The Encouragement Foundation

Thanks to your wonderful support, everything is going well at Encouragement House.

The enclosed photo shows the foundations for the new building, Koala, while Kangaroo, in orange, is in the background. Koala will be a duplicate of Kangaroo and will provide accommodation for the next 40 children. So we will then have 80 children receiving a high school education. When Koala is ready for occupancy in September this year, we will be able to have one block for girls and one for boys.

You can also see in the center of the photo, the water well. Good quality water was struck at 13 metres depth.

After Easter the children returned from their first school holiday since the start of the school year. I imagine there may have been a few tears on their arrival home. Probably some more tears when it was time to go back to school as well. Deo arranged for a truck to take the children to and from the villages. That would have been a great photo but it is scary thinking of it on those horrible roads.

You will be delighted to know that the children have harvested their first crop of corn grown on EH land.  Deo says there is enough corn to last them 3 months. The kids have other crops growing around the houses too. They have sweet potato, cassava, beans and other veggies. They also have easy access to coconuts, pawpaw and mango later on in the year.

Deo recently bought 10 bags of rice that he says will last 3 months. A bag of rice weighs 35kgs and costs $15. Maliana is the main rice producing area in Timor.

Friends in Mornington, Victoria purchased some guitars for the kids. Deo and two of his musical friends, (who have their own band) are volunteer music teachers at EH. So we can close this newsletter on a musical note J