In 2003, our lives changed. My husband had a small chicken farm in Banda Aceh that was running well. But after the tsunami hit, we lost everything .
In October 2005, we moved to his village. I was teaching English for tsunami affected children and my husband was starting a new quail farm but it was difficult since we started from nothing. We had to borrow some money from my husband’s relatives to help get it started.
After a few months, one of my best friends gave me very good news. She had some cash from her and her friends’ families to assist us to expand our farm. In February 2008, we got the money and bit by bit, we could afford two big sheds and some incubators for the quail eggs. We had about 15,000 quails in a year! Some people also learned about how to have quail farms from my husband because they could see it was becoming a successful business.
But in April 2007, we experienced another set back. All of our quails were infected by bird flu. Within less than two weeks all of the quails died. At this time, we were so frustrated, we didn't know what to do. Many farms in Indonesia infected by the virus.
Two months later, my husband began farming catfish in a pond on his father’s land. Eventually we worked up to 5,000 catfish and things started to look more positive. After about four months, we should have emptied the pond and sold the fish but the rainy season made it hard and we had to postpone it. Again, we experienced bad luck. The fish were flooded out of the pond and we were left with no fish. This drove us despair. We thought we could not risk starting up a farm again. My husband stopped working and thinking about it because it made him very worried and angry.
After a few months, we tried to think what other business we could start to regain our livlihood. Then, we were given one last chance.
My husband had a friend who owned a second hand motor cycle business in Aceh. After asking for more information about the business, he contact one of his friends in Jakarta who was reliable and knew a lot about the motor cycle business.
We then received some money from the Extending the Limits Trust and some money from my husband’s brother and relatives, ans so we could afford to buy three second hand motor cycles. From one secondhand motorcycle, we could get 500.000 to 1.000.000 Rupiah per month. His brother and relatives gave us 200.000 to 500.000 Rupiah as commission. With this money, we saved some money to pay back the debts we had since we tried to start our farms.
After we lived in my husband’s parent’s house for 2 years, my father-in-law gave a small parcel of land where we once had the fish pond. With all of our money saved from our motorcycle business, we were able to build a little house of our own.
We still have the fish pond at the backyard and two concrete fish pond beside our house with some fish, but this time it is just a hobby.
We are very thankful to God for giving us another chance. Without the donations from Extending the Limits, we would have found it hard to find enough money to start our new motorcycle business. We thank Mama Lynne and Paul Harris so much. You had helped us get our business and lives back on track. We were very lucky to meet people like you both.
Thank you Extending the Limits.