Ally's Observations & The Indonesians (Vol. 32)

Last night Create International hosted an event which invited ministries from all over the city who were encouraged hearing stories of what God is doing all over the world. We were spellbound as one missionary told us of the growth in the Mongolian church from four teenage girls in the early 90's to hundreds of thousands today. Mongolia now sends the highest percentage of missionaries per capita of any country in the world.

Another man told us about what he believes is the call on Pacific Islanders to sweep through Asia and the Muslim world. Islanders are gregarious, fun and relational: just the perfect witness type for our relational brothers and sisters in Islam. Men and women from Tonga, Samoa and the Hawaiian Islands are answering that call and bringing in the harvest.

A South African mobilizer recalled Gandhi’s famous quote regarding Christians in South Africa, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” South Africans, he said, had the opportunity to influence Gandhi for Jesus. Now workers from South Africa are being raised up with an anointing to influence the hardest, least reached people groups of India. We watched a video of men and women visibly possessed by evil spirits who mutilated their bodies and walked unscathed across a pit of coals heated to 800 degrees in a Hindu fire-walk ritual. Praise God for how he is raising up more workers to speak life and freedom into that darkness.

A speaker from the Hawaiian Islands talked about contextualization – a favorite topic here at Create! He asked us to imagine our perfect mate proposing marriage. Now imagine this unexpected follow up: “I love you,” says your perspective mate, “but I'm really embarrassed by how you dress. Here's a list of approved designers.” You catch your breath in surprise. “Mmhmm,” he continues, “and your hair. We'll have to talk about that, too.” Now you're starting to get annoyed. “One more thing. The music you listen to. Forget it. I have a selection of CDs you can choose from.” How loved do you feel now?

There is a great need to redeem and reclaim the varied cultures of the world for Christ. In many places, the enemy has hijacked the distinctive qualities of a people group: music, dance, theatre, acts of devotion. An enemy who cannot create but can only steal has set his sights on the very best reflections of God's character. We are blessed to work in a ministry that searches out the parts of a culture that defines them but also points to the uncreated Creator God who loves them and made a plan of salvation for them.

As I write this, Steve is in Indonesia doing just that for an unreached Muslim people group. This trip is an opportunity to serve God that you have made possible because of your partnership with us. Thank you for your prayers for this project, we are pleased to report that production has been going very well.

God loves these people very much and sincerely wants them to know Him as we know Him. These photos are some of the people that Steve has met in Indonesia, people longing to know God. Thank you for your faithful prayers, generous support and your timely financial contributions that continue to fund the creation of these culture-affirming, life-giving, people-saving evangelistic films. Your contributions to this work are making an eternal difference in the lives of people like these. God bless you for making a substantial, eternal difference in their lives.

Pray:

* for the peoples of Indonesia to have more opportunities to hear about Jesus

* this project is successful in sharing God’s story through this culturally-appropriate film

* that post-production will go smoothly down in Australia with our team in Perth

* local ministries will find indigenous workers to help translate the movie into other local dialects for more widespread distribution of this gospel movie

* God will send more workers to the 196 primarily Muslim remaining unreached people groups of Indonesia.

We also have some upcoming needs that we would like you to pray for. The girls in the family have to travel back to the U.S. this summer to renew our yearly visas. And to see Samuel, whom we miss a lot! At the same time, Steve will be preparing a new set of international students to go on an overseas outreach (possibly to India) for another evangelistic film project. All this travel adds up quickly and we will need several thousand dollars above our current budget to meet all these goals. Thank you for your prayerful consideration.

Bless you all and Happy Easter!