My decision to join the group for the 2024 mission to East Timor was made quite late and with some emotion.

 

In 2016 I made my second trip to the village. Our working party consisted of members from the Carver family and my great mate, Bob Gott. It was by far the best and most productive of my four trips so far. Sadly, Bob passed away in August this year after a short battle with cancer. It was because of his illness and subsequent passing that I was motivated to return to the village. As an enduring memory of Bob and to acknowledge his great work in the village, a plaque was mounted above the doorway of the men’s dormitory at the base camp.

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As in the past, I get itchy feet when I arrive in Dili, wanting to get to the village as soon as possible. I feel my purpose is to achieve as much as possible in the short time we have there. This year would be slightly different as the housing construction work had been completed and the focus was going to be on enhancements to the base.

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Anabel, never short of grand ambitions, asked us to concrete the verandah area and another large space for seated Church services.

 

Now, to put this in perspective, the verandah was over 13m long and about 3.3m wide. The Church service area was about half that. The concrete mixer was not operational. The concrete mix had stones ranging from 15mm to 80mm and no sand to speak of but lots of cement.

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I was not deterred by the size of this task as my work buddy was none other than the Rev David Hoffman, a man with vast concreting experience and, might I say, very well connected should a small miracle or two be required.

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The mixing was beyond us, so we employed the services of four fantastic local chaps. They laughed and smiled for five days as they mixed barrow after barrow of concrete for us.

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We prepared and formed up the Church service area and poured that the next day. It was an ambitiously large area, but we managed it. The following days we would form up two areas of approximately equal size and pour them in the morning and, while finishing, would form up for the next day.

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By day three we had Izzy, Emma, Jess and Jenny Carver screeding the concrete between the forming. It was an outstanding achievement and a testament to great teamwork.

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A special thanks to my teammate, David Hoffman. I know he discovered muscles long since dormant but pushed on each day regardless. There is no truth to the rumour he plans to moonlight as “Hoff’s Concreting Services” after this experience.

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One of the great joys of a trip like this is getting to know the people you are away with. To Jenny, David, Jess, Ian, Emma, Izzy and, of course, David H thank you all so very much for your caring and friendship.

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In loving memory of our mate and friend, Robert (Bob) Gott