Blog
Tee-It-Up
Thirty teams are ready to tee-it-up for the first International Friends of Compassion golf charity. Around 120 golfers and want-to-be golfers will be playing at the Buhl Clear Lakes Country Club in Buhl, Idaho. Saturday, August 24th will be the date for all the fun. A team from Alaska is also coming. Our Alaska team is pretty sure to take last place but we are traveling the longest distance to invest in the lives of the children in the Hohidiai School. The funds raised from this event will be donated to help with the construction of one of...
read moreIFC Golf
Yes–for all you golfers and those who just hit a little round thing to green patches in a field. We are happy to announce the first IFC Charity Golf Tournament for Saturday, August 24, 2019. This event will be raising money for the construction of a school building for the Hohidiai School. The force behind this event is Jim Ridgway. Jim has a huge heart for the less advantaged and started doing charity golf events three years ago with great success. Jim has organized this event to raise awareness of the needs of our children. The golf...
read moreFamily Dinner
The IFC Family Dinner was a wonderful event with our partners. The evening was filled with personal stories and videos of the work of IFC in Indonesia. This event is to celebrate the past and look forward to the future work of IFC and the Hohidiai School. Dan Holmgren made a great presentation on the school construction site. He showed the two buildings that are completed and the two that are under construction. The school site will eventually have 15 buildings on the six acre site. There are 190 children in the school this time and in July a...
read moreThankful
My wife and I were talking tonight about the amazing partners who have assisted the work of IFC. There is only one word that adequately says what we feel–Thankful. There are people who have given for the entire 18 plus years that IFC has been serving the poor. There are those who give from their need and others who out of the blessings. We have partners who continue to give after moving or changing jobs. They help with general needs, children’s support and building a new school. There have been over 600 who have joined me in going...
read moreDisappointment
After a year of planning and lots of arrangements made for our team to come to the U.S. from Indonesia, the U.S. Consulate denied their visas. They were coming to share their stories and Indonesian cultural dance.They went to the U.S. Consulate in Surabaya on January 23. The team was Hendra, the principle of Hohidiai School, Fani, a Hohidiai School teacher, and four students; Tison, Esther, Feron, and Tessa. The plan was to start in L.A. where they would share with several groups and Tison would get to see Dr. Grossman, the surgeon, who...
read moreTeam Coming–Pray for Visa Approval
We are so looking forward to the team representing Hohidiai School coming to the U.S. This will be such a blessing if they can get their visas approved. Hendra Pontomudis, the principle of Hohidiai School, has done the extensive on line applications for six people. It is a lot of work and costly to process all the travel and applications. The time is getting short as we want them to come to L.A. first, then Idaho and finally to Alaska. We have plans to have them arrive on January 30, 2019. They have to get an appointment, be approved and then...
read moreStanding together
Many have heard about the tragic tsunami, earthquake and volcano in the Central Sulawesi region and specifically the city of Palu. I have been to Palu and have good memories of the people I met. The loss of life is over 1,400 and climbing and thousand more injured. There are heart wrenching photos and stories of the wreckage due to the 20 foot high wave that wrought the destruction. Our base is a long way from the destruction in Palu and we are 15 miles from the ocean on a high plateau on the Island of Halmahera. While we are not near the...
read moreWhat is Important?
What if you were asked to choose the most important thing in your daily life. I am talking about a physical item, the thing or device that you cannot live without. It is the most used and your top necessity. You might call it a priority. Maybe someone would say, “My iPhone is my top necessity. I cannot live without it.” If you go out and about nowadays, you’ll see people are all looking down at their phones. We could be called the down-looker culture. I will date myself, but I remember when the length of your phone cord...
read moreIt Just Snowed
I was up at 5 a.m. this morning and looked outside to see the the snow falling. It is May 1 and there was an inch of snow on my car by 8 a.m. I was just reminded of the unlikely connection between Alaska and Indonesia. The frozen arctic and the equatorial jungles do have something in common. Compassion was the Almighty’s glue that put Alaska and Indonesia in the same conversation. It has been 17 years in the making. In the morning I will be joining a friend to drive six hours through the wonders of the land of the midnight sun to find...
read moreA Great Day
I am not sure how you define a great day. I think a good day is playing cards with three men who live at the Tamariska–Dwelling Place of Kings. Hendrik, William and Johanis were all rejected men. Hendrik and William are lepers and Johanis is an old man who had a stroke. Johanis has a son who works for our organization but he is low functioning and needs 24/7 care. Hendrik and William are rejected men–because of leprosy they are not welcomed by their family and village. All three of these men have no other place to go and no...
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