Most Valuable Thing I Packed: a Y E S in my spirit

God, thank you so much for sending me to Indonesia and giving me the opportunity to serve and know those beautiful hearts! Aaaa, I’m tearing up. Ministry partners, thank you for allowing God to provide and care for me through you and for me to receive spiritual insight to connect with people through the devotion of your prayers. We lived and served at a school for low-income families called Ya Ya Sankita (meaning Foundation). From helping and finding ways to connect with the students and teachers during class, to organizing a health clinic for people who couldn’t access professional healthcare, to spending a weekend doing life with a Muslim family, to encouraging and learning from the Christians actively loving their Muslim neighbors, to hosting a women’s event affirming their worth and how much their loved, to receiving random acts of kindness from the patrol officer who always helped us cross the street and the barista guy who wrote kind notes on our tea and the laundry cleaning shop women who washed, dried, ironed, sprayed perfume on our laundry, gently folded it, and wrapped it in clear wrap! I just want to jump up and down in front of each of you reading this, waving my hands like a fool, and say, “And that’s not all folks! THERE’S MORE!” 

Women’s Event

We cooked and fed the women a Western-styled meal of fried chicken, corn, and mashed potatoes—having fun relating their awkwardness tasting and eating it to how us foreigners feel eating Indonesian food! My team prayed for a word for each teacher the night before, wrote it on a nametag in Indonesian, and wrote on the back the description of the word and how God delights in that characteristic they possess. I felt joy and a glimpse of Heaven when each Muslim teacher stood up (beaming, by the way) and introduced themselves using their nametags after the meal: “Hallo! My name is Irma, and I am bold.” “Hallo! My name is Oki, and I am beloved.” “Hallo, my name is Maria, and I am  joyful.” “Hallo! My name is Amely, and I am warm-hearted.” We played an M&M game where each color corresponded with a question and charades—which was HILARIOUS! They got so competitive!!

Dessi’s birthday

Our host, Dessi’s, birthday happened to land on our last day in Indonesia—she turned 38! We were able to attend a special lunch the teachers planned for her, and then have our own private celebration with her and our translator (Christina) that doubled as a farewell party. Dessi was ALWAYS WITH US, even though she didn’t live at the school. She was there when we woke up in the morning wanting to know how we were feeling, and she was there as we were blowing up our inflatable mattresses getting ready for bed and reflecting with each of us about our day. Something I’ll always remember about her, is out of nowhere, anytime, she would put her hands on both my shoulders and say, “Kaitwin. I lofffe you,” with the most genuine and loving smile. None of us ever doubted how much she loved us. WOW, I ALREADY MISS HER! Dessi was a prime example of the Proverbs 31 woman, for us women to learn from.

Final Short Stories

Halfway through Dessi’s party, a staff member interrupted it to tell us someone had arrived at the door downstairs and wanted to say goodbye to us foreigners. We were confused because we hadn’t been expecting anyone, but discovered that several of my teammates had talked to some women in passing the other day on their way to the store, and those same women were so touched by their conversation that they asked around to see where we lived to tell us how much that conversation touched them. WOW!

At Bible study the next morning, the teachers were expressing their gratitude one by one, and one Muslim teacher who had been very reserved—when it was her turn—looked over at us and started sobbing. She wrote her words into Google Translate (because she didn’t speak English), but she was determined to speak her message in English to us. As she wept and stumbled over pronunciations, she told us that she was going to miss us so much because she had never experienced that kind of loving friendship and care before. The last few weeks had been some of the happiest ever for her! She loved us, and wanted us to keep sharing “THAT love” with others as we continue our journey.

A Muslim teacher, Fina, whom we had gotten to know, and who had her baby during our stay, invited us to visit her family the morning of the day we left. She let us hold her baby, and we asked her family if we could pray for anything for them. The parents needed prayer for health and business success, so we got to pray over them. Their faces beamed with gratitude and hope!

Spiritual Eyesight

I cannot emphasize enough how powerful your prayers are. Many of you were praying for me to have more spiritual discernment last month—and each week my eyes were opened to 1. hidden injustice, poverty, abuse and 2. demonic activity, deception, and spiritual enslavement. I wear ear plugs every night to sleep through the loud traffic and prayer calls, but the last week I started pulling them out while I was sleeping. I would have a demonic nightmare (as I listened to the prayer call in my sleep) and wake up while the prayer to “Allah” was still going on and be so fearful. I would spend the next hour praying for protection over myself, the room, and that Jesus would personally encounter all the voices involved in the prayer call. This happened every night for 5 nights… and I received the same message from each dream through different forms. Finally I had a nightmare that made me so afraid, that I told my team and had them pray over me. Sharing the nightmares with my team caused them to cease—extinguished their power to frighten me.

That night, I decided to try something different. Instead of ear plugs, I put in my headphones and listened to the Bible on audio starting in Romans. At some point, again, I pulled out my headphones, and woke just as the prayer call was starting. Refusing to live through that cycle again, I put my headphones back in and was determined to fall back to sleep. But as soon as I put them in, the narrator was reading in Galations 4 about Hagar and Sarah. He read the verses about Sarah’s children being free, and Hagar’s children being born enslaved. I realized God wanted me to spend my last night in Indonesia praying over the freedom of people following Islam. I woke up my team leader, and we prayed together.  

I felt God’s love for those who are “enslaved” so clearly and strongly communicated to me that night. The week before and in my last post, I was feeling discouraged about not doing enough or not taking enough risks to talk about Jesus. But I learned a very important life lesson this month. Missions is saying “y e s” every time the Lord tells me to do something and ministry is wherever I am with whoever I’m with. Therefore, even the smallest encounter or the smallest act of service done in love, is furthering God’s kingdom. If I have done what the Lord asked me to do this month, then I have been a faithful servant, and should move on shamelessly to the next place and people God has prepared for me to love.

It’s hard. Falling in love with people, my heart breaking for them to know God, and not getting to see them fully grasp it. I won’t get to see that moment, but someone else will. I won’t always get to be the person who plants the seed AND sees the harvest. That’s sad, and my heart feels tugged at when I try to detach it from THAT mission in Indonesia. I was completely focused and devoted.

But a huge part of missions is surrender. Entrusting back to God what He has given me. He gave me this last precious month with these people. And now, I entrust it back to Him, renewed my mind and heart during debrief, and will open it widely again to Malaysia. When God woke me to pray over the Islam population that last night, it revealed to me that even though I have a lot of love for those people, His love is still far more expansive for them. That even at 3 AM in the morning, He is thinking about them, while I’m sleeping. He comforted me that even though I’m leaving, He is not leaving, and His plan will never cease to pursue them and adopt them into His family. Thanks God. Thanks for only asking of me, to have a y e s in my spirit toward You. I trust Your character, and thanks for letting me be a part of Your plans for Indonesia.

Prayer Requests:

• Praise that many people’s lives were touched by God’s love during our squad’s month in Indonesia!
• Praise that we made it safely to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! We had several days of debrief there, and are now in our volunteer location in Georgetown on the island of Penang.
• Praise God for a HOT shower at our hostel (during debrief)! I have never longed for comfort as much as I was praying for a hot shower that first morning—knowing full well that my hope was unfounded. But when I turned the knob, hot water came out, and I sobbed because I was so happy!
• For our Indonesian friends to not grieve but be thankful for the time we had together. That their hearts would not harden because of our departure, but would remain open for the next WR team to love and encourage them!
• Since we arrived in Georgetown, I’ve been feeling slightly dizzy. It may be the 10+ degrees added to the temperature, or sensory overload walking through Little India. Please pray that dizziness/nausea would leave, and my body would feel balanced again. Thank you!! 
• That our team would immediately be ready for opportunities to share our stories and why we’re here with locals! Just finding our individual niche/role here, and being ready to say “yes” to whatever God asks! 

Also! Oh my goodness, you all have been rockstars with interacting with my blog posts and supporting me through prayer AND sending encouraging truth my way! I just wanna give ya’ll a high five and a big hug! It means so much to me and I have missed interacting with you all since it was difficult to find WiFi to post this last blog! I do not have WiFi in my new location, but I will go to a coffee shop every Sunday (for Sabbath) and be able to write and reply to messages then. Ask all the questions! I love hearing from each of you so much! The video I’m making for Indonesia is taking longer because of no WiFi, so in the meantime please watch this summary video a different team on my squad made—they were doing ministry in the jungles of Indonesia! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9fZA6GVd_f4