2012 HAS BEEN STARTED WITH SOME MEANINGFUL ACTIVITIES

We have been so blessed in 2011 with so many good progresses and achievements. Praise The Lord.
It is the beginning of 2012 now and we have started with such a meaningful activity besides our farming.
We have conducted a 4 day classes for 34 teachers from the interior parts of West Timor. Some of them are the school principals and most of the schools were represented by two teachers.
They are teachers from both government's school and religious based school ( mostly Christian school in this region). For this time we have selected 20 primary schools of which most of them are schools at the remote areas and to some of the schools are at the place where there is no more road to go further.
We are so blessed for having 2 wonderful and professional teachers from Yayasan Credo ( Ms Gita Lestarini Rachayu and Ms Heidy Carla Sukmarini ) from Jakarta who were willing to volunteer their time and to conduct the training , Praise The Lord. It was so great to see them doing the training with such passion and caring attitude. They were able to bring the teachers into a group of which able to work together and being so interactive with each other. From the interactions among the teachers and actively particilating ,without knowing it the teachers were able to acheived the targetted goals why the classes were planned for. It is a solid prove that by working and basing our self with such togetherness we can do it all.

This training was made possible because of The Lord's blessings in the form of  collaborations of Ms Rosina Simon, Yayasan Credo  ( Ms Kayee Man) and yayasan kasih Roslin or Roslin Orphanage. Thank you to Ms Rosina who is the person initiating this project . Thank you to yayasan Credo for being so keen on trying to help out the less fortunate through education.
Ms Rosina Simon was a banker in Singapore who choose to resigned and to serve the community. She wrote a book with the title " Raising Smart Kids"  of which we can tap from the contents about knowing how to deal with our children better in this modern world. I will recommend to all of us to get one copy and to get some of the useful tips from it., In the book beside Ms Rosina write up also so many outstanding parents wrote lots of valuable experiences and giving us more knowledge about how to raise our kids better in the practical ways of which we can do it every day. Ms Rosina is currently writing her second book already.
From this book's selling a fund was collected and being used to buy books from mostly " Gramedia" publisher of which we were given a huge discount. Our Thanks to Gramedia publisher. Some 10 000 new books with about 100 tittles have arrived few days before we were conducting the classes for the teachers. Most of the books are in Indonesian language as they are meant for the elementary ( primary) schools in the remote areas. May be when we are able to do the same for the secondary schools we will get some books in English or other useful languanges.

Yayasan Credo is a foundation of which has been so keen on pursuing tasks to improve the society through education. Ms Rosina and yayasan Credo at no time linked together and contacting us ( Roslin Orphanage) and revealing their desires about helping the less fortunate school children. For Roslin Orphanage since the beginning our focus is enhacing people through education, so we were immediately agreed with our collaboration.

We have been doing our ministry in the interior parts of West Timor for at least 10 years now , so we know exactly the targeted people of which we can really make a significant improvements but at the end we are also must work hard to make sure that the targeted people ( the school children at the remote area ) will do its best to make them gain in their knowledge and able to implement what we are teaching them.

Through our collaboration ( Ms Rosina , Yayasan Credo and Yayasan Kasih Roslin or Roslin Orphanage) we were able to host these classes , giving the teachers board and lodging and giving the transport fees from where they are from. There is no pocket money or others as all of their needs have been provided for .

All the 34 teachers plus 4 of the  orphanage children were trained the best we can so that the books that we are going to give them will be long lasting and able to serve the purpose. Some of the teachers were needing 2 days just to come to the venue where the training was conducted ( Christati Hotel) . They must walk first for some distance before able to find a lift from a lift service on a motor cycle ( we call it as Ojek service ) to a place where they can get another transportation means. These schools are schools of which hardly get any support from any one and their school building mostly are not really in a good shape. These area was the places where we were giving away some of the 2 000 pair of shoes earlier.  We need some 4 days just to notify the teachers about our intentions upon conducting the training.
We admire the dedication of the teachers for being faithfully doing their teaching job even though their income is not adequate for a decent living. These kind of teachers must be appreciated more by giving them a better school buiding and equipments to conduct the teaching, equipped with enough blackboard and chalks ( for having a white board for them is just in their dream) . I hope that these teachers will be given more appreciation soon of which by giving them more they will be able to teach better thus enhancing the students to be more knowledgeable and better future for them. We need to motivate the teachers too so that the teachers able to motivate the students better.

We will make the 20 targeted primary ( elementary) schools into 4 groups and giving the books equally at the end of the classes.
From each group of 5 schools we will rotate the books every 4 months so that in 2 years all schools will be able to have exposure to all of the book tittles. We will conduct some quiz ( with some awards) in schools timely so that the students will have some kind of incentive to study more
In 2 years time we will give more books to those schools which are able to maintain the books and able to do the programs accordingly.

At the closing day of the programs , the head of the regent, Bupati Titu Eki came to give his blessings to our program.

We are so blessed to be given the chance of conducting such activities. We are planning to do it again in end of February as the follow up.

The Venue where the classes were conducted

observing the interactions

some pointers from Ms carla and Ms Gita

some words from Peggy Soehardi to motivate the teachers

some samples of the books we are giving to the 20 schools

lunch time

dancing at the end of the 4 days course

posing together before saying good bye to each other on the next day

The teachers were leaving at around 5 am and some of them will only reach their place about 6 pm. The road are not so good and there is no scheduled transportation going to their place. The final journey is again on foot for some of them.  Infrastructure must be improved in this area so that people can travel better. Some area which Roslin Orphange doing its activities are often finding children who are studying for secondary and high school must walk some 9 km one way and must walk across 3 rivers of which there are no bridges . During the wet season when the rivers are flooded some of their parents must walk together with their children, to make sure that the children will not be swept away by the river's stream. 

We were having the head of the regent Bupati Titu Eki ( Bupati is one rank below the Governor ) to closed the 4 days course , On his message he was asking the teachers to use the books wisely so that the children will be getting the benefit from the books.

Togetherness is our strength