It was only for ten days, but the blessings from the journey of thirteen of St Paul’s Lutheran, Box Hill members to visit our partner church, GKPS Jalan Jenderal Sudirman in Pematangsiantar, North Sumatra, Indonesia have already proved to be mighty – both for the participants and for the congregation. We knew before we left […]

It was only for ten days, but the blessings from the journey of thirteen of St Paul’s Lutheran, Box Hill members to visit our partner church, GKPS Jalan Jenderal Sudirman in Pematangsiantar, North Sumatra, Indonesia have already proved to be mighty – both for the participants and for the congregation.

We knew before we left that we were the ‘little sibling’ in the relationship, based on their membership size (around 2,000), but it was only by participating in their church life that this started to take on real meaning. Apart from the 73rd Anniversary church service, we attended the women’s, children’s and youth services, exercises and worship with the elderly, weekly Friday night home group meetings, and the leaders training. None of these activities involved less than 50-100 people. Despite the large number, the people always showed both a direct and heartfelt connection to Christ, and displayed that love to us personally. We were treated as honoured guests and as family.

From the moment we landed in Indonesia, we felt the joy from everyone we met. This was expressed by our hosts in many ways, including our team being welcomed into the culture when they gave us Indonesian last names, which made us honorary members of many people’s families.

Our partnership is based on supporting and sharing resources and ideas, especially in three key areas:

1. children, youth and young adults
2. supporting women into leadership roles
3. ministry to elderly members.

Our brothers and sisters in Siantar took us on a journey through their ministries in each of those areas, showed and shared their faith and their challenges, and asked us about our ministry and challenges. We discovered that many of the challenges were fundamentally the same, just perhaps on a different scale.

We met with their leadership and agreed on key actions. Some of these are on a congregational level (sharing prayer points and services over Zoom), and some are on a direct and personal level (connecting our youth and young adults electronically, including catechism (confirmation) classes).

The passion that the people of Indonesia have for the church and their faith can be seen in everything they do as a congregation, especially in their beautiful singing, their fun cultural dances, and in how much time and energy they give to the church.

Personally, one of the things that changed me the most was seeing how our brothers and sisters live according to the words in Matthew 6:33 – ‘But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well’. One of the biggest differences between our church cultures is that in Indonesia, their lives revolve around their faith, and faith is at the forefront of who they are, whereas in Australia we get caught up in our more material focused culture, and most often our faith ends up fitting in around our lives. It is my hope that this focus on putting faith first is one of the many things that we will learn from our partners, as we strive to grow our relationship further.

This story was also published in the August 2024 edition of Border Crossings, the magazine of LCA International Mission.

If you, your school or your congregation, would like to know how you can connect to the mission of God through a LCA International Mission partnership, you are invited to phone Erin on (08) 8267 7300 or email erin.kerber@lca.org.au. For more information, go to www.lcamission.org.au/join-gods-mission/start-a-partnership/

Read more stories about congregational partnerships at www.lcamission.org.au/category/stories/local-partners/congregations/