In this blog I’m going to share with you about how I had a really amazing time with the locals “couch surfers” who live in Jakarta, Indonesia and I will also mention about how I formed great relationships with them and how they led to good outcomes. I will then share with you about how my relationships with my other squad mates grew as well as I was with them for the whole month and I will end it with showing you the different ways where I just had a lot of fun times during my stay there with all of the people I met.
I’ll start by saying that last month, all of the guys on my World Race squad were in time of ministry for the month in Indonesia called “Manistry”, which I have to say that it was an amazing time where I knew that some great ministry opportunities could form there because of how we all obeyed what the Lord was saying to us. In fact, some of those ideas and desires for the month started in Bandung when we prayed about what to do and where to go for the month and we all felt like God was wanting us to have a time of showing hospitality towards all of the locals in Jakarta and that made me feel excited. It was also supposed to be a month all about blessing people and making them feel like they are at loved every time we saw them and a time where we had a time of fun things. While we were still in Bandung, we also had to look for a place and we ended up finding an AirBnB apartment that we liked because it could sleep all of us in it and it looked big enough to host some of the people that we all felt God had told us to minister to, so we rented it for the two to three weeks. My group then traveled a very long way to it and we were really tired, but we knew that God had some huge ministry opportunities and that made me feel really excited. Then when we walked into the apartment, we all prayed for the place to one where there’s a lot of laughter, happiness, a place where friendships are made and also a place where we ministry opportunities could happen and when we finished I knew it was going to be good. The goal of our group was that we just wanted to show them how a believer of Jesus should truly be like and the joy that He can bring to them and also to have somewhere that was fun. However, during that time I sometimes in my mind thought that it would be hard for us to find them because I struggled with feeling like I wasn’t bold enough to talk to them and invite them over to the apartment and then thought that we would have to wait awhile for us to find them.
Then something amazing happened, after I had been doubting about finding the locals, one of the guys on my squad, Ronny, knew of an application on his phone called couch surfing, which allows different people to meet with each other and then have the opportunity to hang out with them anywhere in the area, which sounded really cool. I also learned that it also allows you to host people (“couch surfers”) at your homes if you want to and you can even stay with people all around the world. When Ronny introduced this app to us, I knew that it could really impact our month for all of the good things that we wanted to do there and it made me feel excited for all of the people we could meet because of the good environment we could create for them and we would also make friendships that would never end. It was a that moment that I knew that month was going to be special.
Now I will tell you about how my relationships with the other 8 guys grew over the month of me being there. I’ll start by saying that in the beginning of my time there, I knew my team “The Guarder Of Hearts”, but I realized that most of the others I had never really spent any time or even talked with any of them, but when we arrived to Jakarta that changed completely. As I mentioned above, we all agreed to show hospitality towards the locals “couch surfers” and spend time growing as a team, which I felt was the goal for all of us that month and I’ll give you some of the examples. The first one is when all of the “couch surfers” got invited to come over to the apartment and while they were there, we all liked playing card games together “Spicy Uno” (better version of Uno) with them because it showed them a place where you could enjoy being around and it was also awesome to see the guys get involved as well. The game created a lot of laughter and competition for everyone, which was also really cool to see and sometimes we had like 10 people playing the it. It also was really cool that some of us could prepare the dinners for everyone and provide us all the meals when they came to visit and also seeing us use our different gifts was awesome to see. We also created some time where we got to watch a couple of movies together, which I enjoyed because I feel like it grew us all closer, which I feel allowed for friendships to grow between all of us and I’m looking forward to more those times as I travel around the world.
Another way that I grew my relationship with them more was when we took some time in the morning to read some of the book of Acts for our daily Bible study time. We made it a time when all of us took turns leading everyone through one chapter a day and I truly enjoyed that time. An example of how we would do the Bible study is that at first we would read the whole chapter and then after that we read a smaller amount of the verses out loud and then we would have to put them it into their own words, which I felt was really cool. We then would about the things that we reads that we interesting and stuck out to them in the verse and the other people would then provide some of their own helpful comments about it, so that they could understand it more. As I look at the experiences with the Bible I hope that they are done in everyone’s lives each and I’m looking forward to reading the Bible even more with groups each day for rest of the World Race journey because I feel like it is going to help everyone as they continue ministering to others around the world.
When the Bible study ended, we then came into a time when all 9 of us took a few minutes to listen to God and then ask Him what He wanted us to see and do that day called “listening prayer.” After that few minutes went by, we all compared what we felt God had spoken to us and we then took turns saying what we had if we had heard anything and that was something that I enjoyed a lot. Then we all came up with the plan of what we were all going to do that day and some examples of those things was all of us going on a prayer walk in a place where I felt showed me to go to and I truly feeling that it’ll make a difference there. Another examples is when we all decided to meet up with some “couch surfer” guys, so we could get to know them before we invited them to visit our apartment. We also went to Dunkin Donuts a lot and on one of the days we all felt like we were supposed to buy some of the locals some donuts and hand them out to them near The National Monument and while we were there we also decided to kick a soccer ball with each other there. Some of the guys also made really close friendships with some of the “couch surfers” and at times they even played sports with them and even drank coffee, which was cool to hear about. We also had night when some of us went to a mall close by the apartment and we all started dancing to some some of the “Dance Dance Revolution’s” game songs and I did it too and had a blast even though I wasn’t that good at it. I also know that the next time I visit Jakarta I will do it all with them again.
Then after the hours of time we were playing the game, we finally arrived back to the apartment and when we got there, we found a new ministry opportunity. It was one of the last days with them and so I got challenged by someone to be more bold and talk about what being follower of Jesus is like, so this is how my opportunity came to me. I started it out by just observing the room looking for someone to talk and as I did I noticed a friend that I had made named Delfian who is an amazing guy. It was at that time when God told me to speak to him, so I did and I began the conversation by mentioning about the “Trinity”, 3 in 1, God, Holy Spirit and the son, Jesus, which to Him was amazing. However, at that time I didn’t feel like it was enough so to I decided to try to mention what being a believer of Jesus should be all about and I mentioned with Him about my God, the Father of the universe is always with him and will never leave his side. Then I felt the Lord tell me to talk to him about how I went to Sarisa’s house in Nong Khai, not even knowing where her place was located at and said that it was God who led us her and Joshua. I then mentioned to him that when we just obey and listen to Him good things will happen and I saw that it was during that moment that my story really spoke to him a lot because he looked interested in knowing more about it, which was awesome. Then I felt like God was wanting me to ask him if he had ever read the Bible and he replied to me, “I haven’t even heard or read the Bible“, so I showed it to him and he was really wanting to read more, so I found a small New Testament book that I had brought with me and I gave it to him and he was extremely happy. It is in these moments that I love how good God is in all of the things that He does for us and how He can move in other people’s lives by us stepping out and just telling impactful stories to them, so that they can join God’s big family.
Now I’m very excited for more of these divine encounters experiences to happen as I continue to travel this World Race journey around the world because I now know that they will give me new friendships with people everywhere and I’m excited for more of these ways that produce really good outcomes as well. I’m also really happy that I grew the relationships with the rest of the guys on my squad that I didn’t know that well before the Manistry month because now we can talk about things more in a friend way and now I know that God will always guide them towards great things because He is always good for everyone.
