Wow I cannot believe I’ve already been in Indonesia for a week! It has been quite the adjustment between the 12 hour time difference, new food, and new hygiene experiences (Bucket showers, bidets, and squatty potties, oh my!). But our adjustment has been gentle and an incredible experience. We spent the first few days at a missionaries house to adjust and receive more training and learn about the cultural norms/language. Then we spit up in our teams and headed to our first ministry hosts. I cannot share many details about our hosts/ministry due to the sensitivity here, but I will be as detailed as I can.
My team is at an after school learning center where we are serving the staff here, as well as being brought into the community for various ministries that our host has connections to (free medical attention, bible studies, prayer meetings). God has already done some very cool things.
First, let me tell you a little bit about what it is like here. Being in Indonesia, we have to be careful about what we say and where we say it. Indonesia is a very Muslim dominant culture. One of the interesting adjustments was getting used to the call to prayer 5 times a day. Each Mosque has loud speakers on top of it and at 4am, 6am, 12pm, 3:30pm, and at sundown they shout out the call to prayer over those speakers. There are many Mosques within earshot of each other here in the city, so it is very loud and chaotic outside as all their calls to prayer mix with one another (let alone the 4am wake up call every morning!).
The Indonesian people are very shy but also very friendly. It’s hilarious to walk the streets and say hello (Halo in Bahasa) to them. At first they look so stand off-ish but the second you say hi to them, their faces light up and all of the sudden you are being rushed by 20 locals who want a selfie with the white people!
Like I mentioned earlier, the Lord has been doing some incredible things. God did something God sized the other night. But first a little back story. Our team is full of worshippers and musicians. Almost everyone in our team plays and brought an instrument with them on the race. So naturally, worship has been a core value to our team. Every morning we have met together for worship and prayer in a room downstairs. After worship we study Scripture with some locals and the teachers at the school. After that time, the kids start to arrive and the teaching/tutoring begins!
So on Thursday we had just released the last group of students to go home. Stephanie approached the rest of our team and told us that one of the teachers(a believer) was open to receive prayer. So we took her into the room downstairs. She told us that she has extreme pain in her back and that her heart is swollen from the medication she has been taking, and also that part of her foot constantly feels like its asleep. All of this was a result of a bad fall she had. We began to pray, God showed up. We began to pray for healing and we could feel God working. Then we asked her how she felt, after translation she said that the pain in her back went from a pain level 10 to a 7. So we prayed again, and asked her how the pain was. She said it was now at a 4. We are so excited at this point, and pretty much everyone has tears in their eyes, God is doing something so we begin to pray again. She then says that the pain is 90% gone! So we praise God and we pray for her again. After we prayed the last time she said she still felt just a little pain but she needed to leave. I know God did some incredible things with her heart as well and I know He is still healing her!
After this woman left, there was another teacher who was with us while we were praying who injured her knee in a motorcycle accident. We asked her how bad the pain was before we started to pray, as she moved it around, she said it was like a 4. So we started to pray, it didn’t take long, God was there. We stopped praying and looked at her in anticipation as she began to move her leg around. We asked of there was any pain, but she remained silent. I then asked her “Does it feel 100% better?” to which she looked at me and said with joy, “It’s 1,000% better!”. And just like that, God healed her knee. We laughed and praised God and asked if anyone else had any pain. One of our teammates, Aaron had some pain in his back. So we put him in the circle and had the woman who’s knee was just healed pray for healing in Aaron’s back. We prayed, it got better, we prayed, it got better, we prayed again, and each time it got better. We praised God again for the healing that was taking place. And wow, just like that, we saw God heal 3 people. Praise Him!
Later that night I was brushing my teeth and just thinking back on what had happened, and God spoke to me in that moment. He said this,
“Do you think it was a coincidence that I healed them in the room where you have been worshipping?”
God has been showing us how much our worship and prayer can change an atmosphere. How it can begin to bring the Kingdom to earth. It started with a song and a word, then we saw healing, and now we want to see salvations! We are continuing to pray for greater things, we know that God is just getting started.
Please keep us in prayer as we begin to get plugged into this community and build relationships with those around us. And please praise God with us! These incredible things are not just a result from our worship but also a result of all the prayers from you! God wants to move here, but He chooses to move through us! Your prayers are making a difference all the way around the world! We need the prayer, worship, and intercession to watch God continue to do the impossible. Thanks so much for supporting this journey and keeping us in prayer! God is doing great things already, and yes again, He is just getting started.
