This ministry is also coordinated by Ibu Etna who we met on Saturday but it is quite different in that a group of churches in the central city have teamed together to support the squatters. These churches of all denominations, from Pentecostals to Baptists support two men who have in fact started a church among these most marginalized and they take care of over 50 widows among their members, who are mostly a mix of M people and minority groups from the outlying islands. The 57 kids we met were bused in from the slum area because the churches take turns hosting the kids whose parents have been taught working skills and are now working as maids or laborers and slowly improving their lives as they continue to grow as believers. We had a good time mixing in with these children immediately and the workers there commented how well our kids connected with the slum kids (in contrast to another group from the US who were there 2 weeks ago). It is probably because our kids had no problem taking off their shoes and sitting among the kids and hugging them. We performed several songs, Joni and Paul shared their testimonies, we did the puppet skit and a skit we taught the Indonesian team members about how a believer is picked on by her classmates but they come to appreciate her lifestyle when one of them is killed in a drunken car accident. In fact, since Vision came up with this skit during our retreat in January, it is kind of eerie how it has many characteristics of what we went through Sunday night. OVer a dozen children raised their hands to accept Jesus into their lives. We then went to En Poli's mom's home for a wonderful dinner prepared for us by En's mom. We debriefed about the ministry we just did. One little boy named Simon asked for prayer that his dad would come home at night not drunk and a little girl named Hanna said her father was Christian but her mom a follower of Islam and would keep her so busy she could not even read her Bible. Their stories touched our hearts. Joni had been encouraging her schoolmates to raise funds by recycling and her school had raised $400 through her efforts. She thought she would give the money to the cancer children home but after learning about these street kids ministry coordinated by Etna, decided to donate all $400 to this ministry. Etna was very touched and thankful and said the money would be used for a short term mission to reach 4000 children in an outlying island in Indonesia. As we debriefed, Pastor Ben called our bus driver and learned that he would be meeting in a few minutes with the family of the deceased, bus company representatives and police and asked Pastor Ben to pray for this, repeatedly saying "amen" as Ben prayed. As a group we also supported him in prayer. On the bus ride home after dinner a couple of hours later, Ben called to find out that everything has been kind of settled and the bus driver was already released and home with his wife! They had not quite settled on the funeral payments: the widow wanted 2 million rupiahs (about $2,400) and the bus driver said he could not pay that much (and he also needs to pay the police another $200 for the police support) so he has to report to the police every Monday and Thursday until all parties are satisfied and negotiations completed. So we will take up a collection tomorrow and continue to pray for his salvation. Thank God that one of our 3 prayer items for this man has already been answered, in fact he is released even earlier than anyone expected. We will of course invite his whole family to our Indonesian Home Concert Sunday night and feel he is very close to coming to Jesus. Conitnue to pray for him.
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