Saturday, March 01, 2008

Kerja Bakti







Well, today we had kerja bakti at our new place of worship. Kerja means work and I don't know what bakti means exactly but when you put the two words together it means we all as church got together and helped clean up. This building is being loaned to us for two years by the ZGK. It is the old school house that the missionary kids attended while living in the dorm beside (in background of second last photo). So the men sanded the finished benches and then stained them. The backs of our legs are very thankful for the sanding that was done... Myself and some of the single girls cleaned up a garden area behind/beside the building. There was a lot of broken tile and concrete and weeds there so we cleaned it all up by throwing everything down the hill beside... You can see on the last photo where we were working. In behind you can see a partially finished something; well that something is going to be the washroom for the church. Hope it's done in the next three weeks... There were a lot of us working and not that much work to be done so as you can see by the second photo, there was some shooting of the breeze occuring as well. The kids ran around and played some basketball and soccer and climbed trees.
The kids were for the most part back to normal today. So after kerja bakti (I left early with the kids) we went to the pool for a nice refreshing swim.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Erica,
The place brings many memories, as you will understand. It's nice to see that some of the things I helped build or design are still there!
It looks like you are building the washrooms behind the schoolhouse, where the slope is actually very steep.
On that very spot where some people appear to be planting a flowerbed, the waterpipe from the dorm to the house in the second picture (the teacher's house at the time) once broke during an earthquake, and it took some doing to get it fixed--including an accident in downtown Sentani that landed me in the police station with an officer yelling et me...
Bakti=service; we used the word in kebaktian, church service. Kerja bakti would then be volunteer work, specifically for the church in this case. We had a similar event one time to get the church building in Waena up and running.
Wishing you the Lord's blessings as you prepare to move to the "new" facilities!
uncle keith

Anonymous said...

Nice to have an oncle who knows a lot about papaua.
Have a blessed sunday
Pama

Mary said...

It's good to hear that the kids are feeling better. You worry when they get fevers...you never know what it is. Those bumps that Brynnie had all over her ...Josh had something like it when he was a little tyke. His legs were just purple and swollen with bumps. The doctors never figured out what it was from. He got strange rashes after that for a while but not anymore. The weirdest thing.
Hope the kids had a great swim!!!
Have a blessed Sunday and May God always watch over you in your task.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Mary

Fried said...

Hi All
Got on for a change again.Read your blog every nite so am up to date on youse.Sure thankful you are once again all well.Love the pictures.Nice that all could work together to cleanup.All is fine here in Neerlandia.
Contiuing to remember you all in my prayers,may God BLESS
Love MEEEEEEEE xoxoxoxoxox