One thing that has amazed me this month is that we have had the opportunity to not only work at BAIS (Bandung Alliance Intercultural School) but also with several other ministries.
*Due to the nature of some of the ministries, I will not be going into full detail, but I do want to share a moment that impacted me with one of these unexpected ministries that we had the privilege of serving with briefly.
Upon arrival to Bandung and visiting BAIS we found out that we were going to get the opportunity to work with a safe house for exploited women in the city of Bandung (about 45 minutes from Kota Baru).
I tried to prepare myself as best as I could for what we might encounter while working at this safe house and while going to the karaoke bars, but I couldn’t prepare myself for how the workers (and their relatives) would impact me.
It is always amazing how the Holy Spirit prepares things in advance for us to do.
Before you get too excited, let me rewind to where the story begins.
As a team, we had decided that we were going to do a prayer walk as part of our required “Journeymarkers” (part of the discipleship aspect of the World Race). As we considered our options for when we would be able to do this prayer walk, we came to the conclusion that Thursday would be the best day.
Little did we know, the Lord had already prepared this for us.
Thursday morning, the husband of the lady who runs the safe house came to pick us up and take us to work with the women at the safe house for the day. As we were driving towards Bandung, he reached up to the visor above the driver’s seat, and pulled down a folded map.
He began to share with us the vision he had for praying over the entire city of Bandung. He said he felt like he needed to share that vision with us that day.
There my team sat, in shock, that this would be the day that he would share this with us. You know… the day that we decided we would do a prayer walk while near the safe house.
When we got to the safe house we went to the kitchen table and he unfolded this map to show us the miles and miles and miles of sidewalk and road that he and many volunteers had walked to pray for the city. All the roads highlighted by a red marker had been prayed over.
The roads closest to the safe house had not been prayed over yet. So for about 45 minutes on Thursday, we got to prayer walk the roads close to the safe house.
What a joy it was to walk those streets, through the compuns and pray for each of the houses we passed and each person we greeted.
What else can I say?
This is true ministry. A ministry that he most likely will not see the full results of this side of heaven. And yet, there he is, pounding the pavement to pray for the people.
My prayer is that though I will not always see the final results of working with a ministry, I will have the faith and the perseverance like the “prayer runner” to keep serving, to keep working, to keep sharing the Gospel.
I cannot believe that we are just a few days from finishing our first month. These weeks have absolutely flew by! Wednesday of next week my team will be traveling back to Jakarta, Indonesia and then Thursday we will fly out to the Philippines.
Speaking of the Philippines, we just found out what our ministry will be next month. We will be working with Kids International Ministry. To find out more about that ministry, go to this website https://www.kidsim.org
*To hear more about our time in the karaoke bar, read my squad leader Rachel’s post: 7 bules walk into a bar.
Until next time,
Shelby
