Update – January 2008
Hello family, friends and fellowship,
It has been a busy couple of months so I am just getting around to writing my monthly update. It is more like a three-monthly update! Haha!
In the middle of November I took a trip to California, Las Vegas, Chicago and Kansas City to visit our churches and my parents. The trip was 5 weeks long and I put more than 3,500 miles on the rental car! It was a great trip!
Many churches have been faithful to support us over the years. Several of them I have never been able to visit because I couldn’t get away from Asia for very long. Usually I just have time to go to World Conference and our Harvester’s in Dallas. It is hard to leave a baby church from more than a couple weeks. But praise God he is building the church here in Jakarta and I was able to leave Esther in charge for 5 weeks. I had a great time in the States visiting our covenant partners and getting to know some new friends in the fellowship. For those of you that I was able to visit, please know that I am grateful for the time of fellowship we had together and the hospitality you showed me.
Besides visiting the churches I was also able to spend Christmas with my parents and sister. This was the first time I spent Christmas in the States in 7 years, so it was a real blessing. Since I spent it in Kansas City, I even had the chance to enjoy a white Christmas! Indonesia is a tropical country so I haven’t seen snow at Christmas since we lived in NW China. Thank for the snow, Jesus!
The church in Jakarta is doing well. God is raising up leaders. While I was gone for 5 Sundays I was able to let someone different preach every week. I praise God that we have such a good core of leaders. Esther has even been trying her hand at preaching, and I have been quite impressed!!!
The church is still putting money aside every month in order to send out one of our families to North West China in August 2008. The couple is excited about what God is going to do in China, and so are we. They are a great couple with three wonderful children. Though we are all excited I am getting nervous about letting them go. They are our assistant pastors and it will be hard to fill their shoes. But we trust that God will fill in the gap if we are faithful to send our best. Please be praying for them. Their names are Yopi and Ina. And if you have a heart for this Indonesian family or for the Muslims of NW China please join in by supporting them financially. We are giving a certain amount of our support monthly to the “China fund”, so if you support us through Mission Global Harvest, you will be supporting them. Please consider joining the team!!!
As you know, we moved the church to one of the red light districts of Jakarta about a year ago. We have opened up the three story storefront to double as a coffee shop/community center during the days it is not being used for church activities. We felt this is the best way to reach out in the neighborhood. For the first couple month we tried to reach into the prostitute community but have not had much response. So we shut down to re-think our strategy for a while. When I visited Paul Neville in Rancho he told me about “Nitty Gritty”. They have been letting secular bands come play concerts at the church in order to draw in unsaved people for almost a year now. They have seen many come to Christ. He encouraged me to try it in Jakarta. So we are going for it!!! We have been advertising it on “Friendster” (Asian equivalent of Myspace) and by putting up flyers around the local high schools, malls and clubs. We have already had a couple responses by bands that want to put on concerts at our place and we are praying for many more. We provide them with the sound equipment and a place to perform, and they supply our community center with lost sheep that need the Gospel! It is a win, win situation. Please keep us in prayer. We don’t have any idea how to reach this area of Jakarta, so we are just following Jesus step by step. We wouldn’t have it any other way!
In February I will be taking my regular trip to NW China to visit the disciples we left there when we moved to Indonesia. Please continue to pray for them. I will also finally have a chance to visit our disciple in Pakistan after many years. He came to the Lord in 2002 while we were in China. Because of financial limitations I have not gotten to visit him for quite some time. But praise God we have enough money this month, so I bought a ticket. Both he and I are very excited. I am trusting that I will be able to take regular trips there as I have been with China in order to build him up in the faith as well as reach those Pakistanis around him that are open to the Gospel. Pakistan is not the safest place on the planet for Americans, especially those laboring for the Lord, so I would appreciate all the prayer support I can get. And it will cost me about $700 every 3 months to take a trip there, so if anyone is willing we could use the extra help financially.
As for our family, we are doing well. Omid (our second son) turned 1 year old on Jan. 9th. A few days before he started to walk, now he is at a fast trot, and we know he will soon be running along with his big bro!!! Iman is doing well in school (home school). He can already do basic addition, knows his numbers into the thousands, can read simple words, not to mention speaking English and Indonesian fluently, and all this before his 5th birthday that is coming up soon. He amazes me! But I am pretty sure it has a lot to do with his teacher (my lovely bride). She wears many hats as a mother, wife and pastor, and I am quite proud of her. As for me I am just trying to keep up! I spend most of my time working on teaching materials for our theological training, sermon preparation, Bible studies with unbelievers and new believers as well as various things that need to be done to organize the community center and church. And you can tell I have been letting the website and blogs go by the wayside, but I’m working on it!
Well, I hope you are all blessed. Please keep in touch. My email address is chris@pccf4unreached.org and our Myspace is Myspace.com/pccfjakarta. Our website is www.pccf4unreached.org
GBU (God bless U)
Chris, Esther and the Boyz!!!
