Our Family Service in Bali

One of the most enriching things we experience as we travel is serving others. It always enhances our time there, helps us understand the area better, and gains new friendships and love for the people. Our family service in Bali was all of those things!

Rice Paddies

We stayed in a gorgeous airbnb right in the middle of fields of rice paddies. We saw workers out there from dawn to dusk busy at work planting a new crop of rice. They were covered from their toes to knees in muddy water. After seeing them day after day hard at work, Cody decided he wanted to give it a go! He didn’t want to leave Bali without learning how to plant rice.

I tried to talk him out of it, thinking that he would just get in their way and be a bother. But he was adamant about helping them…and so he did! He walked out to the nearby rice fields and tried to communicate with a group that were busy planting. None of them spoke English so it was a game of charades. They all understood that he wanted to help and they warmly welcomed the extra hands! One woman though kept repeating, “Money” over and over to Cody asking for money. It was pretty funny!

Cody didn’t hesitate getting right in and learning the planting process. He loved the mushy muddy feel on his bare toes. He worked slowly in comparison to the pros but he plugged along and planted a whole section with them! It was great for the kids to see their dad doing something different and getting down and dirty. It was a great experience for everyone, the planters and onlookers!

Rubbish Clean Up

Bali is a very cool city, but also a very dirty city. Even though the property we were staying on was beautiful, the surrounding roads were littered with rubbish. So we decided to make the place a bit cleaner from the time we got there to the moment we left. We each got a bag and got right to work. When the bags filled up super fast, I was expecting the kids to claim they did their part and they were done! But they didn’t! They said, “I need another bag!” And they just kept on cleaning. We made a small dent in the litter, but it was cleaner than before.

While we were busy cleaning, we had a few locals drive by on their scooters or their cars and they would wave, give us a thumbs up, or honk. It was great to have their support.

Our service in Bali was small. But it was great for our kids to work hard and we loved their attitudes about it! We made sure to triple wash our hands afterwards because there was some nasty stuff out there! But what a great memory.