“Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice! Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually! Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,” (Psalm 105:1-5)
My heart sings to You this morning, Abba! I have been so blessed in the opportunity to live here in Jogja for the past five days, and I praise You for giving me patience and peace in either waiting for translation or not knowing exactly what is being said. I’ve enjoyed learning some phrases and look forward to learning some more throughout the remainder of my time here. I praise You for languages and how people are able to communicate and relate to each other through them. And I praise You that Your Word has been translated into the two primary languages spoken in this region of Indonesia! Please continue to convict and encourage through Your Word, as You are so faithful to do, Mighty God.
Wednesday afternoon and most of yesterday were both quite eventful. After a morning snack of rice with meat and chili sauce wrapped in a banana leaf and a lunch of chicken with chili sauce, rice, noodles, crispy rice flatbread, and a small orange; Norm and I met with the technical team (architect, Wimbo, and engineer, Agung) to teach about septic system practices and groundwater movement. We then went to a sate restaurant for grilled goat sate with rice.
Yesterday morning, we visited the Kragilan village, where several unlined canals run above the village ground elevation, causing the groundwater table to be very shallow and a high flooding potential especially in the rainy season. Agung and Wimbo will ultimately need to determine how to address a soak-away system for this village, but Norm and I were able to provide some guidance. We also showed them a little about determining soil type with a hand test, but soil will likely not be a major issue for percolation since most of the soil is so volcanic (sand/ash). After this site visit, we ate a lunch of shrimp, rice, hard-boiled egg with chili sauce, spinach/coconut milk soup, crispy rice flatbread, and watermelon back at the World Relief office. We then proceeded to the Muruh village and watched the Community Development team practice their Community-Led Total Sanitation presentation. While they were presenting at the local mosque, the Muslim lady asked me about the other languages on my “Jesus Saves” (English, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek) shirt. I was able to tell her that I believe Jesus is the only one who saves, but we were both distracted by activity from the presentation to continue that conversation. We ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant, where I had fried rice and pork cooked in soy sauce, as well as some small clams with a Coca-Cola.
Today Norm and I have spent the morning at the World Relief office, reading and watching portions of the final day for the Project Concern CLTS training. I think we will make another site visit to a different village this afternoon as we continue trying to pass on site investigation knowledge to Wimbo and Agung. I pray that they are learning and that they will be able to do a better job with the varying design needs because of our time investment with them.
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