Atauro – Being in community – Sunday 29 June

By Daniel & Connor

Today was a slower day than the others. We rose at 7am from our first night in the island. There was a variety of options for breakfast, including buns and spreads, eggs, sausages and more! Over breakfast we heard our plan for the day and prepared for our walk to the church.

We all gathered in the front of Barry’s place in our nicest clothes with the girls wearing skirts and boys wearing long pants – even Connor! Somehow we still felt underdressed as when we arrived at the church the kids were all in the nicest clothes.

Church was very different here in Timor. It began with everyone filling the room with their voices, singing with passion. As it was national children’s day, the children participated in everything. The bible and flag were marched in by the children. However at times it was a little challenging for us sitting in the audience because we couldn’t understand the Timorese language and it was extremely hot. We appreciated the passion and community expressed in the church. The spirit of relationship was palpable.

After lunch we met ‘Super Mario’ (those from the year three camp in 2017 were reunited with him). Mario was the funniest guy, full of smiles and laughter. We heard all his stories and his goal in life to support both his own children and other children of the community. 

He lived on the far side of the island, so to get to school he had to walk for 3.5 hours (each way). He now is raising money to build a school there. After listening to him talk, we taught his son handball.

We then went for a swim on the beach right outside Barry’s place! The water was beautiful – bright blue and incredibly warm – and we played some markers up in the waves. 

We were invited by the locals back into town to watch a kids talent show at 4pm.  We were welcomed by handshakes from all the kids.

Lulu and Ava each made connections with the local children, with them sitting with us. It was an impressive set up, and it was great to meet more kids, though we didn’t realise that before the show there was 2 hours of prayer and song.

Unfortunately we had to leave early to get back to dinner, but we still had a great experience in the local community.

Dinner was a buffet of pumpkin soup, tofu, fish and more! The teachers sat on a table playing banana grams (Tracey won ahaha).

The day finished with groups splitting off to play games, with a surprise rat appearance! It was super scary, the group of five girls were screaming and woke up multiple other bungalows.