Anakawan Children’s Home–Batam, Indonesia

Wow.  What a day.  Today, I went to Batam, Indonesia (an island about an hour’s ferry ride from Singapore) and the Anakawan Children’s Home.  I go there once a month with my church to teach English to the children, who mostly speak Bahasa Indonesia.  The children are precious and range in age from three to nineteen.  Most of the children were victims of the tsunami from a few years ago whose parents came to Batam for work.  While the government had guaranteed jobs, the jobs expired after one year, leaving the families stranded in a new place with no work.  Some of the parents had no choice but to put their children in a children’s home.

I’ve mentioned this place before (I’ve been going since last summer) and it never fails to capture my heart.

The ladies and I met at 8:00am at the Harbourfront Ferry Terminal and prepared to board a ferry to Batam, Indonesia–about an hour-long ferry ride from Singapore.  On the way, we weave through Singapore’s islands to the south (most of which are small and uninhabited) check out the Universal Studios that’s being completed and head into Indonesian waters.  Once we reach Indonesia, we get our visas, get our passports stamped and head for the van that will drive us for another thirty minutes into the heart of Batam.

We go to Batu Aji, a small, poor community on the island.  In fact in Batu Aji, I haven’t seen a petrol (gas) station.  Gas is typically sold in plastic bottles that have been recycled from bottled water.  It is a small, poor community on Batam.

Students on the computers

Before we head to the home, we decide to take a side trip by the school.  The school has three classrooms, an extra room for computers (thanks for a corporate donor), and an office.  Another organization wanted to help the school, so they built them a second story on top of the existing story.  However, they did not put in stairs to reach the second floor.  So, there was a two story building with only one usable floor.  Fortunately, this problem has since been resolved and there is now a staircase.  The children have a school schedule different from that in the US.  They go from 7am until 1pm and even go on Saturday mornings.  This particular school educates about forty children in the equivalent of grades 7, 8, and 9.

After our tour of the school, we went to the church (which is a house with one big room and four “dorm” rooms that house about 30 children).  There is minimal running water in this house (if any at all) and only enough electricity to power a few light bulbs and a television set.  They collect rain water from the roof in buckets.  Despite the seemingly harsh conditions, the children are joyful.

Precious Siblings

Today, we taught prepositions and directional words.  We used flashcards to learn words for objects around the room.  We learned how to tell time in English.  We even made tissue paper flowers.  All in all, it was a pretty successful day.

One of the little girls wouldn’t leave my side for a good portion of today.  If I would walk away, she would grab onto my belt loops and hug me around the waist (as high as she could reach).  She even pulled me outside to get away from the other children.  She doesn’t speak English, so I couldn’t ask her what she was doing.  Then, Pastor Willy told me that her mother left her and they don’t know where her mother is.  “She wants a Mum,” he said.  That really struck a chord with me.  I wanted to bring her home.

Sweet girls!

I spent the rest of the day with a five-year-old little girl and six-year-old little boy who, along with their three-year-old little brother, were brought to the home recently.  Their eyes lit up like crazy when we would work with the flashcards.  When they would get an answer right, they couldn’t wait to get a “high five” or a “high ten” as we called it.

To close the day, we danced to a few songs, watched them perform a few songs in Bahasa Indonesia and then got back into the van to head to the ferry.  As we drove away, dozens of little hands were poking out of the fence and waving goodbye to us.  I go every month to this house and every month I feel myself drawing closer and closer to these precious children.

Tanya (our fearless leader) teaches a song

I wish I could bring them all home with me and give them all a better life.

The funny thing is, when I go on trips like this one, I expect to be the one to bless the people and touch them through my service.  It never fails though–I am always the one who is blessed beyond measure.