Minor correction - Actually, we have 7 sopranos, 4 altos, 6 tenors, and with Brian joining us late tonight and Andrew on Thursday, 5 basses.
Tuesday, July 12 - We met at 7:00 AM to have breakfast and started devotions around 7:30 thinking we had plenty of time to share, but we got a phone call right at 8 requesting that we show up at the prison by 9 AM instead of 10:30 as we had planned. Up until then, we had a great time meeting in small groups but we shortened our discussions to get everyone ready to leave by 8:30. However, the bus did not show up until almost an hour later so we ended up getting to the prison, clear security, and get to the chapel just about 10:30. We were met by several members of the Greenville church who does regular prison ministry including Bible studies and counseling at this prison. Since the Greenville church members did not want any gifts brought to the prisoners (to discourage "rice Christianity") we did not bring any presents as we did for the first prison yesterday. Joseph led the entire meeting with Pastor Ben preaching to a smaller crowd but one that seemed much more serious (probably due to the counseling and Bible studies). They also had an inmate share his testimony and one also sang for us. We concluded the meeting by having a good time to pray for about a dozen inmates who came up for prayer. Our Indonesian team members were invaluable interpreting the prisoners' prayer requests and our prayers. Most of the prayer requests were that they go straight after being released from prison and for their families on the outside. We heard one prisoner share how he converted from Islam after being imprisoned and asked that we pray for his wife and 4 children. We will be meeting up with some of these Greenville church members again since they also do the street kids ministry.
We left the prison a few minutes before noon to drive to an orphanage, eating our sack lunches on the bus. We were met by excited children when we drove up about 1 PM. There were about 60 children in this orphanage run by a pastor and his wife and lots of other staff, with children ranging in age from 2 months to 3 who just graduated from college. The orphanage is quite a lot like the orphanage we visited in Cambodia, quite clean and well run with a lot of love shown to all the kids. The children are very adorable and after Joseph led us in singing several songs and did the sin chair skit, they too sang and played the angklung, an Indonesian musical instrument made of bamboo and played like hand-bells in that each person plays one note, so it takes about 20 players to play them. They even taught us how to play the angklung (see Vision you tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlFt2Ex7owU ). We passed out the bags of gifts we brought to these kids and also collected almost a million IDR (almost $100) to donate to the orphanage from our team members. Remember the story of George Muller who ran the orphanage in England? This one also does not have any major sponsor and trusts God each day by faith to feed all these kids, and they are succeeding by God's grace. We felt so blessed to be able to give to their cause. During the meeting, it started to really pour but when we left a little after 3 PM, the rain had mostly stopped so we were able to make it back to our home at MYC in time to complete our devotion and sharing time before dinner. We walked over to the mall across the street and just enjoyed the time off. Tonight, Pastor Ben and Joseph will be going to the airport to pick up Fiona and Brian Kuan, who should be arriving about midnight.
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