December is usually an easy month for us at HCBN. It is the time for us to wind down from the media work, the visitations and church speaking engagements, so we could finally spend more time with the family as we wait for the year-end holidays. But December was slightly different in 2018. Early in the month we had an opportunity to travel the island of Java and Bali with our media friends, Jonathan and Hannah Hill. The purpose of the travel was to see some of our viewers with whom we have been friends through television, and to see how HCBN has brought spiritual impacts in their lives, and to hear feedbacks from them as to what they would love to see more of in our television, and how we can improve. Shandy and our children decided to stay home to finish some work, so I had to go myself with the Hills. The journey was undertaken with a small car, three of us packed up with week-long necessities, and video equipment to capture moments necessary. Without fixed time-planning, ever-changing road condition and uncertainty of the weather, we were all prepared to take on the 1500 miles of daunting trip along Java’s challenging highways and country roads. |
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Fourteen hours after we set out from HCBN in Bogor at 4am on December 4th, we arrived at our first stop, a small town called Blora, Central Java. the home of Mr. Sarpono. This family has been watching our television from 2012. Mr. Sarpono is a faithful member of Protestant church GKI. He loves to study his bible and always wondered about God’s plan for the world, and how everything would end. When he captured HCBN’s signal, he started following Advent messages. He became a believer of Advent truths and started to have bible studies amongst his colleagues. Mr. Sarpono is a tailor, and he has a network of friends from church, fellow tailors and clients. He shares with them what he believes and he requests more studies and books from HCBN to feed his hunger of knowledge. He’s still active in his own church as he feels the obligation to share the truth with them, and on Sabbath days he would close his shop so he can set aside time for worship and to do good deeds in the Lord’s day. The Sarpono family gets visited by a pastor from Adventist church and they often have studies together. From Blora we planned to tour southeast toward Malang, East Java. But by the time we started driving it was already around 8:30pm so we could drive only an hour before we finally gave up. It was in a town called Bojonegoro when we arrived to stay the night. We praised the Lord for providing a decent motel regardless of how prepared we were to stay in rest areas, gas stations or other unlikely places due to conditions and uncertain schedules. |
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The morning when we woke up, we had six hours of drive until we got to Malang, at the home of Mr. Hendra’s family. They have been HCBN viewers since 2013. Mr. Hendra’s been attending SDA church ever since and has brought his older and younger brother. Three of them have been attending Dieng SDA church in Malang but recently Hendra has been spending time more with his children in Jakarta and planning to move there, while his older brother had recently passed away due to cancer. HCBN’s topics on health has been their interest in the wake of their brother’s recent death and Hendra’s requesting more programs on this topic. We stayed in Malang overnight to speak and share testimonies in SDA church’s mid-week prayer meeting to give encouragement to local church members. |
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The next morning we drove about four hours to Lumajang, East Java to stay with our fellow mission friends Janto and Inge who run health ministries locally. The next day we drove another three hours to Jember, to our viewer David Li Wen and his family. This young man we have known for four years and this time was our second visit to his place. He’s learning a lot of Advent messages and appreciates SDA’s in-depth studies on bible. There are many things he has learned that he never did in the past with his previous church. He’s now recently married and he gets many wonderful lessons from the television on family, on health and bible lessons. |
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From Jember we drove another four hours to the eastern tip of Java island to make a ferry crossing to Bali, and another half hour to Melaya county where our friend, HCBN’s TV contributor and medical missionary, Jimmy Senduk, lives. Bali is a unique place in Indonesia where the whole island is populated mostly with Hindus. But this particular county in Bali, Melaya, is where the Hindus coexist peacefully with another big population of Christians and Moslems. Christians have been staying around this area of Melaya called Blimbingsari since 1930's to avoid persecution, and with fellow minorities, the Moslems, they have been living and working together harmoniously along with majority Hindus. In Melaya area HCBN’s signal has been relayed through a local cable company with a help of its owner who’s a moslem. Since 2014 our signal’s been received by the company’s subscribers and many locals have become familiar with our programs and the medical missionary work being done locally by our friend Jimmy. The local viewers know where to reach when they get sick as God has done wonderful works through Jimmy, healing many people with terminal diseases such as cancer, diabetes, etc.. He has also established connections with people who are influential in the area, including hindu high priests, military and politicians. There was a family locally that we also got to visit, Gung Gede and his wife, who are staunchly bringing Advent messages in health and day of rest into their own church. |
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On the day before we left Bali, we had an opportunity to come with Jimmy to pay respect to the passing of a local prominent figure. We dressed up as respecting participants and there we all witnessed for the first time how the dead was burned in a ceremony they called Ngaben. The procession was somewhat solemn in its own way, and it left us wondering how many people have died not knowing about Christ. We left Melaya, Bali Sunday morning, and we arrived in Solo, Central Java later in the evening to stay overnight. The following day we drove the remaining journey to Bogor, West Java, to arrive home the following evening. The long journey back was quite a challenge after every visit had been made, and after every video had been captured. Finding suitable meals when you’re on a long trip is always challenging. Many times we had to succumb to whatever vegetarian we could find, even if it’s outside our preferences. This maiden trip to Indonesia for Jonathan and Hannah Hills got them ill upon our journey back, but it didn’t last long, praise the Lord. Everything that we witnessed during the whole trip described to us how vast the work the God has entrusted to us. There is no possibility of finishing the work without the Holy Spirit and the wholeheartedness of His workers. Please pray with us that HCBN will continue to be used in God’s work to bring glory to His name. Maranatha! |
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