Thursday, July 22 - There is one little story from our last night in Bandung. The first night we were there, we stopped to buy snacks and drinks at Circle K and sang to the two young clerks there. Each night, some of the kids have been shopping there and last night, several in the group went there again to say good bye and sang Pelangi Kashi, our Indonesian song to these two clerks. They were very touched and said we sounded like angels. A seed has been planted there so pray for these two young men. Today we traveled back from Bandung to Jakarta so it gives me (Marshall) a little time to reflect on this tour now that it is drawing to a close (although there is still a lot of ministry time left). One event we have added is to do a mini-home concert in Jakarta for the family and friends of our Indonesian team members on Friday night. My first thought is praise to God for He is doing marvelous things. Even though we have gotten sick, they have been relatively minor things from which we recovered quickly like how I am now completely recovered from my stomach problems and the colds and coughs are mostly gone. God has indeed answered our prayers, especially for the unity of the team. Our kids and the Indonesian kids have blended in seamlessly and shown so much love and concern for each other, that a passerby who did not hear us talk would never know we come from two different cultures. The second is a wonderful conversion story to tell you, but one we cannot share on the internet nor post it in our group site for fear of jeopardizing this new believer's relationship with the family. You will need to come to Home Concert to hear it! Third, we are seeing how God is moving, touching first the dregs of society (isn't that just like God to call the lowly and downtrodden and not the rick and powerful), setting the prisoners free, and touching the children and youth to prepare them for His greater works in the days ahead. All glory belongs to Him alone!
We loaded our luggage on the bus and left Bandung about 9 AM, arriving in SPH about 12:30, ate our box lunch (box lunches are a lot cheaper than buying food, about $1.50 a meal vs. $2.50 when we buy them). We completed our morning devotions for Wednesday and today on the bus so after we checked in and organized ourselves, we have about 2 hours of free time. Some of us went swimming at the school pool, some played ping pong, and some just rested. At 4, we got back on the bus to head off to Ambassador Mall, where an Indonesian church meets. Since we will be leaving this bus permanently and have had the same bus driver (Asido) and his assistant (Alex) for much of the time in Bandung, we sang our two Indonesian songs and The Lord Bless You and Keep You to both of them before we left. Again, they were so grateful and another seed which we pray will bear fruit for the Lord has been planted here too. We had expected to take 2 hours to drive to the church due to traffic but there was none and we got there before 5, but the church had ordered dinner for us at a mall noodle shop so it turned out we were right on time. This mall church has expanded its capacity from 500 seats to its current 1500 capacity in the 12 years they have existed. They hold 6 services on Sunday there plus 4 more services in a nearby business building and a single service at a second office building, 11 services on Sunday total with attendance of about 10,000. It was exciting to see this church of multi-ethnic Indonesian members. They worship with intensity and excitement with excellent singers and musicians. Normally they have 150 people at their Thursday night fellowship meeting, but tonight, there were about 500 people there. Vision took most of the program time with two skits and Czrilla and Adi giving their testimonies . Pastor Ben preached an anointed sermon from John 21 which greatly encouraged their members who felt they are growing stale. At least 36 people raised their hands to accept the Lord and over 18 rededicated themselves after Pastor Ben preached. They said they were so encouraged by our young people singing. It was wonderful that we blessed them while they blessed us. The founding pastor came half way through the meeting and said he could see the love our kids had for God as they sang and urged us to come back on Sunday to sing. We made arrangements to come to their 6 PM service which he said is mostly attended by young people as it will be our last ministry opportunity in Indonesia and we did not want to miss out on what God wants us to do. Their church members drove us back to SPH and as we are debriefing all day tomorrow, we all parted ways around 10 and went to bed.
--You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "FECA Vision Choir" group.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
visionsings+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/visionsings?hl=en
No comments:
Post a Comment