Men shuffled slowly into the church and sat on one side puffing on their cigarettes, while women and children sat on the other side staring back at me with wry smiles as I sat facing them from the front of the church. Together with the pastor of the Lumban Julu congregation and Pastor Rein Justin, […]
Next to the airport road is one of the cemeteries. Like all the others this one is not really a cemetery but a mass grave. Around 2,500 bodies were unceremoniously shovelled into this one in the rush to stave of disease. There are no markers. There was barely time to dig the pits and bury […]
Those of us who have travelled internationally know the excitement of visiting a different country, meeting its people and learning the culture. This was the experience of Indonesian teachers Flutner Purba and Yentie Simanjuntak, who spent four weeks in Brisbane recently. The visit of the teachers from the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (a partner church […]
Mention the word ‘Indonesia’ and many people would not associate it with the word ‘Christian’. However, it is estimated that there are over 21 million Christians in Indonesia (and growing), making up over 10% of the population. This includes nearly 4 million people belonging to twelve different Lutheran church groups in Indonesia, mostly located in […]
Large granite rocks and cement were used by many people to begin to lay the foundations for new classrooms for two schools of the Gereja Kristen Protestan Simalungan (GKPS) church in Indonesia on 13 June 2007. On a day filled with travel on crowded roads bordered by green rice paddies, colourful Batak dancing, energetic and […]
Thursday 11 January in Perth airport. It’s been such a long time, it seems, since I saw the children of Debora. I left there in late April, 2006, after my second visit and hoped to get back straight after Synod in Toowoomba – but it didn’t happen – it wasn’t God’s time. Sometimes it’s hard […]
The Immanuel Lutheran school and church communities, Buderim, Queensland, have further strengthened their bonds with their sister school and church in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Three delegates from the Immanuel communities visited the Gereja Kristan Protestan Indonesia (GKPI) church and school. Naree Wittwer, head of Immanuel Lutheran College (ILC) Middle School, visited the GKPI school, […]
We’ve heard a lot about Aceh because of the unbelievable destruction there. We haven’t heard nearly so much about the Island of Nias which is off the west coast of Sumatra – and with good reason. Nias was relatively untouched. What an awful word relatively is! Relatively means dozens and dozens are dead instead of […]