Hello everyone, Hope everyone is good. Today is are last day here in Indonesia. We have been really busy here in Indonesia this past week. We have visited 2 islands from the 22nd of April to the 29th of April. With some breaks in there. One of the Islands was Saparua and the other was Masohi. I hope you have checked out facebook to see a lot of the pictures.
To the first Island we were taken by boat, was Saparua and we had our guide from GPM which stands for Protestant Churchs of Maluku with us. A large amount of the churches here are from this organization. Wycliffe works a lot with these churches specifically. They have devloped a good relationship with them. A lot of the churches here are very formal and traditional. Which comes from the dutch. We have been to the GPM senate office multiple times for various activities. We met with leaders to go over our trip, to teach english, and just to talk.
So the first things we noticed was how well they treated us. It was like we were there honored guests. Our team could not get over the hospitality we were shown day after day on the islands. At times it was laughable. Like them serving us a lunch before lunch, with multiple tea times with treats thorought the day. It had to do with the fact that we are Americans and there culture is big on hospitality. Also there culture is more about family and being together, whereas America is way more indivudualistic.
When we weren’t being lavished with hospitality. We got to visit mulitiple churches in Saparua, about 11. There churches are beautiful. Like I said they are a lot more tradition, so with altars, pulpits, beautiful designs, and large pillars. We asked questions and about the villages and prayed for the pastors and/or village. We also got to teach english and Lyle got to preach a sermon on Jon 15. It was two exhausting days. We loved it though. I loved our guide Jeny, she helped us out a lot.
The second island we went to was Mosohi. It was a lot of the same things. We taught english again. We went to a few different churches in the area. We prayed for there congregations and met with them. I got to preach a sermon at one of the churches for the youth. I was very nervous, but it was my first time preaching like that. It was a dream of mine to do that. I hope to do it more often. I feel like a lot of seeds were planted. Our guide for this trip was Jenne and she was awesome.
When we got back, Jon our host talked about how the trip helped with Wycliffes relationship with GPM. I feel like the biggest thing taken from this month was the realtionships that were formed. We had a lot of infromative conversations with members of GPM. I am excited to see the progress down the road for the Gospel reaching all parts of Indonesia. We are the first world race team to come here to Wycliffe, so this will help with future world race teams. AIM is already planning to send another team to another Wycliffe location in Indonesia.
We didn’t get to interact much with locals, which was disappointing for me. Becuase if you know me, you know I’m big on evangelism and talking about Jesus. Also if that means just starting a relationship to get them thinking about it. But thats not what God had for us. So I’m content. I loved this place, just like the other countries. They are all people who strive to love better. This was however, definitely the biggest culutral difference so far of the race.
Pray that more people will come to Christ, muslims and those who claim christianity. Pray that our squad continues with the mission with urgency. Our Squad is starting to get to the part of the trip where some are getting homesick or whatever it may be . Please pray that we can stay focused on Christ, no matter what happens. I am espically going through hard times, thank you! Pray that we make it safe to Vietnam as well. We leave tommarow and arrive on Friday!
