Through Gates of Splendor

Through gates of splendor is a book that chronicles the five missionaries served on Ecuador: Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, Nate Saint and Roger Youderian. It was written by Elisabeth Elliot – Jim’s wife, she wrote the book based on her recollection of the events as well as notes from the five men journals.

Ecuador consists of different tribes on Indian, here are some of them: the Jivaro indians (famous for their practice of head shrinking tradition), the Quichua, and the Athsuaras.

The five missionaries, initially served separately in different parts of Ecuador for few years. Jim and Ed were serving the Quichuas indians, Roger served with the Jivaro indians. Nate, the missionary pilot and his wife, manned the main post which is the hub that connects the missionaries. Indeed Nate’s job is transporting the missionaries, food and goods from the main station to the missionaries’ stations.

As time unfolds – they were led to reach to group of Indian called the Aucas. Jim and Ed had the vision of reaching them prior coming to Ecuador – and somehow God puts the same concern on the other 3 missionaries. And so they finally decided to leave their own ministries and join forces for the Aucas.

There are reasons why this tribe has not been reached with the gospel – this is a very hostile and violent group of people – murder and killing happens often.
Secondly they don’t settle on the one place for a long time – one of their customs is to abandon their home after a killing for fearing retribution. And a marred past with white people/foreigners who came and exploited them before didn’t help the case either.

Because no one knows where their exact location is – the first thing that they had to do is to actually find where they are. And so they set up a station near the territory that is known as the Auca territory for a couple months. During this time they minister to the indians around the area.

During this time they also periodically surveyed the territory for Auca settlements with Nate’s plane. And one day they finally found one settlement which was a great joy for them.

Again due to the nature the violence nature of the group – the missionaries can’t just walk up to them and say hello. They have to earn their trust first. And here’s how they do it – by doing gift droppings from the plane. Gift dropping is basically a practice where the missionaries fly over the Auca settlement with a basket tied under the plane – the basket is filled with various gifts that they think will be useful for the Aucas. One item of interest is the machetes – indeed machetes is the multi purpose tool that is very useful in the jungle.

So the git droppings continues to take place for few months. One day there were three Aucas came and visited them – this was the initial contact – and it was a great joy for the missionaries. Sadly though, just days after the initial contact, there was another visit by the Aucas – unfortunately this wasn’t a friendly visit like the first – the five missionaries were killed by the group of people that they were trying to reach.

That’s just short story on what happened but I’d like to encourage you to read the book yourselves – as it is very encouraging book to read. Because some of the parts is taken directly from the journals you’ll get a picture of what’s going on through the missionaries head, how they came to be called to serve in Ecuador, how they leave the good life behind, how they struggle, how they make decision etc.

Here is one of many deep insights from Jim’s letter to his parents as he finishes Junior college

There is no such thing as attainment in this life; as soon as one arrives at a long-coveted position he only jacks up his desire another notch or so and looks for higher achievement – a process which is ultimately suspended by the intervention of death. Life is truly likened to a rising vapour, coiling, evanescent, shifting.

How true is that.

There are some points that I took from the book:

  • Although the book was centred around the 5 missionaries – but I found it also highlights the character, godliness and conviction of their wives. You got the strong impression that the wives surely loved Jesus more than their husbands – otherwise how can they follow their husbands (some of them coming with their children), leaving the comfort life to reach people who are hostile to them and even allowing their dearest husbands knowing the ultimate price that they had to pay and indeed did they pay.
  • Missionary work is hard and a long process (needless to say). You don’t just land on a foreign land and start preaching the next day – no, there’s endless of preparation and logistic and when you are there you need to have a lot of patience to see the fruit of your labour – and sometimes it seems that there is little or no fruit – see Roger’s journal excerpt below.

This is taken from of Roger Youredian’s journal when he was struggling with the reality of missionary work:

A missionary plods through the first year or two thinking that things will be different when he speaks the language. He is baffled to find,frequently that they are not.
He is stripped of all that may be called ‘romance’. Day in unbroken succession; there are no crises, no mass conversions, sometimes not even one or two to whom he can point and say ‘There is a transformed life. If I had not come, he would never have known Christ’
There will be those among the Indians who say that they accept Christ, but what of the forsaking of the heathen custom and turning from sin to a life of holiness? The ministry watches, and longs and his heart sickens.


Reflecting on Luke 8:22-56

At GFI, we are looking at Luke 8:22-56 today (faithfully explained by Pastor Charles).

I was firstly reminded of the context of the world back then at Jesus’ time. It was a world of fear.
And Jesus encountered 4 things (I’d call them 4 enemies of humanity) that cause human to fear.

The first one was the storm. The disciples were afraid for their lives and they woke Jesus up. Jesus rebuked the wind and the wave and then there was a calm. And the disciples were afraid of him.

The second enemy up is supernatural – the demons. The demons (many of them) have possession of a man for a number of years. When the man (and his demons) encountered Jesus – they recognized who he was, they were afraid that Jesus would annihilate them to the abyss and ask Jesus’ permission to go enter the herd of pigs instead. Jesus permitted them to do so. When the people saw what happened and furthermore found out that the man was well – they were afraid, afraid of Jesus. They even asked Jesus to leave – for they were seized with great fear (vs 37),

The third enemy up is sickness. The woman has been sick for 12 years. Upon touching Jesus’ garment she was healed. When Jesus asked who had touched him (his garment) – she came trembling before him.

The final enemy in this passage is death. Jairus’ daughter 12 years of age (not sure whether 12 years has some significance – given that the woman’s sickness was also 12 years long) was sick and finally died before Jesus arrived. Jesus brought her back to life. And her parents were amazed (vs 55).

When these things happened – it’s interesting to note that the original fears were not completely removed – but instead they were moved. In each occasion, the account ended with people marvelled at, amazed at and feared Jesus.

And rightly Jesus is to be feared. But for those who are on His side – Jesus will say “Fear not..” (Rev 1:17-18).

Jet and Matt Baptism

Jet and Matt were baptized last Sunday, 13/02/2011, among with other 3 other GFI children.

It was a humbling and a moving experience for us, we are now making our commitment to bring up our children as God’s children publicly. It was also a good reminder for me on what baptism really (in this case children baptism) means.

I’ve taken an excerpt from Baptism Service which I think does the explaining of children baptism really well (note: I’ve reformatted them slightly – emphasis are mine, I’ve also listed Jet and Matt not the other children):

Baptism: An explanation

Jesus said:

“Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.(Mark 10:14-16)

Children are baptised on the understanding that:

  1. They will be brought up as faithful followers of Jesus Christ, and that
  2. When they are old enough they will take upon themselves the promises that are made on their behalf.

Therefore, let us pray that God will grant to Jeremiah and Matthew that which by nature they do not have, that by the work of God’s Holy Spirit they may grow up to know the forgiveness of their sins, and to put their trust in the Saviour who laid down his life for them.

The meaning of the children baptism is simply summarized by the 2 points above, for us the parents to bring up as followers of Christ (our promises), with the hope that they themselves one day confess that Jesus is their Lord and Saviour.

Oh, how we long for that day to come.

The godparents were also making a promise, their promise is to pray and seek to encourage both Jet and Matt in the name of Jesus Christ. Kuku San is Jet’s godfather and I i Chen is Matt’s godmother.

And then the congregation prayed together.

We receive Jeremiah and Matthew into the congregation of Christ’s flock and pray that they will not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, but will bravely fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and continue as Christ’s faithful soldiers and servants until the end of their lives.

Amen.

Amen indeed.

IMG_3956 Matt got wet first.

IMG_3958Jet went next, Kuku San was supposed to hold him but he was so scared – so I had to hold him instead.

IMG_3959 See Jet, it wasn’t scary at all – it’s just water (from the rest room 🙂 ).

New Year New Changes

Pastor CEG announced some of the changes that will happen in Pelita this year.

First of, Pelita will no longer be called Pelita – but instead it’s (slowly) going to be called Gereja FOCUS Indonesia (or Indonesian?) or in English – FOCUS Indonesian Church. This name is more aligned to the other congregation names such as FOCUS Mandarin and FOCUS Cantonese and I guess it will make it easier for us to identify ourselves with our mothership ie: FOCUS.

It looks like that we need to secure a new domain name soon.

Another big change is around graduate ministry, it looks like there will be a considerable attention for the graduates starting this year. One of the graduate ministry initiatives is this 3 years Graduate Program. I don’t exactly understand the details – but it is aimed to prepare graduates for the rest of their life. Sounds like a good idea, although it does sound a little bit too abstract for me at the moment. 

Ah yes, another set of changes in church and I think it’s great. I do hope and pray – the changes will turn out to be positive for the Kingdom work.

Thoughts on Pornography

I had lunch with a couple of guys last week and I had a really rough time then. I do love having lunch with this bunch. However this lunch last week was particularly bad. The group just went on and on with porn discussion – for the whole lunch hour!

It was started by a comment on how the women are starting to bare more skin (now that summer has come). The conversation spiraled down quickly to lustful discussion of women and all kinds of porn. I felt really troubled with the topic being discussed and was very upset at the fact that I did not do anything about it.

Though I wasn’t actively participating – I DID stay and listened AND not saying any objection whatsoever. I am angry at my own silence. They did notice that I was quiet and they thought I was just being shy. Did I say why I was uncomfortable? No. I should have said that I was uncomfortable or I could have just walked away.

Yes, the relationship between me and the group might be strained after that, but so what? I really hate this part of myself, on always trying to please everyone and avoiding conflicts. So why was I uncomfortable? Continue reading