We got an early morning to flight to Manado, North Sulawesi, and found ourselves in a bustling Indonesian city. There are nearby islands with supposedly great reefs for diving, but they don’t get many tourists in the city itself. We knew it was slightly awkward for the boys,
but Caeden was
a great sport about it. He enjoyed being a celebrity as everyone wanted to talk with
him or get a smile with him or a picture with him. Burke was not having it. Almost anytime someone tried to get a
reaction from him he would hide his face in our arms.
We wanted to buy some gifts for Ritzhe and his family so we
trekked to the biggest mall in the city, which was three smaller malls connected. Oh my!
Sensory overload! It was
like black Friday on steroids. We eventually located a toy store and picked up
some Legos, art supplies and a backpack with water bottle for
Ritzhe. For his family, the staff at Compassion helped us put together a box full of pantry staples and toiletries.
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| "Mom, I'm probably the most popular person in Manado right now" 😄 |
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| Ritzhe & Caeden |
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| Girls from Ritzhe's school- too cute! |
Compassion International has a huge presence in this area. They have multiple after school program that combined serve over 1,000 kids. We have been to similar projects in other parts of the world, but we still weren’t sure what to expect on this particular visit. Our host and translators met us at the hotel and we drove about an hour outside of the city. We went to the public school and met Ritzhe and his family, visited their home and took them to lunch and a special visit to a “mini-zoo."
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| Ritzhe's family's home |
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| With Ritzhe and his family |
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| Teaching him our favorite game- Uno! |
We then went back to the church near the after-school project and the ~300 kids put on a special service with singing and dancing. We were so impressed because the kids ran the whole service themselves! We felt amazingly honored to be there and for all the effort and hospitality. At every stop there was food offered. They even convinced Brent to give a spontaneous solo after having earlier learned he was a musician!
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| Brent killin' it with his acoustic version of O Holy Night |
We were really humbled and thankful for the graciousness of all the people, and the way they went out of their way to celebrate our visit. We hope that Ritzhe and his family also felt special and we are so thankful to have been able to make this connection that we can sustain now through letters over the years.
Compassion International is an amazing program and we felt
so blessed to meet some of the staff that run one of the programs in Manado. Vanty was our amazing translator and Fine was our second host. Fine was once a sponsored child in the Compassion program and is now in their leadership program while attending college. We came to love these girls- just really sweet and fun! When they found out we had no plans the following day they arranged to take us to some of the top sights in the area. The weather did not cooperate, but we just enjoyed being with them. We hope we can meet up with them again in the future!
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| A rim of a volcano is behind us- but we couldn't even see the outline of it! |
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| Brent with Vanty and Fine and our driver eating a local specialty. |
It was such a joy to make so many wonderful connections. To spend the day
with Ritzhe and his family and get to know them was something I will always treasure.
There were many tears of joy as I marveled at how God brought our
families together. We are so blessed and it is an honor to make a
difference in someone else’s life.
We then went back to the church near the after-school project and the ~300 kids put on a special service with singing and dancing. We were so impressed because the kids ran the whole service themselves! We felt amazingly honored to be there and for all the effort and hospitality. At every stop there was food offered. They even convinced Brent to give a spontaneous solo after having earlier learned he was a musician! 
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