Canada Trip, House Fellowships & Village Festivals

Greetings in the Name of Jesus from the Island of Sumatra! The work of the Kingdom continues to expand reaching more and more with the good news of Jesus. Praise and glory to our faithful Lord for his provision and protection as we continue to work in this vast mission arena. For the most part Esther and I have been focused these past months developing believers in our house fellowships. This month we will add two more house fellowships in two towns. There are also plans for two Jesus festivals coming up in September and October of this year. Here is a brief update of what has been happening with us.

Canada Trip

Esther, Ben and I had a wonderful and blessed visit to Canada. We were there from April 20th until June 10th. We got to visit many friends and family in Toronto, Windsor, St. Catharine’s, Winnipeg and of course my hometown Ottawa. In Windsor, we attended the annual Open Bible Faith Fellowship (OBFF) conference. It was a great time of refreshing and equipping for us. OBFF is the organization I am ordained under as a minister. The picture on the right is with our dear friends Anthony, Cheryl and Diane who were visiting our ministry information table during the same conference.

Village Festivals

One of the main ways we reach out to our community here is by praying for the sick. I believe this is the Biblical model for evangelism. Therefore we regularly pray for the sick whether in private one-on-one meetings or in our Jesus festivals. In one village festival two months ago, a women who had several lumps on her body was miraculously healed. By the second night all the lumps in her body had disappeared. Another women had her full hearing restored and many others got up and testified of healing. In another outreach service, a woman came up to me and said she had decided to become a follower of Jesus. She is now growing in her faith in our weekly house fellowship.

House Fellowship Annual Retreat

Every year we take our group for three days retreat where we do teaching and team building. This year we visited Samosir Island which is located in the middle of a volcanic crater turned into a lake. Lake Toba is a beautiful wonder. It can also be deadly. During the same time we were there a boat that was crossing the lake capsized and 167 souls were lost. That was a very tragic incident that shocked the whole nation. Our house fellowship continues to meets every Tuesday and Friday nights. We will add two more groups in two towns this month. We are so thankful to God for the ministry vehicle He gave us the end of last year because we can now reach more towns on a regular basis.

Jesus Festivals & Seminars

As mentioned above, we are organizing two Jesus festivals and seminars for September and October this year. We plan to be back on Timor Island for 3 nights on September 27-29. Our second festival and seminar will be in North Maluku Island starting on October 17-20. As usual we expect thousands of people to attend each event and it will be a great time of miracles and salvations. This will be the first time for us to visit North Maluku. It is a cluster of small islands who have been ruled by sultans since before the times of the Dutch colonization. The Maluku Isalnds were the original spice islands of the 16th and 17th century. The local sultans traded cloves with the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish. This area has also seen deadly ethnic and religious clashed back in 1999-2002. As a result 5,000 lives were lost and 700,000 people were displaced. As we go into Maluku with the gospel of peace and reconciliation, we are believing for God to do amazing miracles and bring His salvation to these Islands.

We need your support to help us bring the good news to Timor and Maluku Islands. Currently we need an immediate infusion of $3,500 to get things going. It takes several weeks to set up these gospel events and we need to start right away. Your donation will help us book the sound system/stage rigging, process permits for outdoor meetings, print advertising materials and cover our travel cost to these islands. It will take 4 hours and two flights to reach Timor from where we live in North Sumatra. Maluku is two flights and 5 hours from where we live. Thank you for taking time to pray and consider how you can partner with us for these two outreaches.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our update. We hope and pray that the Lord continues to bless you and keep you in good health. Shalom from Indonesia!

Your co-workers in God’s service,
Gola, Esther and Ben

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