Feeling rather humbled suddenly about this trip after connecting with the orphanage

It's a bag of mixed feelings today, on one hand we are all getting very pleasantly excited about visiting Bali again, on the other hand, there is so much to prepare here to leave the business and our commitments for 3 weeks - at times it seems overwhelming.

About 3 weeks ago, we realised all our lifeblood of our business was located on our computers and hard drives which felt a little unsafe.
We decided that we really needed to create back ups and store them in another location.

Long story - short - added 2 new partitions which overwrote 2 terabytes of our business and corrupted EVERY FILE. Well, that's interesting, 20 years to build a business, 15 seconds to wipe out most of it.

Yes, there may well still be solutions and please feel free to send us suggestions if you have some, but yes, we have spent a huge amount of money on data retrieval and yes, we have had the big boys play with it endlessly.

We wonder what new adventures and treasures await us

At this stage, it looks like a fresh beginning for us - hmmmmm

Ah well, moving right along...........

Through the process, we found some amazing software that allowed us to retrieve the 'fried' hard drive on another old computer thus retrieving files up to Jan' 2010 - so in effect we have now only lost the work for the last 8 months - yes, that did include all the filming we have done this year and the accounting files.

Fortunately we had lodged our end of year returns in June, so I have spent the past week non stop recreating accounting files and you know what - I think it's pretty much time to move on now. My children are starting to forget what the front of their mother looks like (as the computer faces away from them)

So with a mixed bag of emotions, we felt - "ahh, Bali couldn't come at a better time"

We started to think of cocktails on the beach, lovely hotels, spiritual experiences, shopping, all the thoughts a holiday often brings.

Tonight for the first time, I had a chance to catch up on contacts and sort out schedules.
As well as a bit of a break, we are wanting to look at Green camp as a possible home school retreat adventure for a group in the future, some venues for spiritual / rejuvenation retreats and an amazing eco inspired school we have heard of.

I finally got around to contacting the orphanage that we have been collecting clothes and books to take as a donation.
I wasn't really prepared for the gentleness that came from the sisters, the immense gratitude for well... almost anything and the beaming smiles on the children's faces.

What struck me most was a photograph of the washing line filled with clothes swaying in the breeze that said "83 children + no washing machine = sainthood"
Wow - here are all these children with beaming smiles, mountains of washing to be done, 3 sisters looking after them all and my children are currently refusing to pick up the clothes they wore today.

It was a bit of a reality check for all of us to recognise how lucky our lives are (not that theirs aren't rich and blessed) but just to reflect for a moment and give a prayer of thanks for that which we have and feel truly blessed and grateful for our lifestyles that allow us to basically choose to do what ever we wish to do.

Daryll & I looked at each other and said "we could afford to buy them a washing machine if that's what they want" and so a plan begins to unfold.

We have requested a visit with them and plan to leave within the week armed with mountains of children's clothes and reading books - 4 of us are flying Singapore Air which gives us 80kgs combined and we don't need to take much personally although it will be funny lugging 4 empty suit cases around afterwards - haha!

Once we meet we aim to find out what they really need - they are always asking for funds for educational resources, but we think a few other things may be possible too.

Now, here's the plan, would you like to assist us to buy this for them?

Any amount of money you would like to donate - we will give them 100% of it in educational resources, a washing machine, etc, the more people donate, the more we can do.
I have just sent an email asking if they would like the cash (in which case we can drop it into their paypal account) or the items, in which case, you can drop it directly into our bank account and we will pull it out via an ATM in rupiah to purchase the items on all of our behalf. (send us an email directly to request the banking details)

The only thing is - we only have a few weeks to do this (of course any more at a later date we can transfer to them in a lump sum), but it is better if we have the funds available when we visit.

So if you (&/or your children) would like to assist, even if it is only $2 - it will all help.
Just imagine if 25,000 people donated $2 or let's stretch our manifestation possibilities 25,000,000.............. well it would make little difference to us each individually but such a large difference to others.

We will not take any of this money as admin' fees or anything like that, we will simply cash it in (exchange rate fluctuations may be the only variable) and use it 100%

If you are reading this post after October 2010, please check if there is an updated blog here on the status and what you can do to assist (as I am a bit new to blogging - I am not sure if I can change a post after it is uploaded.

And so, it is time to go to bed, to rest and reflect on another wonderful day, with plans and dreams and excitement of endless opportunities and now also perhaps the chance to make someone else's world a better place............... I will keep in touch here as to the developments........