Gospel Thumbs Up

This woman sat and listened as a worker shared the Gospel with several students from a Muslim academy called a Pesantren. It was interesting because the worker arrived just as the Mosque sounded the call to prayer on Friday afternoon. This is the main time for prayer for Muslims, but the students stayed to listen to the Gospel.

The thumbs up was not really for the Gospel. The woman agreed with the importance of being obedient to God and trying to deal with the sin issue that everyone struggles with. Her answer to the dilemma is good works. It’s like the Muslim brain is hard-wired toward good works. It just doesn’t make sense to them that good works are not sufficient to deal with the severity of their sin problem.

Prayer is essential. Only God can break through this hard-wired thought process that rejects anything other than a works based payment for sin. The Gospel can be shared contextually and compassionately, but until the cultural response is altered by a work of the Holy Spirit the results are small. They hear, but they don’t comprehend.

Pray for workers who are sharing the Gospel not to lose heart by the lack of response and in some cases with angry responses.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to remove the veil that is keeping people in Sumatra from receiving the Gospel.

Pray for Muslims in Sumatra to realize the futility of paying their sin debt through good works.

Photo from Palembang

Pray for the river peoples of Sumatra.

Just Need a Push

The nice thing about living in Sumatra is that people are willing to jump in and help when a need arises. This truck wouldn’t start. No problem; several men jumped in and gave the truck a push to get it started and off they went. One worker remembers a time when his car’s tire was stuck in a ditch and four Sumatran men jumped in and lifted the car tire out of the ditch so the worker could back up. It’s amazing what Sumatrans can do when they work together!

There are many churches on Sumatra. They know the Bible, and they know how much God loves the lost. They know the gospel, and that they are supposed to be sharing it with those around them. But, like the truck in this photo, they need a little push to get them rolling.

The 53 Unreached People Groups (UPGs) on Sumatra will not be reached until the church on Sumatra is awakened to their Great Commission responsibilities. One of the key activities that workers on Sumatra are involved in is to train and vision cast with churches. Oddly enough, workers are finding resistance to this effort not from the church members but rather from the pastors of the churches.

Pastors here are afraid of community reaction. They might get threatened. Their buildings might get vandalized or even burned to the ground. They might have to go through persecution. These fears are not unfounded. Yet, even so, they need to be obedient to God’s commands, and they need to lead God’s children to obey the Great Commission. To do this takes heavenly courage.

Pray for believers on Sumatra to have the opportunity to be trained in how to share the Gospel in a contextual manner.

Pray for workers to have wisdom and influence to give believers here the push they need to get started in sharing the Gospel to all the peoples of Sumatra.

Pray for God to soften the hearts of pastors on Sumatra who have opposed the idea of reaching out with the Gospel to the UPGs living around them.

Pray for God to strengthen persecuted believers in Sumatra so that they will obey the Great Commission in the midst of the fire. 

Fresh Off the Tree

This Jambi man is preparing coconuts to sell at a traditional market. There are many ways that coconuts are sold at the market. This man is shredding coconut to be used in baking. Many of the products on Sumatra and manually produced. This is because labor is cheap. The average manual laborer on Sumatra makes $5 to $10 a day.

Unfortunately $5 to $10 a day doesn’t really meet the financial needs of a family. For this reason, it is not uncommon for both the mom and dad to have a job and to work long hours. As the parents are working all day, it often leaves the children unsupervised. It is a vicious cycle that leads to a poverty mentality. This is the same thinking that causes people to rationalize stealing – You have, I don’t therefore it is okay for me to just take it.

Jesus sees the plight of the poor, and He wants His children to see it too. The physical needs on Sumatra are overwhelming. It is easy just to close our eyes, or even to get angry at the poverty mentality. It is uncomfortable to “have” resources when so many around you are among the “have nots.” Jesus Himself was among the poor when He walked the earth, but that did not keep Him from being generous with what He had. For those of us from a Western, prosperous nation it is hard to comprehend the lack of resources that is normal to the people here.

Pray for workers on Sumatra to see the needs of the poor and to respond with compassion, wisdom, and generosity.

Pray for the poor to escape from the poverty mentality that rationalizes stealing and other poor decisions.

Pray for believers to not only alleviate the needs of the very poor in a way that helps without hurting, but at the same time share the riches of Christ by sharing the Gospel.

Pray for God’s grace for all the unsupervised children on Sumatra.

Light a Candle for Sumatra

This prayer guide is available to download in both low and high resolution versions at: http://ge.tt/1amVbFR2. 

Kayu Agung People Group Profile

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13, ESV).

The 20,000 Kayu Agung people live in the Kayu Agung and Upper Ogan Komering Ilir districts of South Sumatra. Kayu Agung means “great or noble wood.” The Kayu Agung language is a form of Malay. They earn their living from farming and trading. Often they do both because the swampy land where they live is not able to support crops year-round.

Most Kayu Agung people live in the same area their entire lives, but there is a tradition that leads many young men to leave their villages. The idea is somewhat akin to Robin Hood. The men leave for the purpose of stealing something really valuable and then bringing the wealth back to the village. Those who succeed are highly honored. Those who fail rarely return. They either die or are imprisoned in their attempts to take from the rich. Others settle elsewhere rather than facing the shame of their failure. It’s common to read newspaper articles about Kayu Agung men dying in shoot-outs with local police.

The Kayu Agung are predominately Islamic. They also believe that the spirits of the dead can cause problems for the living. Because of this belief they perform a ritual with flowers that will confuse the spirit so that it will not stay in the area. They often consult the dukun (shaman) for help with planting, harvesting, and various health issues. There are few known believers and no known Kayu Agung churches.

Pray that:

God will open the hearts of the Kayu Agung people to hear and receive the Gospel.

The Holy Spirit will bring conviction of sin amongst the Kayu Agung so that they confess Christ.

Intercessors will battle for the Kayu Agung until a strong, indigenous Gospel witness is established.

Believers will be willing to give sacrificially to show the love of Jesus to the Kayu Agung.

Workers will have discernment to see the needs of the Kayu Agung and wisdom to serve them accordingly.

Believers among the Kayu Agung will be taught to obey God’s Word and become fishers of men.

The spiritual harvest will come soon among the Kayu Agung.

Starting the Day with a Song

This is a kindergarten class of Kaur children singing a song together before going into class. Sumatrans love to sing. It’s not uncommon for complete strangers to ask you to sing something while you are visiting in their village. One worker, who admittedly is a joyful-noise-singer, uses “This is the Day” as his song to share.

Education is not yet universally available to Sumatran children. Many children from rural areas get no more than a sixth grade education. Children who want to go on to secondary and high school often have to leave their village to go to larger cities. This means from the age of 13 years old they are living in boarding schools.

Books and materials in rural schools are also not always current. Because of the difficulties of the education system, many village communities put higher value in religious education. They feel that they can teach the children how to farm, but hope the religious training will teach them how to be good people.

Unfortunately, people cannot be taught how to be good. There is a brokenness in the nature of mankind that happened early on in the garden. The only thing that can set a person right is an operation from heaven. The means of this operation is found in the Gospel. Many of these Kaur children will live their lives without ever hearing about the radical love of God expressed in the Gospel unless workers are called and sent to them.

Pray for God to teach the Kaur a new song of His redeeming love.

Pray for workers to answer God’s call to go to the Kaur and share the wonderful love of Jesus.

Pray for truly transformed lives among the Kaur.

Pray for greater education opportunities for the children of Sumatra.