Borneo Mission Trip - March 16

In a short period of time between hearing about this UCA Mission trip and being extended an invitation by Mr. Olin Peach, a former teacher of mine and leader of the group, I made the decision to try and go. I have no doubt that the Lord helped all the pieces fit together and less than one week later, I was on a Malaysia Air 747 heading for Borneo. Just for those who don't know where that is, (I had to look it up too!), Borneo is the third largest island in the world, located just southeast of Singapore. Here is a short report:
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Jungles, monkeys, long houses, orchids, heat, humidity, friendly warm people and strange languages met me when I arrived in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia on March 19. I joined a group of 50 made up of high school students and adults for a two-week volunteer mission experience. The projects included building two brick churches and holding dental clinics for the Iban people who live in the jungle.

The thirty grade eleven and grade twelve students from Upper Columbia Academy, Spangle, Washington (where I graduated from) were divided into two teams with adult contractors, brick masons and cement supervisors on each team. By the end of the two weeks, both churches were completed and we were able to have a dedication service in each on the last day we were in the jungle.

I was fortunate to join one of the two dental teams that traveled daily to different long houses and conducted dental clinics with the help of translators. I was given brief but intensive training in being a dental assistant. We did mostly extractions but a few patients had fillings and cleanings. We also gave out donated toothbrushes and tried to educate each patient and their family with the importance and method of brushing. Hopefully this education will help prevent some of the decay and tooth abscesses. The people were so expressive. They would take the hand of each person on the team, hold it in both of their hands and bow as they expressed their gratitude.

Due to the evening monsoon rains, we were treated to genuine “mud-bogging” as we traveled daily and I gained a new appreciation for the Hylux Toyota trucks. The other team occasionally traveled by longboats on the river to their clinic locations.

We were hosted by a village with three longhouses and a population of nearly 250. Seventeen families lived in the longhouse where I stayed. Sleeping on the floor under a mosquito net, no electricity except for a couple of hours in the evening when the generator ran and bathing in the nearby river, were all an experience! Food was an experience too – rice every meal but then all kinds of ferns, roots, bamboo, fish and delicious fruit; pineapple, jack fruit, bananas and papaya. I even had the experience of helping “combine” the pepper by treading on it with my bare feet and opening green coconuts for the coconut milk.

What impressed me the most were the warm, gentle people who so generously gave us all of their best in a culture that seemed to have so little. They are subsistence farmers and yet they shared what they could, and gave each and every one of us a homemade gift as a thank you for coming and helping them. We did what we could for them and they were so appreciative and grateful. They seem so content with so little…… makes me rethink my priorities. It was a totally awesome experience.