It is hard for me to believe that it has been almost two months already since I returned to the States from last summer’s trip to Indonesia. Most of my days are spent working for Arrick’s Propane, out of the Clarktown, Ohio office and many evenings and all Sundays are centered around activities at my home church, Grace Baptist.
I have settled back into teaching the teen Sunday School class, as well as helping with the van route and continuing my service as a deacon…
In some respects not much has changed, being back in southern Ohio.
But I have changed, maybe not so much on the outside, but my priorities and the direction for my life have shifted greatly in two areas since I left at the beginning of the summer.
The first is in the area of long term career kind of stuff. Before I left (and this may surprise some of you) I was seriously considering making this my last trip to Indonesia and settling down in to a “normal” kind of life.
There are lots of reasons I felt this way, some good some maybe not so good….but none of them matter now.
Through the experiences of this summer’s trip (which you have read most of…although I STILL have a few more stories to tell, and I will….promise) have made it abundantly clear that God’s place for me in serving Him is in Indonesia.
To that end I am now in the beginning stages of applying to become a member of WBT. This is a long and involved process of paperwork and interviews and training. Please pray for me as I move through the process and prepare for full time service.
The second area is even more amazing than the first. I have met many wonderful believers in Indonesia. They have become my friends, my brothers and my sisters. It is such a wonderful comfort to walk in a strange land and find friendly familiar faces. Through these friendships I have been changed and molded to be more like Christ, and have learned so much about Indonesia, its culture, its language and how people follow Christ there. Among the Indonesian believers that has influenced me most was Helen Maria Rumetor, the assistant leader of last year’s trip who came back this summer to teach Indonesian to this year’s team. Her and I kept up correspondence in the year between Discovery trips, and became very good friends over the course of the 2006 trip and the months that followed.
We continued our friendship during this past summer, and at the end of Discovery after a lot of prayer and consideration of many things (and a good bit of teasing from mutual friends) we felt that God was leading us to start a relationship. The circumstances by which God brought this about still amaze and surprise me. While staying in Jakarta after the Discovery trip was over, Helen and I began to seek whether God was leading us to commit our lives to each other as well as to Him. This was confirmed in our hearts through prayer, friends, mentors and our families, and so during my last week in Jakarta, Helen And I became engaged (in the Western sense)
Helen’s family is ethnically Chinese and we wanted to honor the traditions and views of her extended family, a mutual friend approached Helen’s family for mine, and proposed the formal engagement in the traditional way in September. This offer of engagement was accepted by Helen and her family and has been celebrated by her relatives and by mine.
Having Helen as part of my life has been a tremendous blessing from the Lord. Her love of Him and desire to serve Him are an encouragement to me and her desire to bring the Scriptures and the Gospel to more of the unreached peoples challenge me. There are not words to describe how grateful I am to God for brining us together.
Helen is currently in Indonesia preparing for her field practicum for her membership in Kartidaya, the WBT affiliate in Indonesia. She will be spending a few months involved in a language project in the villages. Please pray for Helen’s support raising as she prepares to go, she must raise all the funds to cover her expenses for her missions practicum.
We are hoping that she will be able to travel to the US in February or March to meet my family and visit friends she has here from the last two Discovery trips. Please pray for the Visa process and the funds for the processing and travel. If our plans stay the same, we will return in May to be wed and will remain in Indonesia for the 2008 Discovery trip.
Our plans are just that…they are contingent on many things, our memberships, government officials, partnership development…but we know we have a Father whose plans are perfect and we are trusting Him to give us the wisdom to follow His path and to make the way for us to follow it.
Thanks so much for all your support and prayers, and please keep praying as this adventure is just getting started.