ian and sharon

The Indonesian President (Left) and his VP (Right) in the computer room. All classrooms have to display these images. Elections for a new president are on the 9th July. It is expected to be quiet and the current Pres. DR. H Susilo Banbang Yudhoyono is expected to reelected.

This was a very enjoyable visit and helpful for us to get a feel for the 3 levels of this grade school vision. The ultimate plan is that there will be 1000 of the Lantera - lower level schools -when everything is completed. The UPH Teacher's College students that Connie Rasilim now heads up, are expected to help staff this system. As you can imagine, it is a nightmare to try to work out the details, especially because the growth of TC has been so incredibly fast and in about 3 years the total enrollment of TC students has grown from 5 to 800!!! Connie has the responsibility of trying to work out the logistics of screening, training, sending the teachers out to schools for practicums and overseeing the practicums, and placing them into this system. She has about 20 assistant instructors, but it is a huge responsibility and quite overwhelming at this time. She needs our prayers!

The students were having a Bible School for their last day of semester. This is their play ground where they had the BS.









One of the 3 art rooms in the Dian school.

Today school are out for 6 weeks of holidays and all the kids are real happy. They're so well disciplined and the order in this school is remarkable. All classes in the Dian schools are taught by national Indonesians, unlike the SPH schools which promise to have native English speakers to instruct the students. In fact, in the SPH schools, each class has a native and an ex-pat English-speaking teacher and all the classes are on the international baccalaureat system - the #1 system in education internationally.

A strange picture, but it shows a view from the 4th or 5th floor showing the bell tower and the green fencing to the left is the roof-top soccer field!

This is the canteen and behind it a fabulous indoor swimming pool. All kids will learn to swim here.

Darrell van Luchien and his wife have established this amazing school system of 3 layers of grade schools - the top rung being the Sekula Pelita Harapan (SPH) - expensive school and top in the country, the SDH (Dian) schools, and the lower level of the Lantera schools. Yesterday we went to visit the Dian schools with Jeanna and Connie. This is Darrell, who unfortunately for this place is retiring in a few days. He will be sorely missed, anad all of this will be headed up by nationals - a great thing, but a huge move for this system. There are abuot 5 Dians across the nation. I think he oversees them all. They're really excellent and yet not too expensive -sort of middle income level.