David smiled to himself when he saw the look of joy that spread across Pak Nyoman Yusef’s face when he received his thousand-dollar loan. With the money in hand, Yusef headed to Denpasar and arrived back driving a small truck. With a smile he showed David the truck, explaining that while it was not new and was a little beaten up, it ran well and was perfect for his purposes. The high wooden sides on the back meant that he could pile the back of the truck high with coconuts. He explained that there were far more coconuts to be collected around the area than he could ever fit on his oxcart. With the truck he could now collect these coconuts. And with the truck he could also transport them himself by ferry to Java, where he could get more money when he sold them. Soon Yusef had collected so many coconuts that he needed to employ other men in the village to help him shuck and prepare them for transport to Java.
David was delighted to see the way the loan had changed Yusef’s economic outlook as well as the economic outlook of the men Yusef was now employing. No longer did these men need to rely on landowners and moneylenders when times were financially tight, since they were now earning their own income.
People outside the village began to notice the changes taking place in Blimbingsari. Officials from other aid agencies working in Indonesia visited the place to see firsthand what David had been able to achieve. They questioned David as to how they might be able to replicate in the places they were working what he had done in the village. David was glad to pass on his insights to them. The Indonesian government also took note of the changes taking place in Blimbingsari. They were so impressed with the economic change taking place there that they had a new access road to the village built, complete with bridges over the deepest ravines. And when electric power finally made it to the area, Blimbingsari was the first village hooked up to the grid.
Finally David’s part of the construction of the new church was done. It was now time for Balinese artisans to carve the stone and wood panels that would adorn the new church’s walls and to thatch and install the structure’s traditional roof. With his part done, David knew that it was time for him and his family to move on from Blimbingsari. They decided to return to Sydney but only for a short time. David had already agreed to come back to Bali and help Wayan Mastra develop a training school in the Kuta Beach area to train workers for the blossoming tourist industry.
It was not easy for the Bussaus to leave Blimbingsari. They had grown attached to both the people and the place. David’s vision and development skills had left their mark on the village and on the lives of its residents, and the village in turn had left its mark on David. Just before Christmas 1977, after the Bussaus had been in Blimbingsari for a year, the entire village turned out to wish David, Carol, and the girls farewell as they set out for Denpasar and a flight back to Sydney. Leigh Coleman had decided to stay behind in the village and help supervise the finishing touches on some of the projects.
Back in Sydney, David renewed relationships with people, who were anxious to hear about his time in Bali. It was good to once again be sitting in a pew at Waverly Methodist Mission. But as much as it was nice to be back in Australia, David kept focused on the reason he was home—to set things in order financially for the future. While he had been in Bali, the sale of his construction companies had been finalized. The only business that tied him to that phase of his life was the tile and bathroom store in Rose Bay, which he also decided to sell.
David wanted to be free to pursue what he now saw as his life’s calling—using his entrepreneurial business skills to help poor and underprivileged people. To this end David and Carol set up a trust, which they called Maranatha Trust, into which they moved all of their assets except their house on Darley Road. Money from the trust would then support the Bussau family in their full-time ministry and provide seed money to allow them to continue making loans to the poor. The investment climate at the time was yielding high rates of return, and from its inception the trust began to prosper, making even more money available for the Bussaus’ ministry.
While back in Sydney, David collaborated with his friend Garry Cairncross, a draftsman, and the two of them came up with detailed plans for the new training school in Bali. Once they were satisfied with the plans, David forwarded them on to Wayan Mastra for his perusal and approval.
While in Sydney, David also set about securing a more permanent visa for Indonesia. This was not easy to obtain, and during their time in Blimbingsari the Bussau family had stayed in Bali on tourist visas, which had to be renewed every thirty days. However, every ninety days they were forced to leave Indonesia, travel to Singapore, and then reenter the country to secure a new tourist visa. The situation was frustrating for David, who wanted to be done with the constant hassle of renewing temporary visas. It took a little while—Indonesian bureaucracy moved slowly—and there was much paperwork, but eventually visas were issued for the family.
After a year back in Australia, David, Carol, and the girls climbed aboard an airplane in Sydney, once again bound for Bali and the next chapter of their lives.
Chapter 12
A Growing Reputation
David was glad to be back in Bali. The place was beginning to feel like home to him. David and Carol and the girls settled into a newly built cottage on thirty acres of land in the Kuta Beach, Seminyak area. Wayan Mastra had acquired the land on which to build Dhyana Pura, a hotel training school. Once he had settled in, David got to work supervising the building of the training center. It was a big job, and it kept him busy. Hotel rooms, a restaurant, conference hall, reception and administration building, and maintenance facilities as well as training facilities all had to be built, and then the grounds needed to be landscaped.
Wayan Mastra’s plan was to operate the facility as a guest hotel and conference center for the Bali Christian Church. Students in the hotel training school would staff the hotel so that they could right away put to work the skills they were learning in the classrooms. Once a student had become proficient in a particular skill, he or she would then be able to secure a job that paid well in one of the new hotels that were popping up along Bali’s white-sand beaches. These hotels were growing fast as more and more tourists from Australia, New Zealand, and Europe began coming to Bali to enjoy its beaches, take in the magnificent scenery of the island, and bask in the warm, tropical sunshine. Before long David was supervising the finishing touches to the facility, and Dhyana Pura was soon ready for guests and students.
The students were drawn from Bali’s economically disadvantaged outlying villages, and soon their excited voices filled the grounds of Dhyana Pura. Among them were Ketut Suweria, who served as office manager; Ketut Wasiata, their house girl from Blimbingsari, who had come to train as a kitchen supervisor; and Made Wenton, who had worked with David following Ron Hewitt’s death when the other workers would not return to the job site. Made had converted to Christianity and now wanted to become an electrician.
With the arrival of students at the hotel training school, it was time for David to switch gears from supervising the building of the school to managing Dhyana Pura. His first job was to set up the various training programs, and there was a lot to teach the students. Carol stepped in to help. She found herself teaching those students training to work in housekeeping how to clean a room to the standards Western guests expected. Training them to clean bathrooms was a particular challenge, since most of the students came from homes in the villages that had outhouses rather than bathrooms. They had to learn how to clean and disinfect a bathroom thoroughly, and especially not to use the same cloth they had used for wiping down the toilet to wipe down the basin and shower.
Carol also came up with a menu for the restaurant that balanced Balinese culinary delights with Western staples. Then she and David began to teach those students who wanted to become cooks how to prepare the ingredients, cook the various menu items, and present them on a plate. Carol also taught the students English so that they could communicate proficiently with Western guests.
Meanwhile, David was teaching students everything from gardening and managing the hotel front desk to various aspects of maintenance, such as carpentry, electrical, and plumbing. He also taught them the importance of being on time for work and getting things done on time. It was not unusual for him to have to go some mornings and rouse students from their beds so that they would be on time for class at the training center.
It was a busy time for both David and Carol, but eventually the students had learned enough to get the place running. Soon retreats were being held at Dhyana Pura, and guests were staying in the hotel rooms and eating in the restaurant.
While the hotel training school took much of his time, David was also kept busy in other areas. He was still involved in making small loans to people, and he was overseeing several small building projects going on in Blimbingsari. And while the Bussaus had been back in Australia, Wayan Mastra had drawn up development plans for many other villages throughout Bali and had since asked David to supervise these ambitious projects.
One of the things the bishop wanted was a water supply system set up in his home village of Sibetan like the one at Blimbingsari. David decided to bring Leigh Coleman in on this project, and the two of them set out for Sibetan on their motorcycles to investigate how best to go about it. The track that wound up the side of Mount Agung to the village was so narrow that they were forced to leave their motorbikes behind and trek on foot to Sibetan. When they finally arrived, they found that the village was a desperately poor place made up of clusters of mud huts inhabited by undernourished people. But as poor as the inhabitants of Sibetan were, they treated David and Leigh to a special welcome meal.
As David and Leigh sat down to the meal, the village head explained that it was custom to share their delicacies with important guests. The greatest delicacy in Sibetan was the hormone sack from inside a dog’s skull. David squirmed when he learned this, and he looked at Leigh, whose face had suddenly turned pale. Moments later the delicacy was placed before David and Leigh. David took a portion of the prized hormone sack and thanked his host for it. Then as calmly as possible he placed the jellylike substance in his mouth. It was slippery and rubbery as it rolled across his tongue, and then with determined effort David swallowed and felt it slide down his esophagus. All the while he showed no expression, and then he let a small smile spread across his face once he had swallowed. The smile was intended to send the message to his host that he had enjoyed their delicacy, but it was also a smile of relief that he had managed to swallow the hormone sack without gagging. He dared not look at Leigh to see his reaction.
Unfortunately for David and Leigh, the dessert that followed was also a local delicacy—a sweet custard made from the larvae of large spiders bred in the village to eat. Once again David steeled himself and then took a spoonful of custard. Once again he managed to get the food down and keep it down. After the meal he decided that the larvae custard was a preferable delicacy to the hormone sack of a dog.
In the morning David and Leigh were shown around the village. They discussed the best location to build a water supply system and finally came up with a plan for the project. Leigh agreed to live in Sibetan while he oversaw the building of the project. (David just hoped for Leigh’s sake that dog hormone sack and spider larvae custard were not on the menu too often.) Meanwhile, David would return to Kuta Bay and oversee the development of water systems, along with building projects and road improvements, in other villages.
