Miracles!

[Leonard]

Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 21:32:19 -0400

From: David Virtue <david@VIRTUEONLINE.ORG>

Subject: SIGNS AND WONDERS IN INDONESIA

SIGNS AND WONDERS IN INDONESIA

By David W. Virtue

ON THE INDONESIAN BORDER. Pastor Choo, (not her real name) has seen

miraculous occurrences take place before her very eyes.

On the Island of Tarakan off the coast of Indonesia a woman gives birth

and suddenly is crippled, her hands and feet cease to function, she

becomes mentally disturbed and she can no longer speak. Over the next

two months she sells off all her jewelry to pay doctors, hospitals,

numerous witch doctors, invoking family gods looking for a cure. She is

a Buddhist. Nothing happens. She can no longer take care of the baby.

The doctors finally say they cannot help her. She and her family lose

hope. She lives in a Kampong (village) some distance from Tarakan.

Then she hears about some Anglican missionaries who have come from

Malaysia that are meeting in a house. Perhaps they can help her. She is

brought to the house where members of the church begin to pray over her.

After prayer and counseling over many days she begins to improve. On the

5th day she is taught to call on the name of Jesus. She is still not a

believer, but she does what she is told. Within hours she is completely

healed. She confesses Christ. Her baby is restored to her.

A man in the village cannot sleep; the pain in his shoulders will not go

away. He goes to Singapore to see the best doctors, but the pain

continues. He returns to Tarakan and contemplates suicide. He hears

about some missionaries from Malaysia in his Kampong. Pastor Choo: "We

went to sing carols in his house. He invites us in. He tells us about

the terrible pains he is having; we lay hands on him and pray for him.

He is suddenly healed and confesses Christ."

These stories could be multiplied over and over.

For Pastor Choo a diminutive Chinese lady with a brilliant, radiant

smile, this is normal. It is First Century Christianity in operation.

She is a missionary who heeded the call from the Anglican Church in

Sabah to reach out beyond the borders of Malaysia to the Chinese

community dotted throughout Indonesia and its myriad islands, in the

most densely populated Islamic nation on earth.

"I prayed. I asked God if it was me He wanted to serve Him. I was living

in Tawau, Sabah serving the Lord in the Chinese community there. It was

safe and comfortable, but the call went out from our Archdeacon Albert

Vun to reach out beyond our borders. I felt God was saying to me go."

"Tarakan is an island in Indonesia, you can get there from Tawau in

Malaysia by ferry in three hours, but it is a different world," she told

VirtueOnline.

Though not ordained she is recognized as a pastor by the Anglican

Diocese of Sabah. The Anglican Church (CMS) is recognized by the

Indonesian government and has a 100-year history mostly for ex-pats but

it has not been doing evangelism. The church is kept artificially alive

but there is no gospel being preached, said Pastor Choo.

"I was in charge of the Chinese zone in Tawau, but we were given a

vision in the year 2,000 to reach out to Indonesia. A vision was born.

When the archdeacon issued the challenge I prayed and after getting

peace I decided to go."

Pastor Choo made two missionary trips to spy out the land and to see if

there was a specific place God was calling them too.

"On a secondary missionary trip a businessman joined us and we met a

Taiwanese missionary in Tarakan who had been working there for 10 years

and he confirmed that a Chinese speaking church was possible and

necessary in Tarakan."

"We immediately scouted out for a building to establish a house church.

God led us to a brand new house that was big enough to worship and

praise Him in and as a place for us to live."

"We needed another miracle. We needed money. Many times I pray for

money. We needed 20,000 Ringgit (Malaysian dollars) about $5,000 (US)

but we did not have it. A businessman who exports prawns to the US and

Japan came through with the money after learning that his containers

were being rejected and the government wanted to destroy them all. He

asked that we pray that the containers not be destroyed but returned to

him. He said he would give us a donation if the containers were returned

in one piece. We all prayed they would be returned to him. They were. He

then gave us the 20,000 Ringgit for one year's rental."

"I returned to Tawau with the good news that we had made a start. I then

lead a team of four back to Tarakan in August 2000. One of the men on

the team was a businessman and he paid the rent for two more years. All

the signs were telling us that God wanted us to start the work

immediately."

We had a vision and only one friend on Tarakan, now we had to find a way

to introduce ourselves to the Chinese people, said Pastor Choo.

"In the Chinese calendar it was Moon Cake, but these were not available

in Tarakan so we brought 200 boxes of Moon Cake to Tarakan to the

Chinese speaking people and we went from house to house and give them

the moon cake and invited them to our first Sunday service. On August

15, 2000 we held our first service and two elderly Chinese men in their

70s came. They were not Christians. On the first Sunday they received

Jesus."

Pastor Choo said they kept on doing evangelism, going from house to

house on the island of Tarakan with its population of 150,000. "We knew

that about 10 percent were Chinese. Slowly we made new converts. We had

a team of four and after several months of evangelism two women stayed

and two left."

"We concentrated on evangelism using ALPHA and nurturing every new

believer. Prayer was our priority. When people got converted, and if

they could read, we gave them a copy of the whole bible in the

Indonesian language."

From two men at the first service the church started to grow. "By the

end of 2004 we had a weekly attendance of 200." They have called their

house church, The Church of Christ, Cornerstone. The first Anglican

Church in Eastern Indonesia was open for business.

"We have had Pentecost experiences here. Sometimes the Holy Spirit fills

the whole person and people are set free from spiritual bondages and

receive the gift of speaking in tongues. God is using ordinary people to

fulfill his purposes," she said.

Choo said that because of the new immigration laws in Malaysia some of

the Indonesian workers who live in Sabah have been compelled to return

to Indonesia when their visas run out. Many have become Christians in

Sabah and so they bring the gospel back with them. That is helping the

Church to grow in Indonesia, she said.

God has continued to give her a vision for how to move forward. "We

start small cell groups; we mobilize the church with intense Bible

studies. We have started a school so we can get a visa for a year. We

can come in as English teachers."

But Choo attributes the greatest growth of the church to prayer. "We

encourage people to pray, pray, pray, to build up their lives with

prayer and devotion to God. We emphasize speaking and teaching the truth

without compromise."

Chinese culture, she says, is steeped in traditional bondage. "We are

not allowed to conduct funeral services. We have learned that as we

honor God, God honors us. We will never compromise with syncretism. It

is Jesus or nothing."

Choo has developed a group of Chinese businessman, 40-plus in ages who

want to move aggressively to spread the gospel throughout Indonesia.

"The Chinese people do not convert easily to Christ." She describes how

her treasurer first accepted the Moon Cake but would not accept Jesus.

"We kept on praying for him. He read through the Bible six times in less

than four years. He finally got converted," she said with a smile. "We

prayed and God answered our prayers in His timing."

Pastor Choo said Cornerstone will be a sending church. "There is no full

time Chinese pastor at the present time. The first Chinese vicar passed

away. We hope to have a full time Chinese pastor by 2006."

Other churches were not keen to do evangelism, but after we started our

church it awakened other churches in Tarakan, said Choo.

"We took a leap of faith, other churches looked the other way at the way

we worshipped, but then they began to imitate us even in simple things

like the ethical way we did our banking. Some of the bank managers were

impressed and came to our church. We had strict accountability."

"Our purpose now is to contribute to the education of young people and

we have started an English play school. We are also planning to have

youth workers and send them to Bible school. My heart's desire it to

produce our first pastor. The harvest is ready from the crops. God is

raising up leaders and we have two youth workers and we will recruit

another one in June to send to Bible school."

Choo says the most important thing is to get a godly vision then you

know your direction and you can work out your vision. "You always need a

vision, and we have one for the Chinese people of Indonesia."

We are sending out missionary teams two by two. We are beginning to

conduct revival meetings in homes, not churches. In one day we saw three

receive Jesus and five reaffirm their faith. We see miracles taking

place and people are delivered from evil spirits and spiritual bondage."

For myself I am very thankful to God for my four years in Tarakan. I

have gained so much experience that I would never have gained if I had

not stepped out in faith."

Choo is still based in Tarakan where she can only stay for 30 days and

then must return to Tawau. "It is a privilege to enter the mission

field. Tarakan is a mission field. I have never seen so many miracles

happen in the last five years. God is doing a new thing; people are

being converted and filled with the Holy Spirit. We are hoping for

revival and a great harvest of souls for Indonesia."

FOOTNOTE: Owing to the delicate political situation in Indonesia Pastor

Choo must remain anonymous.

END

[nebula]

That is so cool!!!

[Gerioke]

I went to an Anglican church once with a group of friends who were born again. The Anglican minister looked at us and told us they don't believe in the bible word for word and pretty much gave us the impression that we weren't welcome there.

That left me with the impression that they didn't believe in the power of the Holy Spirit.???