(* name changed). Klik disini untuk baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia
I will serve the Lord
I want to begin my story from the moment the Lord placed in my heart the desire to become a pastor (literally: servant of God). This desire was in my heart since childhood, since elementary school, even though at that point I did not really know what becoming a pastor meant.
Finally, I went to Bible college. I have a life motto: “I will go wherever the Lord calls me to serve. In any and every circumstance, I will serve the Lord.” Last year, I did a short internship with a church in another part of Indonesia. But for this summer internship, I had the desire to serve in a different context, something different than the church setting I had tried previously. One of the staff from my campus recommended interning with Servants, and when she was telling me about it I felt joy and was very interested in learning more about this place. I did not yet know very much about the ministry.
Before traveling to Jakarta, we had a Zoom meeting first with the Servants team mentors. They explained to us a little bit about the ministry and about what to expect here. That Zoom meeting made me even more excited about coming. One thing that our mentor said at that time was: “Do not think that you are coming to this place just to do something; instead, pray about what the Lord wants to teach you during your time here. Come as a student of Jesus, desiring to learn from Your Teacher here.”
Covid in the Slum
It turns out that there were so many things for me to learn during this experience in the slum. Through mentoring times with our team mentors, through the reading assignments they gave us, and even more through opportunities to interact with the neighborhood around us—I learned so much! We had only been here a week when the team got sick with Covid, and then we had to quarantine and could not go outside the house for weeks! Even though that was an unexpected hindrance to us “doing ministry,” during that time I learned many things through the reading assignments and mentoring times.
One thing that I had never learned before—that had never been discussed before in my church growing up—was about incarnational ministry like this. The church where I grew up had never discussed this, had never taught about the Lord Jesus’s heart for the poor. I had never heard the church discuss God’s heart for people struggling with poverty; I had never heard of (let alone seen) ministry face-to-face with poor communities before. I praise God for this opportunity to meet people in this community. I am especially grateful for the opportunity to help people with the process of sorting the recycling they had scavenged.
Sharing a Message
We are all poor people—if we have not yet understood and experienced the presence of the Lord Jesus. Jesus met me, and he is present in the lives of the poor—and he wants His followers to also be where He is. I still desire to become a pastor if the Lord wills, but because of this internship experience when I become a pastor, I am going to try to teach about God’s heart for the poor. I finally realized that one of the main reasons the Lord brought me to this place was to give me a message to take to share with other churches and congregations.
I also learned from listening to the testimony of my team mentor that we must ask for courage and strength from the Lord Jesus to share the gospel with people who do not yet know Him. Before this, I was always scared and unsure of how to do this, but now I feel much more motivated. I am going to ask the Lord to give me courage to become a sharer of Good News—wherever the Lord will place me in the future.
I am very grateful the Lord brought me to this place—for the amazing opportunity to learn from the Servants team here. I praise God there are people like this team who want to serve in this way. I pray that the Lord would continue to sustain them while they minister in this place.
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