From time to time it is easy to question the achievements of a year gone by, but in sitting down to write this report I think it would be fair to say that this has been a year of significant achievements for such a small organisation especially one with little or nothing in the way of resources.

The first thing is to thank all those who have helped in any way.  I won’t name any particular person just yet, in fear of inevitably missing someone out.  You know who you are and my only hope is that over the year I have let you know how very much our contribution has meant to The Foundation and the people whom live it touches.

Encouragement and Students

One of the greatest pleasures and hopefully contributions we make each year is working with young undergraduates who are about to finishes their degrees and enter the work force.

This year our work with the students proved to be both a very valuable hands on experience for the students and a very valuable experience for our extremely worthwhile charity work.

There has also been some very valuable win win time spent with students who have been placed with us for a few weeks of their internship.  Two of these students have left us to go onto exciting jobs in the world of public relations.

The Foundation certainly benefits from their input and from what they tell me they find working with us very encouraging and feel that they benefit greatly from the real life hands-on experience.

Scholarships

Unfortunately funds are very limited but we have still managed to award some small study scholarships to both secondary and university students.

While our wonderful University of the Sunshine Coast has top ranking Australia wide for its teaching quality and also from student satisfaction, feedback it does have a large number of financially challenged students.

To these students even as little as $100 towards the purchase of text books can make a significance difference to their lives.

With this in mind we recently instigated a monthly $100 bookshop bursary.  Students who are members of TEF are eligible to go into a draw each month.  We are hoping we may be able to increase this to 3 awards each month.  It would be great to grow this small be significant contribution.

Prompters

Due to the large volume of traffic coming into peoples email in-boxes we have slowed up the number of direct emails we send to members.  We have instigated Facebook and Twitter in an effort to get out positives and contribute content to those who choose to receipt i.

Another initiative which should be available soon is what we are calling “gift of words” card.

Due to the voluntary efforts of one of our past USC graduates and her graphic artist friend we have got the final draft of a set of cards which people can use to gift to people they meet who may benefit from some encouragement given to them out of the blue.

Foundation Merger

We have progressed with our discussions with Mark O’Neill of The Rainbow Foundation regarding formally linking our two organisations together.

Mark will soon be appointed a Director of the Encouragement Foundation and we look forward to some great things happening going into the future.

Mark is no stranger to us and has been an integral part of the major work we are involved in in East Timor over the last couple of years.

He has not only been a generous financial supporter but has travelled to Timor for the last two years as part of the planning team on the annual trip, and his input has been invaluable.

Encouragement House – East Timor

Undoubtedly our largest project has been the work going on to help the young East Timorese students to educate themselves not only out of poverty but to the point where they can significantly better their chances in life and, as many of them want to do , make a contribution back to their country.

My great old friend and business partner is one of the humblest people in the world and will probably want to shoot me for mentioning him in this annual report.

I will have to take that risk but we cannot talk about Timor without talking about Robert (Bob) Dickson. He is undoubtedly the lynch pin, the driver and the inspiration behind the truly incredible works your Foundation is involved in in East Timor.

He of course has much support around him but without him and his partner Elizabeth the Timor project would simply not exist.  The good work happening up there is too enormous to properly report on here.  A good way to get some idea and to keep up to date is to go to our second website www.encouragementhourse.org.

One of the greatest moves forward this year is that we have been able to arrange, through a great organisation called Destination Dreaming to have groups of Grade 12 Aussie students visit the project and stay for up to a week to mix with the young Timorese students.

The feedback is amazing and inspiring form the Timorese students but even more so for the Aussie students many of whom rate is as significant and life changing as they meet people with very little in the way of material things but so much in the way of happy, hopeful, respectful and kind personalities.

We hope you as a member of the Foundation will allow yourself to feel some pride and satisfaction from this project.  I must admit that when I realised that we have 80 and soon to be 120 students in residence up there I am blown away.

Through this project you and I have the potential to touch many more lives than just the 120 students and their families and may even have a slight effect on Timor pulling itself out of being known as one of the poorest countries in the world and the poorest country in Asia.

Organised Trips to East Timor

Perhaps you may like to consider a trip to Timor some times in the future to inspect the empowering energy your project is producing.  We are presently working on a format for a fully guided tour of Timor including a few days at our project.

Please let us know if you are interested and we will keep you in the loop.  It has been a positive, worthwhile and uplifting trip for all of us who have been there thus far.

Volunteer English Teachers

Before I finish on East Timor you might like to know that the Timorese are desperate to learn English and we are presently talking with two people who want to go as a volunteer teacher for a month at a time.  Margaret, who lives in Maliana, already teaches English four nights a week as a friend and volunteer.

International University Links

We are also progressing negotiations to link the University of The Sunshine Coast with Timor University and will eventually be able to bring some of the teachers to the Sunshine Coast to help upgrade their teaching effectiveness.

In closing I would like to acknowledge one very special person who works with us behind the scenes.  Julia Mitchell, who use to work full time for us is always available in the background and among other things, keeps us alive in the electronic world.  Julia does this mostly on a voluntary basis.

I know I should not have started mentioning names, but now that I have I must pay sincere tribute to my beautiful daughter-in-law Jody Shadforth.  Jody has swung in behind Robert on the Timor project and is proving to be an invaluable part of the team.  Robert and I are particularly delighted by Jody’s inspiring intention and contribution.

Hopefully the younger people like Jody and Mark O’Neill will ensure the longevity of the organisation.

Finally I am indebted to my fellow Directors.  At this stage with such a small and under sourced organisation they may feel that they don’t have a lot of involvement, but even jus their ongoing support and endorsement of the Foundation is truly invaluable and very much appreciated.

I also thank McCullough Roberston, Lawyers and PWA Financial Group Pty Ltd for their pro bono professional advice and the latter’s fundraising for Encouragement House.

What a great trip! We were greeted ceremonially by our EH students who introduced themselves to us in English, which was pleasing. We had great interaction with them over our stay including group singing led by Jody Shadforth on guitar.

Deo and his family were wonderful as usual. We achieved a great deal in the work department also.

With the conclusion of Wombat construction  we can now accommodate 120 students, 60 boys and 60 girls. This also completes the first stage of Encouragement House providing accommodation for the students who attend Junior High school.

We have also been accepted totally by the government, which now pays the school fees for our children as well as providing them with rice, blankets and mats. Our children still grow their own vegies of which corn is a staple food source.

The low maintenance buildings should last for fifty years and the village parents or senior students can easily handle repainting and other repairs. It appears there will always be a heavy demand for the service provided by Encouragement House. Even if high schools are constructed in some of the more heavily populated villages in the Lolotoe sub-district, most of the other villages are too far away from each other to allow easy travel.

There is now a small university in Maliana, which is a part of the university in Dili. We had the real pleasure of visiting this university, which only has 130 students. It has been going for only 10 months and teaches English and Social Science?  We were lucky to have on our team John Dobson, who is the Chancellor of the University of the Sunshine Coast. The academic staff and pupils were delighted with John Dobson’s speech of encouragement to them. There may be a way of forging closer relationship between these universities. We believe some good things will come out of that meeting for the Timorese students as well as our own EH students and our Sunny Coast students. We are already working on some ideas.  John is pictured below with the head of the Maliana University.

By the time you read this newsletter we will have our third group of Australian students staying with us at EH. This time the young people are from the Scotch Oakburn College in Launceston. The nine students are in their senior year. There are two teachers accompanying them as well as our good friend Clint Miller from Destination Dreaming, who has arranged the tour.

These tours bring revenue to EH and the students also donate money for improvements.  The last tour built a much-appreciated shelter shed for us. This is 10 metres long by 4 metres wide and was used constantly by the EH students, particularly in the early evening when they played guitars and sang.

The greatest benefit is to the students of both countries. You have already shared some of the letters from the Australian kids about the way the trip has changed their lives for the better. The tours have the same result for the Timorese who are just as excited.

Stage two, the construction of the next accommodation block for the EH students who will be going to the Senior High school will commence in January 2012 after the wet season finishes.

This will be named Kookaburra to continue our OZ theme. So with your kind assistance we will start funding for this immediately. We believe we will need almost $70,000 to complete a fully furnished and operational Kookaburra ready for the next 40 students. We already own the land for stage 2, which is within easy walking distance from the Senior High.

The others who travelled to Timor with Liz and I this year were John Shadforth, John Dobson, Jody Shadforth, Barb Dickson and Mark O’Neill whose wife Kim and three teenage daughters came last year.

As a group and with Deo’s family we had a magical time and made a lot of good decisions for the future of Encouragement House. Once again thank you to Deo, Dahlia, Ben and Tina and the girls who looked after us so well whilst we were there.

We already have some people interested in next year’s trip. Please see if you have the time to spare to join us. It is a great and very unusual experience.

Thank you again for your wonderful support.

Sincerely,

Robert and Jody

Email robliz1@bigpond.com

07 5493 6943

0408 708 161

I just looking through your website and I saw the Encouragement House newsletter, and I thought maybe you would be interested in my perspective of our visit. I want to tell people about how great a cause it is.

At school, when I signed up for the trip to East TimorI had no idea how inspirational and eye opening it would be. The people of East Timor are the nicest people I have ever met. I have made so many friends during the brief 7 days we spent in Maliana, friends that I will always keep in my heart and who I will never forget. For people who have so little in comparison to us, they gave us so much.

The highlight of our trip was definitely our stay at Encouragement House. Originally it was not planned in our trip, but I am so glad that it was. During our trip we got to meet Kevin Rudd and president Jose Ramos Horta, which was super exciting, but I’d have chosen our stay at Encouragement House over that any day.

Saying goodbye to all my friends at Encouragement House was one of the hardest and saddest things I’ve had to do thus far. Everyone was crying (Australians and East Timorese alike, even Deo shed a few tears), because we were all heartbroken to have to say goodbye to each other. Seeing the impact that we had made on them, and realising the impact they had made on us was such a deep emotional experience that touched my heart and I will never forget it.

The students staying at Encouragement House are so nice, generous and caring. The girls cooked us the best meals, we played games with each other (volleyball, football), sang songs and even had a disco dance party. Did you know that Justin Bieber is really popular in East Timor too?

I am so amazed and impressed that all these kids my age leave their homes and families to come to Encouragement House and receive an education; in Australia education is something that we take for granted, whilst in East Timor it is a privilege. Encouragement House gives all these kids this privilege, a chance for the future. To me it was like one big family—a big happy, peaceful family.

My friends and I that went on this trip all agree that we want to come back next year when we finish school as a group by ourselves, to visit Timor Leste and Encouragement House again.

My experience with Encouragement house was amazing and I will never forget it. I think that it is such a great thing to do and support, and being a part of it for just a few days we were welcomed into the family with friendship and kindness that truly has touched my heart.

I already miss EastTimor and Encouragement House so much, so do my friends who came on the trip with me.
Thank you Robert and Deo for giving me this opportunity to experience Encouragement House, I loved every single bit of it.

Yours sincerely,
Gina

P.S If the encouragement house kids get to read this can I say hi to Apeil, Nicko, Linda, Anus, Jonnie, Eggie, the two Emmanos, Anson, Julianao, Aldo and everyone else! Miss you guys so much.

P.P.S I also attached a group photo of all of us- it is when we were saying good bye so a lot of us look pretty sad. I’m the one up the back near the middle with brown hair in a brown shirt.

Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up.

He fell down and died. The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out.

When he got out, the other frogs said, “Didn’t you hear us?”

The frog explained to them that he was hard of hearing and thought they were cheering him on the whole time.

This story teaches us these two lessons:

1. There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.

2. A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them. Be careful of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path. It’s sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way.

Author Unknown

There are many good things to share with you since our last newsletter.

To start with, Deo sent these photos in the last few days and they capture the spirit of our children at EH as they live each day there.

You can see the children are busy preparing the soil for the next planting. EH children grow lots of their own vegetables. You may remember last year they grew enough corn from one crop to last them three months. Corn and rice are the staple food of Timor.

We are also lucky that Maliana district is the main rice producer for Timor so we should be able to maintain supplies. Just for interest, some of the vegetables the children grow are sam choy, kangkun, carrots, cabbage, sweet potatoes, garlic and tomatoes.

Deo’s mother, Tina, can buy everything else they need from the local market. Besides pork, beef, chicken and eggs she can buy sugar, salt, cooking oil and clothing.

The other photo of the children checking rice sacks I believe really has some good meaning for us. The government Minister for Sustainability gave Encouragement House 20 sacks of rice, 80 blankets and 80 mats.

I feel we are very much on their radar and are greatly appreciated for our help providing remote area children from the Lolotoe sub-district with the opportunity of becoming educated beyond primary school.

We hope every one of you kind supporters feels great satisfaction in creating Encouragement House and knowing it will go on bringing educational opportunity for 50 or 100 years. It will be exciting to see what career paths our children follow in only a few more years from now.

Another measurable way to understand the project, based on present building costs, is that for every $2,000 we provide one bed place that will go on indefinitely. This of course includes the land, building and furniture surrounding that bed. We receive extraordinary use of our money when you think of it like that.

In July this year, the first of two Australian student groups arrive to stay at our new building, Wombat. Although these tours will provide a financial benefit to Encouragement House, more importantly they provide a wonderful learning and cultural experience for both our children and the touring students.

These tours were arranged by Clint and Kate Miller whose email is info@destinationdreaming.com.au We have been talking with Clint and Kate for a year or so and they are very dedicated and professional people who wish to bring life-changing experiences, for the good to their groups. We will report back to you in a couple of months. We feel good things will come from these tours.

Speaking of trips, this year in August, we have seven supporters traveling to stay for a week at Encouragement House. We will tell you more of that trip in September.
Of course everyone will pay his or her own way and contribute to EH at the same time. These trips are a great opportunity for anyone who wishes to experience life in a safe and developing country and to do so in a friendly, organized group. Please contact me if you are interested or wish to know more.

The last photo shows the cooking team inspired by Tina. What a marvel she is.

When you think that in the villages where the children live, cooking meals is almost done entirely using a wood or dung burning fire. This is in the open or at best, in an open tin shed to let the smoke out. Now you will appreciate what is on offer at Encouragement House. All the children, boys and girls, learn how to cook.

Thank you again for your great support. With the tax year coming to a close, those of you who would like to help with a donation, please remember we can give you a full tax deduction for the money you are giving.

Keep well and feel free to call me anytime. Also, you may like to consider planning a trip with us to experience Encouragement House.

Sincerely and thanks from

Robert Dickson and Jody Shadforth

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome”  Anne Bradstreet

Thank you for all the replies we received for our byline, we were so encouraged by your responses.  We decided to run with I encourage – I am encouraged.

Encourage and Shine

Please join with us on facebook by liking our page HERE

John Shadforth,

Hello Everyone! Here’s more good news….

You can see from the most recent photo received from Deo that the construction of Wombat is now well under way. Timor has been having the same monsoon weather we have been having so things have been a bit delayed.

You can get a good feel from the photo just how Encouragement House with its distinctive Encouragement Foundation colors, settles on the block of land. The children walk to school every morning. They only have to walk 75 metres to the junior high school entrance. What a difference for most of them who have had to walk miles to and from school each day.

Once Wombat is ready for occupancy in August 2011 we will have completed the Junior High School stage of Encouragement House. This includes the three dormitories – Kangaroo, Koala and Wombat – that provide accommodation, kitchens and study areas for 120 children. In addition to the three buildings we have built two individual house-parent supervisor houses.
Your contribution to this project has made a massive difference, not only to the lives of the 120 children who are now able to go to high school, but to their families as well.

Also the local economy has been helped with the purchase of all the building materials. These include rocks and sand from the river and bricks from the little backyard brickworks. The windows, doors, beds, lockers and kitchen furniture are all made locally and of course the laborers are local too!

Although the EH children grow a great deal of their vegetables, there are many things purchased from the local market on a daily basis. Pork, chicken and beef and bread are all local produce. We have also increased the school population and the flow on required more teachers to be employed and the possible expansion of the school itself.

The District-Administrator, who opened Encouragement House in September 2009, was very excited about the project. Deo continues to liaise with him and his department.

So congratulation and thank you again from the EH team. Your past and continuing support gives us hope that we can make a difference in these kid’s lives.

In our next newsletter we will talk about the Senior High School and the excitement of that project.

Sincerely,
Robert Dickson
Robliz1@bigpond.com
71 Boolagi Drive, Wurtulla 4575
Phone 07 5493 2253 0408 708 161

I can’t take credit for this giving story but as it was sent to me in an email. The impact it had made me want to share it with you. This is a good story.

I am a mother of three, ages 14, 12, 3. I recently completed my college degree. The last class I had to take was Sociology. The teacher was absolutely inspiring with the qualities that I wish every human being had been graced with. Her last project of the term was called, ‘Smile.’

The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and document their reactions. I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say hello anyway. So, I thought this would be a piece of cake, literally.

Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to McDonald’s one crisp March morning. It was just our way of sharing special playtime with our son.

We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did. I did not move an inch… an overwhelming feeling of panic welled up inside of me as I turned to see why they had moved.

As I turned around I smelled a horrible ‘dirty body’ smell, and there standing behind me were two poor homeless men. As I looked down at the short gentleman, close to me, he was ‘smiling’.

His beautiful sky blue eyes were full of God’s Light as he searched for acceptance.

He said, ‘Good day’ as he counted the few coins he had been clutching.

The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I realized the second man was mentally challenged and the blue-eyed gentleman was his salvation. I held my tears as I stood there with them. The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted.

He said, ‘Coffee is all Miss’ because that was all they could afford. (If they wanted to sit in the restaurant and warm up, they had to buy something. He just wanted to be warm).

Then I really felt it – the compulsion was so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man with the blue eyes.

That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me, judging my every action.

I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two more breakfast meals on a separate tray. I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot. I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue-eyed gentleman’s cold hand.

He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, ‘Thank you.’

I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, ‘I did not do this for you. God is here working through me to give you hope.’

I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son. When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, ‘That is why God gave you to me, Honey, to give me hope.’

We held hands for a moment and at that time we knew that only because of the Grace that we had been given were we able to give.

We are not church goers, but we are believers. That day showed me the pure Light of God’s sweet love. I returned to college, on the last evening of class, with this story in hand. I turned in ‘my project’ and the instructor read it. Then she looked up at me and said, ‘Can I share this?’ I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class.

She began to read and that is when I knew that we as human beings and being part of God share this need to heal people and to be healed. In my own way I had touched the people at McDonald’s, my son, instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student.

I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn:

UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE.

Much love and compassion is sent to each and every person who may read this and learn how to LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS – NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE.

Well, the boy thought about that for a moment and decided that he’d best settle for the offer, and they agreed.

After about six weeks the boy came back and again asked his father about the car. Again they went to the study where his father said, “Son, I’ve been real proud of you. You’ve brought your grades up, and I’ve observed that you’ve been studying your Bible and participating a lot more in the Bible study class on Sunday morning. But I’m real disappointed seeing as you haven’t got your hair cut.”

The young man paused a moment and then said, “You know, Dad, I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve noticed in my studies of the Bible that Sampson had long hair, Moses had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, and there’s even strong argument that Jesus Himself had long hair.”

To which his father replied, “Perhaps, and they WALKED everywhere they went!”