Penghulu People Group Profile

“He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Corinthians 9:10, ESV).

The 20,000 Penghulu live in the Western districts of Jambi Province. They tend to be shorter than average and are believed to be part of the “Older Malay” race.  Their language is a mixture of Malay and Minangkabau. They do not have a strong cultural identity. Most Penghulu would not know to identify themselves as such. Only the keepers of cultural history understand the distinction these days between Penghulu and other Malay people groups.

Most Penghulu are rice farmers, although some grow rubber, cinnamon, and coffee. The Penghulu are also known for their traditional methods of gold prospecting. An important custom for the Penghulu is called menyerayo. In this custom the entire village works together to plant, cultivate, and harvest the fields.

 

The Penghulu are Muslim, but their animistic traditions are still strong in daily life. Many Penghulu believe in spirits inhabiting sacred places. Some Penghulu still offer sacrifices to these spirits to appease them. It is also common to consult the dukun, or occult healer, for health or personal problems.

There are a few Penghulu believers and an indigenous Penghulu house fellowship. Still, the vast majority of Penghulu have yet to hear of God’s gracious provision to pay their sin debt through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Pray that:

Believers in the area, though small in number, will become bold to share the Gospel broadly with their Penghulu neighbors.

The Holy Spirit will prepare the heart Penghulu to hear and receive the Gospel of peace.

Entire families and even villages will come to faith at the same time among the Penghulu.

Penghulu believers will be bold to share the Gospel with family and friends.

Penghulu believers will be effectively discipled and gathered together into house churches.

Penghulu will seek after God and His truth as diligently as they have sought after gold.

Penghulu believers will make a clean break with animistic traditions.

Training the Citizenry

These young men are doing field drills before going out for a camping weekend. The photo was taken in the city of Padang. Most of the children in this troop are from police or military families. The children are taught camping and survival skills. They learn about working as a team and doing community service. They are taught about the ideals of being a good citizen of Indonesia. Probably the closest analogy in American society would be the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

These citizenry programs are part of Indonesian public school. The government hopes to create a future populace bound together by common values and principles. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s not modeled by society as a whole so the impact of the teaching is limited.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to show the gap between the ideals being taught and the reality of societal behavior as being sin.

Pray for these students to realize that good works and more effort will not free them from the power of sin or enable them to pay the debt of sin.

Pray for these students to hear the Gospel and give their hearts and minds to Jesus Christ to be remade into new creations – dead to sin and alive to God.

Pray for believers on Sumatra to understand that knowing the truth and even teaching the truth is not enough.

Pray for believers to live out and model the truth of being born again in Christ. 

Ice Cream

This photo is of an ice cream vendor on a university campus in Padang, Sumatra. Ice cream is very popular on Sumatra. But you have to be careful when eating ice cream in Asia. Many an unwary American has bit into what they thought was a strawberry ice cream to find out it was yam or red bean flavored.

A group of volunteers bought what they thought was vanilla ice cream for refreshments during training for field workers. As the workers started eating they knew something was wrong. Upon checking the container they discovered it was coconut ice cream, not vanilla. It’s not bad, just not what was expected. Another common food shock is to eat what you think is sour cream to find out that mayonnaise has been substituted. It looks about the same, but it’s not.

These are small examples of what workers experience as they enter into different cultures. Sometimes the biggest jolts come from things that look familiar, but in fact are very different. It is when strawberry expectations collide with yam flavored reality!

Pray for workers who are experiencing culture shock.

Pray for them to be able to find pockets of comforting, familiar things when the sea of strangeness around them becomes overwhelming.

Pray for them to round the corner and find that the culture they are entering has some things that they enjoy.

Pray for cultural guides to help workers understand and enter more fully into the new culture.