Completed School, Our Very Dear Moslem Friend, and The New Testament in Somalian

 

Yesterday was the opening ceremony for the expansion of the Cahaya Hati School in Cijeruk near Bogor, Indonesia. The green and yellow building on the left is the existing school, and the blue and yellow building on the right is the new school expansion which was donated by the Foundation of The Church. This is a small private school with less than 200 students in kindergarten through 6th grade. This school is a vital part of this community. The teachers and staff are dressed in matching uniforms and the children are dressed in white. This event was held on a Saturday when school was not in session but a few students were invited to come and welcome us and sing the national song, Indonesia Raya.
Dr. Alwi Shihab is the man who is standing third from the left in the first picture above. His wife, Ashraf Shahab is talking to Sister Lambson in the picture on the right. Dr. Shihab and his wife have been friends of the Church for a long time and he is the one who facilitated this project with this particular school. He has been a high ranking government and religious figure in Indonesia since the transition the government of Suharto at the beginning of this century. He has worked with us during disasters like the Tsunami in 2004 and other earthquake, flood, and volcanic disasters. He has a high opinion of the Church and two of his children attended BYU. The others in the picture on the left are (from left to right) Elder Subiantoro (Area Authority 70), Elder Lee (Local Humanitarian Missionary), Alwi Shihab, Elder Wallworth (MLS Missionary), President Dumalang (Stake President), and me. I will paste more picture of this event at the end,
The book shown above was brought to us today by Kali. She, Sydney and Mallory are visiting us for a few days. It is a Somali Language New Testament that I ordered on Amazon and had it delivered to Kali's house before she left. Our English speaking ward has several members who are refugees from foreign lands who currently find themselves in Indonesia. I'm not sure the reason for their being here but Indonesia is temporarily hosting them while they try to find a permanent host country. Most of them are converts who found the Church after arriving here. In our ward the sacrament prayers are given both in Farsi and English. Recently a young woman named Muna started coming to church with her friends. She instantly made friends with Sister Lambson. Her entire family was killed in an explosion 4 years ago in Somalia while she was in school. She is curious about the teachings of the Church so the sister missionaries are teaching her in English. I have found that Somali is not yet one of the languages that the Church has adopted for literature and this was the only book of scripture that I could find in her native language so we ordered it and gave it to the Sisters today to be passed on to Muna in their next lesson. 

 More pictures from the school opening.









 






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