Outreach in the Jungle

Wow it has been a while since I have last updated all of you and I got to say that a lot of things have changed and happened in that time.  Last all of you knew I was in Coffs Harbour in Australia and had just got back from two weeks of doing outreach.  We had been working at a rehab center and speaking at All Nations church in Woolgoga and having their youth come and work with us over their school holidays. That really seems like months ago as I am now in Indonesia at Living Waters Village in the middle of the Jungle and less than one degree south of the equator.  So how about I tell you a little about what has happened in the three weeks we have been here.

So we arrived in Kuching, Malaysia on the 19^th of April at about midnight and they had some people come and pick us up and take us to the house that Living Waters Village has there that visitors can stay at.  We then had the next day off so we went and explored a little of Kuching and all the small shops that they have along the streets.  We then left on the 21^st of April to come to Living Waters Village and had a van ready to take us to the Indonesian border at 5 am.  It was about a 2 hour drive to the boarder and then we had to walk across and buy visas.  We however, were only able to get a 30 day visa and we were planning on being at the village for 52 days, which has now changed.  After we got our visas we headed to a bus that was going to take us to the village, when we walked up they were changing the tire on this rickety old bus which we eventually got on.  So then we proceeded down the road, if you want to call it that, it had rivers running across it in places, pot holes all over, and then some places there were complete washouts of the road surface.  So after about an hour of driving we stopped to change the tire again as it was starting to wobble, we then got that fixed and had no more hitches along the way.  We however made frequent stops at little towns or houses along the way to deliver rice and other goods, which was interesting that the buses do both bus driving and deliveries or our bus driver did anyways.  We then finally arrived at Living Waters Village at 8 pm that night and got introduced in front of all the kids during their Thursday night worship service.

We then got to celebrate Good Friday with all of them as they actually re-enacted the crucifixion of Jesus and red exerts along the way as we marched along their dirt road down to where they have three crosses standing.  This was a point to make the kids here understand fully what Good Friday is all about.  They then followed that up on Easter Sunday with the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb.  After this guy gave his testimony about how he survived a car wreck and gave his life to Christ because he had a revelation of where he would have gone if he would have died.  On Monday we then got a tour of all of Living Waters Village and it is like a little city of its own here.  They hire people from villages around to come and work construction here so they can help them out by giving them a steady income to support their families.  They also make the kids work here for the first year before they go to school so they can learn how to behave and have structure, which many of them know nothing about.  They have a little more than 500 kids here right now and it is growing about every three months were they see about 20 new kids come in.  They have many buildings that have gone up and several that are still going up all the time.  They right now have a cafeteria, which serves as a worship center also, a school for grades 1-4, a clinic, homes for each of the kids, and several other buildings that will make this village self sufficient within the next 10 years.  God has already done so many amazing things in the mere 8 years it has been running.

So the ministry we are doing here is totally different from many YWAM outreaches as we have done manual labor each and every day we have been here.  We change a bedroom that several kids had been sleeping in into a storage room.  We had to take down all the beds they had in there and repaint the entire thing as well as install railing for the second level, a place to lock stuff, shelves, and fences around half of the shelves so they could serves as little lockers in which you could stack stuff without it falling.  That was our project for the first two weeks as well as moving all the stuff from odd storage places to the now official storage room.  We then had a few days where we helped out around the property just doing maintenance jobs like changing light bulbs and fixing several little things around the village.  Then this past Saturday is a day that I will never forget for the rest of my life, it was the most humbling experience I have ever had in my life.  All the guys on our outreach team had the privilege of cleaning out the sewer pipes at the school that was clogged.  We had to actually glue pvc pipe together and try to fit it through the tube where all the sewage comes out.  It was the worst smelling thing and it took us all day and we got it unclogged, but sometimes serving the Lord isn’t always joyful to say the least.  We got through and looking back we blessed one of the staff people by doing that so it wasn’t that big of a deal. 

So they have four services every week that we have the opportunity to do ministry at and one of those being church and the rest are all evening activities that all the kids come to.  The first week we got to take all four services and I spoke on Sunday during the church service.  I spoke on the Ten Commandments and we saw 52 Indonesian kids stand up and make a commitment to Christ to live out a life that is holy and glorifying to God.  It was the first time they had ever had an alter call here so it was big for that many kids to stand up and make the commitment as there were about 200 kids in the service because  the young ones, which are the majority of kids here, left for Sunday School.  We then had an opportunity that following Tuesday evening, which we found out we were doing 30 minutes before, in which we talked about how we need to let our love for God be shown so we don’t let our friends, family, or other loved ones be lost sheep forever.  I then was given the microphone to close and I just got this vision that all the kids were going to scream out that they love the Lord and not be embarrassed by it, but actually to be proud of it.  I was on a roll and failed to actually give the interpreter time to talk as I had the coach mentality in me and every single one of the kids stood up and yelled “saya chinta Tuhan,” which means I love God in Indonesian.  On that Sunday each of us got to take a group of Sunday School classes and I got the youngest group of boys and talked to them about the story of Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea and we then got to sing Pharaoh, Pharaoh which all the kids loved because we got to do actions with them.  Then during supper on Sunday, which is an hour and a half before the evening service we were told again we were on for that nights service.  We decided to go with a theme that tied into giving the keys of your life to Christ and they wanted me to share my testimony so I did and shared a short version of it.  Then one of the ladies who is staff here felt God telling her to give her testimony so she did and then did an alter call and we saw about 200 or so kids commit to Christ and we got to pray over them.  Several burst into tears as we prayed for them and only about half of them understand English, so God definitely was working in their hearts on that night.

So, it is ridiculously hot here and we wake up each and every morning for prayer at 5:30 am and then we work all day doing physical labor in the blistering heat from 7-4.  I am doing some jobs that people get paid huge money for and I am giving much of my time away as well as the comforts of home and all the things that entail.  But, what I am learning and seeing is life changing and more than worth it.  I see where these kids come from and I have heard numerous testimonies of what kids have been through and I see where they are at now and it really puts the sacrifices you make into perspective, by me doing this work I am giving them a chance at a life that has value and that is in God.  I have also been learning a lot about working during the day and preaching at night, we need to align ourselves with them and their lifestyle before we can preach and find common ground.  They see us as superior and if we do their work and then preach to them they see us walking out what we speak about and that is really what matter because actions speak louder than words.

So I would just like to take a little  time to inform all of you what the next step in our outreach is as it has changed a little bit due to complications and just God really moving in our hearts as well as other peoples.  We only were able to get a 30 day visa in Indonesia so we have decided to go back to Malaysia on the 19^th of May and help out at a few churches and Christian Schools.  We are unable to do evangelism as if you attempt to convert a Muslim in Malaysia you go to jail.  We however have made contacts with a guy who has offered to set up ministry for us, as well as get us into schools.  Living Waters Village has offered us their house in Kuching as our living arrangements.  We then will be flying back to Australia on the 12^th of June and I will be spending a week there debriefing our missions trip with the leaders of the base and having our commissioning ceremony as we will have officially passed the DTS course.  I then will be flying back on Monday the 20^th and will have about a day to rest and then will be speaking at the United Methodist Church in Wood River on Wednesday evening at 7pm and then again for the Sunday church services at Wood River and Alda.  I thank all of you for your prayers and support and can’t wait to get back and share all of my amazing stories and experiences with you.