Chatting with the people, we learn more about the complex connections we have with these gentle people stretching right back to their assisting Australian troops in the second world war. Malcolm France, who was travelling with us on this immersion experience, speaks in the video of conversations he had with Timorese whose fathers and relatives had assisted the Australian troops.

From the first day, traveling with Fr. Bong in the in the mobile medical clinic, we experience a higher dimension in the meaning of ‘authentic’.

Sitting sideways in the back of an old 4WD ‘storm trooper’, we leave a sealed road from the coast up to the mountains, and fall-in behind Fr Bong and his two assistants, who attend to patient ‘reception’ and ‘pharmacy’ duties in the back of his 4WD mobile medical clinic.

On reaching the small community at the end of this road through the bush built with pick and shovel by the local villagers, we see a line of women and children waiting to see the doctor.