After 4 flights, 3 layovers and 48 hours we made it to Indonesia. Indonesia is a beautiful country full of wonderful people and great food, You can get a whole plate of street food for 2$. You stick out as a white person for sure, but the people love to take pictures with you and say hello. We are starting to learn the culture and language, it is great to see their faces light up as we try to speak their language with our terrible American accents. We were able to spend some great team time camping in the mountains above Bandung. It was amazing up there with lush, green tea fields and jungle rivers with sketchy bamboo bridges it looked like a scene out of a movie. We even got to interact with the Indonesian soldiers who were training there.
As our ministry started we took a five hour bus back to Jakarta to stay at a Muslim boarding school. Praise God for that school this is one of the first times that the world race has used a Muslim as our contact. They knew we were Christians but did not care. They brought us in to share our culture and religion with the kids so that they see Americans as normal people and their friends. So day one Drew and I became English teachers (don’t worry we googled it). These have great english comprehension they were just shy to speak out, so we played games and just told them about ourselves.
We were invited to join them the next day for a muslim gathering, so back in the car to travel another five hours. We had no idea where they were taking us and for the second half of the ride it was dark. But as we arrived at the gathering we were ushered in to meet Abba Aios their holy man. We were his guest of honor there for the gathering. This sect of muslims teach that all people are welcome no matter who they are or what they believe. We were showered with love everyone wanted to meet us and take pictures with us, we felt like celebrities there. On the day of the gathering we were ushered into a place of honor right next to Abba Aios. Now many people may ask where you scared being in the middle of 1,000 muslims? I can tell you that I felt more love and acceptance from them than I have at some churches I have been in. That may sound bad, but we can learn from anyone.
We can learn from these Muslims even if we are different. They pray to God five times a day, they memorize the Quran and recite it, they practice giving and acceptance. I will admit I had my biases about muslims, but after this experience my mind is changed about them. Now I know as we travel farther west and muslims gets more conservative I will have to be more careful. We cannot judge all muslims by the way the media or America portrays them, once you live with them and share meals with them, you realize they are people just like us. They like to joke around, eat food, play games and they are searching for purpose in life in God. We have another week with these kids and we are excited to get to know them more.
God kept the blessing going as we were provided with a nice hotel for free for four nights as we attended an iris ministry conference. God showed up at this conference and filled those hungry Indonesians with his presence and purpose. As a team we were all impacted and grew in spiritual maturity. It was a God thing that we’re able to go to this conference at the beginning of our journey, He is preparing us for all that is to come. Because of big prayers and some connections we even where able to meet Will Hart and Philip Mantofa two of the biggest names in christian evangelism in the world. God is so good and he has a crazy powerful plan ahead for all of us as we seek him and stop for the one that God has put in front of us.
