Highlights of our Third Term

These are some of the big pieces of our last term. In between is a lot of daily life, homeschool, and mundane. But truly, we are so grateful for the past three years in Indonesia. Most sections below include a gallery of photos you can click through.

Staff Retreat

When we got back to Indonesia in early 2022, we jumped in with both feet and soon left on a tour retreat with the entire staff of the college where we work. The place we went is considered by National Geographic to be an incredible spot for marine diversity, diving, and snorkeling. Tourists come from around the world to see it for that reason, so it was fascinating to go there Indonesia-style, staying in hostels, eating all Indonesian food, and long periods of patiently sitting in the sun waiting for things to happen for long periods.

It was such a bonding time with our seminary community. Hilarious, too, because some of our co-workers had never been on an airplane (gasps and audible praise at landing) and others were raised in mountain villages and were terrified of the water (clinging in fear to the poles in the boat). There was much laughter, beautiful times of worship, and group planning and discussion. Our neighbor was unable to attend, so we supervised her other son, Judah's good friend, as we traveled. That made us feel like trusted members of the community.

We have a team!

We had returned for this term unsure if we would have teammates in town with us this term, and having experienced intense cultural isolation in the previous term. What a gift that within a couple of months our teammates, the Cochran family, received their visa and were finally able to come to Manokwari. Another family, the Carrs, decided to move to our town from elsewhere in Indonesia. That the Lord provided our three-family team for this term was such a gift. All of us are good friends: the women, the men, and the kids. This group was such a huge joy and support over the term, and they make it possible for our kids to thrive in Manokwari. It's also enabled a deeper partnership with local folks and diversified the type of work we are able to do. How cool to see different gifts being used and celebrate with each other.

Nohon Visit

Isaac was able to go across the island to visit our former student, Nimbrot, in the Auyu tribal area at the village of Nohon. He had to fly on two commercial flights, a float plane, and finally a speed boat to get there. Nimbrot has started a training school in the area, and Isaac was able to teach a course at the school while he was there. We had heard how spiritually depleted these areas in the south were, but now Isaac took such joy in seeing the spiritual hunger and vitality in the area. Now, two years later, more recent graduates have gone to join Nimbrot's work, and he has appointed each of them to a little church plant. Over the Christmas season they sent photos and reports of over 150 baptisms in the area.

Church and Sunday School

We have always appreciated the Papuan church that we go to. This term Kacie taught Sunday school reguarly, helping them shift the program from 40 kids of all ages in one small and stuffy room to classes divided by ages with more intentional teaching. Isaac still preaches once a quarter and Kacie also attends the ladies group. I wish I could bring you into our church for the worship time. It's such joyful clapping and swaying that Isaac's watch always asks him if he wants to register a workout. It is a diverse community that represents many people groups from across Indonesia and Papua.

This term our church wrestled with a number of young people from our community meeting and marrying people outside of the church that were interested in Christianity. It was fascinating to watch the process of discipleship and marrying (providing affordable weddings is a community service here), and sometimes having members of the church become a new family for the new believer. In one case an elder and his wife took in a young woman to live with them for months so that she could become their daughter and be discipled before marrying in. These baptisms were beautiful to see. Our church walks through messy life-on-life issues, sometimes there's even been conflict in the middle of Sunday gatherings. For us, though, it's encouraging to see people try to follow Jesus through the real things in their community and culture

Soon, as we are away in the USA, our church will launch one of our recent graduates to a new church plant across the island. And, through the ladies group Kacie has come to see more of how much our community wrestles with alcoholism and the domestic violence that results from it. We are praying for a way to help the local church form effective recovery and discipleship groups for those wrestling with alcoholism.

Teaching and Sending Out

In these three years the college has graduated about 120 students. Isaac continues to have so much fun teaching, and has taken on some new coureses that he loves. He thrives in this role and comes home all hyped up after class. This term we've been here long enough that some unique relationships have formed with a handful of graduates across the ilsand who have gone out and seek out Isaac for ongoing advice, support, and discipleship. That's been a great mutual encouragement, to be able to cheer them on and support them through difficulty. It's why we came here!

Grief

This is not a highlight, but it is an honest reflection. Our first year of the term was what Isaac calls, "The year of death." He lost his grandmother, mom, and grandfather all in a year. It was intense and hard, especially to process largely from afar. He was so glad to be able to go back and say goodbye to him mom in person. We had to take stock of the way our life here has required leaving family and losing time together.

In the midst of grief, the World Cup happened and whipped our town into a frenzy of noisy convoys waving flags from each group's favored team. We got in the spirit and had so much fun following the tournament. It was a fun gift to lighten a heavy season! Kacie also got to travel to Thailand with our co-worker/dear friend Susan for a training in Member Care. The two of us serve as member care facilitators for the Indo-Malay area team for our organization.

Teaching Trips

Isaac joins a local team that goes into more remote areas and provides modular teaching for lay leaders, helping equip and sometimes combat rising false teaching. These are joyful times and they provide Isaac an opportunity to see the church in other areas. Once he traveled to the Mpur/Kebar area with our teammates, and once he was able to take the whole family to a coastal Hatam and Meyah area. The drives are beautiful and the roads are terrible.

Soccer

Some things we plan, some things just fall in our laps. In this flexible culture, being okay with unexpected things emerging is essential. The Sowi soccer team was one such thing. There had never been sports teams in our area, but one day a Christian soccer coach showed up and started gathering neighborhood boys to play on the field at our college (one of three fields in the city). Eager to get our boys in sports and Indonesian culture and language, each of the three missionary families send our boys.

Soon I realized boys I knew as Judah's buddies were watching on the sidelines because they had no shoes. This led us (and some of you!) to help provide shoes so the boys could join. Soon the team was in dire straits with two balls worn down to cloth, so we had a community meeting and we and others committed to buy balls. Then the team needed a uniform so they could play another team across town. Then the team couldn't play because the field needed mowing and the mower was broken. We loaned ours and soon ours was broken too.

All that to say that we ended up being the unofficial sponsors of our towns soccer team until the coach left after a year. It was a cultural experience, getting to know the boys of all faiths and economic levels and attending tournaments that involved all of us waiting all day long in the sun with no idea when games would happen. The feedback from local parents was so positive - their boys, who often quit school in high school and wrestle with alcoholism, were off the streets and learning discipline from a man of character and faith.

Watching the Meyah Ministry

When the Cochrans arrived as our teammates, they began to clear land and build a house and workshop just across from our house (to the great joy of the homeschooling kids that can now have "recess" together!). The Meyah people that the Cochrans work with came to help and celebrate en masse multiple times, as this communal culture always does. Through our proximity and partnership with the Cochrans we've been able to witness and get to know this faithful group and the growing projects that the Cochrans have facilitated. We got to see trainers come from Thailand to train the women of the group in making handicrafts from the Vetiver grass that the men group and were already using for other projects. A farmer's cooperative emerged, selling to the big stores in town.

It's been so amazing to get to know this Meyah group and work and celebrate with them and the Cochrans. Because we work in town among a mixed population , being able to see one particular group's language and culture (and dancing!) has been really fun.

As their handicrafts are increasingly known and honored in town, it's so cool to see the way they (who have been subsistance farmers)point to the Lord as the one that has equipped and enabled all of it. They are such a vibrant witness.

See Hope in the midst of the dancing circle?

The Emergence of Medical Ministry

See the post before this one to see more detail about the growing clinic ministry, and previous ones before that for more detail on the CPR training we started with. It's remarkable to see how encountering death and disease in terrible ways, including Elly's leprosy diagnosis and treatement, has shifted our awareness to need and then moved our team to action. That we now have a clinic that is open multiple times a week and has served hundreds is just a "woah look what God did" thing. There's so much more we hope to do here, and we'll see what God does next term!

Deepening Relationships with Local Partners

Something shifted for our family last term as we were in the local seminary community through COVID and the deaths of our neighbors. We felt increasingly a part of the local community, which is something that grew through this term. And then, our TEAM team grew and strengthened, we also have grown in our relationship with the network of chruches that sponsors us. We've made a practice of meeting with their leadership to ask how we can best empower them, and we have developed friendships and prayful support for the last head of the group. He came to our TEAM conference, and then we went to their church meetings. Now we're prayerfully supporting his newly elected replacement. This deepening partnership makes for richer, more effective work as we link arms across cultures.

A Celebration of the Gospel Arriving

We had an event last Fall that was a celebration of the gospel coming to the areas reached by TEAM/ GPKAI (GPKAI is the name of the network of Indonesian churches initially planted by TEAM). It was celebrated on the anniversary of the day that Walter Erickson and Edward Tritt, the first two TEAM missionaries in Papua, were killed by their guides on a survey trip in the Kebar area.

The event was put on by our school, and the faculty and staff divided into groups according to their people groups, and each group did a song, dance, or skit celebrating the gospel's arrival to their people. It was a swirl of different cultures, clothing, languages, and song style, and the feeling of emotion grew as it went on, songs of praise filling the air. As some groups finished their performances, those students gathered around the edges and just began dancing with joy. The students behind us were literally standing on the graves of Edward and Tritt to watch, such a powerful symbol of the generations of growth of the church through the seeds of death and sacrifice. We saw the Hatam, Meyah, Sougb, Moskona, Asmat, Auyu, Dani, Timor, Manado, Javanese, Batak... the list goes on... so many people praising the Lord that in His grace He came and reached their particular people.

If the link below does not work, you should be able to click here to see a video I made of the event.

I was overwhelmed by the beauty and overflowing joy of the event and I cannot watch the videos now without getting emotional. When the performances ended groups of people dancing and singing for joy in various styles formed, and the praise and dancing went on for hours. It was a little picture of what it will be like in Revelation 7:9-10

"There was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and langauge, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belong to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"