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.