The bishop explained that for many years the Dutch, when they were the colonial rulers of Indonesia, would not let missionaries into Bali, but finally they had relented, and in November 1931 the first twelve Christian converts were baptized. However, as more Balinese converted, tensions began to rise between Christians and Hindus. In 1939 it was decided that the Christians on the island should relocate to an area known as Alas Rangda (meaning “the place of the evil one”) located on the western tip of Bali. Alas Rangda was one of the most desolate places in the whole of Bali. Still, Made Runga, leader of the Christians at the time, led a group of twenty-nine Christian families on a seventy-mile trek west from Denpasar to Alas Rangda. There, amid the overgrown swampy jungle infested with snakes and tigers, the group carved out for themselves a clearing and built a village in the shape of a cross. They changed the name of the place from Alas Rangda to Blimbingsari, and over the years the village had continued to grow.
A Western-style church in the heart of Blimbingsari served as the center for village life. But the July earthquake had destroyed the church, and village elders desperately needed a new church to replace it—and not just another Western-style church. Instead, they wanted a concrete church built in the Balinese architectural style that would last for a thousand years, like the great cathedrals in Europe. David had never built a church before. That was going to be challenge enough, let alone making sure the building would stand for a thousand years. At least if it didn’t last that long, he wouldn’t be around to know about it.
Several days after arriving in Bali, the Bussau family set out for Blimbingsari. They followed the road that led west from Denpasar to Gilimanuk at the very western tip of Bali. For a good part of the journey the road wound along the edge of the coast, past gleaming white-sand beaches drenched by the blue water of the Indian Ocean. When the road left the coast, it rolled along hillsides terraced in rice paddies, a new crop of rice plants lifting their heads above the embankment that held back the water they grew in. As the family drove along, David was impressed by the beauty of Bali. The land was certainly a lot different from Darwin.
When the travelers reached the town of Negara, their vehicle turned north onto another road that would take them the final eight miles of their trip to Blimbingsari. David found it hard to think of it as a road. It was more of a pothole-ridden track hacked through the jungle that could be negotiated only in a four-wheel-drive vehicle or on foot. Finally the bone-jarring ride came to an end, and the driver pulled the vehicle to a halt in Blimbingsari.
The first thing David noticed as he climbed from the vehicle and stretched his legs was the sea of inquisitive faces that began to pour out of the surrounding houses and gather around the vehicle. Then a man stepped forward and introduced himself as Ketut Arka, the local minister at Blimbingsari. He welcomed David and Carol to the village and then showed them to a white stuccoed, thatched-roof house a set on a rise. “This is your home. I hope you will be comfortable,” Ketut Arka said.
The place was certainly more than David had been expecting. He had wondered whether the family might not all be holed up together in some bamboo hut, but this was a solid house with two small bedrooms, a living area, and a kitchen. The floors were concrete polished to sheen, and at the back of the place was a bathroom that contained a bak, a large concrete tub filled with water. Ketut Arka explained that water from the bak was scooped out and used for washing. David decided that he and Carol and the girls would be quite comfortable in the house.
After settling into their new home, David went for a stroll around the village. The signs of damage from the earthquake were all around. The church and several other buildings still lay in ruins, while many of the houses had patched-up holes in their walls or roofs to make them habitable again.
The next day David got to work on the rebuilding task. About one thousand families were living in Blimbingsari. The village elders, under the leadership of Made Runga, allocated a hundred men a day to work with David. The men’s first job was to clear away the crumbled remains of the old church. David set the men to work while he pored over the plans for the new church, trying to work out the details of how best to build such a concrete structure in the middle of the jungle. Three weeks into the project David came to the realization that there was no way they could build the new church without an adequate water supply. To mix the amount of concrete the plans called for, he would need thousands of gallons of water, far more water than the paltry village well could provide. The nearest adequate water supply was a river several miles away.
David talked the situation over with the village elders, and it was decided that the first thing to do was to build a dam in the mountains and pipe water from the river down to the village. Not only would this provide water to mix the concrete, but also, a steady water supply to the village would improve everyone’s life.
Once a site was located, David set about designing a dam. The project was challenging, since David had never actually built a dam. Eventually, however, David came up with a design he thought would work. First the men built a tunnel through which to divert the flow of the river. Once the water had been diverted, they set to work building the dam. David supervised the men as they hauled generators through the jungle and up to the site to run their equipment. The men then began drilling anchor holes into the bedrock into which they put reinforced steel rods and cement to hold the dam in place. It was a long process, but with one hundred men a day working on the project, the job began to move along. David showed the men what to do and how to do it and left them to do the work, coming back each day to supervise progress.
While work progressed on the dam, David put another group of men to work in the village, digging the foundations for the new church, building the forms in which to pour the concrete, and cutting and tying together the reinforcing rods needed to strengthen the concrete columns that would rise from the foundations to support the walls and roof.
Few of the residents of Blimbingsari spoke any English, but before long David had learned to speak passable Indonesian so that he could communicate with the workers. His Indonesian language skills helped him when he made trips to the city of Surabaya on the neighboring island of Java to purchase building materials, though it took several trips before he mastered the art of striking a good deal. Often when the building materials he purchased arrived at Blimbingsari, David would discover that they were of an inferior quality to what he had paid for. The bags of cement would be half filled with sand, and the timber would be knotted and twisted. Eventually David learned to inspect everything he purchased to make sure it was up to the quality he was paying for, and then he’d watch as it was loaded onto the truck for delivery to Blimbingsari.
In Blimbingsari David was delighted to see the way Carol was finding her niche. It had taken her a little while to adjust to life in the village. Inquisitive faces would appear at the window as she homeschooled Natasha and Rachel. At first it was difficult for Carol to communicate with the people. But as she began to learn some Indonesian words, she became more confident to venture farther afield in the village and speak to people. Soon Carol and René Arka, the pastor’s wife, had become good friends, often stopping at each other’s house to drink tea and talk. Carol began holding ongoing English lessons for those residents of the village who wanted to learn the language.
The Bussaus’ life in Blimbingsari was made easier by Ketut Wasiati, the twenty-year-old house girl Ketut Arka had selected for them. Ketut Wasiati cleaned house, did the laundry, and went early in the morning to the market in nearby Melaya to buy the food for preparing the family’s meals. She also was good with the children. At first Carol did not want a house girl. She felt uncomfortable having someone in the house serving the family. But Ketut Arka insisted she stay, assuring Carol that the family would get used to her being around and that her presence would make their lives easier. Sure enough, Ketut Arka was right. Before long the family were calling Ketut Wasiati “Ketut Was,” and David was wondering how they would have coped without her.
Natasha and Rachel seemed to love their new home. Often David would see them wandering among the rice paddies, catching frogs and snakes, or hanging out with the other children in the village. In no time at all they were both speaking Indonesian as if they had spoken it all their lives.
In April 1977 a group of volunteers from a church in Newcastle, Australia, arrived in Blimbingsari to help out in the village for two weeks. As the visitors walked around, they noticed that the children had no place in the village to play. They talked with David about their observation, and before long they came up with a plan: they would build a playground for the children right in the center of Blimbingsari.
The team got to work and had soon created a wonderful playground, complete with swings and a slide and seesaw. David was impressed with their work, and once the playground was finished, they all sat back to watch the children of the village enjoy it. But no children came to the playground. David quickly learned that the children in the village were much too busy after school to go and play. They had work to do—gather wood for the fire, fetch water from the well, tend crops, and prepare meals. The children who benefited from the new playground were Natasha and Rachel, who got to enjoy it often.
David learned an important lesson from the episode with the playground. In working to help develop a community, it was essential first to talk to the locals and find out what they thought was best for them, rather than assume what was good for the community. Had he as an outsider taken the time to consult the residents of Blimbingsari, David would have learned that the children did not need a playground, that the children were kept busy most of the time when they were not in school, and that the notion of children gathering to play in a playground did not fit in with their culture.
Meanwhile, work on the dam was progressing, as were preparations at the church site. David also supervised the building of a new school and medical clinic in the village. While he was kept busy with all the construction projects, every two weeks David would make a trip to Denpasar. Because there was no telephone in or around Blimbingsari, he would go to Denpasar to use the phone to conduct business. He would make calls to Australia, or people in Australia who knew that they could call him in Denpasar at certain times would phone him. It was during one of these visits that David received an unexpected phone call from Sydney.
“Hello,” David said, putting the receiver to his ear.
“Hi, David. This is Leigh Coleman,” came the reply at the end of the line.
“Leigh, nice to hear from you. It’s been a while.”
Leigh was the son of the pastor of Waverly Methodist Mission in Sydney and had attended the church youth group when David had been helping to run it. He had long hair and a beard and loved motorbikes. He would often arrive at youth group meetings on his motorbike with a group of friends in tow. At the meeting, Leigh and his friends would be disruptive and rude and create quite a scene. Leigh had managed to transfer his love of motorbikes into a franchise business repairing and selling prestige motorcycles in Sydney, and David had remodeled the showroom for him. But about the same time that David left Sydney for Darwin, Leigh left Australia for India, where he had spent time listening to gurus, practicing transcendental meditation, and generally seeking enlightenment. David had often wondered how much of Leigh’s behavior was simply Leigh rebelling against the fact that he was the son of a pastor. Now Leigh explained that he was back from India and at loose ends in Sydney. He had heard that David was in Bali doing some construction work and wondered whether he needed some help for a while.
