Connecting in Indonesia and around the world



    
 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace.
 Romans 15:13

     One congregation in the rural village of Srumbung Gunung and another in the city of Ungaran. The two Mennonite churches in Indonesia are probably not 20 miles apart, but in other ways, the distance seems much greater. 

     There are almost 110,000 Mennonites in Indonesia in three different synods (denominations). One originated in a Javanese context (GITF), and another began among the Chinese in Indonesia (GKMI). The third (JKI), younger, more pentecostal and urban, is also more connected to Mennonites on the West Coast of the United States.

     On the first Sunday of Advent at 7 a.m., you could see the members and families of the Srumbung Gunung (GKMI) congregation (left above) walk up the road to the church at the top of the hill. They are a minority here because most of their neighbors are Muslim. But neighbors are neighbors and this community appears to be living together in peace.

      During worship, I am sitting beside Fang Deng, from China. Fang is part of a program sponsored by Mennonite World Conference and Mennonite Central Committee, called YAMEN!, that places young people from countries in the southern hemisphere for a year of service and learning in other countries in the south. Fang worships with this congregation. Four days a week, she travels by motorbike for an hour each way with the pastor's wife to work in a school in the city of Semarang.
     After worship, we join the pastor for breakfast. Sitting on the floor of the well-sized, breezy and humble home, I can see out the door and watch a woman winnowing rice. The pastor has followed his father-in-law as the pastor of this small congregation and feels God's call to this ministry. 

       The Maranatha Church (above right) in Ungaran is bigger, louder and wealthier. We are joining the youth service at 11 a.m. for about 100 youth, the middle of three services that weekly involves 1,200 members. Everything here seems more closely aligned to my experience in North America, including some English words on the video screen.

      The youth are energetic, dancing and raising arms at times, as they sing praises to the Lord. The pastor preaches from Romans 8 and Ephesians 3 and we are reminded that Christ can accomplish far more in us than we could ever ask or imagine. 

      The pastor expresses thanks for MCC, especially for MCC bringing to this congregation Prashant Nand (YAMEN), a pastoral intern from India.  Is this not cool? An Indonesian Mennonite congregation thanking MCC, a North American organization, for bringing them a youth worker from India!
     
     On this first Sunday in Advent, one thing that connected these two congregations is that they both celebrated communion. "Take, eat, drink," the pastors encouraged us. As we did, the bread and the cup connected, not only these two congregations, but many more in Indonesia and around the world.

     This Advent season, we look forward to Christ's coming, and we know that he comes again and again to each of us who call him Savior wherever we find ourselves. In the city and in the village. In Indonesia and around the world. May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as we look forward to the birth of the child called Jesus.

      

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

They welcomed us

Image
One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. (John 9:25) She was addicted to drugs for 20 years. She was in prison and her family broke apart. Her child was in an orphanage and her husband died. Because of her substance abuse, she eventually lost her one arm below her elbow. She saw no way out. She had hit the very bottom. When she came to know God, Natalia says everything changed. She found she had a deep desire to help people like herself and she discovered that her life experiences helped her understand others. “I remember what God did in my life and I have hope that God can touch other peoples’ lives and give them new life, too,” Natalia tells me. In Nikopol, Ukraine, she and Olga and Valodya, both of whom have similar stories to tell of their own, began New Life Charitable Fund a half dozen years ago to help people in prison, or who have drug or alcohol addictions, are HIV positive, homeless or for some other reason need a helping hand. Ukraine has
Read more

God multiplies our efforts

Image
Sister Zita at the La Posada shelter with baby Emmanuel and members of our border learning tour. Photo courtesy of Janae Rempel The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail. – I Kings 17:14 Ana Hinojosa remembers growing up on the Texas-Mexico border near Brownsville in the late 80s. Her family’s house was a mile from the border wall and she remembers the extended family gatherings in her back yard. Ana, an MCC immigration staff person, says border patrol agents would rest in the shade of the trees near the front of her house and, in the same day, it would be possible for a family from Mexico to knock on her front door to ask for food or directions. Her family turned no one away. Life on the border can look quite different today. When we enter the Catholic Charities respite center in McAllen, Texas, it is startling to see the contrast from the serenity of the neighborhood outside to the chaos inside. Cesar Matta tells us that, today, the cente
Read more

A river of love

Image
For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. – Matthew 25:40 “We are happy you are here to see this with your own eyes,” the leader of the Islamic Charities organization in Deir Attieh, Syria tells us, a group of MCC people visiting partner organizations in Syria. “We can’t express enough our heartfelt thanks to you.” Islamic Charities works with 3,000 at risk families affected by the war in the region and relies heavily on the work of volunteers. MCC provides food boxes to Islamic Charities as part of our humanitarian assistance in Syria. When I visit five families who received these food boxes, I recall the heartfelt thanks but feel mostly heart broken.    We visit two families living in a partially constructed apartment complex that stalled when the war began. The first family lives in a small two-room apartment, the mother and her five children and the woman’s father. Her husband is serving in the army. The second family includes seven
Read more