Projek Anakawa International Baptist Church

Yes, we know how to spell correctly - but of course this is in Indonesian.  Projek Anakawan, in Bahasa Indonesian, is broken down like this:  

Projek = Project

Anak = Child

Kawan = Friend

I have only been on two trips for the International Baptist Church (48 Countries 1 Church - how amazing is that?!)  (Singapore) to Indonesia for Projek Anakawan, but I am now committed until I leave; next month or next year, whenever we move on is when I will stop going on these missions.  I love this 'job'!

On each trip, our goal is to be a beacon of God's love and light for each of the children.  The focus of the mission is to develop a trusting relationship with the children, to teach them English as a second language (ESL) and to play educational (Christian included) games, activities and sing with them.  Through these activities we hope to give them a sense of the love Jesus gives us.  We visit once a month - and hallelujah! this month we felt we had enough volunteers to commit to the local Baptist school as well.  So one large team has split into two smaller teams; one ministered at the school (I was on that team) and the other one ministered at the children's home. 

Not all of the children are orphan's.  Some have families that are displaced from the tsunami - their homes were swept away in 2008, some have single parent families that cannot afford to keep them and some have no families.  We are there to minister to them all.   Every single one of these children make me smile.

Now that you know what we do, I would like to spend a couple of days posting pictures of this month's trip.  Before I forget to tell you, we have about 30 children at the children's home and about 65 at the school.  These are all at the children's home.

I don't think I need an explanation... I think you can see what makes us so passionate about this ministry.

I got him to smile!  Actually, it was quite cute - he came in late, and found me.  When he did, he asked me to 'take a photo' of him.  I gladly obliged!  Love that smile!

And this trip we taught a new song to them.  We first sang it in Bahasa Indonesian (our Indonesian language teacher taught it to us this last week), then we sang it in English.  For some reason, I only got the Indonesian version, but see if you can recognize it...

Did the Bahasa Indonesian lessons help me?  Absolutely!  I was able to say a few things to them in Bahasa Indonesian and they had to reply in English.  I told them if they were going to learn English I was going to do my best to learn Bahasa Indonesian - the children LOVED that!  I had to ask how to say "student" and one student very carefully repeated the word "pelajar" to me over and over until I got it!  Whoot!

Did you recognize the song?

If not, it is I Love Jesus!  Deep Down In My Heart!

Aku Cinta Yesus!

Dalam, dalam, dalam s'kali!

Aku Cinta Yesus!

Dalam, dalam, dalam s'kali!

Cintaku da da lam lam

Dalam, dalam, dalam, s'kali!

Cintaku da da lam lam

Dalam, dalam, dalam, s'kali!

Don't ya love it?!

Yeah, I do too!