{FECA Vision Choir} Trip report 1

Vision report #1

Sorry for the lateness of this report.  We could not access the internet until we registered with the campus internet site but the office was closed until Monday morning.  Having obtained that, here is the last few days' report.

 

Saturday, July 10 - About 24 hours after leaving Los Angeles, we arrived in Jakarta.  The temperature is about 90 and very humid, but it is quite pleasant since there is a nice breeze blowing.  We had a tiring but uneventful trip since everyone and our luggage all got here safely.  Alice forgot to pack her Vision polo shirt but Kelsey, who went with her parents to see us off, was wearing hers so she was able to lend Alice her shirt. One of the ticket agent insisted on the minors in his line getting his parent's consent, and fortunately, Meiring brought all the copies of their Vision application which has their parents' permission for them to join Vision and go on tour.  Even in these little things, God is gracious.  We were able to do our Saturday devotion while waiting to re-board the plane at the Singapore airport terminal.  In Jakarta, Pastor Ben met us with a light lunch for us when we arrived at 12:30 PM and after clearing immigration and customs, we finally arrived at the SPH school around 2:15 PM local time. SPH will be our home for the next week until we leave for Bandung and when we return to Jakarta.  The girls are staying at the dorm, 2 to 3 per room in bunk beds while the boys and married couples are at the hotel for their tourism school, a very nice place a few hundred feet from the girls' dorm.  The local students who are singing with us are also staying with us so pray for good fellowship and relationship between the two groups.  The girl's dorm lobby/meeting room will be our main meeting place.  Six Indonesian students (4 girls and one young man are here while one girl is still missing) are joining us and 2 of them said earlier this week they will be going with us to Bandung while Andrew (whose grandmother died) will be joining us Thursday and also going to Bandung with us.  Marshall was getting sick with a cold and cough on Wednesday but the Wednesday morning prayer group prayed for him as well as the missionaries from India, Paul and Rebecca Graf.  Amazingly, he did not get worse on the plane but in fact almost did not cough the whole flight and seems to be getting well already.  Bessie Lo had prayed that God would heal him so he might be able to pray for healing for others here.  May God do a greater work as He has proven His desire to heal already in Marshall's life.

 

We settled in and got together at 5 PM to package the gift bags for the orphans.  Three sets of parents came and the mother of the boy also came.  We sang a couple of songs and had dinner (catered in at the equivalent of $4 a person), a great dinner!  During our time of fellowship, we found out that it was the kids themselves who were scared of going to Bandung with us while their parents expressed their strong desire for their son or daughter to go.  Pray that over the next few days, these kids,by living with us will overcome their fears and want to come with us to Bandung.  The fact that 3 kids are going is already an answer to our prayers since originally, none were coming.

 

Sunday. July 11 - Auntie En, Pastor's Ben's wife had prepared some simple bread and metallica jam for us for breakfast as we met at 6 AM this morning to get ready to leave by 6:45 for a 7:30 service at GKY, a Presbyterian church, the second largest Chinese/Indonesian church in Jakarta (second to Stephen Tong's church) which grew from 10 to 1000 in 20 years and has a beautiful building.  Everyone made it on time and we sang Psalm 103, Jaspher gave his testimony how God answered his prayer for a job, and we sang Pelangi Kashi, one of the two Indonesian songs we learned.  Having the locals singing with us, we actually made ourselves understood.  After service, we had a snack and practiced together in their choir  room to prepare for singing at their second service, where we sang I Am, Alice gave her testimony in Mandarin about how God led and blessed her, and we sang our other Indonesian song, Each Step I Take, a hymn where we sang one verse in English and then in Indonesian.  Pastor Ben preached the same sermon in both services on family and raising children.  We had earphone translation to English during the second service, and instead of listening to the same message a second time, practiced several other songs.  During this time, we found that 2 more girls decided to go to Bandung with us!  So to summarize, sopranos Kitin, Jessie, Felis, alto Holly, and bass Andrew (who is joining us Thursday after returning from his grandmother's funeral) are joining us for ministry not only in Jakarta, but also Bandung.  Tenor Adi is with us but yet undecided on going to Bandung.  Cindy is the seventh person but she has not come to join us yet and we have been unable to contact her.

 

After a short nap in the afternoon, we packed the soaps, toothbrushes, toothpaste, clothes, and other gifts for the prisoners we will be ministering to on Monday.  We then went to GKY Greenville, a sister church to the one we sang in this morning and sang at their evening English service.  We sang Majesty and Glory acapella, Brian Lee gave his testimony how God taught him in these hard economic times where he is now the family provider, and we sang Gloria in Excelsis.  Pastor Ben preached a power message how we are to be "more than conquorers" and shared his story how he had his Bible and sermon notes stolen 14 years ago coming to preach at the same church and how God used him to preach and cause many youths to accept the Lord even without notes. We were then invited by the leaders of this church to a very nice Chinese restaurant in Jakarta for dinner, during which time, we finally were able to send a short update since the restaurant had wi-fi.  After dinner, we stood around and sang The Lord Bless You and Keep You to the leaders.  Since we are still quite jet-lagged, we returned back to MYC to sleep.  May the Lord forgive us for postponing our group devotions but we need to be more intentional to keep our group time from now as it is obvious the enemy does not want us to debrief and share..

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