So month one has been nothing short of amazing. Indonesia was the first country i’d ever stepped foot on besides the United States which is bizarre to think about, my first traveling experience will be a lap around the world. Jesus is pretty cool like that! With all the beauty Indonesia had to offer the people were just as amazing. Lets just say i’m in love with Indonesian people. From the food and hospitality to the beautiful oceans and mountains, Indo is just a great country.
Ministry with our host just looked like teaching English at an Islamic boarding school. Nothing major or super extreme but it did give us a few opportunities to share our faith in Jesus as well as listen to their beliefs. Not only did we get to share about Jesus at the school we also went to an Islamic conference way up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, where we were able to share our faith with about 1000 muslims. We also went to a night of culture thing in Jakarta and were given a chance to speak of our faith there as well. Not once did I see anyone get offended or angry that we were there or any kind of negative emotion at all for that matter. The Indonesian muslims we were around this month were all super kind and peaceful. The only thing that bummed me out was they literally all felt the need to defend themselves against Isis and all islamic terrorism. They feel that we believe it was Islam that attacked the Twin Towers in 9/11 and not terrorists, so they all felt a strong need to explain. I guess I would feel the same way if there was a bunch of christians killing and blowing people up because Jesus told them to.
So yeah “ministry” was pretty relaxed this month. Outside of teaching English and familiarizing our selves with Islam and the Indonesian culture we got to do some other pretty cool things. The highlight of my month was definitely being able to go to Heidi Bakers birthing the miraculous conference with Iris ministries. If you’re unsure of who she is i’d check her out. Shes kind of an out of this world charismatic but carries the fragrance of Christ like nothing i’ve ever felt or seen. I believe our entire team encountered God on a deeper more intimate level than ever before. Its an experience I personally will carry with me the rest of my life. Life changing to say the least.
Indonesia was not an all work and no play kind of month either. Our first few days here we got to camp together as an entire squad in Bandung. We were able to hike to several different waterfalls and through tons of tea fields. it was beautiful! From there we went our separate ways with our teams for the months. My team, Dragon Fist Storm, went to the boarding school in Jakarta. OH YEAH! Also the bombing in Jakarta. We were literally a block away from where that happened the day before… Thank you God for protection. It was just bizarre as Jakarta is the third biggest city in the world and we just so happened to be so close to the Isis bombings. Probably doesn’t comfort any of you I know but It did give me a revelation, Jesus is always going to be in control, He’s got our squad covered and we will always be at least one step ahead of the devil. Anyways, after Jakarta we came back to Bandung for a couple of days. We were able to do some rock climbing and hiking which was a blast. From there we met up with our entire squad and headed to Bali for debrief.
Bali was a little different for me. I wasn’t sure how things would look as it is a huge “party-city”. To my surprise I wasn’t tempted or bummed out that I couldn’t partake at all. No matter how many times I was offered mushrooms and xanax or cocaine. If anything it made me sad because I remembered how empty I felt. No matter how happy I may have thought I was there was always something missing. I don’t miss it at all. On a spiritual note it was a little tougher. Being at debrief we were there to relax so my time with the Lord fell to the waist side at times. Bali is the Hindu capitol of Indonesia which was strange. I could feel the darkness in my spirit. There was a point we walked by some sort of ceremony at one of the Hindu temples and I immediately started to get nauseous and felt like some sort of negative spirit was trying to jump on me so I had to get out of there quick. I had a friend pray cleansing over me and like that the feeling was gone. There were people that tried to put curses on several of us which was weird and had to be prayed through but Thank God nothing formed against us shall pass. So Bali was cool we got to spend a lot of time at the beach, met some really cool people but i’d be totally ok with never going back lol. So from Bali we flew to Bangkok and from Bangkok we will travel to Mandalay, Burma for our second month of the race. Continue to cover us in prayer and will be back in a month with another update. Thank you all so much and I love you!!
