mgpcpastor's blog

Returning to Liquiça, we are blessed by another welcoming. A red banner hung over the door way said in Portuguese: “Welcome to Pastor Robert Benn, General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Australia.” (A battlefield promotion, to be sure.) More flower petals, and our stoles carry the woven name of the Christian Church Liquiça. First we share lunch, fried chicken legs and wings, bean stew, white rice, stir fried noodles and fried greens. Then we are formally welcomed, RB brings and exhortation from Ephesians 1, and RD speaks with wonder of the Christian love which has moved the church to welcome us, thought they have not met us and which motivated Jo McDougall to create Timitio, though she has not met the people of Timor Leste. The most touching thing about Timotio continues to be the absolute fascination with which adults examine the book.
During the troubles the church manse was destroyed and the church itself was ransacked of its furniture, fittings and windows. Over time the windows have been restored, though the building itself is still furnished in a most basic fashion. The building is quite large and the church has grown back to 15 families, representing 60 souls. Pastoral leadership has been recently provided by Saturninho and his wife Erminawati. Finally, GW leads in prayer as we ask God’s healing on a girl who suffers from asthma and a man with an undiagnosed stomach complaint.
Arlindo wants to take us to one more place, ‘about an hour away.’ We start to leave. Herding cats. Shovelling ball bearings with a pitchfork. Moving the General Secretary (sorry, the Moderator General) away to the next engagement. Arlindo’s solution is to go outside and start up the Hilux, which only proves partially successful, but eventually we are on our way. Moving along the road back to Dili for a short distance, we turn right and proceed up into the mountains.
Driving past homes, we continue to ascend. The foliage begins to take on the appearance that we had seen yesterday. Growing more dense, the soil of the mountain changes and as we continue to rise we see coffee plants and what look like cedar trees. We continue on. There are always people on the road side. Children walking home from school. Firewood being gathered and cut. Vegetables being harvested. Work parties carrying out work on the road. One worker wears a t-shirt emblazoned with the name of Fretilin, the Timorese resistance movement, another wears a t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of Starbucks.
Still we go up. The tops of the trees brush against the bottom of the clouds. Our road is now a couple of tracks, grass growing in the middle. As we go on and on, up and up there is a sheer sense of wonder both about surroundings and what could possible await us at our destination.
Finally we stop. We are so high we can look down on clouds in the valleys below. Ermera district, which we had visited yesterday is visible in the distance. We leave our cars and walk down a slope of pasture to meet the church of Leurema. Children and women greet us by taking our hands, shaking them and then lifting them until the back of our hands touch their nose and forehead. It is an affecting way of being greeted.
We are ushered into a structure with a hard red dirt floor. The wooden frame is covered with iron, the holes in which indicate that it has been used before in other places. The roof is Australian zinc coated corrugated iron. Arlindo had pastured a group here just after the troubles, but when he had to go to other areas of service no one else would take it over, so the group lapsed. It has recommenced, just a few months ago under the leadership of the couple from L. Friends those who are privileged and challenged to pastor churches with satellite congregations should empathise with this work, only about fifty kms away from the parent church, but really about seventy five minutes drive and nearly 2000 meters higher.
The owner of the steel shed told us her husband was unable to come, as he has suffered the death of his daughter some months ago and is still grief stricken. In the midst of prayer and exhortation we were blessed to hear these people sing praise to God in their own tongue, right on the roof of East Timor. The words of another song came to mind, ‘when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur…, I sing my God how great Thou art’. Departing from the usual pattern copies of Timitio are personally given to each child present. We were also moved to provide a small token of support to the work which was immediately received and the whole group determined to utilize for diaconal needs. This very modest and remote community will be blessed by five bags of rice, the benefit of which will be felt before we depart next week.
It will come as no surprise that departing from this corner of our Father’s vineyard was a great struggle indeed. We return now to Dili. Tomorrow we worship God with these brothers and sisters, RB will preach (at least), we will rest and maybe make one visit and then enjoy Arlindo’s hospitality.
We trust God’s blessings on our home churches tomorrow and on you all as God is worshipped and His Word is read and preached.
There will not be a post tomorrow. The next one is planned for Monday night.
Arlindo has now dropped me back at the Tourismo. Proofreading by RB and input from RD await, then posting at the Xanana Gusmao Reading Room, who will also be receiving a complimentary copy of Timotio.