*Before you begin this story, I feel it’s important for you to know the circumstances we were in and how some of us felt to truly understand how incredibly God showed out for us. Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation in the world and has a population of 264 million people. Only 12.7% of those people are Christians! Christianity is 1 of 6 religions that Indonesia recognizes but there are groups of people who want Indonesia to be a solely Muslim nation and this creates tension.
Going into Indonesia, I was very apprehensive. I felt like I needed to be cautious and use discernment about when it was okay to tell people that we were missionaries. (I am not afraid of dying for my faith but the Lord gave us a brain for a reason, ya know?) Seeing as how this was all our first time experiencing being in a place like this, we all shared similar concerns. We expected to have to look in the cracks of this nation for Christians but that was because we were thinking with human understanding and not Gods. This is the story of our scavenger hunt with God, aka Unsung Heroes!
When we landed in Indonesia, we had no plan. We had no ministry host, no place to sleep, and no kitchen to even think about cooking anything. Our mission was to live like the disciples did and pray daily about where the Lord wanted us to go. We were told to find Kingdom movements and jump in where the Lord was working. Our hopes in this was that God would lead us to ministries that wanted to partner with AIM to host future World Race teams. Let me tell you, God showed out!
After we landed, our team decided to hang around the airport for a while to pray as a team and decide which city we were going to go to first. The Lord gave each of us different things but we decided as a team that we believed He wanted us to travel to Tangerang. I found us a place to stay, ordered some Grab’s (Asia’s version of Uber) and we were off on what was supposed to be an 11-minute drive. About an hour later, we finally arrived at our hostel equipped with A/C and Wi-Fi, because what else could a world racer ask for?!
Every day, we spent the first part of our morning in the Word and then came together as a team to do listening prayer to see what God had in store for the day. On day 2, we were still getting settled and decided to go out and find some food. We walked about 1/2 a mile and didn’t find anything promising, not to mention we were melting in the heat, (and I almost got ran over by a dump truck) so we turned back around. We made it back to our street and decided to get noodles somewhere local and after passing multiple noodle shops, we finally walked into a small restaurant and sat down.
It was clear that the woman running the place, Rose, didn’t speak English so she motioned for us to wait a few minutes and picked up her phone to make a call. Turns out she was calling her daughter, Kristin, who spoke English. Kristin came and introduced herself to us in English and I remember thinking that she radiated joy. We all began talking and Kristin told us that we were the first English native speakers she had ever spoken to and how nervous she was. We were shocked because her English was incredible! After a bit of small talk, Kristin asked us why we were in Tangerang because apparently, it’s not a place where tourist frequent. No one answered immediately and a few of us were looking around at each other and finally, Missy spoke up and said, “We’re missionaries and we’re on an 11-month mission trip.” Kristin gave us the biggest smile and responded, “We are Christians too!” and my team was dumbfounded! We were elbowing each other and mouthing our surprise to each other as if we’d never met another Christian before, which is funny looking back now. It was day 2 and the Lord was showing me that He had a plan for us that month and we were exactly where we were supposed to be! We spent the next 3 days eating every meal at Rose’ restaurant with her and Kristen, visiting them at their home where we got to meet Rose’ husband John, and having great conversation.
The Lord was making it clear to us that we were meant to move ahead on our journey and was pointing us toward the city, Jakarta. Once we made it to our hostel, we were blown away about how under budget it was while being everything we could possibly want and surprised to see that it was right beside a Christian school. What we thought was a sign from the Lord that we were in the right place for that week was really just a breadcrumb letting us know we were headed in the right direction. The morning after we arrived at our new favorite hostel, they informed us that we needed to pay for the rest of our stay, which we were under the impression that it had been paid in full. Long story short, they had wrong information on their AirBnB posting and this place wasn’t under budget, it was so far out of our budget that we had to leave that day! Frustration was looming over our team and I was stressed out trying to get a refund and find us a new place so we decided to stop as a team and pray over the situation. Within the next hour, we had gotten a refund, found a new hostel to stay in that was under budget and had more amenities than we could even think to ask for on the World Race, and made friends with the 2 people managing our hostel. Guess what? THEY WERE CHRISTIANS!! We were able to pray for them and encourage them before we left and then it hit me. We were never meant to stay in that hostel for more than a night. We were sent there for them, to pray for them, encourage them, and show them that the Lord sees them and loves them!
So we were off to our 3rd home in 5 days. We were exhausted and praying that our next place would be more long term. We prayed as a team that the Lord would provide us with a place to stay that was in budget and had all that we needed, mainly a kitchen to cook food in and a place for 6 of us to sleep. He surpassed all we could have hoped for. Our new home was an oceanfront apartment on the 31st floor of a building connected to a 7 story mall. Not only did we have a kitchen but we had air condition, a pool, a laundry service, and wi-fi. (And we were UNDER BUDGET!!) I was blown away by how the Lord was providing for us.
We spent a day getting settled and exploring our new home (aka, a western mall!) and on day 2 the Lord made it clear why we were there. Two of my teammates were exploring the mall on the top floor when they came across a sign for a church. They had the intention of taking a photo of the sign and walking away but the Lord had set a divine appointment that day. The pastor of the church saw them and as they were walking away, he ran after them. He invited them to church and they got to explain who we were and why we were in Indonesia. This was the beginning of a beautiful relationship with the family at Mission House church.
Pastor Matthew, his wife Ivy, and their two daughters welcomed us with open arms. Pastor Matthew shared the vision God gave him about Mission House. It is a place of worship and service and his hope is that Mission House will hopefully partner with missionaries that come to Indonesia one day. The fact that our team was able to be the first to partner with them and open the door for future World Race teams can only be the work of the Lord. For the remainder of the month, we did ministry with Mission House and their ministry partners.
We put together a skit and spoke multiple times at Mission House, talked about God and America to middle school and high school classes, danced with children at a homeless ministry, I lead worship for the first time ever, and I told my testimony more times than I can count!
Homeless ministry (Mixed church of Muslim and Christians)
Mission House family
Speaking at Mission House
We got to spend so much time with the Mission House family. We ate with them, worshiped with them, served with them, and even lived with them for 4 days! They blessed us in ways that they will never understand and I miss them greatly. Aside from Pastor Matthew and his family, we spent a lot of time with Otto, Mission House’ worship leader, Franzs who owns the coolest coffee shop on the planet and made it a point to pray over each of us, Fransiska (Matthew’s sister) and her husband KiKi, and Victor, who was an actual angel sent from heaven!
In Franz’ coffee shop!
Top row, left to right- Alyssa, me, Daniella, Fransiska
Middle row, left to right- Emalea, Victor, Taylor, Pastor Matthew, Ivy, and their daughter, Faith
Bottom row, left to right- Otto, Missy, and Frans and his family
Our team, because Victor will always be a member of BGC Powerhouse!
This man showed us what it looked like to serve others in the most humble and selfless way. I honestly don’t believe we would have survived Indonesia without him and I am so grateful that we crossed paths. Chicken nugget besties for life!
Seeing how the Lord placed in the right place, at the right time throughout the month further confirmed my theory that there is no such thing as coincidences. His hand is evident in our day to day lives if we pay attention and I am so thankful that I was blessed with the opportunity to live solely on where we felt the Lord was leading. I had very low expectations for Indonesia and the Lord completely blew my mind in this beautiful country.
Until next time, Indo!
-H
