Don’t miss Anita Rahma’s debut book which goes on sale from today, November 15th – Beyond our Walls: Finding Jesus in the Slums of Jakarta. Rahma draws together reflections and stories from her twelve years with the Servants Indonesia team, living in the slums of Jakarta initially as a young single woman, and now with her Indonesian husband and two young sons. What an adventure of faith!
Readers will be moved and challenged by this book. It provides an intriguing testimony born out of life-changing experiences: living among very poor neighbours who sort trash for a living, facilitating pre-natal classes for pregnant teenagers, relating with Muslim neighbours about Jesus, teaching small children in a community pre-school, helping sick neighbours navigate the under-resourced health system, and doing all this as a family. While this life is full of challenges and hardships, joys also abound, and the faithfulness of Jesus sustains.
Endorsements
“While many of us begin well in our lives of following Jesus, very often ‘the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth’ (Mark 4:19) distract us, and before we know it, we are no different than those around us. In Beyond Our Walls, we encounter Rahma. She is a modern-day saint, not because she doesn’t make mistakes, get angry, or feel disheartened (she does all of those things), but because she has attempted to live out the love of Jesus for her neighbors, day after day, for more than a decade in a place that most Westerners would only want to visit for an hour. Beyond Our Walls is Rahma’s compelling, funny, beautifully written, and heartfelt story. May it inspire us to continue on the narrow path, for all its trash and brokenness. For as Rahma beautifully shows us, it is on that path, beyond the walls, that life is found.
