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The Liddles in East Timor Blog
Video Tom and Monica interview with Global Ministries
July 19, 2009-Sermons prior to leaving for East Timor
Monica's Sermon
Tom's Sermon
The following is taken from the August 2009 Peace Bell shortly before Tom, Monica and Hannah left for East Timor.
Global Ministries
In a few days our family will be headed off to East Timor for the next few years. We will be serving as missionaries through Global Ministries. Global Minis-tries is the mission program of the UCC and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Throughout the world we have about 60 missionaries serving with our part-ner churches, though two years ago we had double that number. Our mission work is in five principal ar-eas: healthcare, education, leadership development, advocacy and economic development. Global Minis-tries will send a missionary when a partner church requests assistance and when funding is available (growing more difficult all the time). Missionaries are full employees of the church and funding comes from various sources including OCWM (our churches wider mission) and OGHS (one great hour of sharing). By tithing at Peace Church you are supporting the mission work of Global Ministries. Global Ministries has a philosophy of “critical presence” meaning we focus our energy and resources on those church partners in deepest need. Our mission personnel commit to 1-4 year terms throughout the world.
East Timor
East Timor is the eastern half of the island of Timor at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago. East Timor was colonized by the Portuguese for 400 years before it was invaded by Indonesia in 1975. The In-donesian military brutally occupied East Timor for 25 years until a UN sponsored referendum was held and independence was gained.Ten years ago when the referendum was held, the Indonesian military and Timorese militias destroyed most of the infrastructure of the country. East Timor is thus a post-traumatic society struggling to rebuild and govern itself, as well as develop an economy and educate its citizens. East Timor is the poorest country in Asia, its maternal mortality rate is 1 in 35, approximately half its people are under 15, and unemployment is over 40 percent in urban areas. Most of its people live in rural areas and are farmers with income of less than a dollar a day. 
The Protestant Church of East Timor
We will be working with the Protestant Church of East Timor (IPTL). Protestantism is a minority faith in East Timor, as 98% of East Timorese are Catholic. The IPTL was established in the mid 1960’s by the Protes-tant Church of Indonesia and much of its leadership were pastors and lay leaders from Indonesia. During the occupation, the church was colonized by Indone-sians because most Indonesian Christians are Prot-estants. As the war for independence intensified, many church leaders fled either because they sup-ported autonomy within Indonesia, or because they supported the independence referendum. Officially IPTL was pro-independence and was a significant channel for advocacy for Protestants in Europe, Aus-tralia and the U.S. In the end, following the referen-dum, the church lost most of its educated leadership, and therefore the past ten years have been very diffi-cult for the church as it strives to rebuild. Like the UCC, the IPTL is part of the ecumenical movement, and is a member of the World Council of Churches and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
Our Work
Following the exodus of leadership from the IPTL af-ter 1999, the church came close to disintegrating, despite the fact that it has over 10,000 members. There was virtually no money to pay the pastors that remained and its few social outreach ministries, desperately needed by the people, almost collapsed. It has therefore initiated a program to strengthen its congregations with the help of its international part-ners, including Global Ministries, the Dutch Reformed Church and the Uniting Church of Australia. Our work will be linked to this effort. We will be living in Lospalos, and Monica will be working in a health clinic that the church runs. She will be providing healthcare and health education, maternity care, and training for local midwives and health workers. Tom will be working with local pastors and lay leaders helping to develop leadership and educational pro-grams to revitalize the congregations, strengthen leadership, and rebuild some of the church's dam-aged facilities. Hannah will be going to kindergarten with all the other kids once we get settled in and she is adjusted to the culture!