Medan, the last remarkable journey

Dear friends, family and prayer partners,

It’s been 5 weeks already. Fast, huh?! Yes, it is amazingly fast. Time flies, indeed! I am now back in Surabaya, with my parents, sister and brother. Tim and Tamara, the (ex) leaders of the team and also my colleagues are now staying in my house. They were really curious to the real life of Indonesian people in Surabaya 

Anyway,.. maybe I can share something about my last trip in Medan. It was a little bit of happiness and disappointment. Maybe you are curious why it was a disappointment. First, because I had expected something big would happen in Medan or Parapat (a city in North Sumatra where we attended a student retreat of IFES Indonesia). Since last year, I’d been praying for Sumatra. I didn’t know why I prayed for Sumatera in particular, yet, I had hoped that there would be ‘something’ in Sumatera when the team came. Hm,.. there were some ‘things’ but not as ‘amazing’ as I had expected.

Nevermind, I found our activities were quite cool, too! We went to the student retreat, where we met hundreds of students from many different part of Sumatera island. I heard a lot of stories about the struggles of students life in Sumatera. It was really hard. The topic for the retreat was the balance of study and ministry. It was quite ‘idealist’ topic, yet, it went really well. Our team shared something about student life in the Netherlands. Even though we didn’t share a lot of things, but I believe our presence, and most importantly God’s presence, at that moment was really helpful and courageous for a lot of people.

In this kind of situation, I, kind of, feel that it was sooo great! Every people, in many different nation, praise and worship the same King!! Awesome!

Oh yeah,.. I haven’t mentioned why I felt the trip to Medan was cool! First, because of the reason above. Second was because I met some new ‘crucial’ people that have played roles to build my character and insight about Christianity world. Steve, Sara and the baby Daniel, were really helpful and nice. They shared about their ministry in Medan. It was so cool how their stories were. I slept in their cutie, cozy, house. It was so cool! Sara could bake the most delicious chocolate-chips cookies. Yummy!!! Third, the most important one , was because we went to have relaxing days and de-briefing in Tuk-tuk (Samosir island, near Lake toba).

I thank God very much for bringing us to Tuk Tuk. It was so amazing how He revealed Himself in the middle of us. During the de-briefing, especially, we felt His presence. It was good that we did the de-briefing. We had to fill in some papers, but by doing that, we knew what lessons we have learned during the trip.

It was funny, too, because during those 5 days, there were A LOT OF THINGS happened. If I told you one by one, maybe, I would need 5 pages of A4 to write  There were a lot!

Another funny thing was that during our refreshing days, we went to Hotspring with motorcycles, and we had an accident. It was a long story, too, yet through that situation we’ve learned to be Christians for other non-believers by being wise in handling the situation. We learned to pray for our enemies, too.

I, personally, learned a lot about depending on God, stewardship. It seemed like God gave me a test, an exam, after I’d learned the theory about the stewardship for my preach a couple weeks a go.

During this trip, there were things opened and cleared in my love relationship with my current boyfriend.
Thank God, for that!

I learned about forgiveness and resolving a conflict in the group and with my past.

A lot,..

Thus,.. because Medan was the last city, and now I am already in Surabaya, I will stop write a report about my summer activities. Yet, I will certainly write the next newsletter when I get back from Indonesia in the end of August.

For now,… please pray for the commitments that I have made during the trip and also for a nice time with family and friends in Surabaya.

Enjoy your (summer) holiday,..

God Bless you all,..
Once again, thank you for all your prayers,..

Nia

Lampung

Dear friends, family, and colleague,

I am again in Jakarta today. I have been quite tired with all the trips, transport from one place to the others. Yet, I feel that I am really blessed with what happened lately. I felt God’s presence in the team, and especially in my life.

Last week we were in Lampung, in Imanuel Hospital Way Halim, Bandar Lampung. It was a precious moment there. Imanuel hospital is a mission hospital where the goal of the hospital in not for profit.

First day, we went to the patients with the evangelization team. We prayed for them. The teams do it everyday. They visit the patients, pray for them and also share the gospel. I’d never heard this kind of situation before. It is really special.

The first day was really interesting for me, because I HAD to pray for the patients. On the other hand, most of the other team members felt a little bit useless. They found difficult to communicate with the patients as well as with the workers. We prayed for it, because we know that it was Satan’s attack trying to defeat us.

The second day was very special. We started the day with prayer, like the day before. However, this day, we started not with visiting patients, but some of us went directly to the operation room, to see how the operations are. Joost and Karin went to the operation room. Four of us, I, Tamara, Magg, and Benjamin, went to see the management in the hospital. It was great! Tamara, Magg, and I could help them with our experiences and study. This second day was special because unexpectedly we were brought to the emergency room, and we saw three victims of the car accident: two children and a woman. Shortly, we prayed for them in the emergency room. Yet, the woman’s life couldn’t be spared; she passed away.

It was a big shock for us, especially me. I’d never seen that situation before.

Yet these two days we’ve learned to pray for others and dare to pray (the hospital is not only for Christians 90% are non-Christians).

On Saturday, we had a teaching about healings. Tim, Magg and Tamara had to speak. It was really good, although I noticed that it was quite a heavy subject. What amazing was that I prayed for someone for her brother’s sickness. First, I was the one who was really unconfident with praying for someone else, because I felt that I had no talent in healing. I was afraid. The team had prayed for me, for my fear. Amazingly, God used me 

On Sunday, one of us had to preach in the church, which is ME! Ups,.. I was really nervous at the first place. I’d prayed for this a couple days before. I felt that God can help me to do this. I can do this, with His help. The preach is about the stewardship: to give yourself, all aspects of your life, to God. Thus, I said about how good God is and based the teaching on Hebrews 11:8 about Abraham’s faith.

It was a precious moment, a really good experience.
I felt God’s leading. I realized that I could never do it by myself. Can you imagine, speaking in front of 100 people, adults and in the real church? Fewh,.. but really, God was working at that moment. Thank God that through my preach, a lot of people were touched. Thanks God!

Yesterday we had a free time!
We went to the beach and in the evening we had the bible study. Karin led the bible study. It was about Ephesians 6: Husbands and Wives – Relationship with others and God. I learned a lot about this topic.

Thank you for still thinking of me in your prayer. Thank you for supporting me in whatsoever.

Here are the prayer points:
1. Thank God for His blessings in the team, especially in finance and accommodation during our visit in Lampung.
2. Thank God that the team can be a blessing for others.
3. Thank God, too, for the good teachings in Lampung
4. Thank God also for He healed me from sea sick (I had no problem during the trip from Lampung-Jakarta)
5. Pray for our last trip to Medan, so that God will use us more and more.
6. Please pray for our health.
7. Also pray for the work of Imanuel Hospital and the lovely people there.

Thank you,

God bless you

Nia