Difficulties...

I was able to get in a visit with Ibu N on Thursday morning. I took the Belgian nurse with me. I couldn't believe the condition of Ibu N. When we first arrived she was lying motionless and staring straight ahead like a zombie. She barely reacted to us. But we continued to talk with her and at first I was a little afraid of contact with her as she has TB, but the nurse reassured me that it is only transmitted if the TB patient coughs. So, with that knowledge I felt more comfortable to touch her. She is soooo skinny and weak. After a while she agreed to sit up and had some water to drink and a snack that had just been handed out. We also managed to get her to smile and before we left I prayed with her. We were given a bag of her dirty clothing by the nurses as again, no family had come to see her. The Belgian nurse, R, contacted the family and asked them to pick up the clothes and wash them and return them to my house by the next day as she was going to bring them then. The family didn't come until the evening and it had been raining so there was no way the clothing would be dry. So I washed and dried them. It is so sad that they care so little about Ibu N. We are very thankful that R has been around here and is able to coordinate Ibu N's care as she is very experienced with TB. Please pray for Ibu N!

The house that is located on the same property as the building that we worship in has been now inhabited by some P*puans. They broke down a door and use the building to take part in activities of a sinful nature. This is not a nice situation as the longer they are in that house, the harder it will be for us to remove them. That is the character of their people.

Another very difficult situation is that there are a couple guys from the church in Waena who have started another "reformed" church which is more politically oriented. As in, free P*pua oriented. However, they were the two that took care of the money that the government gives to our church. Originally there had been a church account where the funds were deposited into. However, when they came into "power" they changed the account to a private one in their names only. So last year they received the full funding that was meant for our church, 400,000,000 rupiahs, and bought all their friends new motorbikes... People have tried to go to the government and explain the situation, but the government workers just say,"That's your problem, you have to work it out between eachother." Now a couple men from our church are trying to fix things again. Hopefully they are successful because this kind of blatant corruption is very destructive to a church. It is a terrible situation! Please pray for the churches here as they experience many difficulties such as this one.