyday Indonesian.
















This guys job is to take the mud out and dump it down by the river.