Flight To Solo

(Let's try that Again)

Flight To Solo

Early in the morning of July 7, 2011 we left Jakarta for Solo. Upon arrival we were met by Elder and Sister Grover and Bono. We went directly to Magelang, where we met the Magelang Branch President and his wife. There we also picked up Elder and Sister Kusamarmanto, and their sons. After eating an Indonesian lunch we motored onto Muntilan where we visited the site of a bridge that had been washed out earlier because of the Merapi ash. This was the last money that finished up the Merapi Initiative. Nothing had changed much from the time that we bought materials for them to build the bridge, except they had woven the bridge with some heavy cable that held the bridge in place when the water level of the river rose during a storm. At times it would raise as much as ten feet across the river that was 170 feet wide. They were still charging to use the bridge, and the bridge was still made out of almost 100% Bamboo. The fee was strictly donation, but the gate is manned 24 hours a day to control traffic flow. In over 6 months the government has done absolutely nothing to help repair the bridge. With a high school on one side of the bridge and an elementary school on the other side, it is a very necessary bridge. We left there thinking how wonderful it is to have a government responsive to our needs.

From there we continued around the mountain to Jogjakarta where we stopped and purchased tickets for the Ballet Ramayana that is held in front of the Hindu temple there. We arrived at the Grand Orchid hotel (very Indonesian) that night very tired after a long day.

The next morning we left at 8:00 am for the clean water project at Jenowi with the Grovers and Bono. This water project brings clean water down to 30,000 Indonesians and had over 20 miles of pipeline in it. It is also in the most beautiful part of Indonesia that we have seen. Our project foreman, Sutarno, is doing a marvelous job working with the village people and hiring local members as often as possible.

After an hour and a half hike we arrived at the first water source where we found that Sutarno had done an excellent job roughing in the project so that we might see how the finished project would look. It is going to be an outstanding project when it is finished.

On the way home we stopped at a very nice newly built restaurant that had lots and lots of fish swimming in a pond right where we ate.

Upon arriving back at Solo we went to visit Septa at the orthopedic Hospital there. He is a young man that we are operating on, so that we might be able to put braces on his legs so that he will be able to walk without crawling on his knees. After visiting with him for a while we told him we would be back in the morning with the young Elders to give him a blessing. We returned back to the hotel after another busy, tiring day.

Saturday morning we met Elder Hartonto and Elder Sessions and went back to the orthopedic hospital and gave Septa a Priesthood Blessing. After we left the hospital we called the sister missionaries, Sister Peters and Sister Sari and met them at KFC for lunch. That evening we drove to just outside of Jogjakarta to the ballet and dinner with a beautiful backdrop of the temple.

Coming home the Elders were stopped along the side of the road, the pickup that they were in had broken down and they needed a way home. We hooked up the tow cable on the truck to the back of Grover’s car and towed them back to Solo with no lights, only Elder Grover and the two Elders in the back with a small flash light and their cell phones to light the way so other motorists would not hit them or an unlikely motorcyclist would try to cut in-between the car and truck and hit the cable. The Lord was certainly with us as we were able to travel the whole way in safety and deliver everyone home after midnight!

The next morning we walked the mile and a half to church and attended two branch sacrament meetings. Sister Grover spoke in one and Sister Peters spoke in the other one. At 11:15 we headed for the airport where the plane was two hours late (what else did we expect) and we flew home to Jakarta. Another Solo trip in the life of Elder and Sister Meredith!!