Phil's Birthday!

Phil is turning 18 on March 26th! 18 is an exciting time, not because you can legally smoke, but because it’s the time of the transition between high school and college. Phil will graduate in May and will be moving on to Iowa State University.

And we know he will thrive there because not only is he intelligent, but he is also great with people, really funny, musically talented, and very athletic.

And did I mention he’s a snappy dresser? Where he got his fashion sense I don’t know… I was the kid who insisted on wearing purple converse, pale green knee high socks, a white t- shirt, and black and white polka-dotted overall shorts to my 8th birthday party. We’ll just say it’s obvious that Phil is at the other end of the spectrum.

We know he’s going to dominate ISU intramurals because he’s good at all sports. As far as school sports goes he has played football, run cross country, and he is the goalie for the soccer team. But he also excels in tennis, ultimate Frisbee, and basketball. Once he tries it, I think we will have to add broomball to the list of sports he excels at. I think within 4 years he will have many of the treasured Intramural Championship t-shirts.

He’s also a little bit of a heartbreaker and the girls are always after him. One of my favorite stories about Phil in recent years is about how Phil caused an accident with his good looks. So Phil and my brother James and some of their friends were going for a run and it was burning hot so Phil had taken his t-shirt off. Their group was jogging quickly up a hill while a high school girl was driving in the same direction. She couldn’t help but shoot a quick glance at Phil, which might have been ok….except for the line of cars stopped at the red light in front of her. She slammed on the brakes, but skidded with a crunch into a minivan’s fender while the boys kept running. Poor girl, how do you explain that to your parents?


While these are some of Phil’s characteristics, I’m most proud of him because he is a genuinely good guy. He’s a hard worker, helpful and friendly, and respectful of others. He’s chosen good friends who like to have a ton of the right kind of fun. I know his life will be exciting and that God will use him to do many good things.

So happy 18th birthday Phil! Wishing you all the best during this exciting time!

Love always,
Rach and Brendan

March Madness

The first weekend in March we took a trip to Baucau because Brendan’s basketball team was playing in a tournament there. Brendan plays basketball regularly at a court near our house and some of the guys he plays with asked him to join their team. The trip also gave us a chance to visit Chris, Sali, and Dogmara, the other VOICA volunteers, who we hadn’t seen since Christmas.

So we were trying to figure out if we could make it up to Baucau. We knew our car isn’t reliable enough and the team only had one car for the drive the next day. So it was up in the air if we would be able to go because if there wasn’t room for both of us, Brendan wouldn’t go because he didn’t want to leave me in Dili alone.

We decided that we would rent motorcycles and drive them to Baucau ourselves, because we’d been thinking about renting them for a couple of weeks and this was the perfect opportunity.

Here’s Brendan waiting patiently for the rental man to come.

While we waited some of the technicians let us have a look at the bikes available and we picked out these two.


I got the pink Vario on the left, a motor scooter, since it’s easier to handle and I had never been on a motorcycle or scooter up until that morning. Brendan had the motorcycle on the right because he already knew what he was doing.

The rental process was shockingly easy. They got copies of our driver’s licenses and payment, they gave us helmets, and we were ready. Brendan briefed me on how to work my motor scooter, I practiced for five minutes in the parking lot, we said a quick prayer, and we headed out.

Going through Dili was the scariest part, but God blessed us with surprisingly light traffic to navigate through. Brendan led and we hugged the left side of the road (they drive on the left side of the road here) and went slow until we were out of town.

But once we were out of town it was glorious! The road between Dili and Baucau is pretty good and there isn’t much traffic, just a few motorcycles and buses. So for a lot of the way it was just Brendan and I, a cool breeze, and incredibly beautiful scenery.

To get out of Dili, the road takes you up to the top of a small mountain and down the other side. On the way down you’re looking out over a valley of vivid green and the road as it closes in on the shoreline. We climbed and descended hills next to the shore for the next hour.

I can’t explain how exciting this experience was. The view from our motorbikes was amazing! The colors of the hills and ocean were colors I felt I’d never seen before – it was like the colors had been digitally enhanced, but NO this was real life! In awe of this stretch I broke into song. I know many songs by heart, but the only songs that seemed appropriate were worship songs to God. And I sang/shouted into the face shield of my helmet I saw Brendan driving up in front of me…I love that man! There are sometimes in life when it’s all laid out in front of you – everything you’ve been blessed with. This was one of those times…

I saw this beautiful country where God led us to do service and help people grow in relationship with Him and I saw my loving husband. Right now we’re doing something I never thought possible and enjoying a great young marriage and growing together while having amazing experiences we’ll hopefully be able to tell our grandkids about. I tried to take a mental video of the view from my motor scooter so I could recall it when life inevitably has a few dips. It was one of those moments where you think: Life doesn’t get any better than this!


We stopped after an hour to take a five minute break on the side of the road and Brendan caught this picture.


And here’s Brendan, the master motorcyclist. Like a scout he led the way, making sure to double honk going around the mountain curves. With him up front I felt totally comfortable.


Things were going great, but when we were an hour and a half outside of Dili we came across an accident. There were a lot of people crowded around, and we decided to stop and make sure everything was ok just in case. It’s lucky that we did.

There were about twenty Timorese in a big truck that had stopped and someone had called the police so they all left, but after all the people cleared we realized that the injured motorcyclist had been moved under a tree by the side of the road and left. We recognized him as a nice guy who had honked and waved as he passed us on the road earlier.

He had a big open gash in his right leg along with scrapes. We gave him some water and tried to find out what happened. We were going to rip up one of our extra t-shirts to make a bandage for his leg, but luckily some other malae (foreigners) came along going to the same b-ball tournament as Brendan, and they had a first aid kit. The man wasn’t bleeding too badly from the gash, so they let me wrap it and pretty much cover his right leg in Neosporin. Our new friends offered to take him to a clinic in Baucau. Just as they were ready to leave the man said he thought his wrist was broken. They sped away and got him to the clinic as fast as they could.

Having done everything we could, we got back on our bikes and rode on. It was a little sobering to realize that you really never know when something like that could happen to you or someone you know. For the next hour I was kicking myself that I should have done more – I could have used some tape to close the gash since it wasn’t bleeding badly and I could have splinted his wrist to avoid further damage. But next time I will be more ready. Real life is a little different from first aid classes, and to be prepared to help effectively under pressure is something I want to learn.

We continued on to Baucau and made it there safely, a few hours before Brendan’s first game that was supposed to be at 3:00. We drove up outside the volunteer house in Baucau and called to see if anyone was home. Then we dropped off our stuff and they fed us lunch. We rested for awhile before we walked up to the school where the Don Bosco Basketball Tournament was being held.

On the way we admired the wicked sunburns we had gotten from our spontaneous journey. Not until we were an hour out of Dili did we realize we had forgotten our sunscreen and we paid for it for a few days. We were red for awhile, and then looked Timorese from our t-shirt sleeve line down, and finally the peeling began. But now our arms are almost back to normal and I’ve been wearing sunscreen everyday since that experience. Sometimes it’s still hard to remember that we’re in the tropics and the rules of the game are different here, but we’re learning.

We made it to the tournament around 3:00 for the game, but, it being Timor, Brendan’s game didn’t start until around 4:00. But it gave them ample time to warm up and get used to their awesome, white and gold, Tracy McGrady uniforms that had come in that morning.


Here is Brendan before the game talking with one of his teammates. In fact this is the only Timorese guy we have seen that is just as tall as Brendan, and luckily enough they are both on the same team!


Here Brendan (the only really tall, white one on the court) sinks a shot during warm ups.



When they were finally ready to begin, they got set for the tip off. Brendan started the game and you can see him on the bottom right, paired off for the tip off. And right as the game began, the camera battery died (as it usually does when it would be nice to have some pictures : )

They’re first game didn’t go as well as hoped, but Brendan played very well and scored most of the points for their team in the first half. In the second half he chose to sit for awhile so that the other players could get in. So the game didn’t go so hot, but all of us spectators agreed that Brendan had done a great job.

The other team was very good and happened to be coached by one of the malae who had stopped at the scene of the accident. Brendan was able to talk with him after the game and found out the injured man had made it to the clinic and was doing ok.

After the game we relaxed, ate really good homemade pizza, and were able to catch up with Chris, Sali, and Dogmara. A lot had happened since Christmas so there were a lot of stories to hear and pictures to see. But after awhile the tiredness from the ride and the pain of the sunburn got to us and we went to sleep.

We woke up early to go to Sunday Mass with everyone else and then come back for breakfast. We had been invited to join C, S, & D for a trip to the beach at Los Palos with the Sisters and boarding school students, but Brendan would have had to miss his basketball game so we opted to hang out around the house until his game. So they left and had a good trip to the beach, while we had a relaxing Sunday at their house, periodically applying aloe vera to our sunburn.

We made some Supermi for lunch too. Supermi is Brendan’s new favorite food. It’s the equivalent to Ramen noodles here, but they have incredible spice packets with them that make them incredible. So instead of being chicken-, beef-, or shrimp-flavored, they are flavored with chilies, a brown powder, and a brown sauce like spicy soy sauce. (Our Baucau friend Chris also loves them too ? )When we don’t use everything, we save the spice packets and use them to spice up rice. Most importantly, Brendan has discovered and patented the best way to cook them and has taught some of our friends.

After lunch and some more relaxing we went up to the court so Brendan could get ready for his game. There was a light rain that went on all afternoon, but they kept playing. When the game finally got started, it went really well. Brendan’s team played against the team from Los Palos.

This game went much better. Brendan’s coach actually coached instead of playing the whole game and it made an obvious difference. All the players got in, including the players who weren’t as tall, and they picked a new strategy which helped them dominate the game. And Brendan did great again : )

After the game we went back to the volunteer house, but Chris, Sali, and Dogmara weren’t home yet so we bought some things for dinner and started making it to surprise them. They got home late because rain had made the journey back difficult and much slower, but it sounded like they had a good time at the beach. So we all ate and they showed us pictures and we were able to talk some more before turning in.

The plan was to get up and be on the road by 6:30am so we could be back in Dili by late morning, but it didn’t exactly work out that way. We had almost made it out of Baucau when we stopped to figure out why my scooter felt wobbly going around curves. It turned out we had a flat tire!

The morning was a little stressful, but we met many very nice people: people at the nearby service station who excitedly patched the three holes in the tube so we could get the motor scooter to Star Motor on the other side of town, people who texted us the phone number for rental place, and the people at the rental place who were very understanding.

Brendan, Dogmara, and Salvador, one of the men who help the Canossian Sisters in Baucau, worked some magic and the tire was fixed by the early afternoon. We ate a quick lunch and left to make it home before dark. The trip home was uneventful except for a light rainstorm and we eventually made it home around dinner time. We dropped off the motor bikes at Tiger Fuel and the owner, who we had talked to on the phone, was so nice about us being late and didn’t ask us pay for the extra day. We took a taxi home, dried off, and to end our March Madness weekend we splurged and went out to get a pizza. Finally home, full, and dry we collapsed into bed after an unforgettable weekend.

Hope all is well with you guys!

Love always,
Rachel and Brendan

Home Sweet Home

So we were just realizing that all of you might want to know more of the specifics of our daily life – what things are like at home, etc. So in case you would like to know, here you are.

We’ll start with our house. We live in a simple, one story building in Delta 3, a nice area on the outskirts of Dili. When I say simple, it’s very simple in American terms, but here it’s on the really nice side. On our walk to the school some of the houses are made of wood and tin and tarps, so having a house with a similar structure to home is a blessing. One of the houses we see everyday only had one full wall and a roof until recently – the family bedroom and bathroom were open for anyone passing by on the street to see.

We also went over to visit one of our friends from Bible study who was sick and his house is so different from ours. He rents two small rooms connected by a doorway (but with no door). There is no furniture and the floor is concrete. Inside he has one gas burner on the floor, his shoes, and in his bedroom he has a mattress on the floor, small dresser, and a crucifix on the wall. It definitely gave me a different perspective – I can either compare our house to our family’s homes in America or I can compare it to other houses he

Our house has a green gate and a few feet of driveway for the small car. You enter through a small, red-tiled room, and make it through to our living room. We have some wicker furniture and a few plastic chairs that the Sisters brought us over last week and, more importantly, a prayer corner.

And then, you have made it through to the kitchen. We have a table for four with a fan on it that we have running constantly while we’re eating. We have a dorm-size refrigerator that is quite a blessing for keeping leftovers edible and for keeping the little red ants out of our food (they can’t handle the cold of the fridge).

We also have a sink with two sides, one for washing and one for drying, but the water only runs in the mornings and it’s not safe to drink even if we had access to it all day. But luckily we have a water dispenser and fairly easy access to clean drinking water. In other parts of East Timor clean water is much more difficult to get a hold of.

To the right of the sink we have two gas burners that we do all of our cooking on. Thank goodness for the transition time in Rome. I had never even seen a gas burner that you have to perpetually light with matches until this past September. If we would have been flown from America to East Timor with no transition I think we might have starved to death. The shock of going from a normal oven and the all-powerful microwave to two gas burners might have been too difficult.
I still remember fumbling with the matches for the first time, not wanting our new community members to see how completely new this type of cooking was to me. It’s amazing how fast you learn though – now it feels natural to go into the kitchen and warm up a meal quick. And I’m finally not afraid that somehow I’ll blow the house up…much : )

Another transition that’s occurred for us is going from using a washer and dryer for everything at home, to Rome where we had a washer, but air-dried our clothes outside, to here, where all of our washing is by hand. Now about once a week we break out our big red bucket and wash our clothes.

It’s been a process learning how to do it the best way. The first few times our clothes still came out smelling like they did when they went in, and we weren’t sure what to do. But what we’ve found works the best is to soak the clothes with water and the powder soap overnight and then we have a system where we wash the clothes and then take them through two rinse buckets and let them sit in a softener bucket for a short time before we hang them up. It takes us about 45 minutes to do a week’s worth of clothes, but at least now you can tell that they’ve been washed!

Finally, we have three fans in the house that we use to desperately try to keep cool : ) We’ve also made some friends here and sometimes they give us rides in their air-conditioned cars. We’ve even begun plotting to every now and again spend a few hours relaxing in one of the nice hotels in Dili that have a strong breeze or air-conditioning. Hopefully we’ll be able to sit there and lesson plan and just love being a little cooler for a short time. Air conditioning probably doesn’t sound too nice too you all right now when we’ve heard Minnesota and Iowa have been having -30o F weather, but imagine it’s the hot, sticky Midwest summer and then add 10 o or 20o to that, and you’ll understand.

Oh yeah, and the most unthinkable of all, we don’t have a TV!?! But I can’t say I mind too much. I think especially being here and seeing and experiencing all these new things, a person needs A LOT of time to process everything, pray about them, and get something out of the experiences. If we had a TV here I think that time for thought and prayer would be cut in half, because when there is a TV it’s difficult not to watch it. Most of us love to be doing something all the time, even if some ways to spend time are more valuable than others. So there’s no TV here, no games systems, but we have fun : )

So why do we tell you these things which might sound a little painful? Well, this blog is a good way for us to process our thoughts and experiences, a good way to keep in touch with everyone interested at home, and it’s a way to bring you along on the trip of a lifetime. We have been blessed with this chance that most people won’t ever get. As we find ourselves being transformed by living in a new reality maybe you can gain a little bit of a new perspective as well.

We and our families are blessed to live in America and Australia, two of the richest countries in the world. Now living in East Timor it’s easier not to take that lifestyle for granted, where as at home I honestly had never known anything significantly different. When you have a washer and dryer and microwave and airconditioning or heat it’s difficult to imagine life otherwise unless you’ve experienced it. When we compare ourselves with others it’s normally to our friends and neighbors, and we forget the rest of the world where billions of people live without the modern conveniences we’re accustomed to.

So appreciate the conveniences in America and Australia and what a gift they are, but make sure you’re still able to realize what is important. In my young life I have been blessed to begin to understand the secret of what’s important and what leads to happiness – a close relationship with God, family, and service to others. And here in East Timor it’s even easier to remember that daily when all the other distractions are gone. Here’s wishing you a distractionless day where you can really appreciate the blessings in your life!

Love always,

Rach and Brendan

Brendan's Birthday

On February 16, the most fantastic man in the whole world turned 23! For such a momentous occasion there was obviously much celebrating. Here are just a few things that happened for Brendan’s birthday:

Like any major holiday there is always pre-partying on the eve of the big day. So the night before Brendan’s birthday we were invited to join most of the Sisters and novices at Becora for a birthday dinner. Here Brendan hears the Happy Birthday song for the first of at least 100 times in the next 24 hours.

Here the women who are one step away from their final vows as Canossian Sisters sing to Brendan. They are so full of joy and servants’ hearts…and they have incredible voices.

Also pictured here is the birthday feast! For special occasions they make some non-Timorese dishes – some pasta, pizza, and french fries are added to the normal rice, veggies, and some meat. It was so good to have a taste of home!


And after a good night’s rest, it was the big day! Brendan’s birthday started off with a special breakfast with Gosia and Claudia, who were staying with us at the time.

After breakfast Brendan had to complete a surprise scavenger hunt to find his birthday presents! For his 23 years, 22 snack items and 1 basketball were hidden around our house. It didn’t take long before he found everything, which was good because we had to head off to school.

On the way to school everyone was dancing in the streets and this man had a foot-operated carousel for the kids as part of Brendan’s birthday festivities! : )

In case you’re curious, this man’s job is to bike around town all day and give cheap rides to the kids as they spin around this mini carousel to music. Although we wish this guy had a nicer, better paying job, it’s adorable to watch and the kids love it!


After we had finished lessons with the university teachers, we swung by the convent at the school where I had coordinated with the Sisters for a surprise lunch. So they had pop for the occasion and made Brendan a card. The funniest part was that the Sisters are very busy on Mondays and everyone comes in for lunch at different times when they have finished their duties at school. And each one as she came in would sing Happy Birthday with gusto, as if she was the first person to think of it. So over the course of the meal, Brendan had about fifteen solo renditions of Happy Birthday in his honor : )

After a brief visit to home, we came back for English Club. I had made a fake lesson plan and told Brendan about it, but had planned to surprise him by having the whole class sing Happy Birthday and then go over basketball vocabulary and play basketball to practice it at the court outside because Brendan loves to play basketball!

Sadly, for reasons still unknown to us, only a few students came that day. The 3rd year students may have had a big project due the next day or something, but on that particular day there were less students than we’ve had at any classes since we began. So it wasn’t as good as it could have been, but with the students that were there we had a little party and did the basketball stuff.

After English Club we went home to rest for awhile and then went out for dinner. Brendan had learned about an all-you-can-eat restaurant called the Food Star from one of our friends, Birthin, and wanted to check it out. So for dinner we had unlimitied rice, noodles, vegetables, and most importantly…fried chicken. It was a great ending to the birthday of a wonderful man : )

K, that’s all for now. We’ll write again soon!


Much love,
Rachel and Brendan

Our Schedule

Here are some of the major things that we are involved with weekly here and some examples of our daily experiences:

English Lessons for the University Teachers: Monday 10:00 am, Tuesday 8:00 am, and Wednesday 1:00 pm


One of the main things we are here to help with is teaching English and the students and teachers are anxious to learn or perfect their English, especially with native speakers. Brendan and I both meet with university professors for sessions many times a week. He teaches the guys and I teach the girls. It’s interesting because each person is at a different level (from really struggling to almost fluent) so we have to tailor our lessons to where they are at. But hopefully with the one-on-one attention we will be able to see significant improvement soon.

And it’s fun! This is our chance to really get to know the other teachers. So not only do we get to help them improve their English, but we also get to hear the stories that many of them are dying to share. These conversation lessons are always interesting and great for building relationships and quickly improving a person’s English.


English Club: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 2:00-3:30

This is ‘our baby’ and it’s still going really well. We help the high school students to improve their English using lots of conversation practice, games, music, movies, and soon we will have our first field trip!

Volunteering at the Clinic: Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at the clinic

The clinic is a great place to work with great people. Sister Aquelina is a nurse who runs it and two Timorese girls, Aurita and Marcia, help out a lot. So far I’ve been able to help mostly with wound care – cleaning and wrapping sometimes substantial wounds. The worst injury I’ve been able to help with is a flesh-eating infection on the foot of a girl who comes in daily to get it cleaned and wrapped by me and Aurita. Luckily it is improving.

As a more longterm way of helping I’m working on translating all of the medicines with English labels and instructions into Tetum so that they will know what they have at the clinic. Sister Aquelina and the girls all speak a little English, but not much, and they don’t know the specifics of what the English medicines are used for or the doses. So that’s my big project right now. I’m hoping to be finished in a few weeks. It will take awhile because many of the medicines no longer have the instructions with them so I will have to look up the information on the internet. But hopefully it will help, the girls seem excited : )


Geography: Wednesday 8:00-12:00

Brendan has picked up two more classes teaching Geography to the second year senior high school students on Wednesday mornings. Right now he is teaching them how to use an Atlas and about time zones, both things that are difficult for them, but he’s doing a great job.

English 5: Thursday 8:30 – 12:00

This is the university class that we teach. It is the highest level of English at the university. There should be twenty-seven students, but if they fail English 1-4 they have to stay in the class below. So we only have seven students, but it’s pretty much a perfect class size.

We pretty much get to pick whatever we want to teach to further refine their English. Right now we are focusing on business communication in English by having units on CVs (their name for resumes in this part of the world), interviewing skills, and business presentations all in English. Hopefully studying English in terms of these more practical things will help them learn, especially since soon they will graduate and enter the working world (or continue their education).


Choir Practice: Friday 5:30

We practice Fridays at the Filipino Embassy. It’s a lot of fun actually. I’m surprised by how motivated we are to go back each time. Probably because we’re getting to make friends with both internationals and Timorese, and sing in awesome four part harmony.

I’m a soprano and Brendan’s a bass. I sit with two Timorese girls who are shy, but very good singers, and Brendan sits by the piano with Victor, a big UN Peacekeeper from Nigeria with very deep voice. On Friday at practice they were beat boxing together as we sang an African song.


Hospital: Saturday 8:00

Besides working at the clinic, Brendan and I have also started helping Sister Aquelina on Saturday mornings. First we will visit sick people in the community and bring them Jesus in the Eucharist and then head to the hospital to help however we can. Last Saturday we spent the whole morning visiting with different patients and people in the community. We had just been given a big box of chocolates so we took them to the hospital and shared the love. The only problem was that they were fancy chocolates and some people really liked them and others really liked the gesture, but when we saw them try it later it was clear they didn’t like the taste at all.


Bible Study: Saturday 4:00

We mentioned this before, but we meet on Saturday afternoons at the church. They don’t have any special facilities or anything, we just take a few plastic chairs outside the entrance and sit in a circle and read and pray and discuss. Quality. Right now we’re reading through the Old Testament in Bible study. Iwuozo, a deepely faithful man from Nigeria, coordinates things, and we all take turns leading each week.


Mass: Sunday 10:30

We always go to Mass on Sunday and now we sing in the choir. We are also making it to as many 6:30 am daily Masses as we can during the week…it’s a beautiful thing!

After Mass every Sunday we meet with some fellow volunteers and talk. Sometimes we go find a restaurant to get a pop and chat or we go to each others’ houses. It’s been really fun and relaxing and a great way to find out more about what’s going on in Dili.


Games with the Girls and Sisters: Sunday 4:00

On Sundays we go back to the Canossian school and play games with some of the Sisters and the eighty girls who are from outside of Dili and stay in a building next to the school. Mostly they like playing basketball. It’s great fun!


Conclusion:

With all of this going on we only have Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and Friday morning free to do grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning our house, and lesson planning for the week. But it all seems to work out. So now you know why we are so busy that we rarely make it to the internet, but it is for a good cause : )

Love and Miss You All!
Rachel and BrendanP.S. Happy birthday to Brendan’s sister, Rebecca Egan! She turns 21 today! Like all of the Egans, she is an international traveler and adventurer. Right now she is studying abroad in South Africa. Happy birthday Rebecca!!!

Recent Happenings

Here are some of the major events of the past few weeks:We got our second package!!! One month and two days after it left Iowa, priority mail, it arrived in Dili. And it was three times as big as the one that got here earlier that went through Portugal. But the best part was that it had LETTERS! There was one from my family, a Christmas card from Aunt Marjorie, and drawings and pictures from my cousins Katelyn, Julia, and Tyler. Stuff is nice, but if we just got a box full of cards and letters from home it would be just as special (if not more).

But besides the encouraging notes and pictures, we got some really cool stuff. A battery-powered “candle” for when the electricity goes out, more bugspray, vitamin refills, Purell, another bag of peanut butter M&Ms (yes!) and some other food, and many other practical items. It was a really nice surprise and a great reminder of home.

Oh yes, and then there was the Superbowl! Definitely the most unique Superbowl party I’ve ever attended. Brendan was searching for any place in Dili that would be showing the Superbowl, but there isn’t much of an American presence here so it was difficult. But he found one place – the Dili Beach Hotel. So we made sure we were free, and at 8 am on Monday morning we watched the Superbowl at the same time you did all the way across the world, but probably not with the same atmosphere…


They showed the game on the TVs in the restaurant. So we sat on the couch, overlooking the beach with a nice breeze coming through, just the two of us watching the awesome game. We bought drinks so they wouldn’t get mad at us for sitting there for hours, but they weren’t too busy as it was and we’re nice about it. So it was a little different than usual, but it was relaxing and a great game and it was wonderful to have a chance to see it!



And on a more frustrating note, we don’t have any pictures, but during the past few weeks we have gotten a flat tire…twice. The first time we were visiting a friend after church on Sundays and we when came out of her house the front left tire was very, very flat. Brendan went to get the spare, but the spare didn’t look so good either.

So we took a taxi to one of the street shops where they put air in tires and patch flats. They tried to fill up the spare, but it turned out that the spare tire was flat too! So we left the car by the house and took a taxi home. And Sister Sonia has connections, so as soon as we explained the situation to her it was patched and back on within a day. And she gave Brendan a new spare tire for his birthday : )

That new spare tire came in handy because this past Sunday we drove up to the school to play games with the girls at 4:00 like we usual do, but as soon as we got to school it was clear that the same front left tire had gone flat again. After playing games we went home, and the next day at school Brendan and Bosco changed the tire. A little crazy, but it always seems to work out.
This is a really cool picture that Brendan took the other night that I just had to throw in. Besides doing the church Bible study, the two of us have been working our away through the New Testament together a few chapters a night and it’s been a lot of fun. Anyway, this particular night the electricity had gone off so we had candles for light instead and we were reading the book of Acts while inside our mosquito net. See what I mean when I tell you life is a beautiful adventure here?

Another experience without a picture: Lately we’ve been helping three students apply to go to the Canossian Global Youth Conference that is held bi-annually in Hong Kong. These senior high school students were picked because of their English proficiency, but it still very difficult to write a formal application in English. So we have been working with them daily, correcting and doing drafts, but hopefully this Thursday we will be able to send everything in. Not only will we be helping with their application, but we will be supervising their position papers that they have to write and practicing conversation with them a lot between now and July. Like many people, even after studying a language for a long time, it is easier to understand then it is to speak at a high level.

We don’t know if this is possible yet, but we are hoping that we might be able to go with them as chaperones if we pay our own way. We will have helped them for four months and it would be great to see them there. Right now they seem much more nervous than excited – none of them have been on a plane before and none of them have ever been out of East Timor before. For them to go to Hong Kong and meet other students from all over the world would be something they remember forever! In a country where opportunities like this only come to few, we really want to help them make the most of it. We’ll keep you updated on their acceptance and their preparation.

We’ve also had many visitors lately that we’ve invited to our house – some volunteers and some Timorese couples we know. Two of our visitors were Christina and Iver. Christina had volunteered here for a year in 2004, and as a gift for their 30th wedding anniversary, Iver brought her back here. She was so happy and told us many stories! She also said that her and Iver are planning to hold a VOICA Conference for past volunteers at their home in Vermont in a few years and that we’ll have to come.

Christina is a police officer and a mother of four and Iver wrote for the New York Times for years. It’s obvious that they’ve been all over the world for both work and volunteering. Christina said that as soon as their youngest child went off to college, she told Iver that they were leaving to go do something! So since then, she volunteered with VOICA in 2004 and her and four other volunteers started the IPDC university at the Canossian school. The five volunteers and the Sisters were the teachers, the administrators, and the coaches when they started up sports teams! It was obvious that volunteering here with VOICA had been one of the best experiences of her life and she was so happy to be back! Part of the reason that she was coming back was to write a proposal for a grant for the university and she needed more details from Sister Teresina.

It was amazing to meet both of them. Christina has a ton of energy and connections that she’s putting to good use for the people of East Timor. And I believe all the crazy stories she told! And she has quite a heart for others - even after her year was finished, she didn’t go home. She went to work in Jordan, helping train their police. Iver was very relaxed, but you could tell he felt the same way about things as Christina. He was a good conversationalist and asked a lot of questions – you could tell he was a journalist. And we amazed at his sacrifice when he was ok with his wife going volunteering by herself for one year in East Timor (to us as a newly married couple that seems a little crazy). From our few days with them, they seemed like a wonderful couple with a lot of passion for people and many crazy experiences

We also had two of the volunteers from Nurobo, West Timor, stay two nights with us while they were renewing their Indonesian visas. On the left is Gosia, from Poland, and next is Claudia, from Italy. We were hoping to get to know them more, but they were exhausted and rested most of the day when they weren’t at the Indonesian Embassy. But since they were here for Brendan’s birthday they were able to join in a few of the festivities!

Getting to talk with them, was really interesting. They live in Nurobo with Dr. Lucy. Nurobo sounds like it is a very small town. We heard that the Sisters came there when there were many refugees who had fled there from the conflict between now East Timor and Indonesia. But since then the Sisters have set up a school there and a special center for women to learn job skills. So Claudia and Gosia help teach at the school and they also have a really interesting program for street boys. They call it “The Canossian Guys” and if you youtube it there’s a cool video with pictures of the people in the program. We watched it in Rome to see what Timor is like.

But anyway, in their area there are groups of boys that live on the streets and they desperately needed something to do and they love music. So they have started bands with the guys. Claudia said that there were sixty guys at the beginning of the program. Now they come to rehearsals with her or do other productive things. It sounds like her and Gosia meet with different groups daily in addition to their other responsibilities at school. No wonder they were exhausted! So it was great to meet them and we’re actually looking forward to when we need to go to West Timor to renew our visas so we can get to talk with them more and see how their programs are doing.


And more recent news, it’s the beginning of Lent here. On Saturday I went with Sister Aquelina to take Jesus in the Eucharist to people again and at the second house we were given some cards about a parade that afternoon. So after we had finished and we were walking back to the Balide convent, I went to meet Brendan and tell him about the parade. On the card it said the time was 1:00 – 2:00 pm so I thought that the parade would begin at 1:00 and end at 2:00. How wrong I was…

Brendan has understood this better than me, but I always want to show up at the time something says so we make sure we aren’t late. Mr. Holland, my high school band director, always told us that, early = on time, on time = late, and late = evil, wicked, and unforgivable. It’s pretty true in our culture though. But here, it’s almost like there is a half hour to an hour expected delay for every event.

So we ate a quick lunch and headed down to the beach front where it was supposed to start and no one was there. So we walked along the beach and talked. It was a beautiful day and there was a cool wind coming off the water – it was perfect, like being in a movie or something. But around 2:00 we walked back and we had started to see some movement. There were flat bed trucks that were decorated and with space for people to stand on the back and play music and dance. So we sat on the side of the road and waited for people to show up, hoping that we could see before we left for the 4:00 Bible study.

Fast forward to 3:30 – it’s looking like it’s going to be an awesome parade. No one has the money to buy candy to throw, but they do have native dancers, martial arts groups, firefighters, and Timorese music blaring. And the whole thing was going to finish at the Governu Palazzo with a giant concert until 3 in the morning! But sadly, we had to leave before we saw any of the real parade. We had waited almost three hours and Brendan was leading the Bible study this week so we couldn’t be late.

So I learned a hard lesson that day. We’ve been learning it for the past few months, but that was the most dramatic example. It’s very interesting living in a culture where people run time, not time running people. Most events start late here, and if things come up people may come very late or not at all. Obviously this makes for a country that is less efficient, but I’m sure for them it’s less stressful to have a more understanding culture. For us, still trying to transition from living in America to here, it’s still a little stressful trying to learn to play by new rules. But hopefully soon I will have adjusted.

Finally, today is Ash Wednesday. And, because East Timor is awesome, it is a national holiday here!!! We were so surprised on Monday to find out that there would be no school on Wednesday and the clinic (and most businesses) will be shut. It’s a day for church, family, and relaxing as we all start preparing our hearts for Easter.

So today we will rest a lot, Brendan’s going to keep teaching me how to drive a manual, and we’ll work on a few things until we sing in the choir at 6:45 Mass. Yay for Ash Wednesday being a national holiday here and yay God! K, hope you are all well. Thanks for the love, prayers, and continually checking the blog : )

Much love,
Rachel and Brendan