“PROJECT SUMBA”
Text:Ephesians 2: 1-10
Pastor Noel Anderson, First Presbyterian Church of Upland
v.10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
PROVIDENCE: Why We Are Here
In the Fall of 1996, I was the brand-new pastor at Michillinda Presbyterian Church in Pasadena. My second Sunday there, after worship, a rather distinguished, professional, Indonesian man pulled me aside on the patio. He said, “When me and my family moved here, we joined this Presbyterian church because that’s what the evangelical churches in Indonesia are. After we joined, we found out there were almost twenty, Indonesian-language churches in the area. I don’t really know why we are here? ” I could tell he was letting me know that with the arrival of a new pastor, this seemed a good time to cut loose and gather with other Indonesians for worship.
I’m a big believer in providence. Providence is God’s foresight and care; God’s plan and provision for his people and world. I was moved to say to him, “Jack, I don’t know why you’re here, either. I don’t really know why I’m here. But God knows, and trust me, there is a reason why you and I are here.” At one level, I just wanted him and his family to stay; I didn’t want to psychologically give him permission to go. But at a deeper level, I really believed it. God had him and I together at little Michillinda for a purpose. Our role was to discover that purpose and walk into it.
Ephesians 2:10 says it beautifully:
For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
This is God’s providence: that he has created good works out ahead of us and it is our calling to walk into them and fulfill them. That proved itself true sooner than either of us could have expected.
MISSION: Pray for an Unreached People
It was the next mission committee meeting that I challenged the team to find one of the world's "unreached peoples”—that is, a tribe or ethnic group that had never heard the Gospel in their own language. There are several parachurch organizations that can help local congregations connect to the names of such groups, and we started looking for one to call our own. We felt it would be a healthy thing for Michillinda—a church of 120 members—to connect with front line evangelism, if only as a prayer concern. The plan was to locate an "unreached language group" to adopt as a prayer concern.
Jack suggested we considerIndonesia, in part because he is Indonesian, but also due the richness of unreached micro-cultures and people groups there.
Indonesia holds claim to the title of "most Islamic country in the world". 200 million people in Indonesia claim Islam as their faith (I'm led to understand that that's more Moslems that the Arab states combined).) Jack was born on the island of Sumba, so we decided to check there first.
SUMBA STATISTICS
The Island of Sumba:
• Population: 500,000
• Size: 200miles X 100 miles
• 130,000 inhabitants still Marapu worshipers
Jack and I met with Michael Boyland, the Director of the Presbyterian Center for World Missions, who opened up his official "unreached peoples" guide, which revealed eight unreached language groups on Sumba alone! But Jack smiled broadly and gently corrected that figure: "No, there are sixteen." He then proceeded to name these uncharted, unreached language-groups off the top of his head. The director's jaw fell open; he began scribbling these names into the margin beside the little map of Sumba.
We started simply, by writing letters to the Indonesian government explaining our desire to create a sister-church relationship with a congregation in Sumba. In undertaking these advances, we had low expectations. My attitude was: “Let’s try—if they say no, then no big deal—we just keep praying for them.” As it turned out, every door we knocked upon opened to us. Not only that, but like the introduction to Get Smart, several sets of doors opened and a red carpet came rolling toward us. This is one of the ways we knew God was at work.
As it turned out, the “Minister of Religion” for the province of Indonesia including Sumba just happened to be an old classmate of Jack’s. We were amazed. Not only did he approve of a sister-church relationship (a unique one, by the way), but he said he would agree to the arrangement with one condition: that we adopt two churches instead of just one. This turned out to be another miracle of timing. According to Boyland, it was as though we had fired a bullet at a camera aperature only to have it open for the bullet and shut immediately after. it was just six weeks later that Jack’s old schoolmate was removed from his post and replaced by a Muslim Minister of Religion.
We began raising money for Bibles, hymnals, and gospel-tracts—all in Sumbanese. We sent hundreds of each directly to our two sister churches who used them in their outreach. We weren’t sure about what we needed to do next, but God’s timing took care of that.
In 1997, the Asian markets crashed. Food prices went through the r0of. We raised $2500 for a food bank to be based in our two congregations where Sumbans could buy rice at pre-inflated prices. Moneys went back to buying rice and back out to the people. It turns out our $2,500 kept nearly 4000 people fed through a period of months. Boyland later explained to us that this was also miraculous—a modern “multiplication of the loaves”—in terms of some dollars-to-people ratio understood by mission agencies.
Our two little sister congregations became the center of activity, and as people travelled there to buy rice, they also received the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
By February of 1998. they wrote us reporting some 2000 converts to Christ. Our two little congregations had each sprouted 12 new church developments! I received a letter addressed to “Bapa Noel” which apparently means “Father of the Island.” I asked Jack whether this was a good thing. He smiled, ‘Oh, yes!” In truth, he, Jack, was the Father of the Island; I was just along for the ride.
DEATH ON THE PLANE
We planned a trip—five of us (Jack Makonda, Bing Siswanto, Suzanne Reid, Terry Prentice, and me) would represent the church and visit Sumba. We paid to have a copy of the “Jesus Film” translated into Sumbanese and packed a projector with us. I brought a couple decent guitars and extra strings for each congregation. We looked pretty ridiculous in LAX with all our baggage, but we were on a mission from God, and we knew it.
The flight to Taipei takes 11 hours crossing the Pacific. About an hour into the flight, a somewhat nervous-sounding flight attendant came on the PA saying that there was a passenger on board in need of immediate medical assistance. I looked back, but there were three full sections of passengers behind(as well as one upstairs and the first class cabin ahead), but could see nothing. I kept reading my Indonesian phrase book.
After a few minutes, Bing came to my seat with a flight attendant. Bing felt the Holy Spirit calling him (and me) to help. We made our way back to the very back of the plane where a flurry of flight attendants buzzed around the rear passageway between aisles.
As it turns out, a 27-year-old man had committed suicide by strangulation in one of the lavatories. An open body bag lay across the rear center seats, and people all around were looking at me with sad, helpless faces. The flight attendants were no less shaken, and it occurred to me that people on a plane expect stewardesses to magically transform into nurses at the moment of a medical emergency. Oddly enough, they looked at me as though I were the doctor and they were awaiting my orders. Thank God, there was a real doctor caring for the dead man, who was presently out of view.
There were nearly 40 Chinese members of the same family traveling together—they all had blue windbreakers on—the young man was one of them. I looked around for anyone who might be crying, or who might just offer me that kind of eye-contact that says please help me. Bing located the family patriarch and we asked him if we could pray for him or anyone in his family. "No," he said, "we're Buddhists." I told him we would pray nonetheless. Bing and I returned to where Terry and Suzanne were seated and the four of us took hands and prayed there.
We prayed for the family members, for the young man, and for all the passengers who seemed anxious and bewildered. My last prayer was "Lord, we are your servants here, use us however you will." JUST THEN, a stewardess told me she needed help in the back. Bing and I were needed to help bag the dead man and carry him through two, large compartments of passengers and sit him in a lavatory in one of the passageways near the front of the plane. Bing, myself, and another man (I think he was the doctor) carried him through the plane in a pathetic procession through the narrow aisle amid gasps and horrified looks.
For the moment, the plane felt like the sanctuary of a church. We walked the body down the aisle as all the people looked on. How many times have I done this before? I was totally at peace with what we were doing, which surprised me. It occurred to me that a pastor was exactly what the plane needed at that time. This was the poor man's funeral service, and the congregation haplessly captive—seatbelts remained fastened—for the ceremony. God had answered our prayer to be used, and this service, though morbid, was my form of worship for the moment.
As we recovered from the moment, several flight attendants came to express their appreciation. Bing and I were bumped up to First Class(not normal first class, mind you, but James Bond First Class, with huge seats, four feet apart, that fully recline. I still didn't sleep.
FLIGHT TO SUMBA: That was close!
We arrived in Denpassar, Bali and planned to leave the next morning for the one-flight-per-week to Sumba. We spent the morning in money changing. It was like a parole hearing. I signed my name and passport number 90 times only to have them tell me that my signature had to match the signature on my passport (which had my full middle name signed, something I never do), so I had to re-sign all the checks to include my full name. We are pressed for time. The only bank in Denpasar that would exchange our American Express traveler's checks wouldn't do so until 11:00am. Our Flight was 12:30. We were in the bank until 12:10.
One of the most striking sensations was that of sitting in the front seat of a taxi on the "driver's" side. When we arrived by taxi at the airport, everyone was waiting for us. They waved us along as we ran through the airport. We jumped onto a shuttle that drove us down the tarmac to the plane. The props were spinning. We quickly climbed up the steps and the doors closed. We were taking off before any of us had caught our breath.
Suzanne said, “Wow! That was close? What if we would have missed this flight?” “Oh ye of little faith,” I said, “Why do you doubt? We are on a Mission from God!” This was funny because I was more stressed out than anyone else.
SUMBA: The Mission of God
We toured more than a dozen of the new church developments. Our host churches—in Kawangu and Prai Paha—had built new worship buildings (we had also raised $6000 for these). They wrote to us asking permission to name the buildings: 1.) Michillinda, and 2.) Pasadena. They liked the sound of the names and meant to honor us by them.
Each of the new churches (total of 24) were housed in makeshift bamboo huts the size of one of our transepts. Everywhere we went, we asked the same questions:
- How many people are attending services? The answer was never less than 200. I asked, “Where do you put everyone—this hut only holds about 50?” They said, “People stand around the building and worship from outside.”
- How many are you preparing for baptism? The answer was always between 60 and 200.
- How many in your community remain unreached? “Unreached” could include Catholics, Muslims, or Marapu worshipers.
Everywhere we went, the church leaders had precise numbers ready for us.
One particularly remote village, out on the edge of the island, was especially impressive. The church leader could have walked into Harvard Divinity School and not looked a bit out of place. When I got to question 3, he answered, “With those now preparing for baptism, that makes everyone.” Imagine: every single member of that community a follower of Christ with none left over!
AFTERMATH: Not without emptiness
A couple years later, I moved to a new call in Bakersfield. Where are those Sumba churches now? How have they grown? I’m sad to say I don’t know. We have lost touch and I can only pray that others have been called to pick up the mantle there.
But as I have been called here to Upland, I have an itching in my heart for a similar project. Our Serve Team does excellent work with our international projects in Peru, India, and Kenya. Even so, we are praying for a new project—one that would awaken the imaginations of new folks and younger generations. I, like them, long for all Christians to get a taste of that miraculous flow when you are drawn into a work of God.
God is truly at work in our world, and as we long to become part of God’s life, our ears and hearts are open to be called and deployed.
O Lord, where would you have us serve next? Where and how may we step forward in faithfulness? What doors are you readying to open? We know You have prepared good works before us for us to walk into and fulfill. Lead us, call us, send us; we are Yours. †
SOME QUESTIONS
- How and when have you experienced the calling of God?
- What natural resistances did you—or do you—feel at such a call?
- What is the difference between God’s call and one’s personal, well-intentioned ambitions?
- Why is it a little scary to pray that God may lead us to do something huge?
- Considering Ephesians 2:10, can you see how God sets good works before you in order that you may walk into them?
- If not, why not? What is the alternate perspective regarding one’s life events?
- How can we prepare ourselves to see these works ahead of us?
- How is praying for a mission different from praying for our own needs? ss