Young Missionaries Returning Home And Searching For Family History On The Far Off Isle of Alor

 

I'm sure all missions have traditions when a group of missionaries complete thier missions. In our mission we gather at the mission home for a devotional where we sing, hear testimonies of the departing missionaries and messages from our mission leaders and after the devotional is over the mission leaders cut off the ties and scarfs of the missionaries. This group is special to us because they have overlapped with us for almost our entire mission. The two sister pictured here, Sisters Cook and Pickett, arrived a week after we arrived so they have overlapped for the entire mission. Three of the Elders were in the group that we escorted to the Cebu temple. Hard to say goodbye.

This is Sister Sri Anon. She is the Church Historian in Indonesia and she came to our office this week to interview us. She interviews all of the senior couples before they leave and submits transcripts with her Church History reports. Sister Sri is 80 years old and is a pioneer in the Church here. She joined the church in 1973, two years before I served my first mission.

This may be a little hard to see, especially if you are viewing it on a phone. Last week we travelled from Jakarta, where we live, to Kupang on the island of Timor and from there to the little island of Alor. We travelled there with another senior couple, the Furgos. Sister Furgo is a descendent of Dutch and Indonesian ancestors. Her great grandparents has been sent to Alor by the Dutch in 1905 - 1910 and they helped to bring Christianity to the Alor which remains mostly Christian to this day. We hoped that we would find some records from that period that might be valuable for her family history.

Here we are visiting the Pola Church in Alor which is one of the oldest churches on the island. In the center of the picture on the left is Reverend Martin. He met with us for about a half hour. He said he will do some research and notify us if he finds anything about Sister Furgo's family but he is not optimistic about it because most of the records of that time period are in Holland. Sister Fugo presented him with a copy of the Indonesian Book of Mormon in which she wrote a message and signed it. Reverend Martin was very kind and helpful and prayed with us before we parted. He is almost certainly the first person on the Island of Alor to recieve a Book of Mormon.

Sister Furgo brought this black and white picture of her great grandmother standing on Alor. We are quite sure that we are standing in the same place or very close to it. We are both on an elevated hill overlooking the bay with a mountain across the water. The other clue is that she is standing near three people with bows and traditional clothing. The location where we are standing is just outside of an historic village where people still live in thatched huts and they still maintian many of the old traditions as you will see in the next pictures. It was a special experience for the Furgos to visit this place about which she has heard family stories from the time she was a child. She is the only one of her current living family to have visited Alor.

These pictures were taken in the village that is less than 100 yards from where we were standing in the picture overlooking the bay. Times like this make me very glad that I can speak the language. The man in the lower picture told me his story. He was born in this village and became a boxer. He travelled to other islands for boxing matches to make money and eventually grew too old for the sport and came back here. He is still buff and he makes a really great warrior and guide.

One of the sources of revenue for people on Alor is hand-woven textiles. This woman will spend 4 days to weave one peice of fabric less than 2 meters long. They are beautiful.

This is our driver, Om Yunus. He is a devout Christian and always had christian music playing in the car. At one point we recognized the tune to "Count Your Many Blessings" and we all started singing along. He also sang along in Indonesia. He was the second person on Alor to receive an Indonesian Book of Mormon.

I'm going to switch to Kupang now and I will post some more pictures of Alor and a video at the end. We had to transit in Kupang to get to Alor both going there and coming home. We decided to stay overnight on the way back and we had some time for visits. The young man in the picture above is named Hezron. He works on cruise ships and happened to be home on leave for a short time when we visited. We had heard he was there from our Sister Missionaries in Jakarta who were teaching him by internet. He visited Jakarta one month ago and was baptized there. He and his friend, Juan, picked us up from the airport and brought us to our hotel. We also stopped by his house and met his Mom and his Sister who are in the photo above. He may be the only member of The Church in Kupang.

Hezron was kind enough to accompany us to the home of Pit Tefa and his family. I had been asked by his niece to bring a Book of Mormon to him. His niece is a friend of ours from Malaysia, she attends our branch in Kuala Lumpur. When I learned we were going to stop in Kupang I messaged her to let her know and she asked us to visit her uncle's family and bring some Church literature. It was a wonderful visit. Typical of Indonesians, they served us lunch when we were there and were very kind and hospitable.

A few more pictures from Alor

We walked along the sea to see the sunset and these three kids were selling drinks. We made friends and they showed us the shortcut through the cemetery to get back out to the main road. They assured me there were no ghosts.

Getting off the boat after going out with Oni, the man who can talk to a big fish. So, our driver was taking us around and said, "Hey, do you want to see the man who can call a big fish from the sea?" I said, "Well, first of all I don't yet believe that there is a man who can talk to fish but, sure... seeing is believing right?" Bright and early the next morning he took us here to meet Oni, the man in the black shirt in the picture above. Oni then took us out to sea on this boat and after he made a few taps on the hull a big grey fish started following the boat. At that point he shut off the motor and stood up in the front of the boat and started calling, "Rose... Rose, come Rose" and the big fish came right up to the boat and let us pet him. Actually, Rose was not a fish at all but a mammal called a dugong, similar to a manatee.They also call it a sea cow here because they eat the grass on the bottom of the ocean in the shallows. Rose is actually a boy and Oni has known him since he was a baby. Rose is now 22 years old and has a wife and baby that are out in the sea and did not come to the boat. Oni does not feed Rose or give him any reward, it seem to be the friendship that attracts Rose to the boat.

Here is a picture of Rose by the boat. He is probably about 7 feet long. I have limited success uploading videos to blogger but I will try to include one at the end. You should watch it if it works. It is really something.

After we got off the boat there was a man with some fresh green coconuts. He cut them open with a big machete and after we drank the coconut water he cut a spoon from the husk and split open the coconut so that we could eat the flesh. Best young coconut I have had in a long time because it was fresh off the tree. While we were there we visited with Oni and his neice and a few other local people. They were very interested in The Church and Elder Furgo had a few pamphlets in Indonesian that he gave them. We got their contact info and I will follow up with them to see if they have any questions. They asked us to bring more books if we come again, they especially wanted Sunday School book for kids and youth. Nobody we met on Alor has ever heard of The Church or the Book of Mormon.

Video of Rose, the dugong