Indonesia: Part One

After four airports, one taxi, one train, one mini-bus, and two days we were finally in Bandung, Indonesia! This is a picture of our team of six and luggage stuffed in the back of the mini-bus.  It was a good that this was the shortest part of the trip.  Both Anna and I are sitting on luggage.

We arrived at our awesome guest house tired, but excited to start our Indonesian adventure.  The Green Gate guest house is run by missionaries, and if you are ever in Bandung I recommend it highly.  Out of the five nights we staid I had four HOT showers.  That is pretty impressive! 

Kyle, our missionary host knew that jet lag would be a problem so he planned our first two days in country to be light.  We toured a volcano and bat caves, saw some monkeys, ate some amazing food, and played basket ball with some of the youth he disciples.  After two days in country we were feeling slightly more normal, and were ready to get to work.

The first desa 'village' we visited was Ranchabali. The drive took about four hours, and we arrived in the desa just before 2pm.

Mark went to work teaching Utep and Chris a filling technique called ART (atraumatic restorative technique).  The goal was to have both local men trained in this technique before we left so that they could continue to return to the village.  This was a start in building stronger relationships in Ranchabali (a completely Muslim desa).

 






 While Mark was teaching and performing fillings, I taught the mothers and children about proper tooth brushing and fluoride.   Seventy-seven 5-12 years old children and thirty children under 5 had fluoride applied to their teeth.

The children were very excited to receive new toothbrushes, and they all had a good time laughing at how silly they looked with the flouride trays in their mouths.  The moms asked a lot of questions and in general seemed very concerned with their children's teeth.  I only saw one child that didn't show signs of having cavities.  She only had four teeth and was just over a year old.

Tune in Next time for Part 2 of the Indonesia trip where I will talk about hiking and having home church with Pak Andi.