2011 IS A BLESSED YEAR

Submitted by CaptainB on Sun, 2012-01-08 04:16

As what has been written in the beginning of December 2011 , indeed we were so busy from December 1st right through December 30th. 3 groups of youth were sent by the Singapore Government to be with us and to do the best we can to work and to interact together with a common goals that is to help each other , to make things better for all and to teach each other by sharing what we know. So much have been done together including making the pavement for our basket ball court , rice harvest, some farming activities like making the fence of the farm and planting some banana trees and cashew nuts.

Ibu Siti leading the group to make the pavement for the basket ball court

December 2011 it is the month that is so special to the orphanage children as a group from Holy Family church of Singapore came and set up an IT room called " Roslin IT LAB". A space on the second floor at the new building has been made into the IT room and some 10 laptops has been installed and all are working well. Praise The Lord for the providence of computers and some teaching through sis Geri , bro Aloysius and friends from Holy Family Church of Singapore. Our thanks to sis Geri , bro Aloysius and the rest of the group. With your help we are sure that the children will be able to study much better and able to see and know more about whats happening at far away places from our location. Thank you for making the stahdart operating procedure on how to run the computers. Because of you we are having a wider window to see things and having a vehicle to reach more goals, THANK YOU .

Later our earlier computers at the library will be shifted to this new place as well as we are needing more space at the library for the children to study better. We need a projector and a white board to make the IT classroom better. We hope that we can get it done during my next visit in January .

To make it even more interesting , on December 14th we have asked a service provider to install the internet connection for us. It was working ok on the first day but unfortunately the internet was not working afterwards. We were told that we must get the antenna shifted somewhere else for getting a stronger reception for the internet. We are hoping by January 10th the antenna will be made good and the internet connection will be good too. By having this IT LAB , we are hoping that the orphanage children will be able to progress further on their studies.

To most people these setting steps are something that we do not need but for people who are living in this area and with the kind of living that they are having , it is so precious and such a huge help according to their knowledge about computer. We are so grateful for this Holy Family Church's youth group which already making such mighty efforts to come and giving us what greatly needed things to the orphanage's children at Roslin. We will also let the other children around the orphanage to learn and to progress together with the orphanage children . Earlier today in Singapore I was visiting their church ( The Church of The Holy Family" in Katong area)and I met with sis Geri , bro Aloysius and Ariel . We were seeing the displayed reports of their trip to Roslin orphanage. So much of the displayed report were showing their kindness upon doing their activities and a real work of which full of love and care being demonstrated by the group. We are certainly looking forward to be working together again with this group as partners upon doing our services to the society. The fantastic displayed reportrs were made by Alexandria , Ariel, Jason, Natalie , Elaine , Elizabeth, Carmen , Gillian , Augustine, Victoria ,Geri and Aloysious collectively. We hope that we will get their individual reports to be up loaded to the blog asap.

2011 Christmas was so special to the Roslin Orphanage's members

If for the last few years we were celebrating Christmas with some 5 villages combined and at the road junction and churches with 2 busses of us and food , on 2011 we are having it rather quietly and being held at our orphanage it self. Just all of the Roslin orphanage members and our own children Christine ( came from Singapore) , Tassya and Christian( came from Vancouver , Canada just to celebrate this 2011 Christmas with us) . Only few friends were joining us at the orphanage. We were celebrating it at our new hall with a Christmas tree which all of the children were taking parts on decorating it. We did not celebrate Christmas with special meals or clothes but we are celebrating it with our togetherness and being so thankful to be able to do it at our own hall of which almost all of the children were taking part during the progress and process of building this new hall. It was different then before but we can feel that the Christmas celebration spirit was with us more than before. Few of the older children were sharing their views about Christmas and some bible reading were shared for few occasions. As the care taker , Peggy and I were feeling happy as the older children are already able to conduct some talk among them and also sharing what they know or what they feel with us so freely . No one has a feeling as an outsider and able to speak without having anything being held back. This is a very important progress as far as the children developement is concerned . We are really glad that the children are blended so well as if they are siblings.

Prior having the Christmas celebration we were delivering some Christmas parcels to all of the relatives of the orphanage's children. To many of us we are able to have good meals every day but not for the common people in the villages. They are not able to have a good meals even during Christmas eve. For this reason we have been trying our best to deliver Christmas parcels to villages of which our orphanage children were coming from. Basically we want them to feel a difference by making them able to celebrate Christmas. As usual we have been giving materials for a family to be able to make their own cake ( flour, butter, eggs, sugar and salt etc). Beside that we were also giving them a bottle of syrop , a big bottle of soda drink, cooking oil, matches, shampoo, soap , umbrella, tea bags, condensed milk , biscuits, instant noodle etc ). For the delivery of the Christmas gifts we are using both of our mobile libraries.

On the way to deliver the Christmas gifts

the village swimming pool ?

Some of " The ultimate receivers " of our Christmas Gifts

The reactions of the people or family receiving the Christmas gifts

delivering Christmas gifts

the end of the road as our buses were unable to continue farther

CHRISTMAS AT THE ORPHANAGE

As we said earlier that for the year 2011 our Christmas celebration is being celebrated at the orphanage and only very few friends were with us ( from Singapore). Nothing fancy or being made so extra ordinary but us being together and just making the best of what we have . Yes it was nothing special being prepared but we were so happy that all of us were able to share the moment and our three children were able to come home for celebrating it together with us . Christine , Tassya and Christian were involved with so many things like decorating the Christmas tree , fixing the venue, choosing the music and so many others as long as they are able to do it. Christine's friends from Singapore , Aidan Galistan and Syed Omar were also with us. They too were so involved with all the preparations and activities for us to celebrate Christmas .

All cooking were being done together , boys and girls were having all the tasks from peeling the onion and garlic, cutting the veggies, cleaning the chicken from any feathers and dirts , boiling eggs, cutting tempe or fermented beans, cleaning and preparing the fish, cleaning the chilies from its seeds and so many others. Peggy was acting as if she was a conductor in an orchestra. She has trained all of the children with so many skills like how to cook properly , sanitation, hospitality business , waste management , farming, planting different types of trees and even giving directions to all the workers who are assigned to build the buildings. On this tasks distributions we were seeing each of the children did their best but we can identify which children were good with particular tasks while others were good on something else. An activity or a hands on matter can justify a person if he or she is good on something. We are so privilege to be able to see the orphanage children growing and growing and able to grow together without having so much problems. It has been so great to see them having its self esteme and confidence growing well too. We are hoping that the children will be better than us and able to develop themself into a better stage. We are sure if they are given enough chances to study and to be guided well , they will be good and knowledgeable people with good values in the future. It is always good to be at the orphanage during the Christmas time.

preparing the meals together from scratch

It was a simple Christmas dinner but we felt the blessing mightily as we were having a great day together , preparing the meals together and of course eating it together .