Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I spent at the house catching up with things needing done on the computer. My blog website needed updating and I wanted to change servers from one in the US to one in Australia. There were similar challenges to the ones I faced with the community garden website which still isn’t finished being updated and probably won’t be until I get home to use an Australian VPN. After chatting with the online bot, I was put through to a human operator, I noticed his name looked Indonesian and asked where he was from, he told me he was stationed in Bali. What a coincidence, I said he was probably just down the road! Anyway, he had promised that the company would help with the migration of my blog site to their server after I had updated the theme and PHP. I then asked my friend Grace in Sydney if she was able to help. She said yes that afternoon which was Friday. Unfortunately she got busy so I waited, letting her know when I was on line on Saturday morning but Grace couldn’t log in with the information I gave her and I had a busy day ahead of me so we planned to try again that evening.
That morning I took a lift with Gayle who was meeting friends at the Icon Mall at Sanur. I had arranged to meet up with Rongkes who I had met two years ago on Lorbok. We were all running late due to the traffic and my phone only had intermittent data reception. I tried logging onto the Mall’s WiFi but that kept dropping out too. Eventually our messages came through and I could let Rongkes know where I was waiting. We went from here to share a Subway then a stroll along the foreshore with millions of other tourists either lazing on deckchairs, getting a massage or eating at the stalls along the walkway. I decided we should find an ice cream place where we could sit awhile. We found one on the main street, enjoying our treat before heading back to the mall where Rongkes had left her motor scooter. She had offered me a ride back but I didn’t have a helmet (I had thought of bringing one but didn’t as I could also take the bus.
I knew there was a B3T bus that came to the mall so checked the map for the bus stop and waited. There was no bus stop sign which worried me as usually they are also marked on the road and with a signboard. On the app I could see there was a bus on its way but after waiting about 20mins and the bus not moving I closed and reopened the app to refresh it. The bus had gone and hadn’t passed me so I decided to walk to the next bus stop. This one had a signboard so I waited beneath it. A bus passed on the other side of the road the driver seeing me and pointed to the sign. When he came back he saw me and waved but didn’t stop even though I was waving at him and showing my Indonesian pay-card. I was furious! I knew the buses were supposed to stop at every stop even if there were no passengers, this driver had seen me and hadn’t stopped! I walked about a kilometre to the next stop deciding I’d wait in the direction that took the bus to the mall first as that was where it turned around. I was hot and tired and just wanted to sit in the bus air-conditioning and relax. It took a bit of time for the next bus to arrive. I pointed to the bus stop sign, stood in front of the coming bus with my hand up. He had to stop, I wasn’t moving. He let me on and asked where I wanted to go and told me I had to change at the Udong Terminal, which I already knew. I was just glad to be able to relax and cool down. The bus then went to the mall not stopping where I had waited but at the mall itself. That made more sense to me but why was it not on bus app.
After quite a wait on Udong Terminal I finally arrived at my stop and walked home to take a shower. I immediately messaged Grace to let her know I was online if she needed me. She had previously sent me a message to say the last password I sent her didn’t work so I sent her a new link. She later came on to say she was able to log in but didn’t have time as she had a meeting but would take a look later. She did finally get to it and was able to update to a new theme which could take the latest version of PHP. The tech team were then able to migrate my site over to the new server.
Sunday of course was church at Impact Bali. Gayle was preaching and taking a baby dedication after the sermon. There were five babies being dedicated all born in the last 12 months. During the service I took another very cute baby to hold. Later Dwi took the photo and altered it through AI giving me a stunning new hairstyle.
The following morning after breakfast I knew I’d have the day to myself as both Josh and Gayle had appointments elsewhere. I logged into the new host website to chat to the online bot to help me set things up. I paid for my new 3yr subscription but was told paying through BPay, as I had done, would take 3-5 working days to register! What? I sent them a screen shot of the payment but that didn’t help and I needed it done that day. They put me through to billing where it was suggested I pay again, through their portal online and wait for a refund from the BPay. I had no other choice so went ahead with my second payment. Praise the Lord the refund registered in my bank account within two days although it didn’t come through till days later. Then in a secret sealed area I put in the login and password to the existing host site so that the team doing the migration would be able to do the transfer. The tech team then took over to complete the migration. But it didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped as firstly the password I had changed for them to use didn’t work so I had to give my personal one which I don’t like doing. Finally they were able to proceed by 12:40pm. I later received an email asking me to change the four Nameservers on the old hosting site. I had no idea what they were talking about so they walked me through the steps but still I couldn’t change it and asked them to do it for me as they still had access to the site. I was then told it may take 5-8 hours! It was then 2:30pm, I hadn’t eaten so made some lunch and tried to relax watching some TV.
Later I received another email to ask me to check if what they had done looked ok from my end; praise the Lord, they were able to just finish off the transfer. Well, that’s what I thought. At 7:30pm I thought it was done. I saw Jen had tried to access the link to my blog from Facebook and left a message saying she was unable to load the blog. I contacted my new server and asked why. They worked with me till nearly 8:30pm to sort out the glitch. I had been able to see it on my phone and computer but nobody else seemed to be able to. Praise the Lord it finally worked and I could go to bed in peace. It had been such a stressful day. Gayle arrived home just as I’d got into bed but I went down to fill her in and was delighted to hear I had been invited out for a durian feast the following day. The Lord is so good. I felt He was blessing me after such a harrowing experience with the website.
That night Joshua woke me at 3:20am not feeling well and asked if I could get him some water from downstairs. We then prayed together and I tried to go back to sleep but of course couldn’t so stayed up writing up my blog events from the previous day. When both Josh and Gayle were up we all went to the church were they had a leaders meeting. I went upstairs to the school and offered to do an English conversational lesson with the children. We talked about all sorts of things; they asked me questions and I asked them questions. It was rather fun. After this Gayle took us to meet a friend who had offered to buy us durian. I was elated but also surprised at how many durians he bought for us to eat, asking us to try this one as it’s much nicer that the other one. This went on till we must have opened ten durians. There were three takeaway boxes full which Gayle took to friends and yet he bought more to take home to his family. After this Josh dropped me near a main road where I could take the local bus to the Udong Terminal and then another bus all the way to Tiara Barat where I did some shopping before catching another bus back to the house.
While walking to the bus stop I snagged my foot on some sharp metal. Hobbling to a nearby shop I asked if I could sit and put a Band-Aid on the wound. The shop attendant came over with a bottle of betadine to swab the wound before I applied the Band-Aid. It wasn’t a bad wound but I just wanted to keep it clean.
It had been a long day and I really didn’t need to eat lunch after the 1pm durian feast. I relaxed for the rest of the evening, then went to bed early sleeping through to 6am! I was delighted. My first good night’s sleep for weeks!
Wednesday morning I decided I’d try to set up all my emails for the blog through Jetpack on my WordPress site. I then sent out an email to let people know there was a link coming but I’d got it wrong, there was no link. That was only for those who needed to approve something else on the site, I’m not sure what! Anyway, all the email addresses except those already there (I’m not sure when they got there) were accepted except one, which hadn’t previously been validated. I tried deleting then re adding it but it wasn’t accepted. Why are these things so difficult? I contacted the Jetpack help team to try to sort things out and received a ticket to say they would look into it which they did. I then had to send out an email to the recipient who then tried, through the links provided to rectify the matter.
Josh was home that day studying so he and I went out for a walk to buy lunch, Gayle had so much to do organising Arms of Love AGM which was done via Zoom that evening. That evening Dwi also came around to help me plant out the seedlings Jen had planted in some seed raising mix. While she was here she had also prepared the garden bed by digging in the compost from the compost bin, so all we needed to do was add some more compost and plant the seedlings. Although they were still very small we needed to plant them before we went away for four days to Bandung for the church conference. We are just hoping Ibu Rose will come regularly enough to keep them watered till our return.
That night I slept well again, waking early to wash some clothes in preparation for the trip. This time I took the smaller carry on for my 15kg luggage and my backpack as carry on 7kg. I wasn’t taking much so I was hoping all would be ok. It was a lazy day after all the stressful ones. I was surprised how much more relaxed I was before this trip. Maybe because I was not in charge of it but Gayle was.
Photos: 1. Elephant’s-ear – Colocasia esculenta 2. Rongkes and me at Icon Mall, Sanur Beach 3. The cutest baby, I just had to have a cuddle 4. Baby dedication Impact Church Bali 5. Durian feast 6. Gayle’s vegie garden replanted
Prayer & Praise Points:
Praise the Lord for all the help and prayers received for the migration of this blog website and especially for Grace as she worked with me to get things set up and then checked a few things once it was done.
Please continue to ask the Lord to keep me safe during my last days here in Bali, that I will be a blessing to others and continue to grow in the Lord during my time here.
Pray for safe journey back to Perth this coming 24th Aug, that I will not have a problem with the flight, boarding or the immigration on arrival in Perth.
Please continue to pray for the Karen families, not only in Thailand but also left in Myanmar. Persecution continues as churches are not only bombed but landmines are placed within their grounds.
Pray for families who have applied for visas and permanent residency with their families abroad, especially Matt’s family in Mae Sot. Pray that they will be united with family soon. Pray also that, while they wait, their situation in Thailand will improve and that they will be able to provide for their families.