Wednesday 15 July. It's my birthday! Claire gave me a beautiful pair of earrings first thing in the morning which was really lovely of her to think to bring that all the way over here. To be honest, most of the day passed without me thinking about it much at all with all the packing and travelling and river crossing - there were plenty of distractions!

 

We started early this morning and left the YWAM base at about 8.30am for Bahareduk.  We stopped at a school on the way and gave out some caps and soccer balls to some of the students who were just gorgeous!  One of the classes sang us a song too which was great! After the school, we had an AMAZING drive to Bahareduk.  It had everything - spectacular views, hair-raising passing of oncoming cars and trucks on VERY narrow roads and a hole lot of bumping across a major river.  It was pretty amazing to arrive in the village and start to meet all the people.  Claire and I had a lovely little audience watching us set up our beds in the tent, which was quite funny.

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After we'd gotten a bit settled we all set to to erect a pergola for the YWAM bunkhouse which was...interesting.  It was a lot of fun to get involved and help put up the bamboo poles and all work together to make it happen.  We got a good lesson in Bahareduk OH&S - or lack there of.  It was a strange sensation to hold up a ladder while Melke was up it nailing the bamboo together - especially when he had one foot on the ladder and leaning off to the side!  It was great to have achieved something straight away and working together as a team to problem solve as we went.  I really think it's going to be a fun week with all of these people.

 

I'm really happy to say that we all seem to have fit together really well.  When we first met everyone at the church there's always the concern that with everyone else knowing each other, it's going to be a bit hard to find your place but that's not the case at all.  Everyone has a great sense of humour and Claire, David and I have felt so welcomed by this group - even if we are Catholic!

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Oh yeah - my birthday! I've even forgotten about it writing this journal!  We had dinner in the Chief’s house and afterwards, Jenny stood up and was talking about it being a very important day which it was because we'd travelled to the village - turns out she was talking about my birthday!  Everyone in the group sang happy birthday to me and then the YWAM group sang their own birthday song.  I wish I could have recorded it - it was fantastic.  On one hand, I was sad not to be able to spend my birthday at home with my family but it has been a truly amazing experience to be able to celebrate it with this new group of people in a place so far removed from normal life. All up, this is shaping up to be an extraordinary experience and I'm so glad I took the leap and jumped on board.  I'm really looking forward to building relationships, learning about the village, the people, myself and seeing how God uses me here.