(excerpt from published Global Prayer
Digest 2013, written by RA)
The year was 1866. Four young Dutch missionaries were
sailing through the Straits of Malacca. The intended port for these glory
bearers was present day Papua, Indonesia. Enroute to Papua they met a Christian
man named Moli. He appealed to the four missionaries to begin mission work in
the Maluku islands. They heard a “Macedonian Call” much like the one described
in Acts 16:6-12. Three of them, Hendrik van Dijken, T. F. Klaassen, and A. De
Bode, answered that call, changed their plans, and began a work in this area.
The work was slow and painstaking.
The first baptisms took place in 1874 when
they dedicated the first church. The growth of the church came after 1900 when a
perceived “new” missionary method was applied. People were baptized in groups
(households). This rapid growth began in Tobelo in 1898 and developed quickly
throughout the islands from 1900. “Perintis Injil” (pioneer of the gospel) reads
the inscription at the base of the present-day bronze statue that memorializes
Van Djiken’s obedience to Christ.
Several mango trees from that time period
shade the land where Van Djiken and his colleagues planted the gospel in the
Maluku area of Halmahera. Present day traditional churches are not making
disciplemakers, as Jesus commands for all disciples.
Pray for present day
remnant believers to transformed into disiciplemakers: to hear and respond to
God when He calls them to re-direct their efforts.
Pray for entire households of
unreached people groups to embrace Isa Al Masih (Jesus, the Messiah). Daniel
6:28 So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the
Persian. Scholars have estimated that Daniel was about 90 years old; he was
toward the end of his lifetime of civil service to a couple of regimes when he
experienced God’s miraculous protection in the lion’s den. God honored Daniel’s
faith and obedience and used him to bless Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, and
Persians.
We may confidently expect to enjoy fellowship together around the
throne of God with members of each of these ancient peoples, partly because of
what Daniel did. Daniel was faithful to his mission. Will Daniel be able to
enjoy fellowship at that same gathering with representatives of other people
groups because we too have been faithful to the task to which the Lord calls us?
Pray that God will give us the perseverance to serve Him well like Daniel of
old.
Missionary Biography, Continued.
Fast Forward to Today Only a short walk
from the present day tribute to the faithfulness of these three missionaries
lies a sharply contrasting memorial to a more recent story. From 1999 to 2002
one of the largest jihad efforts to eradicate the few Christians in this eastern
area of Indonesia was launched. This second and more recent memorial stands less
than 100 meters from the bronzed likeness of the first bearer of the gospel; two
divergent kingdoms are represented therein. The moss covered remains of a bombed
out church building chronicles the stark contrast between the transformational
power of the gospel and the cruelty and fallen-ness of man.
A mass grave
reflects a small representation of those who were killed at that time in the
conflict. This mass grave tells the tale of those who were eviscerated,
bludgeoned, decapitated, maimed, and hunted down by Laskar Jihad and other
Muslim terrorist groups. Many of their children were stolen and shipped back to
Java to be raised in Islamic boarding schools and madrasas. This has resulted in
a generation of stolen children and many eradicated families who dared to say
the name of Jesus.
The challenge is to finish what Hendrik Van Djiken and others
began by faith. The Lombok Riots of January 17, 2000, which targeted the few
Christians in this area, were incited by the violence unleashed in the Ambon,
Maluku, and Poso areas of Indonesia. Islamic solidarity and prowess expressed a
higher stakes commitment from that day forward. Pray for Muslim Indonesians to
understand God’s perspective on these two “monuments” offering such contrasting
spirituality.
Habakkuk 1:5 Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly
amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe,
even if you were told. It sometimes seems today that God is silent while the
wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves (1:13). But as we watch
the ebb and flow of international affairs through the centuries, we can be
confident that God is wisely and fairly working out His purposes until the earth
will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover
the sea (2:14). Those who lost their lives to Laskar Jihad did not die in vain.
God is using the blood of His martyrs in Indonesia, and all over the world.
Pray
for the nations to watch and understand what God is doing in Indonesia, even
when it involves tragedy.
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