Anak Buah

Calvary Baptist Team straddling the equator

For the last almost three weeks, these 7 young people from California have been visiting and serving with us at the hospital. My last blog post introduced them and covered their first week with us. They were a fun team! You could find them all over the hospital and campus. They scrubbed in to assist with c-sections, they helped catch babies, did skills in the clinic and ER, they replaced hinges and broken doors in the clinic and morgue, they cleaned the reservoir, and they helped with children's choir concert we had this last week. We were blessed by their joy and enthusiasm. The phone would ring day and night at my house asking me to tell my anak buah (someone considered to be family but not biologically related and is how many of the hospital staff referred to them when talking to me) to come to the hospital or ask me to come down to the hospital translate so the hospital staff could communicate with them. 

We have a lot visitors who come to the hospital. Almost 100 so far this year alone. From skilled professionals who share their skills and knowledge with us to students who come to learn and have new experiences. Some struggle with the adjustment and others fit right in. This group was definitely the latter. I know they were a blessing to our community and I hope we were to them. Many are seeking the Lord's will for their lives and making big decisions about their future. It was hard to put them on a plane on their way home yesterday and hopefully some may return in the future. Here are a few more pictures of their time with us...

Louisa, Donda, and Tori

Luke and Anna (team leaders)

We were blessed by Adam and Louisa's music skills

Cleaning out the reservoir

Cleaning out the reservoir

(I can't take the credit for most of these great pictures - that belongs to Geraldo) 

Welcoming a Team

Very late on Monday night July 7^th, we welcomed a team of young people from Calvary Baptist Church in Huntington Beach, California. They are pictured below during their introduction to the hospital staff during a chapel time. They will be with us for 19 days exploring careers in nursing and medicine and medical missions.

The team includes (pictured from left to right):

Anna (Cottrell) and Luke Payton: Team Leaders. Anna has been here on short-term trips twice before, when she was a nursing student and still single. She is now an emergency room nurse. This is her husband’s first trip. He has some construction skills but so far you are much more likely to find him in the Operating Rooms watching surgery.

Tori Bowman: Is a nursing student.

Louisa Cottrell: Is a high school student interested in nursing and is Anna’s younger sister.

Becky Chacon: Is a high school student interested in nursing.

Jessica Grubb: Is a nursing student

Adam Cottrell: Is starting a pre-med program in the fall and is Anna’s younger brother.

So far they have been here a week and it has been a week full of new experiences for them. All have had the opportunity to watch multiple surgeries, see a baby be born, attended a village wedding, and try new foods. Here are a few pictures of their time so far…

Watching and helping with the birth of a baby

Tasting Durian (quickly followed by a doughnut!)

Donating blood to help a patient in need

Pray that they will be a blessing and be blessed in their remaining two weeks. Pray also that the Lord will use this time in their lives. 

Waiting

The last few days around here have all us all waiting with baited breath. The Indonesian Presidential Election went smoothly on Wednesday, July 9th, which is quite impressive considering the logistical challenge of getting the ballots to all 190 million possible voters.

By the end of the day though we had both candidates announcing themselves as the winners. The official results won’t be released until July 22nd, so instead most people rely on quick count results. These are done by several different organizations and take a representative of votes from across Indonesia to predict the winner. The problem this time around is the race is very close and of the 12 different quick counts done, 8 predicted one winner and the other 4 predicted the other candidate would win. So in the end they both declared victory leaving everyone very tense that there would be a confrontation between the two groups. Thankfully, things have been peaceful so far but we are all waiting to see the final results. Most likely those results will be challenged by the loser and it will have to resolved by the courts. This is uncharted water for Indonesia as they have never had this close of a race before. Please keep praying for peace, truth, and transparency.

Here are a few pictures from the election process. I accompanied some of my friends on election day to our local polling place.

My friend, Donda, receiving her ballot

Our local polling place

You can see the confusion in these quick count results!