For those who are expressing their desire to come to our orphanage we are so grateful if you can come with lots of love and care to the children. Expensive toys or gadgets are not required at all. We can create all of the quality time even without any of them. A simple ball or a piece of paper will be able to make us ( them) so occupied and so focus if we can make their interest to be developed. Other than that we can do things which will be benefiting the orphanage like farming, cleaning, playing, hair cutting, cooking and so many other things ( including eating ha ha ha ). Basically do not limit yourself for a particular thing. There are so many things that we can do and there is no ending to what can be done. There is no special preparation is required to come to our orphanage except some teaching materials if you are intending to teach some academical matters in a class rooms. One more thing , just be ready for so many thing and so many short comings will be in it too.
buying vegetable around 00 00 am at a wet market
preparing the meals
teaching some dancing for their togetherness to be stronger
my self and Gerson singing for the children
You may do the same like what Peggy does
it can be a day at the farm
with our togetherness we can be self sufficient on rice
I was in New York when I heard that news that he is coming through email. I came at the orphanage on the 29th from Singapore while my wife , Peggy is coming from Surabaya on the same date and the visit was on the 30th September.
Indeed it was a great day for us to have the privilege of a visit by the USA's representative for Indonesia at our orphanage. We are so honored for the visit of Mr Daniel A Phelps because even though he was so tight with his timing he was able to visit us and willing stay for a long time till the last minute that he must go for his flight else where. As soon as he left I was also on my way back to Singapore one hour later .
Not all of the orphanage children were having the privilege to meet up with Mr Daniel A Phleps as most of them were still in school.
Mr Phelps was accompanied by his staff Ms Krismiati M Ulansari.
When they came we were still out side doing our errands. We are having such a blessing for some fantastic books that were given to us yesterday. Not only the physical book design are fantastic but whats in it is just so much more fantastic. It is really inviting to be read and enriching our knowledge.
It was a pity that we can not take them to the farm and else where but Mr Phelps said that he will come again next time.
First we are so happy with the roof changed from the asbestos roof into a zink roof. We are more certain that such illnesses like Mesothelioma will be able to be prevented from happening as we are eliminating one of the factor ( asbestos roof). It was a long waited thing for us but financially we just able to do it in July , Praise The Lord to that. At least we are not so much worry anymore about Mesothelioma thingy towards the children. It was not an easy task to changed the roof as during the day the temperature was quite hot and working or installing a zink roof even hotter especially the work is being done on top where there is no shelter to it ha ha ha . It was fun at the same time as at least 6 persons were doing it. Each zink roof is about 180 x 80 cm and we were installing about 800 pieces for the main building. While doing it it was a rather unusual as we were so confidence with the weather to be on our side but the unusual thing was happening. While all the front part of the roof ( including the children room and our bed room's roof were taken off ) , an unusual rain came in the middle of the day on July 20th and the rain was pouring for about one hour. It hasn't been any rain since end of March but it was raining on that day. From that day onwards there isn't any more rain. It was a rare phenomena and it was rather an unfortunate thing to us to have the children room, our bed room and the children clothing's room were so wet and messy.
from the asbestos ( left) to zink roof ( right hand side)
the unexpected rain made things wet and messy
the naughty rain made us worked all night
the messy clothing room because of the naughty rain
a real mess
While we are having the roof opened , we are also changing all the electrical wiring to make sure that a possibility of electrical fire will not be happening to our place. This was not in the original budgeting plans but it is worth it as far as the safety issue is concerned. With the proper installation we are hoping that the wiring will last for a long time .
wiring changed with the best cable and with the correct cable size
Beside the roof and electrical wiring we are also trying our best to finished up the new storage rooms. There storage rooms are consist of 6 new rooms and the size are 4 x 4 meters. It will be enough to store most of the items that we have plus the rice harvest. It was only left with one room that was unfinished with its tile installation. I hope that we will get the doors sent to us already . Once the doors and windows are installed we are only left with installing the ceiling . We hope that we can move all of the items into the storage room soon. It will be great if we can move all the small boys into the new dorm ( 18 of them) . So spacious and each will get a bed , a cupboard and a small side table.
the new storage room with its newly installed tiles
in front of the boy's dorm we are making a shelter to block the heat from the sun and from the rain. It was installed properly already and we painted it in pink colour. In this picture the canopy was still on the ground .
a new shelter for the front part of the boy's dorm
A day before I left the orphanage we did the measurements and location for the play ground. It will be great if soon we can have a play ground for the children. It will be great if we can have them doing the morning stretching when they are not attending school during the weekend. It has been fun to bring them out in the morning sun and doing the exercises. their movements are not the same and each were trying to follow closely our instructions and it was always great to see them catching up better and better each time. The play ground will be using the beach ( sea) sand so that the sand will be clean and bright in its colour. It will be great if we can have the play ground soon. We can also use it as an assemble place where things can be conducted at a better and proper place. It is a long waited play ground to us . Praise The Lord that we can make a start for it. We have ordered the swing and the swing is ready to be picked up soon. It will be a great day if we can give the children something according what the children needs.
measuring the play ground
To add up the physical building we were also trying our best upon building the children character. This is the main part and it is an easy thing to do. So many of them and each are having different characteristic and ability to progress differently and even more difficult because each of the children are having different attitude upon seeing things about life. My wife , myself and all of our dear friends can only try our best upon directing them towards things which we think to be good based on a normal norms such as how to respect others, how to work together and how to do our best in achieving our goals. Sometime is quite easy if the children are able to follow our way of thinking but sometime is frustrating if we found them unable to follow our reasoning. It is a normal thing as they are all are still children. On weekend days we tried to make them to be together upon doing simple tasks ( but a productive tasks) such as cleaning the garden, washing and also some sort of stretching before doing anything.
weekend activities
stretching
cleaning the garden
including our future doctor " Gerson" also cleaning the garden
collecting loose stones
washing for the little ones
It is mandatory to go to school but the day to day work must be done properly
It was a privilege that we were having some wonderful friends coming and stayed with us . One of them was Ms Tina Vanderpol from Vancouver , she was with us also in April ( with her dearest husband Mike and children Justin and Linden ). She played the organ / piano for us while Mrs Janet Collins is playing with the children about the chicken song. We hope that one day some of our orphanage children can play the organ/ piano for them self. We were so lucky too that we are having a visit by my older sister Yayuk , my older brother Senja and my nephew Franky . It was a special occasion to have them around. Simply so much of joy were created by their visit to the orphanage.
me and my siblings
our happy time
below is a song created by Peggy in less than 10 minutes , its Roslin Orphanage's song
It has been a long waited matter for us about finishing the newly built storage room. We are so fortunate to be able to build this new storage room. This can be done because of the help from so many friends which we are so blessed with. Without their support we must wait a much longer time to build this new storage room. The new storage room is about 4,5 x 20 meters and it is consist of 5 rooms. It was not an easy job because we have to fill up the surface with some 20 trucks of soil as the location is rather to low on its surfaces. Anyway here are some of the pictures from last week. By now we are already installing the tiles and soon will be the doors and windows.
the new storage room is the one on the right hand site
After we are done with this new storage room we will then able to let the children to use the new dorm for them. It will be a bed for each child and individual cupboard so that they will have a good experience with looking after their items individually. It will be a good character building during their upbringing.
this is some of our rice harvest that we have to store it inside the new dorm
At the moment we are not only building the new storage rooms but we are also doing our best upon changing the roof of the main building. It was a pity that when I was there few days ago , we were unable to do it because of the workers were gone back home to do the voting during the election which was in July 8th.
At the moment we are having the luxury of our good friends Alex Chee, Eddy Chew, Sing and Isabella. They are doing their best upon doing all the existing works instead of me ha ha ha .
Pak Siang, pak Eddy Chew and pak Alex Chee Checking in for the orphanage's trip on July13th 2009 at Changi Airport
