To Marudi with love.

Have you ever been in an airplane for a 14-minute ride over green hills and winding rivers? There were only 5 passengers on board with 2 pilots. No, I didn’t charter the flight. This was a flight on MASwings from Miri to Marudi. This year, I have flown several times on MASwings’ little planes to remote places like Bario and Ba’ Kelalan.

The little MASwings plane

Only  5 passengers on board this little plane.

View of the winding Baram river.

I was invited to conduct 6 sessions of training and motivation with students and teachers in Marudi .I doubt I would ever have made it to Marudi if not for Indy. Indy is the TCF general secretary. Her encouragement, networking and organization skills got us to Marudi. She  booked all flights and accompanied me there. She herself, has been here 4 times before and sees the great needs in rural areas. Mentally, I was stretched to prepare for 6 long  sessions to be delivered in Bahasa Malaysia.

I began liaising with Cikgu Mok, the head of the Science Department about 2 months before the trip as I had a 2.5 hours slot training the science teachers to use lab equipment. I am very thankful to Har Bee who painstakingly corrected my Google translate translations. Har Bee is a retired teacher with BM option in our golden ladies group and highly qualified to translate. A few months before the trip, I sought the prayer support of my church members and I am sure Indy did too from TCF people. I am blessed by my church members who helped me buy and also donate 400 balloons, boxes of paper fighter planes and fuses and stuff for the trip.

The power of prayer is tremendous! I thank God for those who prayed me through all the 6 sessions in BM. How grateful I am to Him for sustaining and empowering me for the 1^st meeting! It was a 600 students’ turnout! The students were so energetic! The band and the worship team were awesome. It was the first time the CF and the Catholic students were combined in a Christian meeting. Break through indeed! I used up 300 balloons as a teaching aid. The CF teachers are very dedicated! The CF meets every evening and teachers take turns to speak. I am grateful to Almighty God for empowering me to speak. We were very encouraged by the Christian teachers networking here. I saw how they attended a full day at school and then spoke at CF and then attended cell group at night. I salute how they give of themselves to educate the rural students here.

Can you hear God speak to you?
That was the theme for the combined CF and CYM students.

600+ students and teachers for the first meeting.

Posing before the TCF dinner.

With the TCF teachers.

With John Liew, Heidi and family

A happy Ruth Anne gathers balloons. Their colours matched her pretty dress.

I started Monday in SMK Marudi with the Physics seminar for 2 secondary schools here.  Then after a short break, I conducted the LDP for the 130+ teachers of SMK Marudi.

With the Form 4 & F5 Physics students from the 2 secondary schools

SMK Marudi made an innovative roller coaster.

                                       

Posing with teachers who loved the cartoon BK teaching aid
drawn by Jennifer Seoh.

Balloon activity during the teachers' LDP

Have you ever looked through a kaleidoscope?

I and Indy hand carried bubble wrapped fragile laboratory equipment needed for the science teachers’ workshops as well as many teaching aids for the 6 sessions. I was most afraid of the Form 6 motivation slot since I had not taught Form 6 for the last 35 years but it turned out to be very enjoyable.

With the Form 6 students who won the competition.

Paper tower competition.

Posing with the 6 Formers.

I spend the next 2.5+ hours training science teachers and lab assistants from 2 secondary schools. We had fun as the teachers succeeded in conducting many experiments. That afternoon, phobia gave way to joy and confidence. The lab assistants were happy that their preparation and hard work had led to success

Mok and the science department doing the experiments
 with the Hodson kit light box.

The lab assistants in SMK Marudi send their love to you.

Thumbs up.  Ohm Law's experiment is successful.

Parallel rays through a concave lens diverge from a virtual focal point

Beautiful copper sulphate crystals viewed through the compound microscope.

Smiles when we succeed in doing the experiment

The golden showers of the double precipitate experiment.

I and Indy left Marudi, stretched, tired  but fulfilled knowing we had brought the teachers and students here to a new level of confidence and passion in teaching and learning.