Since last month, Leon (local partner) and I have trained more than 150 pastors across the island on evangelism, discipleship, church planting, and leadership development. We pray God leads us to the few people who want to work together to see their region reached with the good news. Many movements across the globe begin as local believers, burdened for the lost in their area, are further equipped to share The Good News and teach others to do the same.

Below are a handful of ways we are seeing God at work:

Eddy

In one of our trainings, we looked at Ephesians 4:11-12. “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” God used this passage to teach Eddy that he should equip his church for the work of ministry. Since then, he’s been training his church to share The Good News. 

Tiko

Tiko tried using our simple discipleship tools with his church’s youth, and they enjoyed how simple and interactive they were. 

Dewi

Dewi understood that each new believer becomes a royal priest of God (1 Peter 2:9), and now she teaches new believers to baptize other new believers. One of the new believers Dewi recently baptized has already baptized a new believer who, in turn, baptized another new believer!

Yusef

When we showed Yusef the Biblical model of multiplication from the early church, he said, “If we go back to the way the early church functioned, the entirety of Indonesia could be reached.” 

May it be so.

The post Stories From The Field first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

Recently, a woman attending a mountain house church was baptized. This Muslim background believer (MBB) has been attending the house church for several months. After she was baptized, she explained, “When I believed, I felt some peace but still felt distracted, but now there is a new more complete peace that I feel.” 

For Muslim-background believers, it is common for the act of baptism to be a bigger deal than a verbal decision to follow Jesus. Why is that? The weight of these decisions is reversed from the Western world for MBBs. In countries like America, the verbal decision of following Jesus is a major decision. It is not something people say if they don’t really mean it. Once the decision is made, usually life changes come with it. At that point, baptism is usually the next logical step, though not as much emphasis is placed on it. A church will typically walk alongside the new believer, discipling them in their new faith and eventually encouraging them to be baptized, the outward sign of obedience to Jesus.

For Muslim-background believers in countries like Indonesia, actions are much weightier than words. It is easier for someone to say they believe. The act of baptism is harder for many new believers. There is a finality to it. It is an outward sign that shows others that they are truly leaving their old ways behind. They are starting a new life following Jesus. It is common to have someone profess faith, but not want to move forward with baptism for a long time. For many in the Muslim world, persecution becomes much worse after baptism. 

Please pray for courage for new believers to take this step of faith. Pray also for protection for those that do.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

The post What Baptism Means for Muslim Background Believers first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

While visiting him, they played an audio version of Genesis 1 for Arif. As he listened to the creation story, he became emotional, grabbing his prayer beads and repeating some of the words he heard in the story. Clearly, the Holy Spirit was moving in Arif’s heart. Ed and Sandy hope to return soon to give Arif a little speaker with more Bible stories and one day study the scriptures with him.

Please pray for: 

• Arif’s sight to be miraculously restored – doctors have done all they can to help
• An opportunity to study the scriptures with Arif and those around him
• That Arif would put his faith in Jesus
• Progress among this unreached people group

The post Blind Man Hears Creation Story first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

Recently, they taught at a small village church, where they met a lady named Diah. She was already actively sharing the Good News with her community, but wasn’t sure what to do after sharing. Through the training, she learned the Biblical pattern for planting churches and discipleship, and felt a renewed excitement for the Great Commission. Since that training, she has shared with many people, baptized 20 people, and started three groups that will hopefully become house churches. 

The goal for church planting movements is to see many generations of believers and house churches spread. As someone disciples new believers, they encourage those believers to share and start their own group. Then the new groups can also grow and lead to other groups. Paul and Rachel hope to meet many more people like Diah with a passion for sharing the Good News and multiplying house churches.

Ways to Pray

• Pray that God would lead Paul and Rachel to many more people like Diah who are passionate about multiplication
• That Diah would continue to disciple the new believers and her groups, and that these groups would continue to grow and multiply
• Pray for more church planting movements to take place all over Indonesia

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Romans 10:14-15

The post Indonesian Christian Becomes a Disciple Maker first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

One night, Fatima had a dream. She was walking on the highway when suddenly a man appeared before her. She couldn’t see his face because it shone like the sun, but he was dressed in white and had a long beard. The man gently picked her up and set her down in the grass. Then she immediately woke up. She didn’t think much of the dream and continued on with her life.

Three years later, Fatima had the same dream with the same man in white. When she woke up from the dream, she felt unsettled and couldn’t go back to sleep. Who was this man and why did he come back in her dreams? She knew something seemed different about this man but could not identify what it was.

After pondering the dream for a few days, she couldn’t bear it anymore. While praying during the evening prayer time, she looked upward and said, “God, I don’t know who You are but I believe in You.” Immediately, she felt a heavy burden lift from her heart. When she told her friend Rida about the dream, Rida explained to her that she had dreamed about a man in white too who had told her His name was Isa al Masih (the Arabic name for Jesus).

Fatima went home and told her husband about the dream and her conversation with Rida, and they began attending a local church together. Fatima studied the Bible daily, hungry to know more about Isa and the God of the Bible. Since then, Fatima acknowledges that she has felt a peace like never before. Her family does not speak to her, but she has found a new family in her Christian brothers and sisters.

Jesus is revealing Himself to Muslims in dreams all over the world. Please pray that many more people come to know Jesus through this and the church around the world continues to grow.

The post Muslim Woman Meets Jesus in a Dream first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

“Ida Sanghyang Yesus”

Noman responded to a Facebook advertisement that our media ministry team launched. The question was “Do you know whether your good deeds are enough to erase your sins?” Noman clicked the “send a message” button and answered “No.”

We started chatting and Noman shared about his financial struggles. He had a large amount of debt to pay and it was due the next day. He had no money left and had used his relative’s assets as collateral and he was afraid of leaving his r­­elatives with more debt. As a result, Noman had suicidal thoughts because he was so desperate.

After he shared about his struggles, I encouraged him to pray and ask God for His help. Noman said that he prayed every single day according to his belief, which was the Hindu religion. I then asked him whether he wanted to know how he can clean his heart from sin and draw closer to God. Noman said yes! This led me to share in detail the Gospel, from the story of Adam and Eve, Jesus’ birth, His life on earth, Jesus becoming the sacrifice for the sins of humanity, and His resurrection. Noman, after hearing the whole gospel, decided he wanted to believe in “Ida Sangyang Yesus,” which is how Hindus refer to The Lord Jesus.

Later, towards the end of our conversation, I led Noman through the salvation prayer and asked him how he felt after praying. Noman said that he felt relieved and that he chooses to surrender his life to Christ. I connected Noman to my friend, Neil, who lives near Noman. They met up one day and Neil shared the Gospel once more. Praise God Noman decided to give his life to Jesus and was baptized by Neil a few weeks later! Praise God!

Social media has so much evil in it these days. What the enemy intended for evil, God uses for His glory. Our media ministry team is working to saturate social media with the Gospel.

Here’s how you can pray:

• Pray that more unreached peoples hear the Gospel.
• That we as a team are reminded to surrender our best ideas to the Lord, and that we follow His plans.
• Pray that we can grow our media ministry team because of the high demand of spiritual conversations online!
• That every word we share on social media leads others closer to Him.

The post From Suicidal To Surrendered to Jesus first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

However, one day I got to hear the story of a man who was born and raised in Kazakhstan and was a Muslim background believer. One day when he was walking the streets he heard a man speaking about Jesus. He had never heard this name before and was interested in learning more about who Jesus was. As he learned more about who Jesus was he eventually became a believer. When he finished sharing his story I felt God speak to me and tell me that He is the One True God and that if I were to tell people about Him, they would believe in God and stop worshiping their false idols.

God Opened My Heart to the Nations

That was when God completely changed my life. He opened my eyes to the world, my heart to the nations, and gave me a vision of telling others about Jesus who wouldn’t have the opportunity to hear otherwise. God forever changed my heart and as I learned more, I began to explore ways to go to the unreached so that they would have an opportunity to hear about Jesus.

As I worked to finish my degree, my heart continued to grow in desire to move overseas to tell others about the One True God. I didn’t know when I would go, what that would look like, or where it would be, so after I graduated I taught 3rd grade for two years.

As much as I loved teaching, I still felt God calling me to drop everything and go to the nations, and I couldn’t ignore Him. However, this was a very difficult decision for me to make. Ultimately, what led me to leave teaching was Jesus. Jesus had a career in carpentry, but He left his career to do full time ministry when he was older. Knowing this, I thought to myself that if the example that Jesus gave was to leave His career to do ministry, I should be willing to do the same.

Being Led to Indonesia

With that, I knew that I wanted to go in a way that was worthy of the Gospel, so while I was teaching, I also was a part of a missions training program. Through this program is where I learned about Indonesia and how it’s the fourth most populous nation and the largest Muslim country. While Indonesia is a spiritually dark place, they are very spiritually open to hearing and learning more about Jesus. There are millions of people here who are hungry to hear about Jesus.

With the millions of unreached people in Indonesia, I realized that the harvest was plentiful but the workers were few. There are 275 million people here who still worship false gods and need to hear about Jesus. I knew there was a great need there and wanted Indonesians to be represented around the throne of God in heaven one day (Revelation 7:9-10). That’s why I chose to move to Indonesia and be a worker among the lost. I went because God showed me the need of these people and not because I felt a specific calling there. Ultimately, I feel called by God to live a life honoring Him and sharing about Him wherever I live and whoever I am among. In this season of life it’s been living in Indonesia.

~M.

The post Letters from Laborers: God Forever Changed My Heart first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

Guilt From Murder

When Ronnie was younger, he went to another island in Indonesia, about 3 days boat ride to the west. He wanted to find a new opportunity there. He found a job as a security guy in a palm oil tree plantation in the deep woods. Ronnie worked there for several years. The environment where he worked at was very tough. He had to face people with harsh character and also people who tried to steal the crops.

In one of his working shifts, he got into a fight with someone who tried to rob him in the woods. He killed the guy. Though he was trying to defend himself, this situation had really traumatized him and made him feel guilty. Knowing that the gang of the person he killed was looking for him, he went back to the island where he was from and hoped to be able to start a new life.

Years had gone by. While he was able to find another new job and get married, he was still haunted by the fact that he had killed someone. He lived with his trauma and guilt and tried do good and practice religious rituals but he never felt peace.

A Christian Shares about Hope

In late 2019, while Ronnie was resting on the side of the road, he was visited by a Christian. This Christian person was a local taxi driver who was also a ministry worker doing outreach. The two later introduced themselves. This started a new friendship for Ronnie and this Christian. Few follow up meetings later, Ronnie shared the spiritual burden and the guilt that had been bothering him for years.

This new Christian friend then shared the truth about redemption in Christ. He told Ronnie that because of sin we will never be able to “made right” again before God unless we accept Christ and believe in Him as our God and Savior. Through His sacrifice on the cross, He has made us clean. The truth that Ronnie had just heard gave him a new hope. On that same day he gave his life to Jesus. He was forgiven of all his sin and found freedom in Christ.

Since that day, Ronnie has slowly felt better and experienced peace that he had never felt before. He was baptized in the river near his house, and also shared this good news to his wife. She also became a new believer!

Becoming a Fisher of Men

Now Ronnie has just celebrated his third Christmas as a follower of Christ. He has become a fisher of men, and actively partners with a group of Christian field workers in the area to bring Gospel to the lost. The area where Ronnie lives has less than 1% Christian with a population of 2.3 million people. The majority population in this area have come from another island where it is known to be a hard people group to reach and the mission has been engaged for almost 180 years with very minimal fruit.

Pray for Ronnie to continue to grow in his love for Jesus and be used by God to reach many Muslims in this area. Pray for the gospel to spread forth among this people of 2.3 million!

“Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.” Romans 3:24-26

The post Muslim Man Burdened with Guilt Finds Freedom in Christ first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

But God had other plans and He would soon break my heart for Muslims who do not have the opportunity to hear about Jesus.

Growth in College

I became a believer when I was 15 years old. When I started college, I was intentional to find a Christian community. I got involved in Cru and grew so much in my faith during my college years. As a freshman, I started going out in between classes to share the gospel with other college students. I realized as Christians, we are called to share our faith and make disciples. I enjoyed getting to do that and give people the opportunity to hear the gospel!

After my sophomore year, I went on my first overseas trip to the Middle East to learn Arabic and share with college students in a large city there. This was my first exposure to sharing with Muslims and meeting people who had no idea who Jesus was. They didn’t even have Christian friends who could tell them the love God has for them. As I became friends with these girls, drank tea and ate with them, God broke my heart for Muslims. I wanted them to have eternal hope that I had. I felt so sad how a billion people on this planet were blinded from the truth from Islam.

Coming back from that trip, my perspective changed. I wanted to be more intentional with international students and refugees in America. I started to think “What if I move to a Muslim country after college?” It was a scary and exciting thought at the same time.

Unreached?

God continued to grow that desire to love and share Christ with Muslims. I took a class called Perspectives and first learned that there are still 3 billion people in the world who have not heard the gospel of Jesus and are considered “unreached.” I was shocked that there were still over 6,000 unreached people groups and very few missionaries among them. Most missionaries were serving in reached areas. The only way they would hear about Jesus was if someone from an outside culture went to them.

The amount of work still needed to be done to spread the glory of God to the ends of the earth was overwhelming. I asked God, “Show me what you want me to do to be apart of the Great Commission – to make disciples of all nations. I am willing, Lord!”

Leading me to Indonesia

Over the next year, He made it clear that He wanted me to go and serve in a Muslim country. So I began the process to pray about where He wanted me to go and when. I joined a missionary training program through church and spent 9 months reaching out to refugees and preparing to move overseas.  Through different connections, God led me to a team in Indonesia.

I actually knew very little about Indonesia. I had no idea it was the largest Muslim country in the world with 220 million Muslims. But I was willing and ready to be used by God to make Him known there.

The next 4 years would be the hardest and best years of my life. God moved in amazing ways and most of all worked in my heart in ways I never would have imagined. I understood that it was the greatest privilege to join in His work of sharing the gospel and discipling new sisters in Christ.

No matter where we are in the world, we get to glorify Him and bring the most amazing news of salvation to those around us. He didn’t have to use us, but He chose to use His children to spread to gospel to the nations. He is the one changing hearts, we just have to be obedient!

For His Glory,

~H.

The post Letters from Laborers: How God Broke My Heart for Muslims first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.

Nina began to read the Bible on her own and actually read most of it! She came back to her friend and said “Okay I read it and I believe it! What do I do now?”

Her friend discipled Nina for a season and taught her how to have a relationship with Jesus. She experienced a lot of persecution from her family when she told them her decision.

God’s Provision in Hong Kong

Nina then had an opportunity to move to Hong Kong to work as a house helper. (Many Indonesians work as house helpers in other countries to get a better paying salary).

God obviously provided for Nina in Hong Kong because she started to work for a Christian family. The husband was the pastor of a church in Hong Kong.

Nina continued to grow in her faith as she lived with and worked for this family. She began serving in the church and her love for Jesus deepened each day.

After years of living in Hong Kong, the church sent Nina back to Indonesia so she could go to seminary school there. When she finished, she could not return to Hong Kong because of Covid19. She got involved in a church in Indonesia and decided to stay and serve at that church. The church in Hong Kong blessed her decision.

Making Christ Known in Indonesia

Nina was offered a position at the church to be head of the Missions Department that is over multiple church plants. She has a huge burden for Muslims in Indonesia to know Christ.

In her new job, she joined a training for Indonesians to learn how to share the gospel with Muslims. After the training, she reached out to the team and asked if she could continue to learn from them and also go out sharing with them as they met Muslims.

She told them how God worked this out so perfectly and she invited her friend to learn as well. Nina then asked the team to come train her church and the church plants. She wanted more Christians to learn how to share their faith with Muslims.

Nina helped lead some trainings and put into practice what she was learning. She often went out to meet people and share the gospel with them. She also shared with many of her friends who were Muslim.

Although Nina’s family still won’t talk to her, she has remained steadfast in her faith and knows the surpassing worth of living life with Christ. She desires her fellow Indonesians to find a relationship with the Lord as she did. She spends her days sharing about Him and encouraging Christians to be bold in their faith. Continue to pray for Nina and the Indonesians that she has impacted through her ministry.

The post Muslim Woman Becomes an Evangelist for Jesus first appeared on Pray For Indonesia.