Mission Thoughts (by Melvin)

OUR MISSION

As I think of our mission so many things come to mind. One of the first things is the missionaries. We live about 12 feet from where the office Elders and the assistants to the President live. The mission home is about right next to them on the other side from us. All of the mission offices for all of Indonesia are just upstairs from our apartment/ office. We have 4 Elders (the AP’s and two office Elders) in our apartment every day and we get very close to them. Then every time new Elders come or old Elders leave we have them for a few days. We have wonderful Elders and Sisters here in Indonesia. Our mission President is a marvel. The mission is over 5000 miles from end to end. We have about 10 small branches around Jakarta that he does not have to fly to-only drive for 1 to 3 hours to get to each. Then there are 8 branches that are spread throughout the country. They take from 2-4 hours of airport time to each. Missionaries are spread throughout and so the president is on the phone continually and many of the missionaries he will only see about every 3 months. On top of this he has all the branch and district leaders that he must work with and call since we have no stakes. About the only thing he doesn’t have to worry about is us. We pretty well do without his help. That’s funny because they have us over to eat and talk very often. In all of Indonesia there is only 3 mission couples and one of those couples go home on May 13. They are the Thompsons from Elk Ridge and they have been working very hard on Employment (impossible to find) and the Perpetual Education Fund. PEF has been so difficult for them because it has never been in Indonesia and the rules are so hard to live by if you have no money. The sad thing is that the Thompsons have no replacement missionaries to carry on what they have been able to accomplish. The Church has not enough couples to fill the necessary spots. The second couple is the Grovers from Washington, who moved to Eagle Mountain just before they came. They live in Solo (2 million people) about and an hour’s flight time away. Just 3 years ago there were 8 couples here and now we have 3 going on 2.

Our work is very difficult because we don’t know what to do. The climate is quite nice (about 80degrees day, 80 degrees night, 80 degrees winter, 80 degrees summer) 78 degrees when it rains and it never snows. Mosquitos have very small bodies like a gnat, but very large jaws like an alligator. They are everywhere except the high floors of Hotels. We spray ourselves to go to bed at night, but spray doesn’t affect them much. When they spray outside it simply drives the mosquitos inside. The language is very difficult for old people but fun to play.

Now, about us, we are fine. The work has been very satisfying. We have been very busy most of the time. It feels like we have been here forever and yet we just arrived. The city with the surrounding areas is about 20 million people. Maybe one in a hundred can speak broken English, but we have learned to adapt. I have found that a big smile will break down language barriers. It might take a while, but eventually it will. We found a little mouse alley where many, many Muslim families live and do business. These little neighborhoods are all over Jakarta. The houses are very small and right next to each other. No window (glass) and usually a small business along the alley. The people all sit along the street and everyone knows everyone else. This is where we get our haircut. One night after dark, the President’s wife needed a haircut and the President had 80 e-mails to answer so Muriel and I were asked to accompany her into this very poor neighborhood after dark. Well I got mine cut and while the lady cut Sister Groberg’s, I stood outside smiling and talking to the people who only half understood me. Soon along came a man that spoke English and ask why I was there. I kept smiling and told him a haircut. Pretty soon we had at least 10 neighborhood leaders around us as we discussed everything from food, country, world, USA, people and Indonesian politics. We had others contributing to the conversation and lots of laughter and head nods. It was very enjoyable. I think that is the only talent I have is to get people to relax and be friendly. We parted that night with an invitation to come back any time and they would teach me the language. All were Muslims and all of them were great people. I’ve decided that it’s not the religion that makes the man; it’s the man that makes the religion. We need to live the best way we know how and we certainly have the best way. However, sometimes we let our pride, or bashfulness get in our way and fail to let our light out to others. I have noticed here, as at home, that it is hard to smile and say, “Welcome to Church”. We need to work more with our members in need. If we don’t know them we don’t know their needs. Conference had some great talks on Service and as we listened, it struck me that as LDS people we should get to know everyone we see. Don’t be judgmental; try to serve if only with a smile. I learned all of this from my Father and because of the people of West Mountain. The Lord has blessed us greatly by sending us to Indonesia and because of my wonderful family we have been able to come. Through service, we fulfill the need we have to be born. We show love for the Lord, Love for our neighbors and less pride.

Now I will tell of our projects. To begin with, we are not really very good missionaries. I still don’t know what we should do. We struggle through every day doing the best we can. I want to blame it on our arrival. While flying over here, there were three disasters all at once happening here in the country, a tsunami at Mentawai, a mudslide in Papua and Mount Merapi. Well, we sent 2 people with a bunch of money to help with relief efforts at the tsunami and the mudslide and that left Merapi. In most cases we partner with a nongovernment organizations (NGO) to do our relief efforts and our humanitarian efforts. However, in the case of Merapi eruption, we felt we could do the most good if we handled it ourselves. There was about 300,000 people that were driven from their homes (it turned out that there is still many thousand that will never be able to return) with no place to go and no provisions to live on. Since then, we have given more than 100 tons of rice, nearly that much cooking oil, much dried fish, soap, clothes, noodles, school kits and personal hygiene kits (more than 10,000) .This was all done by 5 little branches in central Java. The heavy work went on nearly every day for 2 months and cleanup work for over two months. We have estimated as best we can that there was over 20,000 man hours spent on that relief effort. I am just now preparing to close this project. Needless to say, we have been on the road a lot. This past weekend we flew for the 12^th time since we arrived here.

The people are so loveable. Besides this project (emergencies) we also do Humanitarian projects. We have two cataract centers that we work with. Doctors that operate for free on the poor and we supply all the materials. Our cost is about $34.00 each. Don’s surgery was $5232.00. These hospitals are in separate parts of the country. We also do “Eyeglasses for the poor” where students training to be eye doctors under supervision give free exams to the poor who can’t afford them and we buy the eyeglasses that they need. We buy about 1000 pair each year.

This year, for the first time, we have a project that will give the Relief Societies money to make blankets for the next disaster. The sisters here have no money to make these blankets so I felt that we could use some of our funds for this project.

We are also financing 15 cleft palate operations. These cost $400.00 each, but will make a wonderful difference in some child’s life forever.

Along with these projects are our major projects.

1. Put in a buried water system that comes out of the mountain above all the people- over 20 miles of PVC pipe, it will serve 30,000 people, 22 villages and build 22 MCK’s (public wash, bath, & toilet) and all done with hand labor only.

2. Wheel chairs for the poor-1200 chairs-600 pairs of crutches, walkers

3. Limbs for the Limbless (300 artificial legs) this is a first in Indonesia. Last week we witnessed a 12 year old boy that has walked on his knees all his life. He has no legs below the knee, and no hands. He walked with help for the first time while we were there. (total cost $200) I am very excited about this project. There are so many people that have had accidents and not been able to afford all the expensive surgery so they simply cut off the limb.

4. Eye equipment and training for our eye Doctors at University in Jogjakarta.

Now we have about $10,000 more that we can build a new initiative in Menodo that has never had one. Hopefully we can come up with enough money to help an orphanage or two. If only we knew what we were doing, we could make a difference. The Lord truly did bless us by sending us here