Friday, July 16 - Praise the Lord, all 6 of the Indonesian students are going with us to Bandung. This is another answer to prayer since initially, none of the students were going with us, and when we arrived, it was only 2 students, then 4 and finally the entire local team. The fellowship we shared the 5 days that we were in Jakarta had calmed their worries about being with this strange group from America, and now, it will be very, very difficult to say good-bye when we leave Indonesia.
We planned to leave Jakarta at 7:30 in the morning, but after loading all the baggage and getting everyone settled, it was finally 8:15 by the time we left. Czrilla and Janine are having some stomach difficulties but otherwise, our health is doing OK. We met a lot of traffic driving up but we spent some of the time doing small group devotions where we covered the last of Jesus' seven miracles in the Gospel of John (Lazarus' resurrection) and some of us napped on the way so we are all pretty well rested by the time we arrived about 1 PM. The Hotel Trio where we are staying is located right in the heart of Bandung and just across the street from Hok Im Tong, the Chinese church which is our contact to this city and where we can meet daily in one of their meeting rooms. After eating our sack lunch, we gathered at the church and spent about an hour praying, asking God what He wants us to do here in Bandung. We feel a lot of oppression since Bandung is not as metropolitan as Jakarta nor are we on a Christian campus. The predominant word we received was that there is a lot of fear, fear among the Muslims, fear of the Muslims by the Christians, fear of offending the Muslims, fear of tearing down the bridges which the long time missionaries are trying to build by our carelessness. On the other hand, we sense God's love for this city and the oppressed women in the city while hearing words of being bold. We are not yet sure what all this means for our one week here. We then broke into 4 groups and did a prayer walk in the 4 directions around the church and our hotel, trying to see the neighborhood through God's eyes and had about a hour of free time before meeting for dinner/ Since the internet is only available from the hotel lobby, these updates will be sent whenever we have some free time so do not expect regular updates as when we were still at the school in Jakarta.
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