mgpcpastor's blog

We back-track along the road, which in places actually follows the apex of the range. We can literally look down the mountain from either side of the car. Huts seems to follow this jagged line, clinging precariously to the peaks.
As it turns out the second church we are visiting is on the intersection where the very ordinary road turned into the even more ordinary dirt road. We arrive to visit the Samaria Congregation. The welcome is similar to that of the Paulos Congregation, with a few variations. The children dance as a group, not two lines. While they continue their movement a young girl reads a prepared welcome to us. We receive new scarves. (In case you wonder, we have been packing the others away as we depart each place, the gift from Samaria is now the fifth.) RB has mentioned that we did not receive scarves yesterday in Dili. GW comments how interesting it would have been to see him wearing one while preaching.
Ushered up into the church we take our familiar places while the congregation follows us in. Again there are at least one hundred and twenty souls present, at three o’clock on a Monday afternoon. Our presence is appreciated.
A young man serves as a master of ceremonies and he introduces Mario, the evangelist who leads the Congregation. Mario reads a prepared outline of the Congregation’s life and needs. He has been serving the area for six years. Younger people are not able to receive a good education locally, the facilities are lacking. Mario has no means of transport, and like Manuel, cannot easily travel to a second church he is seeking to foster, twenty-six kilometers away. The children lack equipment to play sport.
Our speeches again stress the fact that these people should not feel they are alone. Even here one church member mentions the concern that the charge has been laid that the EPC-TL requires members to be rebaptised and is a radical movement. RB explains to the approval of the people that we are united in our Christian life and committed to each other through our Presbyterian principles, the history of which go back five hundred years and which are present around the globe. RD again tangibly demonstrates this unity and common expression of the Gospel by the gift of copies of Timotio. GW is given the chance to say something but is overcome with emotion after two sentences. Everything had been said. What should follow now is action.
We adjourned to lunch. (Or second lunch, depending on your point of view) The menu again comprises bean stew, rice, chicken and a side dish prepared with green paw-paw. The sambal is spicy. We eat in the manse. A cement brick rectangular structure about twelve meters by eight metres divided into three rooms under a steel roof. It is vacant and awaits a resident pastor. (I don’t think that we’ll provide the EPC-TL with our documentation on standards for manse dwellings in a hurry.)
We leave after four, and as mentioned above, the weather closes in. On the way back we drop some copies of Timotio into another church, which is not aligned to the EPC-TL. It has sixteen families comprised of seventy two persons. This represents a difficult area for the leadership. They want to maintain good relationships with others while conducting themselves in an ethical way with Congregations that are uncertain about their future affiliation.
Tonight this will be posted and tomorrow we check out of the Turismo for two nights as we visit the Same District. RD mentions that whenever he favourably comments about a region he is told ‘wait till you visit Same’. Of course the people who are saying this all come from Same, but that, apparently represents a universal bias. This next entry will be logged on Thursday night (God willing).