|  Churches
in Indonesia Say They are Ready
to do More to Reach the Unreached
AIMS News: Posted 12/1/2004
Since
Dr. Howard Foltz, founder and president of AIMS, visited
Indonesia in 1999 and 2000, church leaders within the
country had been praying for unreached people groups.
Today, they are ready to do more.
In
August, "Gideon" (AIMS Director of Asia),
"Andrew" (AIMS Southeast Asia Coordinator),
"Titus" (International Director), and "Paul"
(AIMS Development Coordinator) traveled to Indonesia
to follow up on missions efforts and facilitate an Equipping
for the Harvest conference with a church network
in Medan. Medan is located on the island of Sumatra,
which, according to Operation World, "is
the largest unevangelized island on earth" (1).
"Pastor
Micah," founder of the church network, brought
together about 500 leaders, representing 20,000 believers
within the network, for the conference in Medan. The
leaders formed partnerships around 18 unreached people
groups. They are meeting monthly to compile their research
and form the best strategy on how to reach each group
before they send teams to the area.
"Before,
the training was primarily motivational," said
Gideon. "Now, the timing is right. They want to
take tangible steps to reach unreached people groups."
However,
Pastor Micah's passion for the lost has not come without
a cost.
"Sumatra
is the largest unevangelized island on earth.
Most of its peoples are staunchly Muslim. If it
were a nation, only 9 other nations would have
more unreached peoples. Sumatra is the home of
52 known unreached people groups consisting of
25 million people. Of the 52, 48 have no indigenous
churches and 34 of them have no known gospel workers."
-Patrick Johnstone,
Operation World (1) |
Religious
Unrest within a Nation
During
the Indonesian national Independence Day in 2001, a
man on a motorcycle stopped beside Pastor Micah's car.
The man pulled out a gun and fired several times into
the vehicle. Micah fell to the floor, barely missing
the flying bullets. When he heard the motorcycle fade
into the distance, he sat up. His driver lay slouched
over the steering wheel, unconscious and bleeding. Panicked,
Micah quickly checked the back seat where his wife and
children had been moments ago. They were shaken, but
unharmed.
 Since
Pastor Micah founded the church network in Medan during
the mid-1980s, he has experienced growing dissention
in Indonesia. Citizens of Indonesia must carry identity
cards that identify their official religion, often decided
by their parents at birth. Many of the large Muslim
population in Indonesia - 88% of the total population
(2) - fight to keep Christian churches in predominantly
Christian neighborhoods.
When
Pastor Micah's church began to spread into mixed neighborhoods,
area Muslims became angered. They planted small bombs
outside Micahís home and church to scare them,
but Micah refused to leave. Once, the government tried
to bulldoze the church building, arguing that the building
didn't meet certain regulations, but believers gathered
around the building to pray and stopped the attack.
In
spite of these difficulties, the church network has
continued to grow. Many former Muslims attend the eighteen
different services held throughout the city on Sundays
and the more than 1,000 cell groups that meet regularly
during the week.
Former
Students Accept the Challenge to Reach the Unreached
Many
of the men and women who attended the seminar in Medan
were former students of a local Bible Institute that
Gideon and Andrew had begun in 1988.
One
Indonesian student, "Esther," graduated from
the Bible Institute in the early 1990s with a burden
for the unreached. She recently began teaching English
to six teenage girls from the Mandailing tribe in the
mountainous regions of North Sumatra. She planted a
church within the tribal area, and 30-40 new believers
are attending. After the conference in Medan, Esther
officially adopted the Mandailing tribe and is currently
serving as the facilitator to reach that group of people.
"Before
now, the churches were blinded to unreached people groups
around them," said Andrew. "It was great to
see how the church has grown and to see their heart
for reaching the unreached in their area. We have been
praying for this for years."
(1)
Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk, Operation World:
When We Pray, God Works, 21st Century Edition (Waynesboro,
GA: Patermoster USA) 2001, p. 344.
(2)
CIA Factbook 1998 (www.cia.gov).
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