Bintang Timur School, Bali

The Third Year Of Bintang Timur - End of the Year Report 2015

 

What a year!!!

We close this year with 105 kids and 15 staff. There are 76 children in Preschool and 26 children in Elementary classes. We are thrilled with the progress of the school and although it has kept us busy we are very happy as our hard work brings good and positive results at the end.

Of course it is because of good team work by the teachers and I am very lucky to have wonderful people who I work with and make very good improvement to the school, and it is also because of hard work by the volunteers from Europe especially from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Denmark. This year we have around 15 students who do the social work, become teachers’ assistants and help manage the children as well.

This year some of the volunteer groups who came arranged projects to support the school. Lena Sparenberg led her group for fundraising and they got a fan for each of the 5 classrooms. Now we have finished the building there are 10 classrooms so we hope the next group will continue this fund raising. Isi Stuckenborg led her group in fund raising for the second level floor tiles and the last group Jessica Nitz and Sophia Marek arranged some funds for the children to celebrate Christmas.

There was some good news also in April 2015 when officially our preschool got its License from the government. The School License was signed by the Chief of Education Affairs in Bali and we are still working for Elementary which we hope soon we can get the License just like the Preschool.

Our friend from Perth, Wilma came for second time brought us a new laptop for school. It was a blessing as the laptops help the teachers and children for computer class.

Blessings as well that I have wonderful friends who always support me, give me lots of advice and introduce our little school to lots of people. Pam Palfreymen and her husband Brent who come to Bali every year for six months, they are Tasmanian. Deeply thanks for all the support and advice which make us keep improving.

In June 2015 we celebrated the graduation day at the Good Way Hotel. We are very proud as the Chief of the Benoa, Nusa Dua area attended and the Supervisor of Education Affairs for the South Kuta region came as well. Several children have finished Preschool and are now up to the next level. Everyone enjoyed the performances and we give thanks to Good Way as they gave us free Ballroom to celebrate our graduation.

 

 

 

Two Churches that have continued to support us for years are BDIC ( Bukit Doa International Church ) and ICC ( International Community Church ). ICC keep coming with their FLUX Program and the BDIC Pastor is always coming to support us for Children Ministry every week.

In June 2015 also there was a wonderful blessing that came from the Haley family - my friends who visited our little school in 2014. They invited me to come to Perth, what a blessing!! They provided everything, my air fares and accommodation for me during my stay with them at Mandurah. The invitation from the Haleys was to introduce me to several schools in Mandurah. Isabel Haley took me to Foundation Christian College, Lakelands Baptist College and Austin Cove Baptist College . Isabel stayed with me when I joined the class at the Foundation Christian College. It was awesome as the teachers were warm and welcomed me to sit, watch and learn how they ran the class. There were lots of fantastic programs I brought back to our little school in Bali from the West Australian Schools. They are very good and we are now using their programs.

While I was in Perth, I also visited Peter Carnley School, the biggest school I have ever seen. I visited this school because in 2014 they contacted me through their Principal, Maggie Dunnill, and surprised me by sending a large donation for our little school. I am very amazed with the school, a big school, large school yard, good teachers and classes ( Maggie took me to several classes ) and very nice children. Isabel and I attended the assembly and again another special blessing came. While I was there the children had arranged a fund raising again for our school. They did a Lapathon and that is the main reason why we were able to finish the second level on our school building this year.

There is a wonderful story about our Christmas celebrations. This is the second year we celebrated Christmas at the Ibis Style Hotel in Benoa for free. It was made special as the school, the parents and volunteers all helped to raise funds to pay all the expenses such as the gifts and meals. It was more special for me as 90 percent of the children and the parents are Hindus but they are always excited and very happy when celebrating Christmas and this is the reason why I am continuing this tradition at the school.

Another hotel in the Nusa Dua area, Holiday Inn, has invited us to perform there on 24 December this year. We have an agreement that we can use their Ballroom for free for Graduation Day in June 2016. On 16 December, like every year, we were invited by the Rotary Club through Bapak Wes Niemen for our children to join in the Christmas celebrations at the Grand Hyatt Resort. It was awesome – the kids loved it and the teachers as well. It was huge, with more than a thousand different dishes and cookies there!!!!!!

 

The second level of our building is finished this year, but that is not where we finish as now we have another target. The school yard is too small for the children and we have a dream to expand our play area so that in the years ahead, when we have 10 classrooms, the area will be large enough for all of us.

 

In closing this report, on behalf of the Bintang Timur school, I would like to say thank you to all friends and donors for they love and concern but the important thing is to thank you for your prayers, because we are nothing without your help and prayers.

BLESSSINGS and MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone,

 

Susan Setiawan

Principal, Bintang Timur School

 

21 December 2015

 

 

 

The Second Year Of Bintang Timur - End of the Year Report 2014

 

At the end of this year, I am happy to share the progress of our little school, Bintang Timur.

Praise the Lord, that I always have the chance to share how God is good and always guiding us especially passed the first hard year of Bintang Timur.

 

We close this year with 78 children, 8 teachers, 3 free lance teachers and 1 administration staff. The school area is nicer, save and clean after we paved the school yard. A few months ago Bapak I Nyoman Karyana and Bapak Wayan Supardi made the initiative to improve the road to our school, as it is so bad, especially with the raining season coming up. To be honest I never met Bapak I Nyoman Karyana, as I know he sits in the parliament, but I believe that God is guiding his heart to be a part of our school.

 

Special Thanks to my wonderful friend, Pamela Palfreyment and her husband Brent who assist us setting up the finance system which helped us so much, now we use Quick Book for our finance details. Besides that, Pamela and Brent are also a wonderful and important support for our school, they are doing a fund raising and also introduce our little school to their friends and family.

 

More great news this year are coming from Perth. The Peter Carnley Anglicant School sent us a wonderful donation, and it made our dream come true as because of their donation we can continue to built the second level of our building. Ms. Maggie Dunnill, a wife of Pastor John Dunnill is the Principle of Peter Carnley Anglicant who has an idea to make a fund raising for our school. Pastor Dunnill and Ms. Maggie came few times to our school and brought school supplies. Because of this project, some students, parents and grandparents from Peter Carnley School came while they had a vacation in Bali. One of the new friends came as she got some information from Ms. Maggie, her name is Wilma Watson, and brought us a new laptop. It is wonderful as now we need a laptop for Primary School. I asked her a second laptop but she is so nice, brought us the new one. One mother came with her daughters from Peter Carnley, Jenny Sherar, we are so happy that a lot of people can come and see directly to school .

Another school from Germany, Michael-Ende-Schule also sent a donation through Monica Paula, one of their teachers who made an internship in our school.

Our new program for Primary school is a computer class, I have an idea for obtaining a second laptop for the kids as it is important for the young generation to learn and operate the computer. Thank you also to Isabel and Geoff Haley who gave us one laptop and lots of school supplies. One of our friends who came from Germany, Leonard Gunther, also brought us a laptop for the kids. Actually we need 10 laptops, maybe more for next June as more than 10 children had registration already for next new year education.

 

Kaye and Trevor Sherman, one of Pamela’s friend also send us new outdoor toys, we have a new slide and double swing, thank you so much, the children look so happy!!

 

This year we took our children to Bali Bird Park, we needed two buses to go there. It is one of our regular program for outing, as the first year we went to Sosro factory. It is wonderful and the kids were excited to see a lot of species of birds there. All the teachers joined the trip and also we were assisted by the German volunteers, Marie Ewert, Leonard Gunther and Marvin Steitz. It was a great time.

 

Thank you to Ann Atkinsson with her daughter and grand daughter who brought us tooth brushs, Aad and Yani van den Akker who were always making time to say hello to the school, Pastor Peter Geyer and Kayleen, Special thanks to Pastor Lyle Preadmore who always give us full and continuous support, advise and prayer.

 

Thank you for high dedication to all the volunteers this year, Larrisa, Theresa, Marvin, Lothar, Jonas, lisa, Emma, Diane, Sabrina, Kerstin, Monica, Marie, Sara, Trine, Larke, Elly, Eva, Miki. Those students are doing a great job and thank you for Raymond Miller, one of our friend from BDIC who came once a week to have conversation class.

 

As usually, Bapak Wes Niemen and his friend, Bapak Rysto always invited us every year to attended Rotary Christmas Celebration. This year we were performing at Grand Hyatt at December 4th. Thank you so much Pak Wes!!

This year close by Christmas Celebration, Eva Quenzer, a volunteer from Swizterland which assisted the children for drama and carol. We prepared songs, drama, angklung and Balinese dance as our theme of this Christmas is Harmony X’mas, as we not celebrate Christmas only but also Galungan.

 

A miracle happened as well when around November when we were looking for a place to celebrate Christmas, as our school didn’t have an aula for celebrating any big event and we don’t have enough budget to rent a room or place but we have faith that God will provide the best place for us to celebrate the Christmas and Galungan.

Somehow, there is one hotel in Tanjung Benoa, Ibis Style Benoa Bali, who was so generous to borrow us their three meeting rooms. And we only paid rp. 15.000 per child for food and we got fabulous dinner. In total the celebration was attended by 258 persons. We thank you so much to Ibis Style Benoa Bali for this great support and commitment to our school. Also a friend who donated for this celebration, Andrew came, who always supported me. He has encouraged me in many ways, Isabel and Geoff Haley, Nadja Postner, Sabrina wi, Pastor James White, Eva Quenzer and also the parents.

 

We would like to thank ICC (International Communion Church), who supports us so much not only with FLUX program. The FLUX team came twice a month to gave several programs for the Primary School, such like cooking class, photography, music and dance and with Christian value as a basic knowledge. Pastor Donald Butera who delivered the Christmas message which remind us, that we are all worthy in His eyes had good responds from the children and the parents.

 

As for my conversation with BDIC's Pastor Nail, he is willing to come for the children chapel on the second week of January. We are incredibly and always grateful that BDIC supports us in so many ways.

 

We cannot run this far and fast without your hand and love, before we close this year, me and 12 teachers and 78 kids of Bintang Timur School would like to say thank you for all your concern, dedication and giving the kids the opportunity to have a good education. We could not have done all of this and more for the children around here without your hands!

 

 

We have been through the first year of Bintang Timur, proudly we like to share the progress of our little school for the second year.

 

Warm Regards,

 

Susan Setiawan

 

Bali, 29.12.2014

 

 

 

 

BINTANG TIMUR SCHOOL END OF YEAR REPORT 2013-2014

 

We are so thankful that we may end the first year at Bintang Timur School joyful.

There have been things done in this first year. We started in the new place, started building the school, followed step by step, it strengthen us to step forward struggling to be a bridge of hope and dream for the children as our next generation.

June 2014 we ended the class with 66 students and accompanied by 9 teachers, which is more than the quantity we expected at the beginning.

 

Now, we may see children on every corner when the break time comes, in the playing area which is never empty for the children to stand in the queue waiting for their chance to get onto the slide or swing. It increases our passion as teachers to be taking more care of the children.

This not happen if there is no help from people willing to join and involve in many ways. The support, love and high dedication from the volunteers of students from Germany in helping the process of studying and learning. They help the teachers in class rooms by helping the children to learn, preparing the homework and even helping the teacher in giving extra lessons to children when they are needed out of school time.

These volunteers are so helpful, we believe that things will not run without their helping hand. Some fresh and new ideas came from them, one of them is the sport program on every Friday by Marvin Steitz, we bring the children to the Futsal Field once a week, the children are always happy for the day. Then some of the volunteers, one of them is Larrisa See who helped to prepare the German workbook for the first grade, they are acting as the native speakers for the first grade of German.

 

Several programs that have been done this year are visiting the Fabric of Teh Sosro in Gianyar regency, where children saw the process of making the product, and also the co-operation with the Role Foundation keep running until now, where children got chance to see the garden of Merea in Sawangan, Nusa Dua. The children were gardening, planting the trees and interacting with the nature, learning about the plants and fruits there. This purpose of the program is to enclose the children to nature.

The other programs this year are painting and dancing, these classes are held once a week, and so helpful to motor skills and stimulate the children to be more creative and to be innovative. Also Gaye Warren and her team from Bali Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer visited the school to give parents knowledge about breast cancer.

 

Conversation class has run for the last several months, this is held after class twice a week. Children in kindergarten in higher level and first grade of elementary school follow the conversation class. They are divided into small groups and volunteers accompany them to communicate then one of our friends comes once a week to handle the whole class.

This new school year we do really want to start the class with computer lessons but unfortunately we have problem in supplying the units. We only have two units for two classes, frankly speaking we want to prepare the computer class start from their early ages which help them to know the technology. We try our best to apply this class in period 2014 – 2015 we may start, as soon as we could.

 

This new school year there are 5 classes in total and they are full already, 3 classes for kindergarten and 2 classes for elementary. We keep praying once the miracle comes then we might start the second floor in 2015 because we need to have a new class for the third grade.

 

The great thing is we will have a FLUX program supported by our colleagues from ICC (International Community Church) which this program consists of art, music and cooking. The main target of this program will facilitate dreams and wishes come true, in every session given will add Christian values in their early ages to have good character and god personality. Thank you to Victa and Sisi, more than that to Pastor Don Butera and Pak Wes Niemen.

 

Last we thank you so much the student volunteers from Germany, Austria, France, Holland and Denmark who willing and have given donation to us to give a touch to the dusty yard that has not been done so far. Thank you so much Jonas Zetzche who had given an idea to collect the fund to pave some of the yard. At the end when we ran out of the fund God sent us funds from Pastor Dunhill to complete the rest of playground.

Pastor Newt who always there every Friday for children chapel is so helpful and the support we get from Bukit Doa International Church is meaningful, also the support from their Benevolence committee which led by Nicole Huisman is so helpful since the beginning.

 

Names to mentions because of the dedication and the support for our school, specially to Pamela and Brent Palfreyman and their wonderful friends from Tasmania, West Australia and South Australia who have donated many funds, Pastor Lyle Predmore always give support to us, Bapak Hendry Tanan and Bapak Lucky Kalonta always give hand, Bapak Ricky D Brand gives advice, Raymond Miller, Ibu Lisa Wirya and Bapak Kendrik from Bina Buana Unggul, John Paterson from Bali, colleagues from GPDI El-Shaddai who support and pray for our school, Pastor James White, Pastor Solberg, Pastor Sarah Moore, Pastor Dunhill and Pastor John Frykman, Judy Adams, Andrew Kam, Pastor Geyer, Gaye Warren from Bali Pink Ribbon who gave the parents knowledge about breast cancer.

 

At last, we would like to say thank you very, very much from the deepest of our hearts for all your amazing help and support so we may start to give a small step to create the dreams of our children.

 

God Bless you all,

Susan Setiawan, Principal

26th June, 2014