When the request to travel to Indonesia with World Renew came earlier this year, Pieter felt that we had too many other plans for the spring. Fortunately, Margot said: “we signed up and trained for this so we’re going!” Having benefited from the wisdom of his wife over the past nearly 36 years (next Saturday), Pieter agreed and began packing.

Our trip to Indonesia was long. We stopped-over on Bali and were surprised that, even in our modest hotel, there were many idols and shrines. People use these shrines to sacrifice incense and food to, to the benefit of the birds of course. I can understand now how the Apostle Paul felt in Athens.

Sumba, Indonesia, however, is different. The saying here goes: “The Dutch came to colonize Indonesia but evangelized Sumba.” To a large extent we see the truth of this. There is a strong Christian presence here but there is also an animistic undercurrent.

World Renew asked us to come to Sumba to address a severe need for food in the wake of a drought. The project we are a part of, aims to establish food security through food distribution in a number of villages about one hour east of Waingapu, where we are based. Funding for the project comes from World Renew’s account at and membership in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, a network of Canadian churches and church-based agencies working to end hunger in developing countries, with assistance from the Canadian Government.

The first 4 working days we witnessed how happy the people were to receive rice, mung beans and cooking oil. The food distribution will continue until the harvest season at the end of July, when they hopefully have enough food to support themselves again. However, as we visited communities and looked at their fields, we realized that the situation in the fields is not good. This year’s rains have not been plentiful and many fields of corn, peanuts, cassava and squash won’t yield much, if any. Please keep the people of Sumba and their farms in your prayers.

In addition to our work, we have also been adjusting to living here in Sumba. The weather is tropical  with average temperatures over 30oC. Fortunately, we live in a good house and even have air conditioning in our bedroom.  Inside our home, we’ve had to adjust to flushing with a bucket, showering with a hose, and making toast in a frying pay on a kerosene stove. And, of course, there are critters. The other day, when eating in a restaurant that has a good reputation for serving fresh food, a rat crawled by our table through the perimeter rain gutter!

We’ve also been learning the local culture and language, with a few hiccups along the way. For example,  we asked our driver to pick us up at 1:00pm, but he understood in 1 hour. So it’s true: “the problem with communication is the assumption it has taken place”.

When visiting one village, Pieter asked if the villagers knew what a tool was to establish level, the answer was: “waterpas.” This is the same as the Dutch word for level. Now, rather than reaching for our dictionary, we try Dutch first and often get a response! Margot enjoys learning the language and has made friends with our neighbours. One neighbor is a tailor who made Margot a beautiful dress. Another is an artist who makes beautiful Indonesian fabric, called Ikat.  

We are also very blessed to have experienced International Relief Managers to help show us the ropes. We are relieving experienced IRMs Harry and Annie Bergshoeff and are very grateful for the trail they blazed! Due to them we now understand the project and can make ourselves useful.  

Please continue to keep us in your prayers.  Pray for wisdom in communication with local staff, wisdom in administering the food distributions and the administration, for continuous health and for a visa extension.

Blessings,