Mission trip to Pontianak

I just came home from a mission trip to Pontianak. We spend more than half of our waking hours on the bus, traveling through roads with many pot-holes. But it was worth all the efforts because we experience what it was like for God to use ordinary people like us to touch lives with His love.

We had several evangelistic meetings where we shared about God's love and salvation plans through skids, puppet shows and messages. On Saturday, from 8am -4pm we ran a clinic with 2 doctors and many others assisting in registering the patients, measuring their blood pressure, giving them medicines and praying for them that God will heal them. It was an awesome time. About 250 people came to the clinic and they were so grateful to receive free medical treatment. Most of them cannot afford to pay to see a doctor in Indonesia, even at the government hospital. Many have illnesses such as uncontrolled high blood pressure and no one has helped them to understand that they must be on continuous medication to keep it under control. They keep wondering why they are not healed after a course of medication. Our doctors tried their best to explain all this to them and I believe they understand better now and hopefully they will keep on taking their medication.

Many among the patients are malnourished and they were so happy to receive the free vitamins we gave them. We also gave deworming medicine to every child that came to us. We were so glad when we heard that many non-believers were willing to be prayed for by the leaders of the church where we set up clinic. A number of them received Christ as their Saviour and came to the worship service the next day! Glory be to God! It is wonderful to have this partnership with each other and with God for the extension of His Kingdom here on earth!

Our visit to the orphanage was also very fruitful. All 24 orphans there prayed to receive Christ as their Saviour! We gave them Christmas gifts and soft toys and it was so good to see their faces light up when they receive them. We also left a lot of medicines for the the local doctor(who is a member of their church)to prescribe to them whenever necessary. It was so touching when they sang us songs about how their lives have been transformed since they came to the orphanage - how worthless they felt before and how they now know that they are precious in God's sight and they are filled with much joy!