Sunk in the Dock

This fishing boat in Tapaktuan is an odd sight. It is sunk, but it is still tethered to the docks. The worker who took the photo was told that the boat was beyond repair so the owners had just left it to rot in the docks. Such a boat must certainly cause problems for the other active boats that still use the dock.

Believers who stop being obedient to God’s Word are like this boat. They not only cease to be effective, but they cause problems for others who are still striving to be obedient to the Lord. While the owner has written this boat off as hopeless, there are no hopeless causes for the Lord. He can restore, renew and re-energize inactive church members. He can bring revival to those tethered to tradition or legalism so that they can serve again with joy and grace.

Pray for revival among the churches on Sumatra.

Pray for believers willing to leave the docks of safety (the church) for the unknown of the high seas (the place where the fish are) and thus becoming fishers of men.

Pray for believers to be obedient to God’s Word above the traditions of man.

Sikhule People Group Profile

“But as it is written, ‘Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand’” (Romans 15:21, ESV).

The Sikhule are a small people group located on the northwest end of the island of Simeulue. The roughly 28,000 people who call themselves Sikhule primarily work as farmers, fishermen, and lobster divers. Their life on a day-to-day basis is very simple as they mostly live in small wooden houses, bathe in nearby rivers, and, until recently, lived without electricity.  

Despite the fact they identify themselves as being followers of Islam, they are still very much influenced by animistic beliefs as they regularly call on witch doctors and often share stories of spirits dwelling inside of people and objects found in nature.

 

There are hardly any believers living on Simeulue and many Sikhule live and die without ever having the opportunity to hear the Gospel. The challenge of getting the Gospel to the Sikhule because of cultural and physical barriers are formidable.

 Pray that:

God will send more believers to live among and share the Gospel with the Sikhule.

The Holy Spirit will open Sikhule eyes and ears so that they will perceive and understand the truth.

Believers living on Simeulue will be bold and persistent in sowing Gospel seed among the Sikhule.

New Sikhule believers will have courage and perseverance to face societal pressure and persecution.

Jesus will set Sikhule believers free from fear of spirits that attack people and exist in nature.

Signs, wonders, and power will be displayed among the Sikhule together with the preaching of the Gospel.

An indigenous, doctrinally sound, rapidly multiplying Sikhule church will be established soon.

Sawing Logs

These Jambi men are working in a saw mill. These trees are being cut into finished lumber for construction projects. Much of Sumatra is covered in dense, lush jungle. The need for lumber has resulted in deforestation in many areas of the island.

The balance between current needs and future needs regarding the use of environmental resources is always a fine balance that is difficult to find. The balance between the physical needs and nature of man and the spiritual is also a difficult balance to manage. When the “rice bowl” is full, many Sumatrans are not even interested in seriously considering spiritual issues.

While this lack for foresight and awareness is not unusual, it is extremely dangerous. Most souls do not enter hell through terrible wickedness, but rather by gradual descent. People often make decisions without realizing the balance that they are breaking within their own spiritual lives. The destruction of a soul is tragic no matter what method is used to bring it about. Many people on Sumatra are spiritually “sawing logs.” They need to wake up before it is too late.

Pray for Sumatrans to become more aware of the spiritual balance that is needed in life.

Pray for believers to be bold to share the only means for achieving this spiritual balance that leads to eternal life.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to remove the blinders that hide people from awareness of the gradual descent that will eventually lead them to ultimate destruction.

Pray for true spiritual balance and revival on the island of Sumatra.

A Heaping Cup

Many farmers work through buyers. They bring their harvest to these buyers and get paid cash depending on the agreed upon measure. This is a measuring cup for farmers selling nutmeg. The buyer will pay an agreed rate for as many fruit as they can fit in the cup. These buyers are very good at filling the measuring cup to overflowing.

A good day harvesting nutmeg might yield 5 or 6 of these cups at $5 a cup. When it is harvest time, the farmers do well, but the buyers do even better as they will sell the nutmeg for two to three times as much as they paid for it. Obviously the famers would do better financially if they could sell directly and cut out the middle man.

In the spiritual world it is the same for many Indonesians. When they have troubles they go to specialists called dukuns or shamans. They pay them for their advice and service, but they would be better off if they had direct access to God. Many people living on Sumatra do not realize that a way has been opened giving them free access to the Lord.

Pray that believers on Sumatra will use this free access to the Lord to meet their needs without going to the dukun.

Pray for the Gospel to be broadly and freely shared to people who have not yet heard about the way opened up by Jesus’ great sacrifice.

Pray for the lost on Sumatra to respond to the Gospel and experience the cup of blessing that overflows into abundance and leads to eternal life.

Fix It and Make Do

This motorcycle was manufactured in the 1960s. It was photographed on the island of Belitung off the Southeast coast of Sumatra, Indonesia in 2011. For nearly 50 years this motorcycle has been patched together and is still in use. This is not an unusual sight. People on Sumatra find that it’s more affordable to fix something than to replace it with something new.

The idea of hanging on to the old rather than investing in the new is also seen in many people’s views about God. It’s very difficult for a Sumatran to consider something new, when their old, comfortable identity has served them good enough for generations.

While the Gospel isn’t really new, but it’s radically different than what most Sumatrans have grown up hearing. Many Christian background people on Sumatra have never really heard the Gospel more or less received it unto salvation. But many times, when they hear it they distrust the Gospel because it’s not the same as their comfortable church traditions.

While making do with an old motorcycle won’t hurt anyone, making do with a works based, comfortable religion is dangerous. No one will come unto the Father except through one channel (John 14:6). The Gospel explains the channel, and woe unto those who refuse to receive it.

Pray for Sumatrans to be open to the Gospel, even though it seems so new and foreign to them.

Pray for men and women brave enough to stand against the cultural norms to receive the gift of eternal life.

Pray for Christian background people to see the difference between cultural Christianity and saving faith.

Pray for workers on Sumatra to not grow weary in the labor of sharing the Good News to those who are closed and unresponsive.

Tearful Plea

At a recent training one local field worker mom stood up and passionately asked for prayer for her children. She shared how her children are constantly bombarded with religious indoctrination at school and in the community and because their family is the only believers in their neighborhood, her children don’t have the support and balance they would have had from extended family. With tears in her eyes she said, “I’m trying to reach them, but I’m becoming afraid of losing my children in the process.”

There are many wonderful things about raising children in a cross cultural setting. They learn to appreciate different ways of doing things and looking at things. Their world is much larger than a single culture upbringing. They often become bi-lingual and bi-cultural. But there are also costs.

They don’t feel like they fit anywhere. They often have to endure being stared at and being treated as “different” from other people around them. This is especially hard when they become teenagers.

Parents embrace cross-cultural work as a calling and a choice. Children have no choice. They are where they are because of their parents. While the power of “the call” is very meaningful to the parent, it often doesn’t have the same power with the children. This willing sacrifice and abandon by the parent can become a deep resentment in the heart of the child unless God intervenes on many levels.

Ideally, the children will embrace a family calling and feel the same strong sense of God leading them to their people group and adopted culture as their parents. This process of the children embracing “the call” needs to be nurtured by the entire community of workers.

The evil one loves to attack God’s called out ones, and he often does so by attacking their children. The devil is no gentleman. It’s not beneath him to attack and destroy a child if by doing so he can stop God’s work from moving forward. He will do it gleefully if he gets the chance. Let’s not give him the chance on Sumatra.

Pray that God will guard the hearts and minds of worker’s children on Sumatra.

Pray that these children will embrace God’s call to the nations as their own.

Pray for workers on Sumatra to be sensitive to opportunities to nurture “the call’ in the lives of all the children on their teams.

Pray that families on the field will have wisdom to protect and nurture their children in the face of community pressure and in the absence of extended family support networks.

Pray for moms who often times are called upon to singlehandedly create a loving, nurturing Christian home in the midst of non-Christian or even an anti-Christian environment.

Pray for the evil one to be bound and have no opportunity to harass the children of field workers on Sumatra.

Wife Shopping

It’s not unusual for foreign men to be asked by local people if they are looking for a wife. It’s also not unusual to have people tell you that it’s okay if you are already married, because you can have more than one wife. This is a photo of Mr. Eddy. He’s an Acehnese man workers met at a roadside coffee shop.

Mr. Eddy was an unusual proponent of having multiple wives being that he already had four wives. He suggested that because there are more women than men living in his city he is actually doing his wives a favor by marrying all of them. He considered his multiple wives as a good work that earned him merit with God. He quipped that his wives worked for him so all he had to do was hang out with friends and drink coffee.

It was hard to tell if Mr. Eddy was being serious, or just having some fun with the foreigners. Regardless of Mr. Eddy’s situation, a man having multiple wives isn’t a joke. Because polygamy is a common topic of discussion it’s interesting to hear the positions of men on the topic compared to the positions of women. Most men are in favor of the arrangement, but I’ve yet to meet a woman who thinks it’s a good idea.

I remember one man who enthusiastically told of his support of having multiple wives. I asked him what he thought about one of his wives searching for another husband. His response was equally passionate, “I’d kill her.”

This issue occasionally comes up while sharing the Gospel among the peoples of Sumatra. We have had men come to faith with multiple wives. They want to honor God, but are unsure what to do about having more than one wife. I’m guessing that this isn’t a topic covered in most marriage counseling classes or discipleship materials in the United States!

Pray for workers who are encountering tough questions about faith and culture.

Pray for new believers who are sorting through what it means to follow Jesus and dealing with baggage from their old lives.

Pray for men workers as they travel on Sumatra and often have to deal with crude joking and sexual propositions.