Ogan People Group Profile

“I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11, ESV).

Most of the 150,000 Ogan people live in Southern Sumatra along the Ogan River. They are an agrarian people. The three principal crops that employ most of this people group are rice, palm oil, rubber and sugar. Each Ogan village has a strong individual identity. They often have distinct stories about the origin of the village and how they became Muslim in that area. They all follow Islamic education and do similar ceremonies to preserve Ogan customs and culture.

The Ogan have followed Sunni Shafi’i Islam since the 16th century. They have blended these beliefs with Sufi Islamic ideas. Their social and spiritual life consists of activities such as religious feasts, birth celebrations, harvest celebrations, and ceremonies to ward off disaster. People often gather to share Islamic prayer readings in the village mosques or in mushollas. A musholla is a designated place of prayer found in homes and businesses.

The Ogan also do prayer ceremonies to the spirits of their ancestors to seek protection and wisdom. They have strong beliefs about various spirits that live in specific places such as trees, graveyards or rocks or in special items such as ceremonial knives or rings.

There is no indigenous church, but there are a few hundred believers among the Ogan.

Pray that:

Believers living along the Ogan River will be bold to share the Gospel.

God’s Spirit will bind the spiritual powers that keep the Ogan blinded to the Gospel.

God will send His Holy Spirit to hover over the Ogan people to convict them of both sin and righteousness.

Just as the Ogan work towards harvest every year that God will send spiritual laborers to work towards a spiritual harvest among the Ogan.

Believers will not be afraid of the places and items that are believed to have spiritual power, but will stand in the authority of Christ and demonstrate the power of the Gospel among the Ogan.

Believers will be led to people of peace among the Ogan.

Entire Ogan families and villages will come to faith and recline at the table of Abraham.

Spiritual Insurance

The ribbon and leaf decoration in this photo is very common among the Tamiang people of Northern Sumatra. This decoration is believed to have magical powers to protect the family living in the home. It is also believed to help protect fisherman at sea. Every year the decoration is removed and a new one is hung up as part of an animistic ritual. It is believed that any family that fails to do this ritual will have an unnatural death in their family during the subsequent year.

Fear of supernatural spirits is common among many of the people groups on Sumatra. In Western culture we would laugh about this and call it superstition. We take for granted the spiritual protection of God that we have enjoyed for many generations. The peoples of Sumatra have not fared as well as we have. For generations they have been in spiritual darkness and have strong, spiritual, generational bondages that are not easily broken.

Part of the Good News of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). The peoples of Sumatra need to hear that Jesus is greater than the spirits that they fear. They need to experience that in Christ the strongholds of the evil one can be destroyed. They need to see believers living out this faith and standing firm and victorious against the prevalent occult beliefs of the community.

Pray for believers on Sumatra to have faith in God’s Word regarding Christ’s superiority over evil spirits.

Pray for new believers to make clean breaks from generational bondages so that the power of Christ can be clearly seen in them.

Pray that the sharing of the Gospel on Sumatra would be accompanied by displays of God’s power over the powers of darkness.

Lampung Photo

The Five Pillars

These pillars are part of a Masjid, Muslim place of worship, in Southern Aceh. Pillars are important, because they help to hold up the structure of the building. If the pillars are faulty, then the whole structure becomes unstable. Construction in Indonesia is not known for its neatness nor durability. It is very common to see structural failure when serious storms or earthquakes test the quality of the building.

In the same way, the structure of spiritual beliefs are only as stable as the pillars on which they are built. Muslims build their faith on five pillars of belief – the confession, prayer, giving alms, fasting, and pilgrimage. 

It is believed that adherence to these pillars is mankind’s only hope of appeasing God’s wrath over sin. Every good action creates a certain amount of value or merit before God. Every bad action also creates a sin-debt. It is hoped that the good deeds, called amal, will pay for the bad deeds. In this belief system it is impossible to know if your good deeds balance the bad.

Pray for God to reveal His truth to the peoples of Sumatra so they will build their spiritual life upon a solid foundation.

Pray for spiritual insight for the peoples of Sumatra so they can determine the structural integrity of the pillars of their faith.

Pray for God to use storms to shake up the assumptions of the peoples here and awaken them to their need for Him.

The Principle Problem

This man is a principal in a national elementary school among the Serawai people. He shared that the biggest need in his school was for technology to give the students an opportunity to learn how to access the information available on the internet. His school is too poor to afford computers and projection equipment to help teachers expose the students to today’s normal technology.

The worker who was visiting the school suggested that fostering a love of learning and giving the students a vision to dream big was even more important than exposing them to technology. If the students love to learn and have a dream, they will learn whatever technology they need in order to succeed. After all, technology will never solve the deepest problems of the soul.

The greatest need at the foundation of all needs is for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He alone can solve the problem of sin and forgiveness. He alone can give power needed to live a life that is holy and pleasing to God. He alone provides meaning to every dream that man might seek to attain. All dreams are empty unless they are built upon a solid foundation. Jesus is that rock-solid foundation. The principle problem of the Serawai is that they are, by-and-large, building on other foundations that will turn out to be shifting-sand in the end.

Pray for believers living among and near the Serawai to be bold in sharing the Gospel clearly and broadly.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to prepare the hearts of many Serawai to realize their sins and the inability of good-works to pay for their sin-debt.

Pray for teachers among the Serawai to have wisdom to foster of love of learning among the children.

Virtual Prayerwalk for the Lembak

Invest 5 minutes in praying for the Lembak - https://vimeo.com/132906183.

Casting the Net

Many of the peoples of Sumatra earn a living from fishing. This Kluet man is net-fishing in the river. The small fish that he is searching for are often dried and sold at the traditional markets all over Aceh.

Fishermen understand hard work, perseverance, and uncertainty about the results. It is possible to work hard all day and not catch a single fish. It is also possible to work part of a day and get a big catch of many fish. The catch is outside of the fisherman’s control, but one thing is certain, if he never casts the net he will never catch anything. Casting the net is his part; getting the catch is God’s part.

When Jesus walked the earth He picked several fishermen to be His companions in ministry. The characteristics that make a good fisherman also makes for a good fisher of men. Workers on Sumatra have experienced the hard work of casting the Gospel net without a single response. It can be discouraging work, but man’s part is to cast the net by sharing the Gospel. God’s work is to bring the people to saving faith. When workers faithfully do their part, they are expressing faith that in His time God will most certainly do His part.

Pray for perseverance and obedience for workers on Sumatra to keep casting the Gospel nets all over this diverse and spiritually dark island even when the results are disappointing.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to lead workers to people prepared to hear and respond to the Gospel all over Sumatra.

Pray for believers, especially for new believers, on Sumatra to have the courage and boldness to become fishers of men.